Total Boredom
Saturday, November 26, 2005
Out of total boredom came the ingenious idea to blog about food. So heres the scoop on my personal favourite "The Bak Kut Teh".Undoubtly one of the most popular dishes in Malaysia, this dish is quintessentially malaysian. Its origin are traced back from a young gentleman from Quanzhou of the Fujian province in China. The secret recipe was passed to a friend who later went to Klang and became the first person to commercialise and sell Bak Kut Teh (BKT). In my opinion, Klang became indutrialize thanks to the emergence of this dish. So thank you Jun Bin and your forefathers for this contribtion to society.The Hokkiens were the original inventors of the dish . The Teochews came later and tweak some recipes. The main visual difference between the Hokkien and Teochew version of BKT is that the Hokkiens use dark soy sauce and thus the soup base is characteristically darker in colour. There are also plenty variations on the meat used such as the "chick kut teh", "steak kut teh", "mince and cheese kut teh". Personally, i feel there is no substitute for the good old fashioned pork. The most important part of BKT is the soup. Ingredients includes garlic, cinnamon stick, cloves,white peppercorns, kei chee (dried hawthorn berries) and star anises. I could draw a multi-phase diagram projecting the various viscosity of the soup when adding various amounts of each ingredient but that would just take too much time. Obviously, an equilirium amount has to be reach in order for the soup to reach its "premium" composition . Choosing the right meat is essential. My mum said that "sam chan" would be most ideal as it contains a thin layer of fats. Alternatively, you can add a bit of "pai kuat" to make the soup sweeter. Additions of button mushrom, tau pok, tau kee and fresh iceberg lettuce are various complimentries you could use to make it a complete meal. Also, if you're the sort of person who takes pleasure in eating pigs organs, feel free to sprinkle liberal amounts of these in the soup. Furthermore, if you're a filthy rich person, add some abolone and sea cucumber so you can show you're guests that you are richer, better and more chun than them.To garnish, use finely chopped garlic with cili padi drown with generous amount of soy souce. A popular side dish would be the yao cha kuai. Dont forget to drain all the fats with a good chinese tea. The "kuan yin" is the most common and taste fairly reasonable. Below is a pic of this glorious dish.
Remember to take your time to indulge and dont forget to experiment every type of ingredient you can find. Please do invite me if you have been successful and I will be waitin to hear from you guys.
Alex
9:19 AM
CRAPPER
Ah-Lek Cheah
September 8th 1986
New Zealand
Civil Engineer wannabe
About the author:
Malaysian by birth, Alex Cheah was born in the rough and ruggard suburban city of Paramount Garden. He currently is pursuing a degree
in Civil Engineering in Auckland University, New Zealand.
The overall subject of blogging has been a life long passion. His frist blog has receives many accolates and criticism. The second (craptacular) aims
to cater for the ever growing demand of his friends.
In craptacular, Alex incorporates the very best of Malaysian Humour garnished with a hint of sacarsm and a pinch of disgustingly LAME jokes.
The result is a simple, practical blog which is geared to either piss someone off or provide humour to his/her life (hopefully the latter).
