Having returned home in 2022, after being stranded in Singapore for two years due to Covid-19, the writer was grateful for the plate of his favourite sambal petai that his mother cooked for him. — VINCENT TEH
I believe for many who stay far away from their home towns, there are many things they will strongly miss and one of them is home-cooked food.
When I was a child, I took it for granted that it was a mother’s responsibility to cook for us, so I never appreciated the efforts behind the prepared meals because the dishes were always served naturally on the table. Sometimes, I would grumble about the cooked food that did not suit my appetite and persuade her to eat out.
Only when I had grown up and worked overseas, I started to appreciate the home-cooked food. Working in a foreign country and renting a bedroom, eating out was part and parcel of my life so I gradually grew bored with outside food.
Whenever I was going home, I would phone and tell my mother beforehand to cook my favourite dishes and she would happily oblige. One of the dishes I always craved was the sambal petai (stink beans stir-fried with chilli paste).
Making sambal petai followed a meticulous process. I know because I used to help my mother prepare ingredients when I was a child, finding the process arduous.
During preparation, my mother would make small cuts on the petai pods so I could remove the beans, peel off their thin beige membranes, and occasionally munch on the raw, astringent seeds. She made her own chilli paste by blending red and dried chillies, garlic, red onions and cooking oil, while also chopping fresh prawns and mixing tamarind paste with lime juice. My job was to crush red onion, garlic, dried shrimps and bird’s eye chillies (cili padi) separately with a mortar and pestle until they formed coarse sludges.
When the ingredients were ready, my mother heated oil in a wok and stir-fried the crushed garlic, onion and chillies until the kitchen filled with their fragrant aroma. Once the mixture turned golden brown, she added the dried shrimps, releasing a sweet, savoury scent, followed by spoonfuls of her fiery home-made chilli paste – the step that always made her sneeze.
She would then add finely chopped prawns, stir-frying until the mixture turned dry, before pouring in diluted tamarind paste and tossing in the emerald-green petai. After a few quick stirs, she let it simmer for a minute or two. Finally, she sprinkled white sugar to balance the heat and added lime juice for a tangy lift – and voila, her fragrant sambal petai was ready to be served with white rice.
As a child, I’d heap sambal petai onto rice and savour it while watching my favourite TV show together with my family – a simple, irreplaceable taste of home.
Although there are many ways to make delectable sambal petai and I have tasted various types of it, my mother’s recipe is the irreplaceable taste that connects a grown-up child, who stays abroad, to a place called home.
For those who are hundreds of thousands of miles away from home, do you have any favourite home-cooked food that you crave?
