Nyonya Flashback

It is often said that happy memories are always tucked away in a special part of your brain and resurface when you need them the most. One particular memory played back at a very appropriate time.

About a year ago (around the same time as this post goes up); I walked into Penang’s Tropical Spice Garden a suitable arrangement by a luxury travel planners Faraway Places, and a well placed one at that considering my affinity with food and well, cooking. I was in for a nice little surprise. This spice garden is situated right on the edge of Penang’s gorgeous city, this award winning space was created to hold some of the best Asian spices, flora and fauna. What the real surprise was my introduction to Nyonya cuisine at their in-house, state of the artTropicalSpiceGardenCookingSchool.

I was introduced to Penang’s finest Nyonya cuisine cook Pearly Kee and she made sure we had a hands-on experience at her cooking class. Armed with aprons, knives and a cooking station each, my friends and I were ready to get cooking the Nyonya way.

We were a group of eight including me, my friends and a family fromAustralia. After a walk around the garden, rubbing leaves and tasting various spices we made our way to Pearly’s kitchen, facing a set of ingredients each and individual hobs. What excited me most was that we were not only going to watch and learn to cook a few traditional dishes but would be getting our hands in there too.

I clearly remember the menu for the class, a clear noodle wonton soup and char siu chicken. We got around to making the wontons from scratch (including the dough) to preparing the stock with chicken carcass, vegetables and seasonings. Moving on to the char siu chicken, an extremely popular dish which is basically an Asian barbecue chicken recipe (originally char siu is associated with pork). Ideally roasted to perfection but we made it Pearly’s way, in a wok, allowing the well marinated meat to cook on a high flame, covered and cooked in its own juices. Char siu is listed at number twenty eight on World’s 50 most delicious foods quite recently.

What really got me interested was the spice used in the marinade for the char siu chicken. Apart from a few drops of fragrant rose wine vinegar (which was generously offered to us in an ancient ceramic pot, in which it was probably aged), the marinade called for a generous pinch of Chinese Five Spice powder. Five-spice powder encompasses all five flavors – sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty. In traditional and cultural sense it also refers to 5 elements i.e. wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. It was predominantly used to flavor the char siu and is also used extensively in Nyonya cooking especially roasted and braised meat dishes.

I had a déjà vu moment and had to get in touch with Pearly once again as I had consumed my pack of five spice powder which I had picked up from the spice garden’s store. The Indian brands don’t just cut it and are complete contrast to the actual thing. I contacted Pearly with the hope that I could somehow convince her to ship me a couple of more packets of five spice powder. She did the inevitable; they say give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Well this is exactly what Pearly did, part with her simple yet authentic recipe forPenangstyle Five Spice Powder.

This powder can be easily ground in your own kitchen. Spices are a breeze since they are quite similar to the ones we get in our country. Just ensure the cinnamon is fragrant sweet varietals which you usually get deep inIndia’s southern jungles or the ones imported fromSri Lankaand try and usesichuanpeppers instead white. You would be surprised thatsichuanpeppers are not at all related to white or black peppercorns but are of a different spice variety itself. These are available in some southern stores or coastal ingredients stockist’s (In Konkani it is known as tephal or tirphal) and can be recognized but its flower like husk and give out a unique aroma and flavor that is not hot or pungent like its namesake. Instead, it has slight citrusy overtones and creates a tingly numbness in the mouth when tasted.

I share with you Pearly’s recipe and hope this memory remains alive for a long time to come.

Penang Five Spice Powder

Ingredients

• 2 inch Cinnamon Stick
• 4 Cardamom Pods
• 1 Tablsp Fennel Seeds
• 1 Inch DriedOrangePeel
• 4 Cloves
• 8 Star Anise
• 1 Tablsp Coriander Seeds
• 1/2 Tablsp Grated Nutmeg Powder
• 2 Tablsp White or SichuanPeppercorns

Pound and break open cardamom pods, just use the seeds inside.

Give a toast to cinnamon stick, fennel seeds, orange peel, cloves, star anise, coriander seeds, cardamom seeds and peppercorn.

Heat up a pan. Once it is hot, turn off heat.

In a warm pan, place all seeds to dry toast to rejuvenate the flavor.

Once cooled down, grind or pound till very fine. Sieve it many times till you are left with a fine powder.

Once it is ready and cool, add nutmeg powder.

If you have most of ingredients in powder form, toast on a warm but cooler wok as it might burn.

Pack and store in freezer, stays good for a couple of months.

Enjoy and experiment with this powder to your hearts content, and watch this blog while I create some amazing dishes with this spice in the future.