Old Skool Food Experiment #1 : Pork Ribs Prawn Noodle
I was kinda inspired after watching a few episodes a Malaysian program called Asian Food Adventures on the Asian Food Channel. It is a wonderfully (and tastefully) done and conceived program that touches upon local Malaysian traditional street and coffee shop fare. The difference between this program with many others, at least to me, was that it was able to connect to the human side of these dishes....focusing on the dish, the history, the evolution and most importantly the people who continue to cook and serve them.
I feel kinda nostalgic and a bit sad when it is apparent that the cook is the last to serve those dishes as his/her children are generally not interested to continue the trade which brought them up. Strange but true. So yes, it features a lot on the older generations....and when these people stop cooking, the dish is either gone forever or in some form or another re-surface as a boutique dish served up in some old skool dish chain restaurant like Old Town White Coffee or the likes of it.
So therein start my Old Skool Food Experiment (OSFE). I've a document written up and it will be a live document. A list of dishes and street food from times past that I will attempt to make at home, using my own hands. The recipes will be sourced from my mom, in laws and also, the internet. Believe it or not, I like cooking and in many ways I'm pretty decent at it too! I guess this experiment will be sort of a personal homage to those who came here to Malaysia or Singapore, on long and dangerous boat ride in search of a better life.
I feel kinda nostalgic and a bit sad when it is apparent that the cook is the last to serve those dishes as his/her children are generally not interested to continue the trade which brought them up. Strange but true. So yes, it features a lot on the older generations....and when these people stop cooking, the dish is either gone forever or in some form or another re-surface as a boutique dish served up in some old skool dish chain restaurant like Old Town White Coffee or the likes of it.
So therein start my Old Skool Food Experiment (OSFE). I've a document written up and it will be a live document. A list of dishes and street food from times past that I will attempt to make at home, using my own hands. The recipes will be sourced from my mom, in laws and also, the internet. Believe it or not, I like cooking and in many ways I'm pretty decent at it too! I guess this experiment will be sort of a personal homage to those who came here to Malaysia or Singapore, on long and dangerous boat ride in search of a better life.
OSFE #1 : Pork Rib Prawn Noodle
- Recipe sourced from the internet and from my impression of how my mom cooks it
- Ingredients from Carrefour Plaza Singapura
- Prawn given the Bicarbonate treatment to give it the crunchy restaurant texture
- Lessons :
- Start early on the broth related stuff and don't add too much water, and let it boil for as long as possible
- Don't forget the spices (star aniseed, black peppercorn, syzygium aromaticum), I forgot about these!
- Vermicelli will be nice too but I didn't get this
- Get more prawns!
- Add more sugar!
- Result : Decent tasting broth, a bit on the peppery side. Aromatic prawn scent detected but not as strong as I would have liked. Prawns were crunchy!
Boiling the Pot of Broth (with prawn heads and shells + pork ribs)...should have halved the water!
Marinated "Crunchy" Prawns
Blanching "Crunchy" Prawns
The ingredients that make up this simple dish...kangkong, fish cake, mee, kuay teow
Serving for my kids....added shredded pork rib meat
My bowl of Pai Kuat Har Meen!
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