Traditional Teochew Jellied Pig's Trotters Recipe

Whenever I visit Singapore. I love to browse around the hawker stalls around the older markets (Macpherson and Joo Chiat and the People's Park Complex), where I always end up eating my lunch over again. I love looking at the stacks of traditional treats displaying in rows of food trays: pig's trotters, pig's ears and snorts,skins, intestines, steaming kiam chye, chicken feet and innards. It is the pigs ears and trotters that always draw my attention. However, it is always impossible to get my son to taste these aspic Singaporean delicacies without having a grimace on his face.
Have you tried jellied pig's trotters? Here is a traditional Teochew recipe, which we have found recently. It was from my late maternal uncle. He was a cook not in a restaurant but catering for the "street banquets" at weddings and funerals. I doubt if any caterer today bother to make this labour intensive homemade dish since many have forgotten about this dish. Here is the recipe for a revival of this traditional dish.

Jellied Pig's Trotters Recipe:

Ingredients;

1.5kg pig's trotters
500g pork shin bone
10 cloves garlic
3Tbsp Chinese Cooking wine
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 hard boiled eggs sliced
1 cup frozen peas and carrots.
5pcs rehyrated stone-ear mushrooms and slivered
　
Soak the pig's trotters in ice cold water for 2 hours. Drain and put them in a large stockpot. Add enough water to completely cover and bring to a rapid boil over high heat. Boil for 5 minutes and skimming off the scums and impurities. Drain and rinse in cold water a couple of times. Return the trotters to the and add garlic, rice wine, salt and pepper. Cover with cold water and bring to boil again and skimming off any impurities. Reduce the heat to low and partially covered with a lid and simmer for 5 to 6 hours. Lift out the trotters and meat with a slotted spoon and transfer to cutting board. Collect the meat and discard the bones. Chop the meat into fine dices and set aside. Pour the stock through a strainer lined with cheesecloth into a bowl. Let cool and skim off any fat. Carefully pour the stock into a oblong cake tin 4 by 8 inchesand refrigerate. When the jelly is half set, scatter the diced meat and sliced egg on the surface and push them gently into the jelly. Sprincle the mushroom, peas and carrots between the meat and eggs. Cover and refrigerate overnight or until firm. To serve, cut into bite size square as an appertizer. To be continued.

How to make curry powder at home.

Although dissolving the conversion for the kati and tael measurements in the recipe was a simple task, we realised that following the traditional method of making the curry powder is impracticable and time consuming in today's household. Instead, we have adopted some short cuts and the use of some of the the electrical kitchen gadgets for cooking traditional dishes and recipes at home. These save time spent in the laborious task of pounding wet ingredients in the pestle and mortar and grinding of the dry ingredients on the grinding stone. In this recipe, you can use the ground chili and turmeric powder from the store but the coriander, cumin and fennel are best freshly ground for their aromas. Many of the other spices like the cinnamon, cloves and cardamon pods are used whole and discarded after cooking.

Ingredients to be ground for the traditional homemade curry powder:

600g coriander seeds (ketumbar)

400g cumin seeds (jintan puteh)

200g fennel seeds (jintan manis)

100g peppercorn Ladah puteh)

60g cardamon pods (buah palaga)

30g cloves (bunga cengkeh)

300g dried chili

125g dried turmeric (kunyit kering)

90g cinnamon stick (kayu manis)

The above is a translation of the original recipe which was given in kati and tael and the names of the spices were written in Malay. We have adopted a short cut by purchasing ground chili and turmeric from the store. The cinnamon stick, cloves and cardamon pods are used whole as and when required. To make this homemade curry powder, you only have to ground the coriander, cumin, fennel and peppercorns. Mix the ground ingredient together except the chili powder which is added later according to taste. To make curry paste for an Indian-style curry, mix 2 tablespoons of the mixed powdered spices with 1 dessertspoon of chili powder into a paste with a little water. Add 5 cardamon pods, 5 cloves and 4cm piece of cinnamon.

Is this the long lost recipe of Mum's homemade curry powder?

