Growing Up in Nonya kitchen

These nuts may look peculiar but the contents are even more alarming. Officially, the nuts
are derived from the Pangium edule tree native to South East Asian mangrove swamps.
More alarmingly, the fruit which produce these nut seeds are poisonous. However, the
fruit and nuts can be made edible by fermentation. We assure ourselves that over several
generations, we have not heard of any Baba who has died from buah keluak poisoning!

I once tried to smuggle them into the US and got questioned by the customs officers.
They took half an hour to go through a Permitted Foods directory and could not find the
nuts on the list. My husband had never before seen these until he visited Singapore to meet
my parents for the first time. He relished the home-cooked dish and it so impressed my
mother. There was then no doubt that my parents would accept him into our family.

Some Nonya families leave the contents as they are, without combining the nut flesh
with ground meat and prawns (shrimps). The former has a more bitter aftertaste.

A few days before you serve this dish, the buah
keluak nuts (about 12 for this recipe) need to
be soaked in water for two consecutive nights.
Each night, scrub the nuts under running water
to remove dirt and grit. Rinse and soak again
in fresh water. On the third day, use a pestle to
pound the smooth mouth of each nut to crack
them open. Alternatively, you can also use a
cleaver or a sharp tool to chip along the edges
to crack the mouths open. Use a tiny spoon
(a caviar spoon would be even better!) to
extract the flesh. Taste the flesh, toss those
that are too bitter and reserve the rest. Brush
the empty shells clean under running water.

Sun them until they are dry, the shells placed
with the mouths facing downwards to drain the
cavity. You will need both the shells and the nut
flesh for the dish.