The 5 Most Delicious Malaysian FooDs.
FooD’s Note:
“Eating (and loving) Malaysian food should be a prerequisite for anyone proclaiming to be a gastronome. The holy amalgamations of Malaysian flavors are strengthened, not only by fierce spices, but by a group of people that are intensely passionate about their cuisine.
This is a guest post from a gourmet Malaysian herself, Mei of the FOOD. Their food and travel blog is an inspiring smorgasbord of best Malaysian food eye candy and travel adventures!”
We Malaysians are a lucky lot. Here in our multiracial community, we have exposure to all sorts of cuisine. Chinese, Indian, Malay.. you name it, we have it. Some of these ethnic cooking styles might be more bland or less spicy than others, but I have to say that all are equally interesting in their own way. Here are 10 of my own personal favourites, but if I had my way it, would be 20 !
1. Hokkien Me
Fried Hokkien mee (Chinese style- fried yellow noodles) has a cult following in Kuala Lumpur. It is a dish of thick yellow noodles braised in thick dark soy sauce with pork, squid, fish-cake and cabbage as the main ingredients and cubes of crispy fried pork lard as garnishing (that would be the square cubes that you see on top of the noodle).
Some might say that the pork lard is the main ingredient.
This dish is eaten before a huge night out, after a huge night out, for dinner, for supper .. heck , at all hours of the day really. If you have not eaten Hokkien Mee, you have not visited Malaysia, proper!
2. Sang Har noodles
Next up is the Sang Har Kwey Teow (flat noodles). This is fresh river prawns cooked Cantonese style in a thick eggy broth and finished off with either flat or egg noodles. The orange roe in the head of the prawn just seeps and infuses into the eggy liquid sauce of the noodles and makes the taste phenomenal. The amazing way that the tautness of the prawn flesh blends into the springiness of the flat noodles is like these two components were just made for each other.
3. Satay
After the Sang Har Mee, we will definitely drag you to eat, the Sentul Satay.Close analogues would be the Yakitori from Japan, the Shish Kebab from Turkey, the Sosatie from South Africa.. oh, and my most recent discovery was the Chuan from China!
Meats on sticks over a BBQ – basic yet effective. Tapping into that childhood ‘fun’ way of eating your food. For satay, the “must have” ingredient which gives the dish its characteristic yellow colour derived from tumeric. Serve it up with a spicy peanut sauce dip, or peanut gravy, slivers of onions and cucumbers, and ketupat (rice cakes).. and you have a balanced meal of carbo, protein, fats, and vegetables but tastes delightfully sinful.. not unlike junk food!
4. Charsiew Rice
Charsiew (BBQ Pork) is another great dish.. Charsiew literally means ‘burn with a fork‘ where long gorgeous fatty strips of seasoned boneless pork are skewered with long forks and placed in a covered oven or over a fire. The meat, typically a shoulder cut is seasoned with a mixture of honey, five-spice powder, fermented tofu , dark soy sauce and possibly hoisin sauce. The melting sugar plus the seasoning will turn the exterior layer of the meat dark red, not dissimilar to American barbecues. A sugar coat is sometimes used in the place of honey to give char siu its characteristic shiny glaze. Here in KL, you can get amazing charsiew with a texture so soft and succulent in the centre, sweet and caramalized on the outside, it would make a grown man weep!
5. Tanjung Tualang Fresh River Prawns
Lung Seng Tanjung Tualang, Perak (North Malaysia) – everybody needs to make this ‘holy’ pilgrimage to the mecca of Fresh River Prawns and all things crustacean at least once in their life-time. As a matter of fact, KL city folk don’t mind the 2 hour drive to Tanjung Tualang in Perak just to satisfy their yearning for delicious freshwater prawns. They don’t come fresher than this (swimming outside in tanks) and the cooks actually drop them into ice water for five minutes to stun them before they prepare them for cooking. This retains the springy texture and flavour in the meat. Butter River Prawns.. Mouth-watering!
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