The Chinese love their soups. Especially the Cantonese. It is a way of life, something to look forward to when you have had a long day and you are going home to mum’s or grandma’s homemade soup.

It is not just any other soup. A lot of herbs are used in these soups. This has been a tradition, bordering on superstition, that spammed generations. The belief is that the herbs help one’s constitution.

Herbs usually consist of ‘weird’ ingredients, mostly oriental in nature. Their names are too scientific in English: Wolfberry, Angelica, Cordyceps, Ginseng, Panax Notoginseng (Tian Qi) to name just a mere few. These all give the soup a very earthy, almost medicinal taste. And they actually do give a kind of placebo effect, or a mythical effect, to curing our hangovers.

Method

1. First boil the soup, and skim the scum from the top of the boil.

Usually the method or recipe calls for soft bone pork or chicken pieces. I prefer to use a whole chicken. I soak the herbs first, and boil them in plain water. When the contents are boiling, I introduce the whole chicken in.

The first boil removes the impurities from the chicken, and the herbal mixture seeps into the raw chicken creating that intense flavour. There will be a layer of scum formed when the impurities are bring boiled away. They are then removed.

2. Boil the Chinese chicken with the herbs until the chicken breaks down.

The most important technique that I learnt is to let the soup cool off first, before boiling it again. Temperature reduction lets the ingredients set into the liquid, thus they will break further apart when I boil them again. Furthermore, the chicken flavour intensifies when this is done.

3. Allow the chicken soup to cool off, before bringing back to the boil again for the final time.

When restaurants offer their ‘Triple Boiled Soups’, this is what I think they are serving. The soup should look opaque white, and taste like a heavy chicken consommé. It almost tastes like a dish by itself and the meat can be served with soy-sauce on the side. White rice is served as a staple together with this dish.

Recipe

Preparation time: 2-3 hours

Ingredients: (for 8 pax)

1. A packet of Pasar Herbs for Chicken soup (there are various kinds for different ailments/ enhancing effects)
2. 300-500 kg whole chicken or pork (optional)
3. Salt and sugar to taste

Method is as per stage 1, 2 and 3 above.

There you have the Chinese Herbal Chicken Soup! Enjoy!

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Dunkle

Local Singaporean Shifu at The Fake Peranakans

The Dunkle's passion for authentic Asian cooking is derived from a fusion between his years spent in Adelaide, where he was unable to find the South East Asian food of his youth & his Grandma's Rempah recipes growing up in Singapore.

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The Covid-19 Pandemic has caused so much drama. One of them is that McDonald’s had to shut down for 2 weeks. Toddlers and young ones crying over not having their McNuggets, and then crying that they finally had their McNuggets AFTER the reopening of McDonald’s.

I had a huge craving for cheeseburgers! Not anything else. But I was not going to brave the social distancing crowd just for some small cheeseburger that’s over-priced. Yeah, being shut at home I’ve come to realise that most fast food, if not all, are over-priced.

I asked Poofy to make some Brioche Burger Buns. They turned out spectacular! As you can see below. The recipe is in the link above.

From there, everything is easy. All I need is to prepare my meat patties!

Recipe

Preparation time: 15-20 mins

Ingredients (for 4 pax):

• 500g Beef mince
• 500g Pork mince
• Salt to taste
• Pepper

Method

It is easy enough. Just mix both beef and pork mince in a bowl and season to your liking.

Shape your patties into baseball sized balls and slap them around to form palm-sized meat patties. And in they go on a cast iron skillet!

Line your burger! You can top up with some dill pickles if you have some. Or you can ask Poofy how to make them!

There you have it! Our very own Brioche Double Cheeseburger! Nomz!

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Dunkle

Local Singaporean Shifu at The Fake Peranakans

The Dunkle's passion for authentic Asian cooking is derived from a fusion between his years spent in Adelaide, where he was unable to find the South East Asian food of his youth & his Grandma's Rempah recipes growing up in Singapore.

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Chicken Curry always taste better the day after. The flavours are more intense, the spiciness is less sharp, and somehow it tastes sweeter. And, we more often than not, cook too much curry. Eating it with rice or bread again the next morning seems a little too much, or it is just plain boring.

Following my post on My Elusive Grandma’s Singapore Chicken Curry, I would extrapolate the use, or the prevention of wastage, of leftover chicken curry. Therefore I will introduce my very own ‘Hock Hai’-styled Curry Noodle.

