Tag: Brunei traditional kuih

Productive Ramadhan

mizarwen

As a matter of fact, that happened long before Ramadhan this year. I felt so motivated to try new recipes of Brunei traditional cakes (kuih) because my main goal is if I succeed in baking them perfectly Id open a food business when I return to Brunei for good in the future.

I was completely hard core trying to do it every week during this year’s Ramadhan. The recipe wasn’t my recipe, I found it on YouTube. These traditional cakes I made last month were…

Made by moi

The Beginning…

One of the kuih that attracted a lot of attention was Serimuka. I’m not sure why. It’s not my favorite. I only chose to do it because my husband really wanted to eat so as a good wife *cough, cough I baked it, and to my surprise on the first attempt it baked nicely. There were so many leftovers that we decided to give them to his colleagues. From there, orders continued to come and my last order (hopefully not the last) was for the open house celebration of Hari Raya at the residence of the Brunei ambassador.

I know I’m still yet to learn more about baking, but I can pick which kuih should I sell when I’m ready to come back home.

The Price

The only thing I feel so difficult at this time is the cost of purchasing the ingredients is not as cheap as when you live in Switzerland. For example, 1kg of flour here is about CHF2.10 but in Brunei, 1kg is only BND1.55 which is converting CHF0.68 only. And there are ingredients that can’t be found, or maybe I don’t know what the packaging looks like here. Many of the baking needs gula apong/gula anau/gula Nipah because the texture is still soft and liquidy when adding this into the mix so when it bakes it’ll not harden the kuih. This is the opposite result when you only use palm sugar, although they said you can replace the gula anau with it. I think only the professional is capable of deciphering the code here. Lol. I’m still starting out, so I need to learn more and more.

  • Serimuka/Bingka Pandan/Bingka Ubi – $1.50 / 5 pieces
  • Pinyaram/Ondeh Ondeh/Puteri Mandi – $1.00 / 5 pieces

Oh, those who are curious to know how much the price of kuih sell in Brunei, here I give you the list of general prices for your information.

They typically sell them in disposable clear plastic containers such as this one.

I hope there are more kuih or non-traditional cakes I could bake next time. I plan on making Mini Chicken Quiche, Raya biscuits, Kosui, and Puding Suji. Yes, there are many of them. Lol. I hope that happens as I hope.

What are your favorite Hari Raya cakes or biscuits?

Oh, Syawal!

mizarwen

We are still in the month of Syawal. Happy Eid’ Ul Fitri to all my Muslim readers.

This year too, my family did not celebrate this special day because we are not in Brunei. Early morning of the first day of Syawal, I didn’t even greet my husband and in-law because I was waiting for the 2nd day of Syawal where all Bruneians celebrated the Eid’Ul Fitri (1st Syawal in Switzerland fell on 21st April) so that we could feel the Syawal mood together.

It was also my older brother’s 42nd birthday on the 1st Syawal. Through the WhatsApp video call, I could see they had a blast celebration. I was so happy to see everybody smiling and having a good time, including my mom and dad. These are the only faces I want to see first thing in the morning of Syawal.

As what our family tradition would always be, (when we were not yet married) early morning around 6 am together with my siblings, we prepared last minutes all the cakes and biscuits on special crystal containers to be served to the guests who later coming that day. We always wear our new sometimes old or new baju kurung (traditional female Malay costume) whilst my brother and dad wearing their baju cara melayu (traditional male Malay costume). My mother always the one who turns on the radio and takbir (proclaim the greatness of Allah s.w.t. which is recite during first Syawal) could be heard early in the morning. I was also my mother’s co-cook and kitchen assistant, preparing ingredients, doing the food tasting, washing dishes and cleaning the kitchen afterwards. FYI, my parents are great cooks. So first Syawal they usually cook Chicken Kurma, Curry Beef, and Mixed Veggies. These are the main dishes and are well known for the delicious taste among our relatives. Once all is ready, it is time for me and my siblings to ask forgiveness for our past bad deeds to both my parents. No angpau (green packet contain money varies from $1-$10) be given unlike what you see in the Raya Tv commercial. We never expected that from them, and I don’t think we have to. But now that we were all married and have a family of our own we give the angpau to our nephews and nieces and the kids who come to visit the house. It’s a different vibe if you’re away from your family. I miss that moment so much. Wish I was with them now.

My first Eid’Ul Fitri in Geneva, as usual, just like any normal day, but this year I was given a task to make Serimuka, a traditional cake made from sticky white rice with pandan layered on top. My first attempt surprisingly, was successful, but never have I expected the Brunei ambassador wanted me to make 3 trays of Serimuka for the 2nd day of Eid-Ul Fitri where she invited some guests to come to her residence. I had to do all 3 of them a day before and only around 2am I could finally go to bed.

Serimuka I made

So my Muslims readers how you celebrate your Eid’Ul Fitri in your country?

Brunei Foods

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The part of what I loathe the most when living in a foreign country is when you crave more of your home country’s foods.

I finally uploaded my vlog #20 here. When I see there are still backlog videos that I need to edit for the sake of ‘purging’ them out of my cellphone storage, I realized most of them are all foods. It already sucks that I’m living away from Brunei it even sucks that some of the main ingredients or products I couldn’t even get from any Asian shop here.

For example, if I wanted to make Kuih Kosui, this sweet jiggly pandan taste-like cakes coated with shredded coconut they need to have lime water to make it perfect.

Can I tweak or substitute it?

