Group 3 Food Blog!: Singaporean Local Delights

Food is more than just for survival….
Food is a basic need to keep us alive but with it, we forge friendships, learn to love & respect and build bonds that enable us to overlook our differences.

In the early days, food was in the form of a whole animal and had to be shared among a group; this taught us cooperation and promoted mortality and equality.

While the science of food and its implications could be significant, others simply look at food as a mood enhancer…

Singaporean Local Delights

Hainanese Chicken Rice

Present in almost if not all the hawker centres across the country, chicken rice is often on the menu of major restaurants and hotel cafes. The same dish is served in bite-sized portions or as a whole chicken, served with fragrant rice and spicy chilli and ginger paste.

The recipe was adapted from early Chinese immigrants from Hainan Island, off the southern coast of China. Back in Hainan, the locals called the dish "Wenchang chicken". The fowl used is bony and fibrous and was served with oily rice. A ground green chilli dip rounds off the dish.

Singapore-style chicken rice
The cooking method hails back to its Hainanese roots. The chicken is blanched till it is cooked and soaked in cold water to render the meat tender. Different variations of chicken rice include roasted chicken or braised chicken in soya sauce.

In Singapore, the dish is infused with local Cantonese influences; the inspiration behind the tangy red chilli sauce dip and the use of tender and young chicken.

The succulent chicken cannot do without its counterpart – the fragrant rice. The rice is cooked in chicken stock with ginger and pandan leaves. The rice is the soul of the dish.

Satay

Satay is made of cubed meat that are skewered in kebab style, then grilled and eaten with a peanut sauce dip. It originated from the Arabs, and was adapted to the multicultural palates of Asians with various spicy sauces and different ways of marination.

Arabs were known to skewer their meat on swords before roasting, and Middle Eastern nomads would barbecue their meat on metal skewers in a dish known as kebab or shawarma. The spice trade brought Arab traders to Southeast Asia, which led to the spread of Arab culinary culture to Indonesia and eventually to Malaya. However, a key adaptation of the dish in Asia is that wooden skewers are used for the satay.

The satay sauce, made from ground peanuts and spices, was first introduced in the Philippines by the Spanish from South America. It is used to marinate the pieces of satay meat, with the remaining sauce serving as a dip with the grilled meat.

The meats predominantly used are beef, mutton, lamb or chicken. The small cuts of meat are marinated in various spices that tenderise the meat. They are then skewered through wooden sticks. Satay sticks were originally made from thin coconut leaf stems but over the years, bamboo sticks made in factories are used.

The satay is barbecued over a flaming charcoal fire, while constantly brushed with oil for a tantalising glaze, until well-browned. The sticks of grilled meat are then served with a bowl of peanut dip and cuts of cucumber and onion. Several sticks can be eaten in one go due to the small cuts of meat, and satay is often served as a complete meal accompanied with ketupat (steamed rice) wrapped in woven leaf packets.

Indonesian satay, which is available in Singapore, has a much sweeter flavour and a twirl of kechap manis (sweet sauce) added to the peanut sauce. Other spices such as galangal (a type of ginger) and finely cut dashes of the limau purut (kaffir lime) leaf heighten the flavour of the satay and its sauce.

The travelling satay man, a street hawker who prepared his delicacy with a portable charcoal grill, was a familiar sight to Singaporeans up to the late 1970s. The Satay Club, a collection of stalls hawking solely satay in the evenings at the edge of the park at the Esplanade, many hawker centres and whole industries have grown around it. There are now wholesalers that prepare uncooked satay for hawkers, taking over a tedious task that used to be the sole duty of the satay hawker. In 1995, Hainanese Poh Kee Satay became the first company to franchise their satay using a specially designed machine that could skewer up to 30,000 sticks a day. There are also many companies that cater satay for parties.

Thanks for reading

-written by Claire.

Watch this video to find out how to make satay!