A classic Hainanese coffeeshop breakfast: coffee and charcoal-grilled toast with butter and kaya,usually accompanied by a soft-boiled egg
About eighteen months ago Dave and I were approached by the editor of a new Dutch food magazine called Sabor. Would we be interested in doing a feature story on the topic of our choice for the inaugural issue, he wondered? In fact, for years we'd wanted to write and photograph a story on Malaysia's curious culinary mish-mash known as "Hainanese food". So in late 2010 we spent some time in Kuala Lumpur and on Fraser's Hill researching the story for Sabor.
Sabor published its first issue last August. It's a beautiful, substantive food magazine the likes of which I wish there were more of: a great mix of stories high-brow and low-brow, on dining from the street to tables in starred restaurants, focusing on chefs and producers and cooks and eaters of all stripes. The photography is beautiful and the layout is gorgeous. Our Hainanese piece was given 20 pages; needless to say the photographer was pleased. If you're interested, have a peek at, or download, the storyhere.
The second issue of Sabor is out now. If you're in the Netherlands and read Dutch (or not, but enjoy looking at wonderful food photography) please pick up a copy and support this new venture.
Our next story for Sabor, on Hanoi, will appear later this year. In the meantime, now that Issue No 1 is off the newstands, we give you here the original English text and photos: Hainanese food and Hainanese cooks in Ma! laysia, with recipes.
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Just another busy day at Yut Kee
Soon after I arrived in Kuala Lumpur a Malaysian friend invited me out for a Hainanese meal. Hainan is a Chinese island province in the South China Sea, about halfway between southern China and Vietnam, and in the mid-eighties I idled there for an entire August. I spent every day just like the one before it, hiking past cows grazing in coconut palm groves, swimming off pristine stretches of sand and gorging on whole snapper, plump prawns and lobsters with tails the diameter of my wrist, all steamed with garlic and ginger.
After almost three decades I can still taste those simple yet stunning lunches and dinners. My chums invitation threw up the possibility of having those flavors close to hand once again, and I was thrilled.
Imagine my surprise a few days later when I found myself staring down a chicken chop. My friend and I had just been served at Yut Kee, a Hainanese-owned stalwart of Kuala Lumpurs dining scene for over 90 years. The corner coffee shop's chicken chop -- a mostly de-boned leg and thigh deep-fried, topped with peas, cubed carrots and corn kernels and bathed in glossy Worcestershire sauce-seasoned onion gravy -- is one of its signature dishes.
This was my first taste of Malaysian Hainanese cuisine. It was as far from the dishes that Id fallen for on Hainan as much of what passes for Cantonese food in America is from the food eaten served in Guangzhou. Once I got over my shock, however, I had to admit that chicken chop was a work of art in its own right. I soon became a Hainanese food devotee and Yut Kee regular.
Chops are just one of the pantheon of dishes! with or igins variously Western, Chinese or a combination of the two recognized in Malaysia as Hainanese. In addition to chops, Malaysian Hainanese cooks are known for their breakfasts -- soft-boiled eggs served with steamed or charcoal-toasted soft white bread -- chicken pot pies, steaks, and Hailam mee, noodles cooked with prawns, pork and vegetables. They're credited with making some of the best kopi (coffee) -- thick, dark and usually mixed with sweetened condensed milk -- in Malaysia. And they poach whole chickens and serve the meat sliced, accompanied with oily chicken stock-enriched rice and dipping sauces made with ginger and fresh chilies, for a dish known as Hainan chicken rice.
Malaysian Hainanese is a hodgepodge cuisine, a product of the countrys history as colony (the British controlled much of what is now Malaysia and Singapore from the mid-19th century until 1946) and adopted home of waves of immigrants from Asia and beyond. Today ethnic Chinese make up a little over a quarter of Malaysias population. They arrived in stages, beginning in the 1700s with traders from the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian (who are known as Hokkien). Hakka, Cantonese and Teochew followed. They arrived early enough to have their pick of jobs in tin mining, rubber production, agriculture and other professions.
