Snack, crackle and pop

And so begins my dissertation on muruku!


I spent the afternoon post-gym hours pouring out different kinds of the popular Indian snack in order to provide a pictorial reference to those wanting to wow your Hindu hosts as you eat up too much of their painstakingly fried snacks come Deepavali.

So here goes. The Godfather of murukus is this one. The  Muruku.

It is always piped to form a tight, concentric ring. Some versions have rough serrated sides, some are smooth. But they are made from the same recipe.

The original sweet muruku is the Achimuruku, also called Rose Muruku or kuih ros. It should always be light, crisp, never overly hard, and smell slightly sweetly spiced.

Achimuruku or rose muruku is the original sweet muruku.

Ammopodi is a salty muruku which is the width of a fat garden slug, in lengths of a little finger. A good Ammopodi will always have a clean, crisp crunch and the rich taste of spices when first bitten into.

Ammopodi, when done well, always provides a lovely mouthful of spices.

Star Muruku is named for the nozzle shape used to pipe the mixture into the hot frying oil. It is a savoury muruku, without the spices used in Ammopodi.

Star Muruku is great with beer as the hops give the snack dimension.

Seval is a rough-textured muruku, the width of a broad ribbon. It is generally piped to the length of a small finger, but they curl in on themselves in the oil, so not all pieces are flat.

Plain Seval 

Flavoured Seval is distinctively thinner than the original variant. It is also more orange in colour as it contains flavouring (usually of a prawn or crab variety). It is saltier than plain Seval.

Flavoured Seval. Note the raised lines which run through it. 

Pakoda is the hardest variety of muruku. It is a dense, hard nugget, heavily flavoured with spices. My personal best of show uses lots of dried red chillies which give it a hot but sweet, lingering taste. Bad ones reek of stale oil and too much MSG.

Pakoda can help elevate tension since when you are biting down on these hard snacks, you can think about decapitating your nemesis.

Karamuruku is salty, with raised flavour granules on the surface of these guppy-sized snacks. They are also more orange than typical murukus because of the addition of chilli powder.

Karamuruku. Kara means 'spicy' in Tamil. 

Special Deepavali Mix brings out the colours of the festival in your mouth.

Possibly the most popular variant at Deepavali are the Special Mixes which come in Spicy and Original (sounds like a chicken franchise!). This fine muruku is speckled with fried green peas, nuts, flour drops, and lovely deep-green curry leaves. The flavour of the Spicy variety, when done well, is an amazing melange of heat, spice, sweetness and saltiness, made even more exciting with the different textures of the flaky curry leaf, creamy groundnuts and crunchy peas. So much so that the normal muruku mixture pales a little in comparison. However, the normal muruku mixture is still, when done well, characterized by slighter thicker gauge muruku, with the bite of chilli powder, minus the special Deepavali spices and whole curry leaves.

The non-spicy Deepavali mix has all the good stuff of the Spicy mix, minus the heat. Far from boring, there is the addition of puffed rice which look like uncoloured bits of Fruity Pebbles. The absence of chilli also enables the glorious fragrance of the curry leaves to soar.

Original Special Deepavali Mix is scented with curry leaves.

Parapu is a highly spiced dhal snack, heavily coated with chilli powder, salt and spice, with curry leaves thrown in for good measure.

Parapu is close to 100 percent dhal. That's a lot of good protein. 

That wraps up my afternoon munch fest! I'll be going nuts in the next post!

Muruku 101

Deepavali is coming! I love the Festival Of Lights. I love its take on the ritual washing away of sins, and the victory of light over darkness. I love the iridescent colours of the sarees my neighbours wear and the aptly-lurid colours of the kolaam. But most of all, I love Deepavali food. Specifically muruku.

I've eaten these Indian snacks for as long as I remember. Kamala, my Indian 'ayah' (nursemaid) would bring rustle-y packets of these crunchy tidbits for us after she returned from her Deepavali leave. My parents' cleaner, Jaya, would always save a big box for us when she made her homemade treats. And my folks' wonderful neighbours, the Sivashanmugams in Bangsar always made sure they would bring back boxfuls of these crunchy morsels when they returned from visiting family in India.

It was not until recently, however, that I had the opportunity to learn more about muruku from a neighbour who is starting up her own little muruku supply home business. Always the good neighbour, (not to mention a massive greediguts), I began by sampling their wares.