Remember the long queues back at the Hong Lim building for this infamous curry noodle? I’m so surprised that they have since moved to the Bedok Central Hawker Centre from those days. And the queues are still as long. But somehow, I feel that their standards have dropped.

Now they also offer satay bee hoon. It kinda makes me feel that they have lost their spark from their own Hong Lim Building days.

Preparing this noodle with leftover chicken curry is easy enough. You just gotta buy the extra noodles.

Preparation time: 20 mins

Ingredients (for 2 pax):

• Fresh egg noodles
• Fresh white rice vermicelli
• Bean sprouts
• Tau Pok or Tau Kua
• Fish cake slices

Method

The method is simple:

1. Par-boil the noodles and vermicelli together with the bean sprouts. Just slightly as they may get soggy.
2. Drain and leave them in the serving bowl.
3. Add Tau Pok, Tau Kwa and fish cake.
4. Pour in the hot left-over chicken curry.

And there you have it! You can make your very own ‘Hock Hai’ Curry Noodles – The best solution to leftover chicken curry.

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Dunkle

Local Singaporean Shifu at The Fake Peranakans

The Dunkle's passion for authentic Asian cooking is derived from a fusion between his years spent in Adelaide, where he was unable to find the South East Asian food of his youth & his Grandma's Rempah recipes growing up in Singapore.

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Therefore, these were not allowed, they were frowned upon.

I cannot totally remember poh poh’s curry chicken. But it is elusive in that it is very specific to Singapore, or at least Singapore and Malaysia. It has a much lighter and fresher taste as compared to the Indian curries, yet it has a stronger taste and deeper texture compared to the Thai ones. All I can do is try and try again to replicate that taste, which is homely and comforting.

I’ve featured my base Rempah recipe in my Rempah post. Now I shall build on it to create the curry chicken.

Preparation time: 1- 1.5 hours

Method:

1. Repeat the steps of frying and preparing the Rempah.
2. Fry the chicken parts and potatoes together with the Rempah and render the fat from the meat.
3. Add 5 cups of chicken stock (for one whole chicken) and bring to a boil.
4. Lower heat when it is boiling and add in the small standard packet of coconut cream (200g).
5. Throw in 4-5 stalks of whole lemon grass.
6. Boil on low heat to reduce. This normally takes up to an hour.

The chicken should be fall-off-the-bone tender after. The fragrance of the lemon grass should be distinct, which will balance the intensity of the Rempah.

There you have it. My elusive poh poh’s Singapore Curry Chicken!

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Dunkle

Local Singaporean Shifu at The Fake Peranakans

The Dunkle's passion for authentic Asian cooking is derived from a fusion between his years spent in Adelaide, where he was unable to find the South East Asian food of his youth & his Grandma's Rempah recipes growing up in Singapore.

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One of my favourite stalls in this market is the Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee (炒福建虾面). The old uncle is a big grouch, but his skills with preparing his famous dish are impeccable. He stews it just about right! The noodles are not over-cooked, and the flavours are amazing. 

And when you have one of those terrible cravings for something so easily accessible, and you don’t have it, you just gonna wanna have it! That’s when I thought of making my own.

Yet, I have a slight craving for the Stew Pork Vermicelli too! It was more like an alternative to Hokkien Mee at that time. And I remembered, I do have some stew pork belly left. Therefore, I sought to create a fusion of both dishes!

Please refer to my post on the simple braised pork for that ingredient:

Recipe

Preparation time: 15 – 20mins

Ingredients (for 4 pax):

• Fresh egg noodles
• Fresh white rice vermicelli
• Garlic
• Braised pork (pork belly or shoulder)
• Prawns
• Bean Sprouts
• Fish cake

Method

Method of making the fried noodle stock:

1. After braising the pork, remove the pork from the braising sauce.
2. Cool the pork in the refrigerator.
3. Dilute the braising liquid to about half its concentration with water.
4. Cook the fresh prawns in this braising liquid, careful not to overcook them.
5. Remove the prawns from the liquid when they turn red, the shells should be intact. If the shells are frilling means they are over-cooked.
6. Remove the shell from the prawns and return just these shells to the braising liquid.

Stew the shells in liquid to infuse the flavour of the prawns in it. This will reduce the liquid too. Strain the shells from the liquid after this step and it is done.

