Nonya chap chye recipe

I must confess. Mom made this dish , not me.

I remember how my late grandpa used to share his recipes with me. Though we spoke English , when it came to food, he'd explain it all in Malay . Typically the amounts were estimated , like a pinch of the, a handful of that , just enough of this etc.

The secret to great food was always stir frying pounded shallots and garlic or rempah in oil til brown then adding in the meat, then everything else.

Here's a simple way to prepare chap chye.

1. Soak dried black fungus , rice vermicelli and dried tau kee on water to hydrate these.


2. Dry with a paper towel.


3. Peel fresh prawn


4. Slice belly pork finely


5. Peel and slice a carrot or two


6. Slice a cabbage


7. Peel and Pound a clove of garlic and five shallots.


8. Stir fry the garlic and shallots til brown


9. Add the pork and prawns and let it cook


10. Add in the cabbage, carrots, black fungus, tau kee and vermicelli


11. Season with sea salt


12. Serve hot

Nonya noodles

Went to my parent's home for dinner. Mom made nonya noodles, the way my dad's family does it.

It's like the regular hokkien mee but with no bee hoon. Just the yellow noodles. Streaky pork sliced thinly. Lots of big fresh prawns. Yum

What makes it special is the grated cucumber heaped generously on the noodles. Add finely sliced omelette and garnish with shallots which I forgot to add. It was delicious !

Nonya dumplings

Mom gave me some home made nonya bak chang - rice dumplings made nonya style.

This Chinese delicacy is seasoned tender meat, sweet and salty, with a blend of spices, wrapped in glutinous rice and then wrapped in pandan leaves into the shape of a pyramid.

I had one for breakfast. Delicious!

Nonya Cuisune

I miss mom's cooking.

You know the saying, translated to English, it's "A married daughter is like water that's been poured out."

How true. I married out of a peranakan family and into a traditional cantonese family. No kebayas for me. When my figure was good, I wore cheong sams.  I visit my parents twice a year. On Chinese New Year's day and on Christmas eve.

Mom cooks up a storm each time we go there. I mean, there's all the Wee family specialties mom learnt from Ah Kong (My dad's dad who is by far the best cook this world has ever known.. in the eyes of this grand daughter)

This was what Mom cooked last Chinese New Year.

There's the quintessential Buah Keluak that takes a week to prepare. You need to soak and scrub these underground nuts daily, dry them completely in the sun, crack them open and scrape out the hard kernel from each nut. The result is a highly prized nonya delicacy. It's the first dish all true blue peranakans attack at the feast. Cooked with chicken (some families use pork), it's heavenly.

There's Pong tau hu. Mom's favourite which she learnt from grandpa. Something you can't get in stores either. It's tauhu  meat balls, cooked in a prawn based soup with bamboo shoots, carrots and tau cheo (salted bean paste). I loved it. Used to cook it too a very very long time ago.

Ayam sio. The nonya version of fast food. I used to make this when I first married but my hubby got so sick of it as I served it for every meal. You marinade the chicken overnight, then boil the chicken in the marinade to cook it. At this point, we'd freeze it into smaller portions. Oh, my family will cook in bulk for convenience, and then freeze for later meals.  When we're ready to eat it, we fry the chicken in the marinade until the marinade is all dry. Grandpa would do it til it's slightly burnt. Heavenly!

Chap chye. Its a veggie dish with cabbage and dried soya pieces and vermicelli, prawn, black fungus.. can't remember what else. I just eat it.

There's pong teh. Another favourite with pork cooked in salted bean paste, carrots, potatos, bamboo shoots.. kind of.. stew-like?

She did a braised duck for my in laws who were unable to show up that day. They are used to a different style of cooking altogether ;)

When I married, on our first chinese new year's eve together, my hubby wanted me to cook the new year's eve dinner for his family. I panicked. Nonya style is so different from canton style and I had no idea what to cook. In the end, I cooked what I was familiar with. A full scale nonya dinner, which my father in law.. had some problems adjusting to. Oops.

The bright side is... they never asked me to cook again. Mom in law volunteers to cook each year.. telling me tactfully, that my father in law has rather.. erm.. different.. taste in food.

Nonya kueh

The one nonya kueh I don't buy because the ones sold outside always disappoint is kueh kosui. Or kuih kosui. It's made with Gula Melaka, Pandan leaves, tapioca flour, and grated coconut.

Everytime i bought it and bit into it, I was sorely disappointed . It was hard compared to the soft yummy ones my mom used to make.

Growing up in my parents home, kuih kosui was a favourite mom would make. She's steam it, cut it up, roll it in grated coconut with a pinch of salt. We'd eat it right away, while still warm. That was heavenly. So soft, just the right texture and sweetness. How I miss mom's cooking.

I do buy nonya kuehs now and then, like ondeh ondeh.

I love how the sweet liquid gula melaka oozes out with every bite. The ones from bengawan solo are good.

Though I'm a nonya by birth, I hardly make kueh since I married out of the nonya clan. I buy my kuih instead :p

But I can make a mean chocolate truffle ;)