75. Ayam Buah Keluak 2023 - Alow's Recipe - My Peranakan Heritage
7 Jan 2023
1. shopping - 5 jan 2023
so happy to see the oil being released from the paste!
this video has a similar recipe as alow's mee siam!
9-16 Feb 2024
CNY Year of the Dragon
AYAM BUAH KELUAK
1. shopping - 5 jan 2023
2. preparing - 5-7 jan 2023
3. grinding - 7 jan 2023
4. cooking - 7 jan 2023 and ??
5. the house smells of cny! - 7 jan 2023
6. prepare and cook pork ribs - 17 jan 2023
7. cooked the buah keluak pork ribs - 20 jan 2023
reunion dinner 21 jan 2023
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Alow's Recipe - Rempah
- 20 dried chillis
- 10 fresh red chillis
- roasted belacan
- 6 candlenuts, buah keras
- 20 shallots
- 2 big onions
- 1 inch fresh turmeric/kunyit
- 4 slices fresh galangal
- 4 garlic
- 4 serai/lemongrass
- 4 assam skin
- assam paste
buah keluak nuts
chicken/ayam
pork ribs
(mama's) stuffed nuts
- minced pork
- minced prawns
- pieces of buah keluak nut
2024 - for extra flavour and aromatics, add
2024 - for extra flavour and aromatics, add
- fresh, fragrant limau purut leaves
- serai / lemongrass
- sugar and assam to taste
pounding/grinding and cooking technique has got to be done right
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5 Jan 2023
1. shopping for the ingredients
tekka 01-210 Mr Seah's stall - total $26
buah keluak $12/pack x2 - $2 discount = $22
indonesian fresh red shallots 1kg = $2
dried chilli $1
buah keras = $1
tekka - chia's veg and fresh herbs - $2.50
- kunyit &
- galangal / blue ginger/ langkuas
kovan market - $5.70
- kiam chye
- assam skin
- ginger
ntuc finest
- lemongrass
- turmeric
- fresh garlic
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7 Jan 2023
2. preparing - 5-7 jan 2023
- peel garlic and shallots
- soak dried chilli in water, then cut
- fresh chillis
- turmeric
3. grinding - 7 jan 2023
preparing the ingredients
agak agak proportion for rempah...
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7 Jan 2023
a. grind dry ingredients
- buah keras / candlenut
- langkuas / blue ginger
- kunyit / turmeric
- serai / lemongrass - tender parts, cut into pieces
- assam skin x4-5
b. chop/grind aromatics
- red shallots
- garlic
c. grind spicy
- dried chilli x55-60 - soaked and cut into pieces
- fresh red chilli x5 - cut into pieces
used aidan's chopper for onions and garlic!
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7 Jan 2023
4. cooking the rempah
a. dry roast belacan - no pics
b. (this is the mee siam paste)
fry ground onions, garlic, chillis
and a little dry ingredients,
add roasted belacan
fry until the oil is released and the tumis is done
set aside half for mee siam
set aside half for buah keluak
c. (this is the buah keluak paste)
fry the dry ingredients
- buah keras,
- fresh turmeric,
- fresh galangal,
- lemongrass
- assam skin
add in fried onion paste for buah keluak
& fry low to medium fire
add lemongrass stalks, salt for flavour
add assam paste
add buah keluak nut and fry
fry until the oil is released from the paste (takes a long time)
i kept the rempah for cny -
will add the chicken and pork ribs later!
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7 Jan 2023
5. the house smells of cny! - 7 jan 2023
fried rice with the rempah,
added leftover diced chicken
and kang kong from lunch
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i just HAVE the URGE to WRITE this...
i didn't realise that i've learnt a lot from cooking with alow and mummy. every year, we will have to prepare many dishes together.
my job is usually to pound rempah and to make those kueh pie tee cups ONE by ONE. about 3-5 days before the new year feasting starts (starts from the eve, reunion dinner), alow, mummy and i will sit at the dining table to peel steamed crabs - either mud crabs or flower crabs. these crab meat is for bakwan kepeting and popiah. mummy would go market to buy around 3 huge mud crabs, or she would choose to buy about 10-20 small flower crabs (her fav are the flower crabs as she insists that they're "sweeter").
when it comes to cooking, everyone has a chore or chores - always those SAME chores that we will do year after year, or whenever we make that dish.
i would be tasked for these...
