kuih-muih, nak? by Evelyn Ngui Ailing

If anyone tells me that baba and nyonya culture has all but disappeared from our normal homosapien’s life, I would slap them and drag them by the ears to our typical night market.

Yup, ladies and gentlemen, you did not hear me wrong. The night market it is.

aunty selling her kuihs

               Among the long rows and rows of stalls selling things from lingerie to knives that can cut through marble, there are stalls that sell kuih. 

               And most of those kuih, ladies and gentlemen, are nyonya kuihs. The famous ones include ondeh-ondeh, seri muka, kuih lapis, kuih dadar and much more. For those not from Malaysia that does not know what a kuih is, a kuih is to us Malaysians as to what scones are to the British. We eat them for breakfast, lunch, tea, dinner and supper. In fact, the best thing about kuihs are that you can eat them anytime of the day!

           Like humans, there are fat kuihs and thin kuihs, round kuihs and square kuihs, kuihs with fillings and without, with layers and without, with hairy grated coconut or smooth and oily-kuihs come in all sizes, shapes and tastes! it usually tastes sweet and sticky, like a chewy piece of lollipop.

           For 70 cents per piece of kuih and RM 1.30 per box of ondeh-ondeh, it is cheap and indeed worth its weight in gold. in fact, the nyonya kuih is so firmly embedded in out culture that i was taught how to do ondeh-ondeh from scratch in high school during one of the Kemahiran Hidup classes! 

ondeh-ondeh

           The main ingredients in making these kuihs are mainly flour, baking powder, sugar, gula melaka and sometimes sago or grated coconut. the ingredients are cheap and can be found at almost any supermarket or grocery store, which explains why these delectable pieces are so cheap! 

kuih lapis

kuih dadar

the ang ku kuih with green bean paste filling

different types of ang ku kuih with red bean paste filling, coconut filling, etc.

different types of kuih including chai kuih and kuih dadar

             Sadly, the seri muka that i loved to eat when i was a kid was sold out. sigh. i guess there are plenty of others who like to reconcile in their childhood memories like me too.