Hainanese Chinese were among the last to make their way to British Malaya, beginning in the late 1800s and continuing into the early 20th century. By that time Cantonese, Teochew, Hokkienese and Hakka clan associations, which were established to help new arrivals find work and housing, had secured a lock on most employment opportunities. So many Hainanese ended up taking positions as cooks in British military camps and in the homes of British expatriates and wealthy Chinese, where they learned to turn out perfectly cooked roasts, make cream of mushroom soup, boil eggs just so, fry up crispy chops and knead dough for bread and pastries. Soon enough they put this experience to use in t! heir own restaurants and coffee shops, where they cobbled together the elements of what came to be known in Malaysia as Hainanese cuisine.
Yut Kee embodies the Hainanese gastronomic odyssey. My dad was born in Hainan in 1887 and came to Malaysia when he was in his teens, says Yut Kees son Jack Lee late one afternoon as his busy shops begins to quiet down. Sixty-six year-old Jack runs Yut Kee with his own son Mervyn, who will carry on the family business when Jack is ready to step down.
Yut Kee looks as if it has hardly changed since Jacks father opened its doors in 1928. It occupies a typically long and narrow Malaysian Chinese shop house open across the front on the ground floor with a kitchen in the back and living quarters upstairs. Ceiling fans rotate lazily over the always-crowded dining room, where Malaysian regulars and tourists (Yut Kees reputation has spread well beyond Malaysia) sit in bent timber chairs at marble-topped tables arranged on a green and white tiled floor.
Hainanese cooks mastered not only Western savories, but sweets as well. Displayed near the cash register, in a vintage wood and glass case, are Yut Kees desserts: marble cake and fat logs of ethereally light butter cake rolled around a filling of kaya, a rich caramel-ish coconut milk-and-egg jam. Yut Kees signature inky coffee is made the old-fashioned way -- by pouring boiling water over grounds in a cotton sock filter suspended from a metal ring -- in a cubby hole just off the rear of the dining room. Cloudy mirrors on opposite walls maintain good feng shui. Hanging on a wall near the middle of the shop is a large photograph of a young Yut Kee, the spitting image of Jack and Mervyn with his rounded cheeks and upturned nose.
Jack Lee during a ra! re quiet moment at Yut Kee
Yut Kee died just three years after Jack was born, so everything I know about Dad I heard from my mothers, he says. Multiple wives wasnt so unusual in Yut Kees day, and after he died his three wives ran the business, dividing duties amongst themselves: one took charge of the coffee area, another oversaw the cash register and the third, Jacks birth mother, kept the kitchen humming. Today Yut Kee opens for breakfast at 7am and closes, after the last customer has taken his or her beer and chicken chop or cup of coffee and kaya roll, around 5 or 6 in the evening. In Yut Kees time the place operated as a full restaurant the in place for night clubbers, Jack winks -- and didnt close its doors till 3 or 4 in the morning.
Jack grew up in the shop. I worked a bit in the kitchen, but I wasnt sure if I would keep with it, he remembers. But in 1970, when his mothers were getting on and the day-to-day became a challenge for them, he took over. They had put so much effort into the business, so I thought, Let me continue with it.
Today much of whats served at Yut Kee is true to the original menu. Though cutlets (prawn, crab, and pork) and Jacks fathers signature steamed fish with cream sauce are no more, chicken curry -- tender bone-in pieces in a fiery sauce flecked with fresh curry leaves spicy-sou asam fish, perfectly prepared chops, Hailam mee (noodles with prawns and pork), and toast served with kaya remain. When he took over Jack added a few items such as beef stew and rice stir-fried with belacan (Malaysian shrimp paste) to the menu.
Yut Kee is perhaps best known for its roti babi (pork bread in Malay), an over-the-top, eat-with-your-hands snack consisting of a thick slab of white bread stuffed with pork and crabmeat, coated in egg, and shallow-fried. Visit Yut Kee anytime after 10am and youll find at least one order on every single table.
Butter cake and chops, noodles and a mish-mash east-west dish like roti babi. What exactly is Hainanese food! ? A fusi on of confusion, in Jacks words. But as far as hes concerned theres no doubt which Chinese Malaysian cooks can lay claim to the chop:
You certainly wont find any Hokkienese, Teochew, or Cantonese chicken chops!