The folk from two doors down have sacks of legumes and nuts. Also crisps and crackers. But the highlight is the muruku. The creation story of muruku goes as such:

In the beginning there was the trinity of Muruku, Achimuruku and Ommopodi. Muruku is the godhead of this triumvirate. It is the gram flour snack characterised by serrated edges which are looped in on itself to form a concentric circle which is dotted by cumin seeds. The only sweet variety in this trio is Achimuruku which is also known as 'kuih ros', or 'rose' due to the shape of the mould which is used to make this crispy, light, brittle snack. It is also the only one of the three which uses egg in its manufacture. Ommopodi are the inch-long millipede-sized crisps which boast a distinctive curry leaf aroma and flavour, when done well.


From this gene pool has come a variety of intermarriages and caste-jumpers, ranging from Star Muruku (named for the star shaped nozzle which the mixture is piped from), Seval (a more dense gram flour snack) and Pakoda (the jaw-breakingly hard but spice-fragrant droplets).

My neighbours get their stock from a family member on the wife's side who owns and operates her own muruku factory in Ipoh, Perak. The factory owner prides herself on her products and insists I tell you that the reason her stuff tastes so good is because she never reuses the oil each batch of muruku is fried in. Yeah, that's the bad thing - muruku is all fried, all of the time. No one's ever come out with a 'baked, not fried' version.

I've gone through all my neighbours' wares and have, right now, little bags of neatly tagged muruku and its variants on my desk. They're knotted shut, but the lovely, intoxicating aroma of chilli powder, curry powder and spices still infuse the air six inches above my table. Tonight, I am the Mistress of Spices. Tomorrow, I will be helping Kit photograph the different varieties in order to make sense of this jumbled pool of snacks, so necessary to the completion of every Deepavali open house. The day after, I might be Mistress of Gas since muruku uses a lot of gram and dhal. A LOT.

I'll keep you posted. And will take orders on behalf of my neighbours. With no charge, except that of spreading the good news that Ipoh's most famous muruku is available in the Klang Valley!

How The Mighty Have Fallen

It may look trendy, but the shabbiness is getting evident.

When Swensen's first came to Malaysia in the Eighties, with its stained glass lampshades and long ice cream counters, it really was THE place to go for a treat. Great food and ice cream all in one place. It was thrilling to the kid I was at the time. A lot of good memories are still associated with the place where the first Damansara Jaya outlet was: from my dad dropping us off, money clutched in hot, little hands, so we could order take away cones while he circled the block. Dad would always ask for a scoop of yam ice cream in a cup.

I think the franchise died in the early Nineties. It came back in the Noughties, but it was never the same. A visit to the then new Subang Parade outlet showed that there was no longer two sizes of scoops available. In the past, the Swen-size used to be a man's fist-sized scoop of ice cream. Regular was what other ice cream kiosks did. When the brand was re-introduced, that was gone. And so was a lot of the old-fashioned San Francisco ice cream parlour feel. Sure, the old favourite sundaes like the Coit Tower and Stars N Strawberry Stripes were still on the menu, but in response to the times, the decor had changed to a more trendy, cafe-style look. No more dark booths with wood panels, or scarred wooden tables.

The food was so-so, but unforgivably, so was the ice cream. The last time I had an Earthquake (eight scoops of ice cream topped with assorted sauces and whipped cream), it was more like a tremour. This was in 2012. We had four people sharing it, and we had to order another one. This would have been unheard of in the old days. Inflation has caught up too, with the smaller scoops commanding a bigger price tag. That sundae cost over RM50 after taxes!

It's looking like a ghost town in here.

After a long abscence and thinking to revisit an old friend, Kit and CVS made the call for Swensen's instead of Baskins, after a hot and spicy lunch. The outlook was not good from the get go. The trendy cafe has deteriorated into uncool shabbiness. It was lunch time, but despite the promo boards outside advertising set lunches, there was only one other table dining.

After I looked at how it took three wait staff to load a tray of their signature crunchy cones into the freezer, and further noted the connumdrum that developed when the cones began to fall apart, I decided I was not going to blow any money. Basic sundaes were around the range of RM15. A scoop was about RM5. I was not about to fork out money to find the ice cream was old or had melted and refrozen. Turnaround did not look good, and I was not ready to gamble.

The wooden booths have become this.

Frosted Chocolate Malt sundae.

Kit ordered the Frosted Chocolate Malt sundae. It was RM19.90. Thankfully, what I had remembered as a RM10.50 treat was still the same size. Another plus was that it still tasted good, with its malt ice cream, fudge and marshmallow syrups and malted chocolate balls.

The badly assembled cone, already breaking up upon being delivered.

Does this look like vanilla?