We found this handwritten page of an exercise book while looking through an old cookbook. On closer examination, we do not know whether it is a shopping list or a recipe because nothing else was written beside the weight measurements of the spices. We have no idea how it had found its way to the cookbook but for all we know, it could be the lost recipe of my mother's secret recipe for her famous homemade curry powder.
The weight measurements were written in katti and taels and the first thing for us to do, is to work out the conversion into metric. Although the metric weight measurement has been implemented since the 1960s in most South East Asian countries, the katti is still used in the markets in Malaysia and Thailand. This weight unit is said to be originated from Malaya during the colonial period and it is still commonly used among the older generation in the kampong as a weight measure. In Thailand, the katti is used now as a metric unit equal to exactly 600 grams.
In the next couple of days, I will attempt to retrieve this homemade curry powder from oblivion in our kitchen by following the weight measurement as closely as possible. And most of all, relying on the past memory of the traditional way my mother made curry powder before the store bought versions become a common product. I can vividly remember how she would laboriously removed all grits from each ingredient and washed before drying them thoroughly in the sun, using large flat bamboo trays for two to three days. She would then roast the spices in a wok over a slow charcoal stove in small quantities and in the process released the most wonderful aroma that would rise and float throughout the house. She would then take the roasted spices to the mill to be ground into fine powder. To be continued...

It makes dollar and sense when deboning and filleting meat at home...

It makes dollar and sense when deboning and filleting meat at home. It can save you lot of money. The "butterfly leg of lamb"(deboned) was priced at $16.98 per kg., last week at the supermarket as compared to the whole leg of lamb at $8.00 per kilo. It is usually doubled the price when you pay for deboned meat and chicken. Deboning a leg of lamb isn't pretty but it isn't rocket science either. Remember you have to be careful with sharp knives, though they are safer than blunt ones. Most butchering accidents happen when trying to force a blunt knife to do the job that requires a sharp knife.Look after your knives. Store them separately and don't just let them rattle around with other cutlery in the kitchen drawer!
Last week we had a request for "sup kambing" (Mutton Soup) for dinner and we obliged by buying a leg of lamb from the supermarket for the recipe. We bought the whole leg of lamb so that we can use the bones for making the stock for the spicy soup. I wished that I didn't doubled as a photographer while I was butchering the leg of lamb so that I could have the time to concentrate and take more photos to show the various steps of the deboning process. Anyway, here is a brief description of the job I have done on a Saturday afternoon.

Lay the leg of lamb on the cutting board so that the meatier part faces down and trim the fat from the leg. Use the tip of a sharp knife to carefully cut the flesh away and down behind the aitch bone keep the blade as close to the bone as you can. After you cut down about an inch or so, stop and wiggle the bone a little to see where it is attached to the leg bone at the hip socket.Find the space between the joints and cut through. Follow the aitch bone and cut through it to free it . Locate the knee joint where the shank is joint to the leg bone. At the round knob end of leg bone start cutting along the bone to the knee joint then down to the length of shank bone. Now start trimming around the bones and easing it out as you work. With a small knife scape the tendons one by one from the meat and lift it out. To butterfly it pull it apart an flatten it , you might need to a couple of cuts at the thicker part of the leg.Just simply cut the muscle length wise to have it lay completely flat. With some practice, deboning a leg of lamb is not so difficult after all.

Do we understand the origins of what we eat, the who-what-when-where-how of food production.

It amazes me, to find how quickly a generation of young Singaporeans have grown up without knowing that "wet markets" or "open air markets", where live chickens slaughtered right in front of the customers, did exist in nearly every neighbourhood before they were replaced modern supermarkets and mega stores. These days the young ones are more familiar with the sanitized-looking chicken breasts slapped on a Styrofoam and encased in plastic found in the refrigerated section of the supermarket. Honestly, how many of us bother to understand the origins of what we eat, the who-what-when-where-how of food production. Of course, there is also an ever growing market for natural food and write-up on pros and cons of organic grown food to cater for the discerning few. But somehow, despite all of the questioning and soul searching, there still seems to be a lack of understanding of a crucial part of the big picture: What happens between the farm and the supermarket? Take meat, for instance. How many people are truly familiar on how the animal is raised and butchered before before it goes on sale in the super market. These days even your local supermarket or meat-retailer usually go through a middleman - someone who receives the whole animal and prepares the cuts to exact specification for the modern consumer who seems to be buying their meat pre-cut, boned, and cling wrapped on a Styrofoam tray. This, of course, saves time and energy and convenient to our present hectic lifestyle.
But the downside, is that they become a noticeable separation between the origin and the end product. What you don't know is when and how was the meat slaughtered, how it was treated and stored prior to your purchase.So much so that it is safe to say that butchering is in danger of becoming a an invisible art. Unlike the days of the wet market, where whole carcasses of of the slaughtered animals were displayed and customers had their butcher carved out the cuts of meat they wanted.During my stay in Papua New Guinea, killing our own meat was a common thing to do. I can still clearly recall my first kill. Like any form animal slaughtering, it was not an easy task and I didn't want to botch it when I tried it for the first time, so I had someone with experience giving instructions next to me. I do not want to go into the grisly and grotty details as I personally do not enjoy slaughtering an animal unless it is a necessity.Anyway, I become quite a competent bush butcher by the time I relocated myself back to Sydney. So competent that I am able to debone a leg of lamb for my next recipe. Please stay tuned.

