SINGAPORE – Think about turning 100 years previous. It’s a milestone {that a} younger nation like Singapore has but to achieve, however that’s what one in all Singapore’s stalwart eating places did in April final yr.
The Islamic Restaurant, anchored since its founding in North Bridge Highway, is famed for its briyani (additionally spelt “biryani”) curried hen and mutton, served from a huge cauldron the place the meat and spiced basmati rice are organized in alternate layers, a mode denoted by the title “dum”.
This model of briyani is, to me, among the many most elegant and alluring methods to benefit from the pleasures of rice.
Might it’s sentiment? Maybe. Once I was a baby rising up within the Fifties, Sunday lunch on the Islamic was a convention loved by the glitterati of Singapore society, significantly the Peranakans whose tastebuds have been attuned to spice, rice and all method of aromatics.
Malay aristocrats, royal households throughout what was then Malaya and the Sultan of Brunei all flocked to the Islamic for his or her repair of briyani. This dish grew to become so related to luxurious and class in native Malay society that it morphed into the model usually served at Malay weddings.
For myself, the dream has at all times been to cook dinner my very own good nasi briyani, as remembered from my childhood. I’ve learnt from Indian and Iranian cooks and residential cooks alike. The fashion of cooking briyani likely originated in Persia, which is in the present day Iran.
It was the invention of Mr Jeya Seelan, the Spice Man of Yishun and the younger third-generation scion of Jeya Spices in FairPrice Xtra Parkway Parade, that allowed me to achieve the end line in my quest for the very best in briyani.
There, I found a small spice gondola, an Ali Baba emporium stocked with all the same old suspects in addition to elements unique to Singapore, like dried Iranian limes.
With recipes and hints shared by Mr Seelan, the Islamic Restaurant’s Mr Kalil A. Wahab and my good friend Kim Marlett nee Tay – who learnt methods to bake the entire pot of briyani within the oven as an alternative of over a range fireplace from her years spent as an oil spouse in Iran within the late Nineteen Seventies – I lastly perfected my very own home-cooked briyani.
These encounters with a 100-year-old Singapore restaurant, a younger gatekeeper of an historic spice custom and a new-old means of cooking have impressed me to face what appears to be a troublesome yr forward.
Amid the continuing onslaught of the Covid-19 pandemic, it’s our connection to our previous which guarantees hope for the longer term, and these ties that bind us usually lie within the meals of our forefathers.
I’m fortified by the tales of how individuals have travelled the world as heroes, conquerors and refugees, surviving all method of setbacks and assaults, and nonetheless held the meals of their homelands so pricey that they introduced it with them wherever they discovered a spot to relaxation.
This tie is no surprise as a result of, in any case, shouldn’t be meals the essence of life?
