马来西亚国家文化遗产美食 @ 嘉林海番村：辣椒螃蟹 National Cultural Heritage of Food @ Restoran Orang Asli Kah Ling: Chili Crab

7:46:00 AM,0 Comments

   In year 2009, Malaysia and Singapore argued about the patent rights of Bak Kut The, Hainan Chicken Rice and Chili Crab. CNN also introduced world’s Top 50 foods which is the chili crabs at place 35^th and Hainan Chicken rice at place 45^th belongs to Singapore. Thanks to the spread of the network, make these two kind of food famous in international/. We do not argue about the chili crabs come from which country, it is important now to carry forward the food.

     In Malaysia, because of this area contain natural ingredient, about 30 years ago, indigenous people near to the sea in Johor Bahru had been made the secondary innovation of chili crab into sambal crab by adding Malay Satay sauces and chopped peanut.

         On that time, there are four places to eat seafood in Johor Bahru. Every places have four seafood villages or seafood restaurants which are built on the sea, almost them operate by Chinese. One of the restaurant Kg Sungai Simon, Restaurant Orang Asli Kah Ling, he learned the cooking method of Chili crab from Salim and developed a new taste of Chili crab.  After the original authors which are village headman of Kg Sungai Temon Salim and village headman of Pasir Putih closed their restaurant, now  Kah Ling is the first Chinese chef cook for the Chili Crab.

   Previously, I  have been tried it’s taste, now the taste is more egg-rich, because of the Singapore, the taste changed from spicy to sweet, sea crabs instead of Indonesia Crab, I can only say the changes are more suitable for modern public taste.

I could still remember the old village, that time, some of the aboriginals learned Chinese to worship and some act as medium or shaman, they also eat pork same as nyonya. The aboriginal kids also will dive into sea when rising tide, find the coin that they throw inside the sea or even hold breathe under the water for long time.

   Now, I still could see the aquafarm, opposite was Singapore Choa Chu Kang. Stay until night, you maybe will see the boat catching the shrimp. At day, you can only see the sand-filling area with the building that not completed, here only left a remaining village site that haven’t demolish.

         The development of Iskandar area, make this village difficult to escape the fate of demolish. There are eight family of aboriginals that make a living by fishing, four family that built in high-footed will undergo demolition. Before Perling exist, this village already exist, there was no land before, only rely to sampan to go over there. This village originally migrate from Kampung Bakar Batu, the visit guest also simply choose to eat the crab in “chili and black pepper” only.

Crab chopped into pieces, add in garlic, Sarawak black pepper, white pepper, onions, parsley, chili, curry leaves, butter, sugar, dark soy sauce and stew in soup stock. If aboriginals will use pandan leaf. The crabs look black, dry and fragrant, can’t wait to taste it.

Crab fry with salted egg, garlic, chili, curry leaf and sugar. The seasoning are oyster sauce, soy sauce and sugar. Open it’s shell, the crab butter stick with salted egg, full of aroma.

Cut crab into pieces, the boss adhere to his own cooking method, use curry powder, curry leaves, sambal, shrimps, dry chili and coconut milk. Stew with soup stock until the essence of curry can’t wait to spread out. It wins at the curry seasoning, out of topic of dry crab. But I don’t mind, my mouth, ready to serve it.

Full of roe and steamed until soft, only use ginger and egg white, when I chew it, just like fall in sleep. Try to think, the yellowish crab butter, fragrance, taste with cooked meat.

A layer of pepper oil float above it, the prawn float in it, after I remove it’s shell, drink the curry soup, is it stimulate your taste buds? No ! Just create an appetizer effect. Fried curry ingredient and forced it to mix with coconut milk, extracted out both curry and milk fragrance, match with fried buns, marvelous!

Grouper fish pieces topped with asam soup that contained ginger lily, chili, ginger, covered with pineapple, ladyfinger, tomatoes, red chili, appetizing! Although the name is Asam, but it not same as Asam, also not count as Thai, nyonya or malay asam, flavorful.

Last is Chili Crab.
Sweet and sour, tender and full of fragrance of egg, match with mature crab, fat and full of meat. Here is the brackish sea water area, the mangrove area provides the conservation of plankton and algae, so the crabs are fat with fragrance. I remember previously chili crab eat with white bread, now is fry buns.

       From Tampoi, follow the direction of Skudai Kiri, passing Grand Straits Garden Seafood (Danga Bay), follow the signs to Gelang Patah to the flyover, follow kampong Sungai Danga, turn left to brown stone district when you see the signboard written Taman Laguna, go straight until you reach a transport circle, turn left to Jalan Seri Laguna 2 to the end.
Don’t hesitate, go to see, if you don’t want to regret.