Yeo - Irenes Peranakan Recipes

SHE THREW HERSELF INTO COOKING, sewing, flower arrangement and gardening. Her two fiercest passions which I never inherited were cooking and flower arrangement. She sewed almost anything and everything she could get her hands on: the curtains in the house, fancy clothes for my sister and me, our school uniforms. She arranged flowers to transform the house, landscaped our garden, and entertained friends with her famed cooking on top of a full-time job. Thinking about Mother exhausts me. And yes, she was the disciplinarian in the family.

She was also the president of the North Division of the Singapore Girl Guides Association even though she had never been a Guide. She was the vice-president of the Womens Society of Christian Services (WSCS) in the Methodist Church in Singapore, in which she travelled all over the world attending conferences. She was also one of the founding members of the Glowing Years Ministry (GYM) of the Methodist Church, and was president of the Ang Mo Kio Methodist Church WSCS and Senior Fellowship for many years. All this obviously kept her busy, but she held on to her two passions. And boy, how she pursued them to the end.

She took flower arrangement classes soon after marrying my dad and before long she was beautifying the church with fresh blooms. Friends admired her work so much, they started asking her to do weddings and other functions. She did this till retirement, when she started a flower business with my dad.

Her cooking and baking skills were also well known. She loved to cook for others, and enjoyed having them gush over her food. She often entertained at home. When invited over to her friends place, she would take a home-cooked dish. Mee siam was her signature dish, and all my friends used to jump at the chance of being invited home for dinner, especially if mee siam was on the menu. Many of her fans would eat mee siam only when cooked by her. Her beef rendang was another specialty. In her younger days, it was not uncommon for the family to host parties for 40 to 50 people at a time, and she would single- handedly cook for everyone. That was a far cry from when she couldnt even cook rice.

Mother came from a quintessentially Teochew family. The household was marshalled by my late grandmother, who was the highest authority in the land and would not tolerate any of her six children in the kitchen. They had servants to do all the housework and cooking under her strict supervision. When my mother got married at the age of 24, she could cook nothing. My father had to teach her the few simple dishes that he knew, and they got by eating simply. My mother knew that she had to do something about it.

My father came from a traditional Peranakan family. They spoke Nonya-Malay at home, and the Peranakan culture was ingrained in their upbringing. His mother was a great cook, but unfortunately both parents passed away before he was out of his teens. Since my dad knew what good Nonya food was, it was only natural that he wanted my mum to whip up the traditional Nonya dishes that he so loved. Mother enrolled in cooking classes and the rest is history and gravy.

Through trial and error, swapping recipes with friends, bombarding cooking classes, gleaning cooking tips from neighbours and friends... and also my fathers discerning taste buds, my mothers culinary genie emerged.

My dad was always very supportive. He would accompany her to the market, helping her buy the freshest ingredients. In the kitchen, you would find him cutting, dicing, pounding and washing. Maybe that was his way of working up a big appetite.

Mother loved nothing more than delving hungrily into cookbooks. She had piles of them, always on her bedside table, which she would read in bed before sleeping. She never found the time for fiction or non-fiction. She relished comparing recipes, taking notes, and bringing them to life in her magical kingdom, or rather, kitchen. She was on a perpetual quest for the perfect recipe, or simply a new one. Even on holiday trips abroad, it was normal for my mother to talk to the restaurant chef if she enjoyed the food. On one Tasmanian trip, she woke up at 4am to help the bakers at the local bakery prepare bread for the start of the day.

When my sister and I were planning to go to the UK for further studies, my mother decided to compile all the recipes of the dishes we had grown to love. She wanted us to take the recipes with us, and hopefully be able to cook some of our family favourites while we were there. It took her many moons to write and compile them.

Having done so, she decided to put them to good use. As she was already 55, and planning for retirement at that time, she thought of starting her own cooking class. After years of cooking for others, and knowing how much people loved her food, she was confident it would fly. In fact, the fear of failure was rarely on her menu.

She planned the recipes meticulously. With a balanced course, she placed her first advertisement in the Straits Times Classifieds. Ten ladies attended her first class. With that fillip, she began to teach on a regular basis. People from all walks of life passed through her kitchen. Impeccable tai-tais, clueless newly-wed wives, Filipino maids, and tough guys with a soft spot for cooking. She even taught a few students who went on to open stalls selling Nonya food based on her recipes. I attended a few of her classes, and her students really had quite a good time, not only learning how to cook, but socialising and making new friends.

As word of her cooking classes spread, organisations started approaching her to conduct classes for them. She taught at classes organised by the Social Development Unit, the Welfare Club of Tan Tock Seng Hospital and church groups. With all these classes, she was able to fine-tune her recipes even further. She enjoyed sharing her cooking skills with others, and never withheld any secrets; her students always came back for more. Which resonated nicely with those of us at home.

You see, Mother would always cooked an extra portion for us the day she had classes. So we always wanted to know which dish she was going to teach for the day. Somehow, the dishes tasted better. Perhaps it was because she was guided by her own recipes!

Writing a cookbook had always stimulated and eluded Mother. With her busy schedule, her church work, the flower business, and being a full-time grandmother to my sisters three beautiful children, the aspiration just slipped by. We feel that perhaps it would be good to share with you some recipes of the familys favourite dishes. Now that we have finally managed to get this little cookbook published, I hope that this will bring joy to those who try cooking these recipes, as much as she enjoyed cooking them herself.

And oh, feel free to improvise and improve on the recipes. Because theres no better appetizer than a sprinkling of your own delicious imagination.

Elaine Yeo

Copyright 2006 Irene Yeo

Published in Singapore by Epigram Books

www.epigrambooks.sg

National Library Board

Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Irene, 1938-2004

Irene's Peranakan Recipes. - Singapore : Epigram, c2006.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-981-05-7015-6

ISBN 978-981-07-3271-4 (epub)

1. Cookery, Peranakan. I. Title

TX724.5.S55

641.59597 -- dc22 SLS2006047186

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