July 17, 2015
Fabulous Friday Flavour: It’s a Feast!
It’s Friday, it’s fantabulously fantastic and it’s a day of feasting here in Singapore.
We’ve been busy, busy today. Busy visiting and eating and feasting as we made our way out to visit relatives from my side of the family on the first day of Eid, otherwise known as the Hari Raya Puasa or Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Hari Raya means “day of celebration” in Malay while Puasa means fasting. Lebaran is used mainly in Indonesia and is commonly interpreted to refer to the end of fasting. Aidilfitri is simply the Malay spelling of the Arabic name “Eid-al-Fitr” (meaning Festival of Breaking Fast)
Today marks the start of a new month Syawal with the end of the month-long fast during Ramadhan observed by Muslims around the world. Like the previous years, we would always be back in Singapore to celebrate this occasion with family and friends.
This is the day when we get together: Siblings, husband and wife, relatives and close friends seek forgiveness, to bury the hatchet, to undo all the wrong-doings and to start on a clean slate again. Above all, we eat. Hell yeah, we eat. We eat and we stuff our faces with all the goodness of everything home-made, and, prepared from scratch. And we eat till we explode or just couldn’t move anymore. Only because it would be considered rude not to try any, even if it’s just a little bit.
From the main meals to the kuehs , every single dish and goodies are all worth at least a try.
My mom’s home-cooked dishes are always especially special to me. Sure, I can make them, but nothing beats a mom’s cooking; MY dearest mom. I could smell the fragrant and aroma of food coming from my parents’ home the moment we stepped out of the elevator 50 meters away. And we weren’t disappointed:
Top left to right: Roti Jala and Beef Rendang.
Bottom left to right: Chicken Curry, Pineapple Tarts, Sambal Quail Eggs
All home-made. All done from scratch, ready for the festivities. And those are not even everything! It’s good to be home.
Hari Raya in this part of the region is always synonymous with Pineapple Tarts and my mom makes one of the best there is. She used to take thousands and thousands of orders making those pineapple tarts for people who would specifically ask her to make for them during festive seasons such as Hari Raya or Chinese New Year. And I used to spend hours and hours over days and weeks just to help my mom make those things; clipping the edges individually by hand!
So, in today’s festive celebration, I thought I’d feature my mom’s Pineapple Tarts recipe which she has just rattled off everything from memory!
- 250g butter, softened
- ½ teaspoon vanilla essence
- 2 egg yolk
- About 200g flour
- 3 pineapples, de-skin and remove core and grated
- 20g-30g sugar
- 2-3 cloves
- 1 star anise
- Add the egg yolks to the softened butter and mix well with a wooden ladle.
- Sift in the flour. Mix well till it becomes a soft dough or if you use your hands, rub together until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Set aside for an hour
- Remove the hard skin and the core of the pineapples. Grate or blitz to be cooked
- Heat up a pan or a wok with no oil. Roast the cloves and anise for about a half a minute.
- Add in the grated pineapple to the cloves and anise. Cook until it’s dry and thick. Add in sugar. Stir until the sugar is dissolved.
- Cooking will take about 2 hours. Make sure to continue stirring every now and then.
- Set aside and refrigerate once the jam is done for later use
- Flatten the dough out to half an inch of thickness on a lightly floured-tabletop.
- Cut out rounds with a pie cutter. Do this till all the dough are used-up, but do set aside a small amount of dough to be used for decorative purposes.
- Fill each of the cut-out pastry with the pineapple jam filling.
- Use a ragged clip (it looks like a tweezer but with broader edge) and clip the edges such that it gives out a frilled-edging all around
- Use the remaining dough that was set aside to decorate the top of the pineapple jam filling
- Bake for about 10 minutes in 180 degrees Celsius.
- This can be quite back-breaking and clipping the edges of each pastry is the most time-consuming, but the result is worth all that effort!
#FoodieFriDIYs #HomeMatters #Blogshare #ThursdayBlogHop
OMG, those look like little wool knitted hats. Too cute! I want to make them and wonder if I could just roll them over a grater to get some pattern (we do that for one of our sweet treats). It won’t look as pretty as these but who’s got the time to clip them? LOL
Your mom’s food is making me drool all over my computer! YUM
Also, it appears that some steps in your recipe are doubled – those little gremlins are messing with your site again 😉 😛
My dad is Muslim and I am making him a feast for Bayram today: Okra with lamb and beef, stuffed Phyllo dough with spinach and cheese and baklava for dessert. OK, so maybe not a feast but a nice meal, haha. I will be virtually celebrating with you as I stuff my face even though we are miles away and a day apart. Happy Hari Raya Puasa!
Or you don’t have to clip them at all. Sometimes you may be able to get a mould that’s pretty enough – alhtough I’m not sure if they are available outside Asia.Let me know if you want it and I’m happy to send it to you if I can get it here. Really, who’s got the time! I cringe just thinking about it and I use to do it a lot as my mom won’t have it any other way! :p
This time, that gremlin was me..Hahahaa! I only realised it later when Silver Bullet called it out when we were in bed..shoddy job! urrrghhh. Fixed now – thanks for calling it out, Jas. And it’s always great that people notice because it means they read it! 😀
Is that what it’s known there – Bayram? Haven’t heard that before. You have such a diverse and interesting background, Jas!We can always celebrate together through food – regardless culture or religion. Sounds like a nice meal and ooh! baklava! Those can be really good. Thanks for the wishes and wishing your dad a very good Eid too. xxx. muacccks!
He told you in bed? Dirty trick, hahaha! 😉
Yes, it has many names, but we call it Bajram back home (we do not have Y in our alphabet, but J is pronounced as such). There are two Bajram holidays during the year and this one, after the fast is called Kurban Bajram. That’s the extent of my knowledge. 🙂
My parents are not devoted in their religion (my mom is Catholic) to the point of going to church etc., but they celebrate their holidays (it’s all about food and presents, I tell you, haha)
My background interesting? I still can’t keep track of yours, hahaha! But, no matter where you from or with whom you are and where you are, what counts the most is who you are! And you’re a remarkable person, Ann! Mwah!
Yeah he did. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, but I was too tired to pull out my laptop to edit! One of the rare times when I “let it go” :p
Isn’t it always about food and presents! Those are the best! And I love it if the presents come in the form of food. hahaaa!
Oh, Jas…mine’s too complicated to explain. And you leave behind the sweetest comments! 😀 *hugs*
What a wonderful post. I am so happy you shared with us at the Thursday Favorite Things blog hop. Watch for your feature on Monday. xo
Thank you Katherine! Sorry it took me so long to approve/reply as I have been travelling. That’s truly great news and looking forward to it. 🙂
Oh my, that looks like a wonderful feast, indeed! Thank you for sharing this at the #SmallVictoriesSundayLinkup!
Thank you for stopping by Echo! 🙂