tunnels and textures
This is a periodic post to remind you that in addition to bothering your inbox, I sometimes actually make food. Which you can actually eat. If you need to see this with your own eyes, your next opportunity to do so is:
Kueh and CNY goodies | Sunday 2024-02-11, noon-2pm | Formaggio Kitchen on Huron Ave
For more on what kueh are, I’m going to point you to this essay from a couple years ago:
Kueh are the pastries of Southeast Asia, in particular Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. They fulfill the same function as pastries in that they are often sweet, and almost always eaten as dessert, snacks, or breakfast. However, most are based on starches rather than wheat flour, and cooked by methods other than baking.
Like most food from that part of the world, kueh are incredibly labor-intensive to make. Making them was usually a communal activity, undertaken together by extended families, civic groups, or entire villages – precisely the kind of community activity that doesn’t fit contemporary urban habits. Some bakeries and hawker stalls make them, but hawkers of kueh, perhaps even more than other hawkers, find it hard to charge enough to make a living. All in all, they are a culinary tradition under threat.
To illustrate the diversity of the idiom:
Kuih Bingka Ambon – a honeycomb cake, characterized by the vertical tunnels running through it. Intensely fragrant from absurd quantities of makrut leaf, lemongrass, and turmeric. One of my personal culinary white whales, I finally tried making these a couple of weeks ago and found that they were surprisingly approachable. Available on Sunday.
Png kueh, glutinous rice stuffed in glutinous rice. My favorite way to eat these is with a ladleful of lou. Available on Sunday, but sadly, no lou on hand.
Bahulu, simple egg sponges – literally just eggs, sugar, and flour – baked in a brass pan. They emerge with a texture like nothing else I can think of. The crust whispers, the crumb murmurs.
If you come on Sunday, please say hi!
And if you want some hawker food…
Hokkien Mee | Sunday 2024-02-18, 5pm-late | Backbar