Growing Up in Nonya kitchen

Whether by pounding with the mortar and pestle
or blending with an electric food processor, adding
ingredients in the right sequence will contribute to
a finer paste. The harder and drier ingredients such
as candlenuts, fennel, cumin and coriander seeds are
pounded first, followed by sliced up galangal, turmeric
and lemon grass in that order. And then red chillies
and finely sliced shallots.

Soaked dried chillies are then added. Having been
reconstituted in water, the chillies provide some
moisture, which helps to bind the spice paste.
Belachan, or dried prawn (shrimp) paste, is added
last, its pasty texture enhancing the consistency of
the pounded spices further. As belachan is salty, you
may want to stagger the amount added to control the
saltiness of the spice paste.

After all that hard work of pounding the spice paste,
it is crucial that you do not scorch it when cooking and
hence unwittingly introduce a burnt taste to your dish.
This is the part in the cooking process that requires the
most patience and precision. The wok or Dutch oven
should be heated. Oil is then added, warmed until it
glistens. If the oil begins to smoke, turn down the heat
and let the oil temperature come down, even if this
means removing the wok from the heat for a while.
Add the spice paste and begin to stir gently so that the
paste does not burn at the bottom. As the paste cooks,
a warm, fragrant aroma will be released. The paste will
also begin to deepen in colour, sizzle slightly and keluar
minyak (literally ‘oil arises’). The last term means that
a spicy oil will start oozing, taking on the colour of
the red chilli or the deep yellow hue of the turmeric

(kunyit) and galangal. This whole process depends on
the amount of paste that you are frying so you need
to be patient. Turning up the heat does not always
speed things up and you may end up burning the
paste instead.

After my mother passed away, my sister Molly and
I did an inventory check of all that she left behind—
her clothes, jewellery, sewing threads and fabrics and
of course, everything in the kitchen—tools, dinner
sets and cutlery. In fact, we did not dare dispose of her
spices and food colourings for years. While we were
going through everything, we stumbled on numerous
sealed plastic bags of spice paste (rempah) in the
bottom drawer of the fridge. Looking at the orange
paste, we assumed that they were for making our
favourite ikan nanas (page 222) soup and we eagerly
distributed these bags to our other sisters as well. We
happily consumed them. In retrospect, the paste might
have been the basic rempah titek—the mother spice
paste by which all other spice pastes are derived.

It was many years later, when I had almost completed
writing this cookbook, that I learnt about the
foundational spice paste known as rempah titek. It
is used in recipes like kang kong belachan (page 247)
and sambal titek (page 249). This particular paste
consists of three to four key ingredients— shallots,
belachan, red chillies and optionally, candlenuts.
Individual families had their preferred recipe for this
paste with varying amounts of each of the three or
four components. For example, some families may
prefer the paste more salty and therefore include more
belachan, while another family may include candlenut
for a thicker consistency, or more chilli for more heat.