***
Arundel, on Fraser's Hill
While many Hainanese cooks transported their skills from colonial-era homes to their own coffee shop, others stayed in private kitchens . The fruits of their culinary prowess can still be enjoyed in a few hotels and bungalows found in colonial hill stations dotted around peninsular Malaysia.
With its polished plank floors, wood-paned windows, stuffed sofa and chairs, and clipped lawn bordered by temperate blooming flowers and shrubs, Arundel would be right at home in the English countryside. Instead the four-bedroom black-and-white bungalow sits at 1,500 meters two hours outside of Kuala Lumpur on Frasers Hill, a former tin-ore trading post turned British hill station in 1922. Set amidst pristine forest threaded with walking trails and often shrouded in fog or rain clouds, the former hill station is a popular weekend and school holiday getaway for Malaysians, who come to take in the clean, cool air and enjoy the green and quiet.
But Ive come to Arundel, one of two early 20th-century houses sharing a prime spot of land at the end of a cul-de-sac, to experience Malaysian Hainanese cooking in situ. For almost 50 years the bungalows kitchen was the domain of Tan Kee Tain, a Hainanese cook who arrived in Malaysia in the 1920s. Four and a half years ago Tan died at the age of 82, but not before passing his culinary knowledge on to his daughter-in-law Lam Foong Ling.
Teatime at Arundel: freshly baked scones and a photograph of a young Mr. Tan
Over tea, homemade scones, and jam in Arundels sitting room Mr. Tans daughter Nancy Yap, who supervises the bungalow, shares memories of her father. He didnt come to cooking naturally at first it was just a job, she tells me. Nancys father held a number of jobs around British Malaya before making his way to Frasers Hill, where some of his relatives worked in other bungalow kitchens.
But once he began cooking, he really enjoyed it. As if to illustrate her point she shows me photos: a lean, young Mr. Tan sitting with a big grin on a curb outside the bungalow and another of a middle-aged Mr. Tan showing off a chicken pot pie with a mile-high puff pastry crust. Then there's a snapshot of white-haired, septuagenarian Mr. Tan in Arundels kitchen, demonstrating the art of bread-making to a half-circle of enraptured Malaysian housewives.
Madam Foong, Mr. Tans daughter-in-law, mimics her teachers savvy with dough and sweet breads; our scones are rich and buttery, golden outside, a light crumb within. She began to study with Mr. Tan a decade ago. My kids had left home and I had nothing to do. I always liked to cook. He said, Why dont you come and work in the kitchen? And I thought, Why not give it a try?
Hailam mee at Arundel
Over two days at Arundel I dine on a parade of exquisitely prepared Hainanese classics: crispy pork cutlets bathed in a Chinese sweet rice wine and soy sauce-spiked gravy, Hailam noodles with sli! ced pork and briny shrimp, garnished with crispy caramelized sliced shallot and perfectly poached Hainan chicken made with a free-range bird and served with zesty fresh ginger and chili sauces. Every meal is accompanied by green vegetables slender string beans, perky leaf lettuce, crispy baby bok choy plucked fresh from Arundels kitchen garden and stir-fried with Madam Foongs expert touch. Teatime brings baked goods -- scones of course, and one of Mr. Tans specialties: tender, chewy twists of potato-enriched dough sprinkled with sugar and grated orange rind.
Asked what she most enjoys about cooking, Madam Foong smiles wide and answers quickly: Roast lamb. I love cooking Western dishes. Mr. Tan's Hainanese culinary legacy is alive and well on Fraser's Hill.
***
In the kitchen at Yut Kee
Back at Yut Kee, Jack has promised to show me how to make the shops iconic dish: roti babi. But when I arrive after lunch on a Thursday hes had a change of heart. Let Mervyn do it, Jack says, with a nod to his son, whos standing behind the cash register adding up receipts. Mervyns coming up now. Hes the new generation.
