Babi Pongteh
Kamis, 12 November 2020
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Cast your heed back, all the way dorsum to when yous were v years old. Do yous think anything much?
Would yous believe a 5-year-old tiddler is capable of learning how to cook, as well as remembers what she's learnt when she's a 28-year-old adult? Would yous believe a 5-year-old tin locomote instilled amongst a passion for cooking?
This is what Shermay Lee, writer of "The New Mrs Lee's Cookbook" as well as "The New Mrs Lee's Cookbook Vol. 2", says on her cookery school's website:
"Shermay started cooking at the historic menses of 5. She learnt the rudiments of cooking offset from her grandmother, Mrs Lee Chin Koon, who was considered the doyen of Peranakan cuisine as well as was the writer of the famous cookbook, Mrs Lee's Cookbook, a kitchen stalwart published iii decades ago."
And this is what Shermay says inward her offset cookbook:
"[My grandmother] instilled inward me a passion for cooking from a real immature age."
What did 5-year-old Shermay practise inward her grandma's Peranakan kitchen? Could her trivial wee hands handgrip knives, ladles, or a mortar as well as pestle? Did she stand upwards her trivial wee legs on a chair to scout her grandmother stir-fry sambal inward hot oil? What just did trivial Shermay cook? Would you, beloved reader, allow your 5-year-old tiddler boil an egg, assuming yous could practise hence without beingness sued for tiddler negligence?
Why does Shermay Lee nation she started cooking at the historic menses of 5, which must audio totally ridiculous to anyone amongst mutual sense?
Two reasons: One, her grandmother was Lee Kuan Yew's mother. Two, said grandmother real inconveniently kicked the bucket when Shermay was 5. If trivial Shermay weren't cooking when she was v or younger, hence she didn't larn anything from Lee Kuan Yew's mother. In which case, the exclusively selling betoken for her cookery schoolhouse as well as cookbooks wouldn't exist.
Shermay Lee's 2 cookbooks are an update of her grandmother's Mrs Lee's Cookbook, which was published inward 1974. The offset updated recipe that makes me scratch my caput is bawan kepiting, a Chinese trend clear soup amongst crab meatballs. The stock is made amongst 300 g of bamboo shoot fried for 2 minutes, hence simmered 10 minutes inward 2.3 litres of water. And that's it, there's aught else inward the stock except carbohydrate as well as salt. It's hence totally bizarre it can't perchance locomote correct!
What does Grandma's master cookbook say? Aaah, there's indeed an cistron missing afterward her granddaughter modified the recipe to suit modern times. Is it an sometime woman bring upwards hen? Some expensive dried scallops from Japan? Yunnan ham from China? No, the missing cistron is – hold on to your chair! – 2 tsp of MSG inward the stock, addition some other 1 tsp inward the meatballs!
Wow, THREE WHOLE TEASPOONFULS OF MSG, which operate out to ¼ tsp pxer rice bowl-sized portion! That's a hell of a lot but at to the lowest degree the
Curious, I banking enterprise tally out the pong tauhu recipe to run into if it's whatever better. Believe it or not, the soup containing meatballs made amongst beancurd as well as pork has almost twice as much MSG as the Bawan Kepiting. Almost ½ tsp per serving! GOOD GRIEF!
Shock as well as horror aside, there's something inward the pong gauhu recipe that makes me laugh: pounding beancurd amongst a mortar as well as pestle. That's similar LKY totally obliterating his enemies, isn't it? Seriously, why pound beancurd? Just crush it amongst your hands or, if yous desire it actually fine, force it through a sieve.
The recipe for Heepeow Soup is every bit bizarre. The stock is made amongst 1.2 kg of pork or pork bones, which is nowhere nigh plenty for the half-dozen litres of H2O used but at to the lowest degree it's improve than a few shreds of tree trunk. Except the meat needs 1½-2 hours of gentle simmering to release its flavour, whilst big pork bones ask at to the lowest degree 3-4 hours. The recipe, however, tells yous to simmer for exclusively xxx minutes. So it's simply some other pot of water, amongst or without MSG depending on whether yous follow the grandma or granddaughter.
There are, floating inward the water, yellowish (!) prawn meatballs deliberately jaundiced amongst artificial nutrient colouring. Next to the weird looking meatballs float slices of pork maw which stink because piggy stomach can't locomote cleaned properly past times simply rubbing it amongst salt.
There're fishballs too, made past times beating 600 g of finely minced fish amongst a dash of pepper, hence gradually adding 350 ml of H2O field stirring continuously, followed past times beating the mixture till it's smooth, hence adding 1 tbsp of salt. You know what? If this fish glue makes fishballs that are bouncy, I volition – to borrow a colourful phrase from the Cantonese – chop off my caput as well as allow Shermay Lee sit down on it!
Little Shermay "learnt the rudiments of cooking" when she was 5, eh? Judging from her soups, she didn't know the basics fifty-fifty when she released her offset cookbook as a 28-year-old adult. Neither did Mrs Lee Chin Koon who was supposed to locomote "the doyen of Peranakan cuisine". Did yous know LKY's woman bring upwards gave cooking lessons to British as well as Australian expatriates? I promise they liked MSG as well as jaundiced meatballs!
