a.taste.of.childhood

this is not the first time i am making this dish.  nothing great, nothing classy, nothing to shout about really, it is just a humble hawker dish that i used to go and get it with my mum at the "go-ka-ki" (五角基) - corner of the street, as we called it in the local dialect...

i remember mum sometime asked me what i want for breakfast, my answer is quite standard "i want sweet char kueh", sometime i asked for the curry flavor maggie mee with an fried egg, occasionally i fancied the apom balik (a think pan cake with crushed peanut and sugar as filling) but as far as my memory recalls, sweet char kueh (甜炒粿) is what i always wanted....

at the "go-ka-ki" (五角基), a man will turn on the gas stove that installed on his trishaw scooter/bicycle, heat up the black flat wok and add some oil, put some sliced "kueh", start frying, add the dried salted radish (chaipo or 咸菜脯), at some stage he will ask "sweet or savory?" or "black or white?". 

i always wanted the sweet or the black version. then he drizzled some black sauce to the "kueh" and the good steam came out as the sauce caramelized and he dished it to a piece of brown parchment paper of some sort, and stick two tooth picks on it and hand it to me.... and i walk away feeling so happy...

 with a smile om my face....

 as i feel the warmth of the wrapped packet...

and the fragance of the kueh

 a dish that is quite popular in south east asia even until today although it is no longer sell in a trishaw with gas stove and a large black flat wok....  a dish that has its variation depending on which part of south east asia you are eating this dish...

for me it's a taste of childhood, a taste that really reminds me of my hometown "kuching/古晋" (also known as cat city but in malay a cat is spelled as "kucing" and not "kuching") that i don't mention enough but yet has a special place in my heart.

and that is my dear sweet black char kueh... i was overjoyed when i finally recreated the taste... it took me a few times over the last month to get the taste correct and also for hubby who get the radish cake to the right consistency that is not cantonese style but the kuching style texture... (the flags on the tooth picks have no relation to this dish, they are the only tooth picks i have at home)

on rare occasion i am happy with the white version of char kueh (chai tao kueh/菜头粿) which instead of black sauce, egg, bean sprouts and spring onion are added, although it's never my first choice but my sisters will always packed the white version for me, especially when the black one ran out...

then the "chai tao kueh/菜头粿" that is always welcome as well...

i don't know what happen to me today, i go through my archive, dig out the old photos and like the idea on how i can tell a memoir or a story of a past through the taste of the food or the dish itself...  i have never so yearning for my hometown until i write about this...  i am missing my mum more and more as i recreate my childhood dish like the hakka abacus bean and now char kueh... but i have the certainty that i will meet my mum and my dad again, not on earth but in heaven, that is the certainty that the God has given to me and to those who believe in Him....