Like his father, 30-year-old Mervyn grew up in Yut Kee. After earning a university degree in the United States he returned to Malaysia and joined the business. Putting his knack for systems management to use, Mervyn is adding polish to Yut Kees inner operations. But his attachment to the place comes from the heart, all but guaranteeing that the spirit of Yut Kee won't change.
Mervyn also knows his way around Yut Kees well-worn, sometimes bordering-on-chaotic kitchen. I watch as he minces pork by hand and carefully cuts pockets into two thick slices of bread. After s! tir-fryi ng sliced onion, Chinese sausage and pork with Worcestershire sauce for the roti babi filling he adds jicama, instructing The jicama goes in last because I like to keep it a little bit crispy.
Then the secret of Yut Kees version of roti babi is revealed: instead of beating whole eggs for dipping the bread Mervyn separates yolks and whites, beats the latter to stiff peaks and then gently folds them into the beaten yolks. When the stuffed bread is dipped into the mixture it emerges with an impossibly thick layer of egg that browns beautifully, flawlessly, in the oiled skillet.
What emerges from the pan is an almost oil-free fluffy bread pocket spilling tender pork and a touch of crab meat. The Worcestershire is a barely detectable back note, a hint of sweetness and salt that plays off the richness of the pork and shellfish. While the onions are soft and caramelized the jicama retains a bit of bite, offering a welcome bit of textural contrast.
After plating his roti babi Mervyn heads back out to the cash register. Jack sits at his usual spot, near a table at the entrance, gabbing with regulars and wishing passers-by a pleasant evening. In downtown Kuala Lumpur, as on Frasers Hill, Hainanese cuisine is alive and well.
***
Lunch at Arundel: Hainan Chicken Rice w/two dipping sauces and Hailam mee
HAINAN CHICKEN RICE
According to Mr. Tans daughter Nancy this is one of the few Malaysian Hainanese dishes that can also be found on Hainan, in her fathers home of Wenchang. This simple preparation demands the best ingredients, so if you can, use a free-range bird. The mark of a good Hainan chicken is flesh that is just barely cooked; you dont want the meat to get tough.
FOR THE CHICKEN:
And approximately 2-kilo chicken, preferably free range
2-inch piece old ginger
Salt
FOR THE GINGER SAUCE:
2 inches old ginger
2 green onions, white part only
Reserved chicken stock
Salt to taste
Sesame oil scant 1/4 tsp (optional)
FOR THE CHILI SAUCE:
2 cloves garlic
2 small fresh hot red chilis
2 large mild fresh red chilis
inch old ginger
Chicken fat skimmed from stock
2 kalamansi or -1 whole lime
Salt to taste
FOR THE RICE:
2 red shallots
2 cloves garlic
2 1/2 cups rice
3 3/4-4 cups stock from boiling chicken
2 pinches salt
black soy sauce
1 pandan leaf (if available)
TO SERVE:
1 cucumber, peeled and thinly sliced crosswise
2 green onions (scallion), white and green part, thinly sliced lengthwise
fresh cilantro sprigs
Mr. Tan's -- and now Madam Foong's -- orange! twists< /em>
ORANGE TWISTS
These light, not-too-sweet orange-fragrant rolls are frequent accompaniments to afternoon tea at Arundel and Bunge. Fresh milk was hard to come by on Fraser's Hill, thus the use of powdered milk..
According to Nancy Tan her father learned this recipe from an American who stayed at Arundel many decades ago. After experimenting with the dough he began to use it for other baked goods as well. Madam Foong advises that the finished dough can be halved, with one half used the same day for these orange twists and the other refrigerated and used within three days for fried donuts, cinnamon buns, or dinner rolls. (If you go this route be sure to use only half the amounts specified when you make the filling)
Makes approximately 34 twists
FOR THE DOUGH:
2 scant Tbsp dry yeast
6 oz. warm water
tsp sugar
2 cups hot water
3 Tbsp milk powder
1 cups vegetable shortening
1 cup white sugar
Tbsp salt
1 cup mashed potato
2 eggs
8 8 cups plain flour
Flour for kneading
FOR THE FILLING:
8 Tbsp butter, softened
4 Tbsp sugar
Grated zest of 3 oranges
Dusk on Fraser's Hill
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