food diary 5 May 2011
peranakan nyonya mee siam!
with assam kuah,
prawn sambal,
topped with fresh chives...
... my childhood favourite!!
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| above: enjoying simple mee siam - using one grandma's recipe, another grandma's traditional bowl |
when i was growing up, sundays were sometimes happy "mee siam days"...
grandma would spend the morning at the wet market to buy chillis, onions, lime, serai (lemongrass), assam, fresh prawns, eggs, tau-kuah (firm toufu), tau-geh (bean sprouts) and gu chye (chives) to prepare my favourite nyonya mee siam for an extended family lunch. then it was back to the nyonya kitchen to grind the rempah (chilli paste), pluck the tau-geh, peel the prawns, cook the toppings (boil eggs and fry cubed tau-kuah), toast the blachan and prepare the garnishes...
i admit i was always reluctant to help pound all those raw chillis and onions in the batu lesung (stone mortar & pestle). most of the time, i'm trying hard not to get any of those raw onion bits or chilli seeds to fly into my eyes while pounding. but i do enjoy the rhythm of the pounding on the cement floor, in an echoey kitchen... pong pong pong pong / pong pong pong pong... when i'm bored with the repeat act of pounding and pounding and pounding, i would then imagine a song to go with the beat of my pounding.
honestly, pounding is the easier task. the next step is the daunting, traumatic one. it's harder to grind them all into a fine paste... it takes practice, patience, practice, more practice, skill and a few strokes of strong hand movements just to blend the mix into a satisfactory, "swee" (beautiful) paste... my muscles would ache and i would be utterly, desperately bored with such a tedious, repetitive task of preparing the rempah (spice paste).
aiyah, but how else would i enjoy the exquisite taste of heat and spice as the rempah is used in the fried bee hoon, sambal prawns and assam kuah (gravy)?
once i get the approval nod from grandma to signal the end of my task, i run out of the kitchen to avoid the sneezing frenzy when she fries the rempah in hot oil. on occasions, i sit on a table nearby to see my rempah sizzling in the hot wok. apart from the initial sneezing fits from the pungent spices being fried, i simply love to see the way rempah cooks and smells and change colours in hot oil...
"are we there yet?" asking this now and then sometimes irritate my grandma!
"not ready, la!" is her curt answer and i shut up and repeat my blurtings when i think the sizzling rempah looks ready... cooking the rempah does take a long time (i want to eat soon!!) and it takes a few "are we there yet?" queries before grandma says, "ah, ok!"
next, the peeled fresh prawns go into the wok, fried till just cooked before being dished out of the wok to fry the bee hoon. a portion of the rempah with prawns are thrown into the wok with more oil and fried a little before the soaked packet of bee hoon goes in. a lot of mixing happens. as grandma is petite, she's got to tip toe and really spread her arms to lift the bee hoon and mix them with the rempah using a very long pair of chop sticks. later, tau-geh (bean sprouts) are thrown in, the bee hoon given a final few tossing over the fire and the bee hoon is done!
last come the assam kuah (mee siam sour assam gravy)... rempah fried in oil with tau-cheoh, serai, then in goes the assam chwee (assam water), a pinch of sugar and a quick boil before the gravy is thicker and ready.
it's time to set the table and bring out the cooked food from the kitchen - fried bee hoon, prawn sambal, assam kuah and prepared assorted toppings - hard boiled eggs sliced into quarters using a white string, chopped gu chye (chives), fried cubed tau-kuah, fresh lime...
"lunch is ready!!!" announces grandma.
and i'm already seated at the dining table :)