Basic Sambal Tumis Recipe

In Singapore, where there are no harsh climatic or seasonal changes throughout the year, preserving and storing food to see the families through the seasonal change hasn’t been seen as such a priority, until we are living and studying abroad. It may not even be the cold and snowy winters but in places where the shops are so far away or the goods are out of stock until the next shipment. Of course, I am speaking from personal experiences where I was working and living in the tropical paradise of Papua New Guinea where many of the residents depended on the monthly shipment of Burn Philips (import and export company) to bring all their supplies from machineries to household goods and foods. People especially the expatriates back in long gone days relied on having those monthly shipments to tide them over. Now, many of us are able to go to the stores or supermarkets to buy a bottle of Teriyaki sauce form Japan, pasta from Italy and salmon from Alaska. Alas modern commerce has over taken the seasons and the need for having the skills to hoard enough food to keep a family for many months is long fading into oblivion.
In Sydney, where the winter is mild, preserving food to see my family through the winter hasn’t been seen as a priority, but last weekend we made enough sambal tumis (hot chilli sauce) to see us through the next few months. Cooking and storing the extras are not not new for us because we were both brought up in the age before supermarkets and sliced bread, when food was commonly made from scratch and we all made the best of what we had. We tried not to forget that heritage and the life skills our past had taught us but now we're back on living a simple life and those memories help us almost everyday with what we want to do now. We would like to share this versatile sambal recipe with you, which can be used as a chilli base for chicken, fries fish and ikan bilis sambal like the condiment we have used for the nasi lemak recipe. It can also be used as garnish for lontong and mee siam.

Basic Sambal Tumis Recipe:

Ingredients

1. 350grams Dried Chillies
2. 250g Shallots (if unavailable substitute 2 onions)
3. 60g cloves of Garlic
4. ½ cup buah keras (candlenuts)
4. 80g blachan, toasted
5. 150ml Assam juice (to taste)
6. 1 stalk lemongrass, thinly sliced
7. Oil
8. Salt and sugar to taste
Method
1 Soak the dried chillies in cold water (half a day) and drain.
3. Put the dried chillies, shallots, buah keras, garlic, lemongrass and the toasted blachan and some water (just enough to cover the ingredients) into the blender and grind till fine.
3. Put some oil into a wok, add the chillies mixture over medium heat until aromatic and add the prepared assam juice.
4. Cook for some time until the chillies mixture turns into a little dark red consistency and the oil separated from the paste or what we call *pecah minyak*
5. Add salt and sugar to taste

Nasi Lemak (Coconut Milk Rice) All Day Breakfast?

When I was a child growing up in Singapore, nasi lemak was a common breakfast food sold early in the morning at roadside stalls or peddled on a bicycle by the hawker from place to place accompanied by the repetitive call of “nasi lemak nasi lemak” echoing through the morning air.

Nasi Lemak is a Malay word that literally means 'rice in cream'. The name is derived from the cooking process whereby rice is soaked in coconut milk and then the mixture steamed. Traditionally it is wrapped in banana leaves, with cucumber slices, small dried anchovies(ikan bilis), roasted peanuts, hard boiled egg, and hot spicy sauce (sambal) and normally served and sold cold. However, nowadays, there are many eating places which serve it as noon or evening meals, making it possible for the dish to be eaten throughout the day. Nasi lemak panas which means hot nasi lemak is another name given to nasi lemak served with hot cooked rice on a plate with a variety of other accompaniments such as chicken, pickled vegetables (achar), beef rendang (beef stewed in coconut milk and spices). Whereas the cold breakfast meal is now often sold packed in newspaper or brown paper laminated in plastic film instead of the traditional banana leaves wrapped parcel.

Nasi Lemak (Coconut Milk Rice)

Ingredients:

3 cups long grain rice
1pc. Lemon grass (bruised)
1tsp turmeric powder (colouring)
2pcs Pandan leaves (optional)
4cups coconut milk

Wash rice until water runs clear and drain. Add the rice and 3 cups coconut milk together with lemon grass and other ingredients to a heavy pot with a tight-fitting lid. Cover and bring to boil over medium high heat. Immediately decrease the heat to medium and cook for 10 minutes, or until the rice has absorbed all the coconut milk, occasionally stirring with a wooden spoon to loosen the grains. Sprinkle the rest of the coconut milk over the rice and stir and distribute well with wooden spoon. Cover and decrease the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes more. Decrease the heat to very low and let rest for 15 minutes until ready to serve with other condiments.