Ah Ma, my father’s mother, made the most delicious acar.  She learned from her nyonya mother-in-law, Ah Chor, the lady we thought looked like the little old lady in the 1960′s sitcom, Beverly Hillbillies, in a kebaya!  Ah Ma’s acar is so well pickled, it could have lasted for months if we didn’t devour it all in a week!  Her trick was to wring the blanched vegetables real dry.  I never really appreciated the nyonya heritage in my dad’s family until much later when I got interested in cooking and realized that my grandmother was probably one of the best nyonya cooks around.  Since then, it’s been an endless effort to recreate many of her recipes from the memory of taste.  This is one of them.

Chef’s tip: Use a salad spinner to remove as much water as possible from the blanched vegetables.  Pack acar tightly in a glass jar and keep refrigerated.  Like kimchi, it will keep for several weeks.

Spice Paste:
10 dried long Asian chilies, rehydrated in water or fresh Fresno chilies, seeded
2 stalks lemongrass, sliced thinly
2 slices galangal
1 piece fresh turmeric, about 1 Tablespoon, sliced
8 shallots
3 cloves garlic
1 Tablespoon roasted belachan
4 candlenuts

Vegetables:
2 carrots peeled
¼ head cauliflower
1 Japanese Eggplant
½ small savoy cabbage
12 Chinese long yard beans
1 English Cucumber, seeded

½ cup canola oil
1 cup white vinegar
½ cup of sugar
1 Tablespoon kosher salt

1 cup roasted peanuts, crushed
1/4 cup sesame seeds, toasted

1. In a food processor or blender, grind chilies, lemongrass and galangal till fine. Add remaining spice paste ingredients and process till smooth. Add a little water if needed. Set aside.
2. Cut all vegetables into 1 inch juliennes. Cut cauliflower into small florets.
3. Blanch vegetables. Blanched carrots, cauliflower and eggplant till tender, about 3 minutes, and cabbage and long beans two minutes. Spin and squeeze vegetables very dry. Add in cucumber.
4. Heat oil on medium high. Fry spice paste till fragrant, red and oil has separated, about 7-10 minutes. Add vinegar, sugar and salt. Fry till fragrant about 10 minutes. Taste for seasoning. Remove from heat.
5. Mix in vegetables and toss to mix. Add peanuts and sesame seeds and mix to combine.  Let it sit for at last 30 mins for flavors to come together.  Can be prepared in advance.  Serve room temperature or chilled.

Serves: 6

Tags: Malaysian, Nyonya.

Here is another mango salad recipe.  A Malaysian Nyonya version.  The key flavoring here is belachan.  Now, the following paragraph may scare you away from this recipe, but do trust me, once the belachan is roasted and mixed into the sambal, the salad is just absolutely scrumptious!  Ask any Malaysian, and they will surely defend the belachan.

Belachan is to Malaysian cooking what fish sauce is to Thai cooking.  To get the full, sweet flavor of belachan, buy a block of it, slice it up and dry toast it in a skillet.  Just be aware that your neighbors may not be liking it too much!  When I lived in Guangzhou about 20 years ago, I toasted some belachan and thought I was smart to leave the windows opened….after all, I was in US consulate housing and I don’t think my neighbors really dig the smell!  Before I knew it, every fly in Guangzhou decided to join me in the cooking!  After a humourous battle tracking down the flies and shooing them away, I was able to get all but one fly out of the apt.  To get the last fly out, I placed my bottle of now sweetly toasted belachan by the window sill.  The lone fly decided to come out of hiding and follow the waft of the belachan by the window sill.  At that point, I turned on the fan, and off he went out of the window!

Chef’s tip: You can also roast the belachan in an oven.  400F.  Chop up the belachan, spread it on a baking sheet and roast about 7 minutes.  Using a wooden spoon, break up the pieces further till crumbs form.  Return to oven for another 5 minutes.  Store leftover roasted belachan in an airtight bottle for future use!

Sambal Belachan:
6 Fresno/ red jalapeno chilies
1 Tablespoon belachan, more if desired

Dressing:
2 Tablespoon prepared sambal belachan
3 Tablespoon lime juice
2 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 Tablespoon dried shrimp, soaked
2 Tablespoon dessicated shredded coconut, toasted
2 green mangoes, peeled and shredded
2 shallots, finely sliced
4 kaffir lime leaves, finely chiffonaded

1. In a food processor, finely grind the red chilies into a paste. Mix with belachan.
2. Make kerabu dressing – mix together sambal belachan, lime juice, sugar and salt.  Set aside.
3. Soak dried shrimp in water until soft.  Drain and pound coarsely with a mortar and pestle or pulse with a food processor.  Set aside.
4. Toast desiccated coconut in a pan till golden brown.  Pound coconut lightly.  Set aside.
5. Shred mangoes, cut shallots into thin slices lengthwise.  Slice kaffir lime leaves finely.
6. In a large bowl, mix all ingredients with the dressing. Serve immediately.

Note: Mangoes must be green, unriped firm mangoes

Serves: 6

Tags: Malaysian, nyon, Salads.

Hello Rich.  Here’s what Janet and I think is the recreation of our grandma’s recipe for dark soy sauce pork.  I am not exactly sure whether this is a Hokkien or a baba dish.  ”Ah Ma” is Hokkien, but her mother-in-law, our great grandmother “Ah Chor”, was Nyonya.  As I understand it, Ah Ma picked up a lot of her cooking skills from Ah Chor.  We used to go to my dad’s parents place for lunch every Sunday and every Sunday, there will be this dark soy sauce pork.  I vividly remember how she would stuff a special little clay pot, in which she only makes this dish with, with the pork and then braise it under a super low flame.  The pork literally melts in your mouth.  It tastes even better the next day.  We used to even eat this for breakfast, soaking up the sauce with some nice white and fluffy “wonder” bread.

Janet thinks there is some soy sauce added, I think otherwise.  If you’d like it saltier and saucier, just add a splash or two of soy sauce.  Enjoy!

Chef’s tip:
3 key things.  1.  It’s essential to use a fatty cut of pork.  The preferred cut is the “5 flower” cut, the creme de la creme of pork belly meat.   It’s the same cut of meat they make bacon with.  It literally has 5 alternating layers of fat and lean meat.  It would be great to leave the skin on, too.    2. Low heat.  You want to gently cook the fat, not sear it away.  High heat will melt the fat prematurely (i.e., in the pot, not in your mouth)    3. The Malaysian dark caramel sauce aka dark soy sauce (the really thick, black and sweet kind).  The best brand to get is the “Cheong Chan” brand.

2 lbs pork belly meat, skin-on, cut into 1 inch cubes, pat dry
6-8 cloves garlic, whole, skin-on, very lightly smashed
1/2 cup dark (caramel) soy sauce – enough to coat the pork liberally
1/2 teaspoon whole white peppercorns
Soy sauce, optional

1. Place all ingredients in a medium, heavy-bottomed pot, preferably a clay pot.  The meat should fit snugly together.   Liberally coat the pork with the dark soy sauce.
2.  Cover and braised on LOW heat for at least two hours, till desired doneness.  Stir occasionally.  The pork will cook in its own juices and fat.  May add a little water if it gets too dry too soon but try not to.

Serves: 6

Tags: Chinese, Malaysian, Nyonya.