Mix It Up

What makes a rojak great? Fellow Malaysians are divided into various camps from the get go. For starters, what is the 'real' rojak? Is it the combination of diced fruit and vegetables tossed in sticky black prawn paste, sprinkled with crushed peanuts? Or is it the mix of fried floury items, julienned cucumber and turnip (jicama), hard boiled egg and fried tofu on which a spicy, chunky peanut sauce is poured over?

My Penang-friends will say that all Northerners equate rojak with the first description, while the second is known as Pasembor, or Mamak (Indian Muslim) rojak.

I tend to agree with the Northerners and the strange but wonderful black salad is what comes to mind when I think 'rojak'. The best rojak, in my opinion, is the one made by a little bent old lady who works the night market circuits on weekdays (she is on my turf on Wednesday) and at the Subang Golf Club on weekends. Her mix and ratio of fruit to vegetables is great. She has a deft hand at mixing the perfect blend of chilli with the sweet, sticky shrimp paste (petis udang or har koh) and her shrimp crackers are really crunchy, well-drained and not oozing oil, and brittle enough to crack pleasantly in the mouth, but robust enough to stand a coat of the sauce without getting soggy.

She does not add too many bells and whistles to her rojak. Her vegetables compromise of cucumber and turnip, while her fruit items are pineapple, jambu (rose apple), young papaya, green mango, hog plum (kedondong or sah lei), and sometimes, some starfruit. Prawn crackers round it up and dried squid is available upon request and extra cost.

It's simplicity in itself, but it is such a quintessential piece of Malaysia. It was probably the dish I missed the most when away from my native shores, forget the roti canai and nasi lemak!