CVS' Classic Vanilla crispy cone, however, was a disaster. While the size was close enough to what I remembered, and the chocolate coating was still liberally studded with sliced almonds, it was terribly assembled. It tilted at an angle, and the vanilla was anything but. The yellow concoction inside was definitely too yellow to have come from an addition of eggs in the ice cream. It tasted like someone had scraped the dregs of mango sherbet, vanilla ice cream and orange and disguised it as vanilla. That was a RM10.90 screw-up if there was one.The total bill of RM33.90 could have fed a field trip of kids with cones from the Golden Arches! And I bet, with no complaints,

Safe to say I won't be returning to Swensen's in a long while. It took me two years between visits last. Let's see if they will still be around in the next two years!

Swensen's Subang Parade
G30 5 Jalan SS16/1 Subang Jaya

Family Thais

Sanook is my brother's kopitiam. He owns it with his friend Rivon, who also owns Surisit in Taman Tun Doctor Ismail. I have held off writing about Sanook because when I first tried the food I was a bit astonished that my brother would expect me not to be appalled at what I deemed was the dumbing down of the flavours that made Thai food phenomenal.

However, three changes of chefs later, Sanook has become a place I enjoy eating at, and to which I am happy to bring my friends to. The Thai kopitiam has recently started serving breakfast from 10.30am daily. It's really good, home style food too. I brought VK here a few weeks back and she loved the porridge, though I called Chris out on the fact that he advertised it as Thai style porridge (jok), but what he delivered was more the thick, Hokkien variety of congee as opposed to the Teochew Thai version where the grains are distinctly separate, and the liquid is clear. What Sanook serves is thick gruel which is really simple and hearty, with a runny egg and chicken. A steal for RM5.90 because the bowl is quite large.

Love the runny egg in the jok.

The Thai style lorbak (lightly marinated pork chunks wrapped in thin soybean sheets and fried), is a good, meaty breakfast accompaniment. The flavour is nicely balanced, without it being too sweet, nor too salty. The pork was also tender, despite the relative chunkiness of the meat. RM5 for two rolls was a pretty good investment.

The lorbak is worth pigging out on.

Another zesty breakfast is the Yum Ma Ma (instant noodle salad, RM5.90). This is a refreshing, though carby meal comprising of Thai instant noodles turned into a tom yum-like salad, with the tanginess of coriander, the crunch of carrots, fragrance of basil, and the tender bite of prawns.

Yummy Yum Ma Ma.

Pad Thai.

 If fried noodles are more your thing, try the Thai version of char kuey teow. The RM5.10 Pad Thai is comes with two large prawns and will pack quite a wallop if you mix in all the dried chilli flakes served on the side.

For lunch and dinner, try the Som Tam Talay (green papaya salad with seafood, RM10) is another winner. It is spiced just right, so you have that crazy chilli buzz and tingle, which just stops short of a heat-induced aneurysm, when your head feels like it is exploding because of the amount of capsaicin in a dish. This salad had a great balance of saltiness and sweetness, as well as the sharp zest of lime juice.

Tom Khai Kai.

 To me, Sanook offers the best version of the coconut tom yum soup. The Thais like it super spicy, to the point that it makes the ears ring. My sensitive sinuses cannot take that level of heat, and it embraces the happy medium of the hot, sour and creamy mix which is this particular tom yum. I also find it very affordable at RM8. This portion served three, with double helpings for two.

White is just right.

Sanook
13 Faber Plaza

Jalan Desa Jaya, Taman Desa

Off Old Klang Road 

Kuala Lumpur

The One That Got Away

Malaysia could have had a real Chinese cuisine star in Sam Leong. Born in Malaysia, he has since decamped to Singapore and married a Thai, whom he evidently worships, if the naming of his restaurant and cooking studio are anything to go by (both the restaurant at Resorts World Sentosa, Singapore and the live venue are named Forest, after his wife).

Sam Leong and yours truly, in the kitchen of Tao, InterContinental Kuala Lumpur.

As part of a dining promotion with InterContinental Kuala Lumpur, Leong popped across the border to his old stomping grounds. I had the chance to grill him on a few subjects.

How much time do you spend in any kitchen these days, really? 
I'm seldom at the stove. I travel twice a month on guest chef stints, and I consult on restaurants. I have two chefs who have been with me for 22 years. They started as kitchen helpers and are now chefs in their own right. They're the ones in operations now.

You actually have retained a staff for 22 years?
In those days there was such thing as loyalty. These days I have lowered my standards. To find commitment is hard enough already.

