- Dishes that spring from love

Byline: CHIN MUI YOON

IT HAS been nearly 50 years but Ng Kee Hong can still remember clearly the first dish she learnt to cook when she married at the age of 20.
The Chau Shuin Chi Choy and Tau Kuah is a Hokkien dish that speaks of a mother’s hopes and wishes for a good life for her children.
“It was common in those days for women to marry around the ages of 19 or 20,” said Ng, 68.
Speaking from her home kitchen in the fishing village of Tanjung Sepat, off Selangor’s southern coast, Ng added that she “could hardly cook anything” when she first lived with her husband.
“My mother-in-law told me that the family’s traditional cuisine must be handed down through the generations, or else our children would not know anything about them.
“So she taught me to cook Chau Shuin Chi Choy and Tau Kuah, commonly served in spring during the Chinese New Year.”
The dish, said Ng, was an important item on any Hokkien family dining table.
The name of the dish sounds similar to that of “minister” as well as to be skilled in calculations.
“Every family dreams of having a child who can count deftly, thus he or she is able to learn the importance of savings and earnings, and that he or she can eventually rise to what is perceived as the highest responsibility in a country, which is being a minister,” said Ng.
Ng’s Chau Shuin Chi Choy and Tau Kuah has evolved slightly to become her very own unique creation, as she tried hard to entice her six children to eat their veggies.
The dish is a vibrant mix of colourful reds and greens, cooked with green garlic shoots, red and green peppers, bite-sized chicken strips, prawns and cubes of tofu stir-fried with soy sauce and seasoning.
Ng used only the tender hearts of the garlic shoots that offered a gentle but distinctive aroma.
The dish is delicious, with the pungent garlic shoots complementing the tofu’s plain taste and enhanced by the succulent prawns and zesty peppers.
Ng’s children did not become ministers, but all six of them are skilled with their mental arithmetic!
Ng was spurred by the success of having created her first dish but her culinary journey in life had only just begun.
She went on to master the skill of cooking, especially with seafood that is abundant in her village.
Her husband was a fisherman, and brought home his choice catch daily.
Soon, Ng was dishing up savoury Fish Head Curry, Stuffed Sotong, Stir Fried Garlic Fish, and Claypot Chicken Curry with little effort.
She eventually opened a small stall in the village market square to sell home-cooked Fried Mee Hoon with Curry at 15sen a packet, which was popular among the villagers.
Coupled with her husband’s earnings, they were able to buy their own house years later.
Having grown up in a poor family as an orphan, Ng could only enjoy meat during celebrations such as Chinese New Year or the Mid-Autumn Festival.
One day, as she went for lunch at a friend’s home for Chinese New Year, Ng savoured a dish of Chicken with Sa Lai, a type of ancient Chinese herbal tree bark.
“It was an unforgettable flavour that gave me such a comforting, homely feeling of a mother’s love,” Ng recalled.
“The unique taste of the herbs with the precious chicken stayed with me for many years.
“After I got married, I was buying things at an old medicine shop in the village when I picked up the unique scent of the herbal bark.
“It evoked childhood memories of my friend’s mother who had so lovingly cooked nutritious dishes for her family.”
Ng immediately bought a parcel of the herbs and hurried home to try them out in her kitchen.
She made many attempts to recapture the taste of the dish she had tried over 50 years ago.
Finally, she decided to pound the Chinese roots into a fine paste mixed with a little water.
Some chopped onions, garlic and sliced chicken fillet were tossed into a hot wok with a dash of salt, pepper and black soy sauce.
The precious Chinese herb was added in, and Ng was finally able to re-create the dish based on this simple recipe.
The dish is fragrant with a unique flavour, which fills the mouth with a distinctive bitter tinge of the herbs.
But the only praise Ng savours through her cooking is seeing her 18 grandchildren tucking in to her dishes every day, especially the two that holds the most precious memories for her – the Hokkien Chau Shuin Chi Choy and Tau Kuah, and Chicken with Sa Lai.
* If you have tales to share from your family dining table, write to us at metro@thestar.com.my.