- pounding rempah
(alow would portion out the ingredients in one round metal plate - so lately i found that i'm starting to figure out the proportion that i always see on that plate before i start pounding away!),
- peeling chicken meat from a whole chicken for macaroni or laksa,
- making kueh pie tee cups
(alow would make the batter so i can never remember how to do that batter, except that it's usually 50-50... cornflour and rice flour, the amount of water is agak agak).
alow would be grinding the rempah in a stone pounder or blender and doing all the cooking. before we started using the blender, i did most of the pounding! but alow says my pounded paste isn't refined enough uggh.
sometimes mummy would cook, even though their cooking styles and preferences are so different! for mummy, she likes to use a small fire (so slow!!) and makes the buah keluak kuah soupy and more sourish (more assam). for alow, she'll just adjust along the way and just do that "agak agak" method.
alow passed on in 2012, mummy in 2021.
this year, 2023, i make the buah keluak rempah all by myself.
while grinding the rempah paste, i vaguely remember the proportions so i separated groups of ingredients to make different dishes with the same rempah - the buah keluak rempah, the assam pedas and the mee siam rempah. all use same ingredients but each in different proportions. i know that now. i know why my mee siam years ago tasted like assam pedas and not understanding why then.
when i fried the rempah, i also was mindful of which rempah to cook 1st. it's the mee siam one - really heavier on the basic ingredients - dried chilli and onions.
frying this proportion of rempah for mee siam immediately makes me feel like alow and mummy are both working in the kitchen beside me - the smell simply brings them back to life!
plus, mee siam is my ultimate most favourite dish that alow makes. always. when i was young, i would always always request for mee siam on sundays. my other fav is chicken macaroni soup but she'll make that anyways coz it seems to be everyone's fav - jamie, eugene, nicky...
but mee siam - is - my fav dish of all time. alow's mee siam is never replicated by anyone else, except mummy, but only sometimes Lol
mee siam rempah - done. set aside. will enjoy that later! (soon!)
then i make the buah keluak and assam pedas rempah. more gingery and citrus flavours - yellow ginger, blue ginger, lemongrass... buah keras for lemak/creamy taste.
once the rempah is fried and done, i remove the paste for assam pedas.
and in goes the buah keluak nuts... almost dumped in the whole box but i wasn't sure. so i kept a small portion aside to eat the nuts whole. omg, the smell of the rempah and buah keluak cooked together in one pot!!! brings back the smells of childhood and chinese new year!! it got even more incredible when the rempah turns oily and starts sliding around the non stick pan!! haha. i don't know why it's so amusing to see the rempah slide around slippery-ly!
the smell of the rempah is on my fingers and the whole house was fragrant for more than 12 hours!! that whole night, i just didn't want the fragrance to go away - the fried rempah and smell of buah keluak in the air, in the bedroom, bathrooms, kitchen... as if alow and mummy are visiting for much longer than expected. so comforting.
so yes. this is my first ever - doing buah keluak for the first time from scratch...
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. so good.
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20 Jan 2023 fri
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videos
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found these videos online - useful for techniques
Chef Malcolm Lee - https://youtu.be/7JZm987O9aA
Meatmen - Nyonya Ayam Buah Keluak Recipe - 娘惹黑果焖鸡
https://youtu.be/iERS16qvbMMbelow: screenshot of the videos
9-16 Feb 2024
CNY Year of the Dragon
this year, i added more rempah, more assam and some sugar into my buah keluak. the balance was so delicious! the pork ribs turned out tough coz i didn't cook it right. but later added some chicken into the empty gravy and the buah keluak tastes amazing!!
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