What kind of changes has there been in the Chinese kitchen, over these years? 
There's been no change at all! The people who come into Chinese kitchens still have not much of an education. They come because they have not studied. They don't look good and would never have made it passed the HR department in a hotel. They are the kind of people only Chinese restaurants hire, and they are in it because they know they'll at least get food while they earn their money. You do get the rare ones who are educated and looking to learn, but they tend to resign. The Chinese kitchen is no place for someone who has been to hotel school and who has been taught that there is a knife for everything. In the Chinese kitchen, there is only one knife - the cleaver - and you do everything with it.

Chinese chefs don't talk. They don't teach either. The only way a young kitchen helper will learn is by experience. If you get nipped by a crab while chopping them up, you continue with a bandage on your hand. If you want a recipe, you study the chef. You look in the dustbin to see what brand of flour and sauce he uses. Chinese chefs will never give out a recipe to anyone who has not been with them for 20 years.

You started life in a Chinese kitchen, just like that. How did you get your break? 
Even when I was Director of Kitchens at the Tung Lok Group (in Singapore), I believed that talking to guests was not my job. If guests had an issue, they spoke to the manager who would then speak to me. When I started to travel, I began to transform. I went to Alain Ducasse's Paris restaurant to eat. There I observed an elderly couple who complained to each other about the soup being too salty. They critiqued every dish. Then Ducasse himself came out and stopped at their table and asked how the food was. The couple lavished praise on him. That is when I learnt the power of the chef. That is why when I was at the Four Seasons Singapore, I made an effort to clean up after service, and go out and present myself to the guests. I learned how to position myself at a table as I stood to talk. It is something you can't learn from a book - how to talk to guests in such a way that guests don't get a neckache  as they look up to you.

Do Chinese chefs have their culinary idols? 
When I began, the only famous chef I knew was Martin Yan. My dad taught me the cooking basics - how to make good soup, how to prepare abalone and sharksfin. I had no idols but I admired my father. He was born in China, he came to Malaya after World War II, in the 1960s. He was the first Chinese chef to use gas to cook, instead of charcoal.

My father used to gather, with all the other Chinese chefs, in Jalan Imbi after the night's work. They would sit until 2am talking about philosophy. I would listen as they talked about work, staff problems - table talk. When I became a chef I remembered some of the things my father and his friends said, and I found I could use the knowledge to improve my restaurants and staff.

Leong's idea of a tom yum.

Hardly part of your seven a day.

You've now found fame as the Chinese chef who serves his food in a Western style plating and form.
I like how Western food is served individually. When at the Four Seasons I noticed businessmen coming in for lunches and talking so much that the dim sum turned cold. This made me think about presenting four different types of dim sum in one basket for each individual diner, so they had the selection in front of them and could eat off their own plates instead of moving the lazy Susan round and round. As a guide I used Joel Robuchon's quote, "Anything on a plate must be edible."

When I began doing these individual plates, the staff resigned because of the added burden of plating. Guests would ask where the head and tail of a whole steamed fish was. But I knew I was on the right track when a single diner from New York came to the Four Seasons and was thrilled that I was able to offer him - a man eating alone - a seven-course Chinese meal complete with Peking duck. He told me he had travelled his whole life and never ever had this experience. So you see, you need to continue believing in what you do. It's all about bringing the customer to another level. It's not just about breaking with tradition.

So how do you see Asians viewing Chinese cuisine? 
There are no more red lanterns in the best Chinese restaurants. It is not expected any more. Chinese restaurants in Asia are beautifully designed now, with dim lighting, wine glasses and show plates. Things have changed because Asians are changing. They have more time for food now, and will enjoy their meals with wine. The dishes do not need to be brought out quickly because people need to eat and rush back to work.

You have two sons. Will you allows them to follow you into the professional kitchen? 
My younger son is interested in Italian food. I told him to get a pastry degree and become the owner-chef of a small bakery. It's not so stressful and you get to enjoy being in the kitchen. 

High On The Good Life

I covered the members' only, casual fine dining restaurant portion of Genting Club known as LTITUDE  for The Star's Life Inspired pullout. However, since the pullout is only available in certain markets, I was not able to get a copy. For those who don't have a few thousand Ringgit to spend on membership to Genting Club, here's a look at what lies behind the zealously guarded, and politely cordoned off mirrored doors.

Ltitude forms part of the gaming, entertainment, lifestyle hub that is Genting Club.

The entire area is billed as a lifestyle experience 6000 feet in the clouds. Members can roll the dice at private tables, and eat at the games tables if they wish (and believe it or not, some DO wish). This means they miss out on what I think is the best part of Genting Club, the dining area - Ltitude Restaurant. This warm, welcoming space gets part of its glow from the many copper skillets and pots hung over the cooking stations. The restaurant features an open kitchen concept, so the cookware is actually used in the preparation of food.