The answer is yes and no. Yes, if you expect the imperfect taste of it. However, if you are like me, who doesn’t know how to tweak or couldn’t find any substitute for the ingredients or even worst a bad cook, then you’ll know the answer to this is no.

I miss eating…

Credit to Faiqairudin’s Tumblr

There are so many I miss about Brunei foods. But I mainly miss eating the traditional wet dessert cakes like Kosui or Malaysian called it Kaswi, Pinyaram, Ardam, Wajid, and Kelupis. Whilst Brunei traditional cuisine that I miss as well are Belutak and Aminah Arif Restaurant’s main dish, Daging Urat Tumis.

The appearance of traditional kuih-muih you can watch in my latest vlog below.

My attempt & What Is Missing

Pinyaram

Glad I still keep this picture with me. Compare to the first picture here and my experiment, straight from the bat you already know something is missing. My Pinyaram tasted tough, but the perfect Pinyaram usually tastes soft and has this crunchy edge frills that roll up after frying and the middle usually raises like a UFO spaceship shape and does not turn up like Dorayaki.

mizarwen, illustrated blog, Brunei foods, Foods, Pinyaram, Brunei wet foods, Brunei traditional foods

What did I do wrong here? Simply say the substitute ingredient that I thought I could tweak made it a failed attempt. Instead of using gula Anau I used brown sugar. Bear in mind that gula Anau is nowhere to be found here. In order to get it, you have to wait for my husband’s generous colleague who wants to help us to bring it here– that if they want to help. Asking my family to post it via normal mail post is not an option here because it’s not dry food. Even if I ask them to crystallize the sugar so that it’ll turn up like refined sugar I’m not so sure the quality will be good.

Ardam

Same as Ardam although it almost looks the same as the perfect one (pardon me there’s no picture of my failed attempt) the texture was very unlikely the same. Mine was hard and not soft and gritty at all.

My attempt at making Ardam.

Selurut, Wajid & Kelupis

I think I can make the filling of these two wet foods. However, I couldn’t find the leaves that wrapped these foods here, because Selurut uses Nypa Palm leaves, which come from a tropical palm tree that is usually found near the mangrove swamp river, and for Kelupis, you gonna need Daun Nyirik (peel leaves).

The only leaves that I saw last time in the Asian shop were just frozen pre-cut banana leaves packed in clear plastic. So without the leaves, it won’t be as fragrance and authentic as the original recipe.

For Wajid, since I used to help my mother make it during Eid Ul Fitr’s eve I can accept that I can eat it without the need to wrap the Wajid with Daun Nyirik. I remember my mother giving me a spoonful of serving size and placing it on the plate for me to taste. To me, the taste was already good so I don’t think I need the leaves to complete the taste.

Belutak

My 6-year old’s brain used to think this snakelike food was fine as long as this ‘snake’ tastes as beefy and sweet, just like real beef meat 😄 but actually, Belutak is made up of salted minced meat stuffed into casings of cow’s or buffalo’s small intestines.

In Brunei, they sell it in a clear packet in the supermarket or personal vendor and the price ranges from BND6 to BND10 depending on the weight of the product. I love to buy it from Perindustrian Beribi which cost the cheapest and stir-fried it with onion and a pinch of salt. I can make 4 portions from just one whole roll. But don’t expect me to share it with you because it’s so so so delicious, although the look isn’t that appealing.

Daging Urat Tumis Aminah Arif

It’s trimming of the beef cooked with soy sauce and turmeric and other ingredients that no one can copy no matter how many recipes you can find out there that claimed it’s Aminah Arif’s real recipe. It’s already their signature dish along with their main dish, Ambuyat that is solely served here. One dish cost BND4 and it’s for two persons serving. If you order in a set with Ambuyat I think it’ll cost you much cheaper. A whole set of Ambuyat full package (if I can remember) comprises of Ambuyat, Daging Urat Tumis, choice of cooked veggies, Ulam-ulaman, the Ambuyat dipping sauce, Belutak, and cooked fish. You can watch my vlog below for a better view of it.

So have you ever tried any Bruneian delicacies?

Temburong

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One word is already enough to create the buzz amongst Bruneian. Yes, the other district in Brunei Darussalam that famous for its beautiful reserved tropical rainforest and its popular Malay local foods: Wajid Jawa, Cendol Temburong and last but not least, their local giant freshwater prawn or what we called it Udang Galah.

Wajid Jawa (source: here)
Udang Galah (source: here)
Cendol Temburong (Source: the Bruneian)

Since the Temburong bridge is open until 10 pm it is accessible for the people to be able to go there and I feel so grateful I could experience passing the 22km long bridge which takes about 20 minutes to go to the other side when my family kind of ‘stranded’ in our own country in the midst of this pandemic.

Temburong bridge
On the way to Temburong.

I almost forgot the new craze menu the Temburong people manage to create from Udang Galah–it’s the Burger Udang Galah. If you don’t mind waiting in queue for hours just to get this burger, for BND3 it is worth to try once in your life.

Burger Temburong Burger Udang Galah
Burger Udang Galah

I also have the chance to see some improvement done by the government for the place especially at the public areas like this one image below.

Temburong beautiful pillars
Unique designed light pillars that awed me.

It isn’t officially opened to the public yet. However, I am excited about what else they want to do with this place in the coming few weeks. What I know at the moment phase 2 is under construction. Phase 2 is building a waterfront. I can’t wait to see it. Although we can’t go to Miri or Limbang– two of Malaysia’s small towns that close to Brunei’s border due to the Covid-19 restrictions, at least we get to see a new place inside our country that worth for a visit.