The method of frying the noodles is simple enough:

1. In a wok, fry up diced garlic till aromatic.
2. Fry the bean sprouts together with the garlic.
3. When the bean sprouts are shiny, put in the egg noodles and vermicelli.
4. Introduce the braising liquid into the mix and stew the noodles.
5. All the cooked deshelled prawns, fish cake, shredded stew pork into the stewed noodles.

There you have it! My very own Covid-19 Fried Hokkien Braised Pork Prawn Mee! Now you can make it too!

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Dunkle

Local Singaporean Shifu at The Fake Peranakans

The Dunkle's passion for authentic Asian cooking is derived from a fusion between his years spent in Adelaide, where he was unable to find the South East Asian food of his youth & his Grandma's Rempah recipes growing up in Singapore.

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Rempah the base of all spicy Asian bases

Rambha or Rempah?

Well what is that? Rambha Curry is an Indian dish. Whereas Rempah is something else. However, they are not all that different. 

The infamous Michelin Guide defines it as “the backbone of cooking across the Malay archipelago and Indonesia. It is the base of well-loved favourites from Beef Rendang to Peranakan Babi Pongteh. The literal meaning of the word is spice in Malay, but in practice a Rempah refers to a paste of spices which imparts an intense flavour to a dish.’ To me, it is that simple. And we all just love Rempah! It is the foundation that makes all curries. 

The Japanese call it the curry roux, taking inspiration from the French. That rich curry they do reminds me of the Indian curries – Tikka Masalas, vegetable curries, your butter chicken. The question is: Is it really that simple?

What makes a good Rempah? What is the ‘best mix’ of spices that fits a curry? I don’t think there is an answer to that. And there lies my obsession. Our obsession. It is an alchemy – a secret to ourselves yet we want to show it to our friends, families, and the world.

I was maybe 10 years old? And I stayed with grandma in Tiong Bahru Blk 54, now it’s a boutique hotel called Link Hotel. I heard this ‘dink dink dink!’ noise coming from the back of the flat. Yes, it’s a huge flat with a whole washing area. ‘dink dink dink!’ like a plumbing noise. I slowly walked to see why grandma was doing pipe works in the middle of the day.

I saw her sitting on a 10 inch stool, almost like she was squatting. And she was hammering on a stone bowl with a club! And I asked, ‘Poh poh! What are you doing?’ She answered,’ Making curry, and I’m grinding the REMPAH.’

That was my first experience with this term. Which is, incredibly, one of my loves of my life. And of course, my love for ‘Poh poh’, Grandma.

There was no particular smell to this paste actually. And for a fact, she motioned me to go away. She mentioned something called ‘Blachan’. It stinks! It’s really smells like dogshit. My older cousin had a Pomeranian and I thought she put its poo into it! But what happened subsequently was absolute MAGIC.

She. Fried. This. Paste. And with a ton of oil.

Recipe

My Base Rempah Ingredients:

• 5 bulbs red shallots
• 3 fingers fresh turmeric
• 1 whole bulb garlic
• 1 knob galangal (blue ginger)
• 2 stalks lemon grass
• 3 kaffir lime leaves
• Optional: dried chilies to taste or spice level
• Optional: Balchan (subjected to availability)

This is why I call it alchemy. At all levels. This smell, was like the whole house was engulfed in this spicy comfort, embracing oneself in a certain level of easiness. Yet, it made me the 10-year-old, very curious. And hungry. And more curious after that. What on earth is this Rempah?

Method

1. Pound or blend all the ingredients to a paste, adding water to smoothen the mixture. Do not dilute the mixture too much.
2. Heat oil in a sauce pan and fry the paste at low heat, releasing the smell of the ingredients slowly. Dehydrate the paste slowly and add more oil as the paste dries up.

I want to recreate this 30 years later. Thinking back so hard on how did that curry chicken actually go? Well, grandma’s curry chicken was always good. Just thinking of it brings a tear to my eye. Hey, she did cook for the British didn’t she? Back in the day! She told me, ‘You gotta coat the chicken in a curry powder and lightly fry them first. And then fry them in the rempah before stewing the curry altogether.’ Wow. At 10 years old, I was just excited to eat the final product!!

Rempah. The gift of our ancestors, the taste to our buds, the fat in our belly.

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Dunkle

Local Singaporean Shifu at The Fake Peranakans

The Dunkle's passion for authentic Asian cooking is derived from a fusion between his years spent in Adelaide, where he was unable to find the South East Asian food of his youth & his Grandma's Rempah recipes growing up in Singapore.

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