The chiller is stocked with premium cured meats, from iberico to black pig hock.

This decanting cradle is made specially to pour huge bottles of champagne.

No effort was spared to make this space luxurious, so what you get is a kitchenphile's wet dream of a Josper grill, and wide preparation areas, married with marble tabletops and plush banquettes.

The kitchen is fitted out with a Josper grill, the first one of its kind in Malaysia.

The chef manning Ltitude is an old acquaintance, Casey Lim, who I interviewed for Genting's 45th anniversary recipe book. He's worked his way up from kitchen helper to Executive Sous Chef, and there is little he does not know about the local and Western kitchens. He uses this knowledge to good effect at Ltitude. I was very pleased with his amuse bouche of cured meats which he paired with truffle mousse, and Spanish paletta and parma hams.

Colourful cones of delight.

 The Japanese sashimi salad was the most stripped down of all the dishes presented that night. The objective, which was completely met, was to showcase the freshness of the ingredients which included tuna and avocado carpacchio, salmon belly, amberjack, octopus, and the freshest, most delicate of salads.

Japanese sashimi salad.

The chicken consomme with scallop ravioli was another stripped down dish, which also stood out for its freshness and impeccable preparation. The heady, fantastically clear soup was individually poured out of soup kettles for each diner at the table.

Scallop ravioli and brunoise of vegetables.

In goes the soup, and the taste buds set sail.

Personalized soup service!

Casey says that comfort food is an integral part of the menu at Ltitude, so it is not strange to find patrons requesting curry noodles or more hawker-style foods. The Taiwanese braised pork dish he served next was one of the favourites of the older clientele. While it was admittedly very well done, both in flavour, texture and serving (special commendation goes to the marvelously tangy and crisp cucumber pickle), it's not something I want served at a fine dining table. Also, I don't like braising as a style of cooking in general, so this was about the only thing I did not finish.

The Iron Egg is actually a star of this dish, as it is boiled for 24 hours to seep in the flavours.

 What I was really looking forward to turned out to be the thing that let the meal down the most. When writing for Life Inspired, The Star, I am edited by the most amazing food editor. If wine maestros are 'noses', then Julie Wong is a 'mouth'. Her sense of taste is impeccable. She knows her food, and she knows her journalistic standards. She chided me for marking the restaurant down on what I felt was the cardinal sin of not being asked how I wanted my steak. This oversight caused me to be served with the most beautiful accompanied, bad steak I have ever had. It was such a shame that I forced myself to finish the meat, just to justify the loveliness of the artistically prepared vegetables.

What was so wrong with the steak? Well, for one, there was a strip of fascia running right through it, making chewing difficult. I had no choice but to discretely spit out bits of meat and muscle. The second was, because they had assumed everyone took their steak well done, my hunk of meat was grilled to within an inch of its life. There was no redness, no juice, and very little flavour.

Everything was perfectly cooked. Except the beef.

Dessert, thankfully, saved the day. The chocolate sphere with mascarpone mousse, ice cream and warm chocolate sauce was nice to look at, pretty to see served and surprising to eat. I loved the ritual of the hot liquid being poured on, and the visualness of the melting sphere. I adore food which 'moves' on the plate, and this dessert sure did.

Poetry in motion! The chocolate sphere being melted with hot chocolate.

Aside from the movement of the food, the force was strong with this dessert. The taste, texture and the lovely dance of cold ice cream and warm chocolate and velvet cheese was gorgeous. The biggest winner was the surprising inclusion of pop rocks, that exploding candy we used to eat as kids, in the middle of the dessert. It was hidden so well, that it was totally unexpected. When the fizzing and the tingle began, I actually exclaimed aloud. I was that tickled, and that pleased. Yes, kitsch is cool with me!

The most amazing thing about the experience was that the meal we were presented with was a RM300 nett set meal! For the presentation and the quality we got, this has to rate as one of the best fine dining meals I've sampled in Malaysia. However, note that you pay a cool RM20,000 for entry into this exclusive circle, so I guess cheaper good food is one of the perks.

Whatever it was, it was one of the best nights I've had this year. Even with the thick fog we encountered as we made our way down the mountain.

Thank you Casey, for the time and care which you and your team put into this meal!

Part of the kitchen brigade who toiled for us.

Chef Casey Lim in the thick of things.

LTITUDE Restaurant & Bar
Genting Club
Genting Hotel
Gentin Highlands