KAMPUNG FOOD

If you’re fortunate to get invited for a meal in a kampung house in Malaysia or in Indonesia, you’ll discover how fresh and delicious the food is. Vegetables and herbs are plucked from the backyard; free roaming chickens are bred by the family; milk of freshly grated coconut come from the trees that shade the house; fish and crab caught that morning from the sea; and shellfish collected at low tide. Add to this the recipes that have been handed down generation after generation by the sun brown Malay womenfolk.

As these humble homes rarely have refrigerators the ingredients have to be caught or collected daily. That’s why freshness always characterises kampung food. All you have to do is walk around the garden and you’ll see everything that will go into the cooking. Walk further to the beach, the boats, the fishing nets and the bounty of the sea.

In Singapore, the kampungs may be long gone but the the spirit of kampung cooking remains alive. Only the freshest ingredients are used and are cooked with respect and love following a short prayer.

TYPICAL KAMPUNG FARE

KERABU PUCUK PAKU A salad of fern tips with grated coconut, chilli, lime, onion, dried shrimp, ginger bud and sugar.

MASAK LEMAK IKAN BELIMBING Fresh mackerel cooked in a curry of coconut milk, chilli, turmeric and small carambola (belimbing). The carambola gives a hint of refreshing sour.

OPOR AYAM Chicken fried in a reduction of coconut milk, galangal, lemongrass, garlic, peppercorns and shallots.

MASAK KETAM NENAS Fresh Blue Swimmer crab in a curry of pineapple, chilli, coconut milk, turmeric and shallots. The pineapple gives the curry a sweet sour touch.

NASI KERABU Rice with grated coconut, salt fish, shallots and turmeric tossed with shredded herbs (daun ulam). These herbs include mint, pennywort, cashew leaf, coriander leaf, kaffir lime leaf, polygonum leaf (daun laksa), ginger leaf and wild pepper leaf among others.