Page 11
The Visitor's Favourite
Discovering the genuine cha koay tiau
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Page 11
The Visitor's Favourite
Discovering the genuine cha koay tiau |
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Finding the best One of the pet obsessions of the visitor to Penang is ch'a koay teow. This is not surprising since its rivals to fame and popularity like Mama mee, Hokkien mee ( hair mee) and curry mee lost their pristine flavours when the older generation went to their graves taking their closely guarded secrets with them. The visitor's headache is locating the best. The guides and the guide books are not much help. So here are a few tips - I refrain from giving names and locations because information can quickly get out of date. It is best to remember that, traditionally, frying has been done with charcoal and fan. This ensures that the koay tiau is soft, not too dry nor too cut up. Unfortunately, only one or two remain who stubbornly cling to the old style. Nowadays charcoal has been replaced by fierce miniature blast furnaces where the frying is frantically executed accompanied by the rushing roar of the flames and the sprinkling of vast amounts of water to prevent burning, all to no avail because the oil cannot take the high temperature and much of it is converted into billows of choking smoke that fills the coffee shop and irritably settles on the hair. The koay tiau man , like the ballerina poised on her toes, is always on the brink of disaster and has to be quick with the frying and the water bottle. The visitor needs to examine the result to see if it too dry for his liking and for excessive black spots - a sign of burning of the koay tiau . The quality of the taste lies in the oil used. Good oil satisfies because it is cloying, giving a feel to the palate. Because of air conditioned places and higher prices the hawker now dilutes the oil with vegetable oil, some using as much as 75%. But the best do not go higher than 50%. Ch'a koay tiau was a working class dish. It was the worker's first meal of the day taken with a cup of kopi-o at 5 in the morning. If the worker was on a spending spree he would ask for egg which meant duck's egg, chick egg being more expensive. Most hawkers use chicken eggs nowadays because with the vanishing of duck ponds duck eggs are now more of a luxury. But as Tengku Abdul Rahman noted in his Star column some years ago, duck eggs are essential if one wants the real stuff. So always choose the stall with duck eggs, or bring your own. |
| Aji-no-moto It is essential that the tau eu (soy sauce) used is of the best quality. It is mixed with small amounts of oyster sauce, sometimes cuttle fish sauce and aji-no-moto, the last an abomination. The hawker, with an eye to savings, resorts to aji-no moto (a recent invention) simply because it masks the poor quality of his tau-eu and his o-eu (oyster sauce) Taugeh (bean sprouts), harm (cockles) and prawns are a must, though the prawns, being expensive items, are getting to resemble the miserable scampi taken with cocktails. The harm adds to the flavour but I would advise putting them aside on the plate and not eating them because the polluted seas around us (a Penang scandal) have the nasty habit of infecting the eater with Hepatitis A. Ku ch'ai (chives) is an accompanying must as is crackers (bar eu p'o), the more the merrier. But these days when the abiding passion is to be slim, crackers are no longer in demand, which prompts one to ask: then why do they want to eat ch'a koay tiau, the notorious fattener? Ch'a koay tiau is uniquely Penang, a Penang-Teochew contribution to the island's fame as a gourmet centre. If lap ch'eong (sausage) is added you can be sure that the cook is Cantonese. I should mention that one or two stalls now offer po (slim) koay tiau as an alternative, a sign it is said of a Cantonese bias, - they prefer the wat (smooth) feel. But to the connoisseur, who is inevitably conservative, it is like having spagetti instead of rice bor in laksa Penangites have many ways of eating their ch'a koay tiau . Some gourmets have half a dozen harm lying raw on the plate with the freshly fried koay tiau sitting on top. Even at the height of an hepatitis epidemic in Penang some diehards were seen stubbornly eating their uncooked harm that way. # K L Chai |
| _______________________ *** Letter to the Editor *** I refer to the paper "Performing Modernity in Penang" by Tan Sooi Beng in Issue 22. I would like to point out that in addition to 'Wembley' and 'New World' there was also 'Fun & Frolic' managed by 'Wembly'. 'Fun & Frolic' was at Maxwell Road, next to Chung Hwa Chinese School. It offered wayang, gaming stalls and open-air cinema Lim Teong Beng KL |
| ______ INDEX Point to the article that you want to read, and CLICK Home Baba Sayings Book Review Ch'a Koay Tiau Clan Jetties Opium King Street Names Table Manners |
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Editorial consultants: Mr and Mrs Lim Teong Beng Technical advisor: Tony Ooi |
| ____________________ The Penang File Issue 23 |