Bad recipes are i affair but unsafe ones are another. If yous brand a raw fish salad with, as Shermay Lee instructs, fresh ikan parang (wolf herring) bought at a wet market, yous have got a 99.99% adventure of beingness real sick, or dead. Fish as well as materials non sitting on H2O ice are quite mutual at markets, as well as there's filth as well as dirt whichever way yous turn. Even if there's fish that's sashimi grade, it's boundary to locomote contaminated past times something that isn't.
Obviously, Princess Shermay has never been to less-than-clean moisture markets where grubby commoners amongst questionable personal hygiene poke as well as prod everything. Well, why would she? Her cousin, LKY's younger son, has his personal chef wing to Nippon simply to purchase sashimi! I'd gauge her lifestyle is similar to his.
"The New Mrs Lee's Cookbook", published inward 2003, won 2 awards from Gourmand World: Best Cookbook Award as well as Special Award of the Jury inward the Respect of Tradition. It was a bestseller inward Singapore, as was the 2nd mass published inward 2004, as well as both books received potent reviews inward a issue of publications.
Did the judges, reviewers as well as readers uncovering the appalling soups, the satay ayam goreng that's boiled fifty-fifty though "goreng" way fried, as well as the mee siam made without assam? These, along amongst
The recipe I'm sharing today is babi pongteh from "Cooking for the President". I've chosen this over the i Lee Kuan Yew grew upwards eating because his woman bring upwards as well as niece nation babi pongteh has coriander pulverisation whereas babi mentum doesn't. That is, of course, incorrect. It's babi mentum which has coriander power, as well as babi pongteh which doesn't . . . unless Lee Kuan Yew has decreed otherwise? He mightiness non have got but if you're his relation, your cookbooks volition win awards as well as you'll acquire paid to give lessons fifty-fifty if yous can't enjoin your babi pongteh from babi chin. All yous ask to know is how to brand bamboo shoot water, or add together MSG past times the bucketload.
Babi pongteh is a peranakan stew amongst potent flavours. This dish keeps good refrigerated.
INGREDIENTS
INSTRUCTIONS
INGREDIENTS
- 1.5 kg front end pork knuckle amongst trotter – chop chunky, blanch inward boiling water, take away pilus if any, rinse thoroughly, marinate amongst four tsp thick night soya sauce for xxx minutes
- 160 ml vegetable crude oil (I used exclusively xxx ml)
- 50 g shallots – peel, wash, pound semi-finely
- 80 g garlic – peel, wash, pound semi-finely
- 60 g lite chocolate-brown taucheo (fermented soya bean) paste
- 2 tbsp lite soya sauce
- 2 tsp thick night soya sauce
- 20 g palm sugar
- 100 g carbohydrate cane (30 cm long) (or 25 g stone sugar) – wash, quarter carbohydrate cane lengthwise, chop each quarter into four pieces
- ¼ tsp salt
- 10 medium size Chinese dried mushrooms (60 g) – rinse; soak inward 500 ml H2O till soft, abut xxx minutes; drain, reserving water; trim, reserving stems
- 100 g canned bamboo shoots – cutting into seize amongst teeth size wedges half-dozen mm thick, boil inward H2O for a few minutes, drain
- 200 g rehydrated body of body of water cucumber – cutting crosswise v cm broad as well as lengthwise 3 cm thick, soak inward H2O till ready to cook
INSTRUCTIONS
- In a wok, fry shallots inward hot vegetable crude oil over depression oestrus till translucent. Add garlic as well as stir-fry till everything is lightly golden. Add fermented soya edible bean glue as well as fry till semi-dry, intensely aromatic, as well as color changes, nearly 3 minutes. Reduce oestrus to real low. Add lite as well as night soya sauce. Fry 10 seconds. Add pork as well as marinade. Increase oestrus slightly. Stir-fry till semi-dry as well as intensely aromatic, nearly 10 minutes. Transfer to a pot.
- Deglaze wok amongst 1 loving cup water. Add the H2O to the pork, along amongst palm sugar, carbohydrate cane, tabular array salt and, if using, mushrooms, mushroom stems, mushroom water, as well as bamboo shoots. Top upwards amongst plenty H2O to simply cover. Bring to a boil. Cover as well as simmer gently, adding to a greater extent than H2O when necessary, till pork is tender but soundless has some bite. This should accept nearly 2¼ hours.
- Add body of body of water cucumber, if using, as well as select to a boil. Sauce should locomote medium chocolate-brown as well as amongst substance, non sparse as well as watery. Increase oestrus to boil apace if necessary. Taste as well as conform seasoning (I added 2 tbsp taucheo liquid). Turn off heat.
- Serve babi pongteh hot, topped amongst crushed cerise bird's center chillies. Alternatively, sambal belachan amongst a squeeze of calamansi juice would brand a dainty dip. Eat amongst steamed rice, or yous tin dip toasted French loaf inward the sauce.