Taste of Penang's traditional Hawker Food

Take a walk down the streets of Penang to taste their traditional Hawker’s food

“You have to balance, but you can be aggressive as a chef. It benefits the food. You have to be passionate. You can't be angry cooking”.

Before we start with the much appreciated recipe of the day let us get into the likes of the food and fruits of Penang, let me give you an idea of how we go about street food.

Walk down a street in Penang and you'll pass an Indian man pulling tissue-thin dough for roti canai next to Chinese women tossing noodles in pork lard. You can eat dim sum for breakfast and mutton curry for lunch. You'll dip coriander-turmeric fried chicken in a Worcestershire-based sauce. Out late? Pull out a few ringgit and take your pick of char kuey teow, wide rice noodles and prawns fired up in a screaming hot wok with chili and soy; or fluffy ghee-coated naan; or a plastic bag of pickled mango; or a bowl of tom yum; or squid smothered in spicy-tart sambal.

Chinese, Malay, Indian, Thai; it's how these culinary traditions alternately merge and remain distinct that makes Malaysian cookery so fascinating—and so hard to summarize concisely, a Venn diagram of flavor whose every overlapping sliver is its own compelling story.

For our purposes, of course, nothing could be better.

The story of Malaysian food is that of the nation's history, of course; but food itself (namely, the spice trade) played a major part in that history.

Much liked fruits originally found in Malaysia

Rambutan, mangosteens, and more.

Tropical fruit lovers will find everything from the familiar mangos to perhaps less familiar fruits, including dragonfruit and rambutan and mangosteens.

Malaysian Chicken curry (Kari Ayam) and Roti Jala.

Recipe

Ingredients:

Spice paste: makes 3 cups, you can store this in the fridge for up to a week.

400g (about 16) shallots / peeled, 20 dried chillies / 100 g (about eight) fresh red chillies / 1 bulb garlic, peeled / 4-inch ginger / 40g belacan (shrimp paste) /

4 lemongrass, coarsely chopped / 10 candlenuts / 1 cinnamon stick / 3 star anise / 5 cloves / 5 green cardamoms / 6 curry leaves (fresh or dried)

1.5-2kg chicken, chopped

4 tbsp oil

1 ½ cups spice paste

2 ½ cups water

550g potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks

400 ml coconut milk

a pinch of salt

sugar

reserved dried chilli seeds

Directions:

1. To make the spice paste, remove the seeds from the dried chillies and reserve the seeds for future use (to adjust the spiciness). Soak dried chillies in warm water for about 15 mins to soften the chillies. Coarsely chop all the ingredients and pound the spices with a pestle and mortar or blend until a paste is formed.

2. Heat up of oil in a wok or a pot. Add cinnamon stick, star anise, cloves, green cardamoms and curry leaves, fry on low heat until fragrant.

3. Mix in spice paste and fry on low heat until fragrant. Continue until red chili oil floats on the surface. Stir occasionally.

4. Add chicken, stir fry until the chicken is coated with spices and lightly cooked on the surface.

5. Pour in water. Bring to boil then lower heat to simmer for about 10 mins uncovered.

6. Add potatoes, cover and let it simmer on low heat for another 30 mins.

7. Stir in coconut milk, cover and let it simmer on low heat for a further 30 mins.

8. Add salt and sugar to taste. If it’s not spicy enough, add some reserved chilli seeds.

This is the authentic recipe used by the Mamak (Indians) in Malaysia. Incredibly easy. must try!

Recipe for Roti Canai

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup cooking oil

Mix the salt in the water.

1. Put the flour in a mixing bowl. Add the salted water gradually.
2. Mix the flour into a dough. Kneed until smooth. Make sure the texture of the dough is not too sticky and gooey.
3. Oil your hands with cooking oil and then make the dough into palm sized balls.
4. In a bowl pour some oil so that the dough doesn’t stick to the bowl. Put in the balls, coating it with oil as you put one on top of each other. After it is all in a bowl, totally immerse it in oil. Leave overnight.
5. Oil your kneading space. Take out one dough ball, flatten it out into with your palms until the size of a dinner plate.
6. Flip the dough a couple of times and spread it out until paper thin.
7. Take the one edge and fold it to the middle. Do this another three times so that it will turn into a square.
8. Grease a flat pan or skillet with cooking oil and cook until golden brown.

“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” Vince Lombardi