Pineapple tart, other stuff and Hari Raya

Do you know how difficult it is to get a nice pineapple tart nowadays? Well at least for me…it’s damn hard. Blame to my grandmother who make a delicious tart during my childhood. Lucky for me as I have grandmother and also a mother that is good in cooking and my grandmother particularly in baking as well. But to learn those skills from them is really hard. If I ask like how to cook this and how to cook that the only thing that I get is a stare and the answer will be just campak campak jekla….agak2 how much you need to put. So not like google where the recipe will give you the exact measures, this pro will not sit down and write down the recipe for you. The only way to learn is to observe them in the kitchen. And I am too lazy to do that.

Put aside my mother as some of her cooking secret is already with me. Ehem I am a natural cook as well ;) but long way to learn all other tedious cooking. Like my mom’s sambal be it to put on fish or chicken with or without belacan….her sambal always good! The rendang and her masak kicap…ok her masak kicap is very unique though and few other cooking lesson that I have to pick from her.

Now about my grandmother…. She’s a keeper, meanings she will not easily share her secret recipe with people including her own blood like us. Her cooking were so good that we are spoilt by it. Her main expertise was sambal udang belimbing, masak lemak any, asam pedas any, …ok the reasons why I don’t eat asam pedas elsewhere except home cook, curry the best and few others. For curry I manage to observe and now sort of know how to cook the curry as up to her standard. But for the rest….I need to stay in the kitchen more to learn.

Lately for some reasons when I do my own cooking, which is western food like chicken pie and few others, she will observe me and come near to look at my work. She’ll start to chat a little bit with me (yeah she didn’t chat much with us pun) asking about what I’m doing and then share some of her experience. Then slowly she offered me to do her famous pineapple tart with me. I am so thrilled that I am ok with that even I don’t have much time to spare already since I start working. So last week we start the project and I get to witness and also write her secret ingredients. The verdict….we’ve ordered a few tart for various source, I think we going to abandon those tart already haha. Not really abandon lah …sound very mean kan! But that will be served to the visitors. While homemade tart, will stay with us. Even my dad was busy eating the tart and we almost emptied one whole jar.

Then I try my luck asking her to teach me some of her other specialties. Which is popiah basah….They said it is the best popiah basah in Melaka or something as my grandma use to sell kuih. And lucky me she said yes…So another project will commence next week during raya week to make some popiah basah to welcome some of the cousins and relative to our home. I just hope and pray that she is in a good mood to be able to teach me rather than change her mind later. You see this particular recipe has been asked by many since years ago and she keep on shush them away. Including my own cousins…So when I was about to ask her, everyone especially my aunty and parents have a big doubt on that. Now as she changes her mind, this are my chance to learn and hopefully the goodness of her cooking will not die with her. So much to learn and so little time I have, but better late then never right?

Well that’s my story for today….my head is really into raya mode already. Since grandma is now staying with us, that means all our relatives will drop by to our house to visit her. It will not be the first few days of raya as my relatives from my dad side are all from far away. Expecting the week after next to be super duper busy for us. Nonetheless the first day raya still meriah at our side. The plus of staying in kampong where the tradition is still intact. Our neighbors has regards my family as their relatives so we will join them on visiting from one house to another around our area. They will also come and visit us. So food preparation is still important in our checklist (always important).

I think for me the spirit of raya is always being around the family, the food preparation and presentations and the visiting part. That makes the most of my Eid Celebration. Happy Hari Raya you all and Maaf Zahir Batin!