I’m staying in Singapore in the home of my host Faye. She is one quarter Nyonya; one quarter Malaysian Chinese descendant. Her other three quarters are Chinese. Faye loves cooking and I asked her to teach me how to cook a couple of her favorite home-style recipes. Tonight she teaches me how to make kari ayam (curry chicken) and tamarind chili pork ribs.
Cooking curries concurrently; (left) kari ayam / curry chicken and (right) tamarind chili pork ribs. Sorry for the bad quality of the photo; taken with my iPhone)
The house filled with the spicy, seductive aroma of curry. Both home-style dishes are easy to make provided you prepare the curry paste ahead of time or buy the instant curry paste. Faye learned how to make tamarind chili pork ribs from her friend’s mother. This is how home-style recipes are learned; we learn them from people who love them. Now I get to learn how to make these dishes from Faye who loves cooking them and you get to learn how to make these dishes because I LOVE these two recipes.
Kari ayam (Malaysian curry chicken)
Recipe for kari ayam (Malaysian curry chicken)
tamarind chili pork ribs
Recipe for tamarind chili pork ribs
Other dishes that made the table spread:
Chinese kale with garlic sauce
Chinese pickled white turnip, chili omelet
Ready to eat
Dinner ready, and the spread is an intimate dinner for four in Faye’s beautiful Singaporean home. She cooked up a storm and literally at that speed. At 6:00 p.m. she started cooking and at 8:00pm, dinner was ready to enjoy. The curries, veggies, and omelet were served with Thai Jasmine rice.
We drank water with the meal so as to give out palate’s attention to the home-style curries. Afterwards, we sipped Moet & Chandon Reserve Imperiale Champagne in the living room and chatted until the eyes fell heavy.
