SINGAPORE – It’s the begin of the pineapple tart season, which commences this 12 months on Feb 1 with Chinese language New 12 months, carries on into the mid-year Hari Raya festivities and culminates in Deepavali, the Competition of Lights, which falls this 12 months in October this 12 months.
This recipe for pineapple tarts first appeared in 1977 within the collection of Peranakan recipes I used to be commissioned to put in writing for Her World journal by then editor Betty Khoo.
It was then compiled with different recipes right into a slim quantity referred to as Peranakan Cooking by Her World and printed by Instances Periodicals, which was below the Straits Instances Group, the mother or father firm of at this time’s The Straits Instances.
The e book was launched on July 15, 1978, in Instances Orchard in Fortunate Plaza, a bookstore that spawned a small empire.
The launch celebration was a Peranakan extravaganza, with nibbles for makan, a dondang sayang (Peranakan poetic artwork type) band and bibiks and babas dancing joget to keroncong music.
I used to be 27 happening 28 when the recipe was first printed within the journal and 29 when the e book was launched. It marked a milestone in my lifelong journey to collate, seize and have a good time Singapore meals, which I had began on the newspaper New Nation, the place I first ventured into meals reviewing and recipe writing.
This recipe brings us again to the fundamentals. Serving to me within the peeling, chopping and cooking of the pineapples is STFood On-line Editor Hedy Khoo, who was an keen younger meals photographer after I first met her.
She gamely took on the problem of creating the pineapple jam and baking pineapple tarts in numerous kinds, from pillow to open-faced, as items for family and friends.
Although Chinese language New 12 months looms subsequent month, there’s nonetheless time to get your entire contemporary pineapples from the market to start out the annual bake.
I’m sharing the genuine old-school means of chopping the pineapple flesh by hand, however be happy to make use of the meals processor as an alternative.
A fair simpler shortcut is to make use of canned pineapple – drain the pineapple, weigh, chop and prepare dinner with 30 per cent much less sugar and a few of the pineapple juice from the can. My good friend from the College of Singapore, Mr Richard Fung, who has lived in Toronto, Canada, for 45 years, shares that his mom chopped up canned pineapples and the ensuing tarts have been delicious.
You can even purchase ready-made pineapple tart filling.
In Chinese language tradition, the pineapple’s many “eyes” symbolise fertility and lots. In a number of Chinese language dialects, the phrase for “pineapple” appears like “the arrival of prosperity”.
In 2002, after I was invited to prepare dinner a dinner on the legendary James Beard Home in New York for its day by day visitor chef fund-raising occasion, I discovered – to my shock – that the pineapple took centre stage on the wallpaper of the lounge salon in addition to all the way in which up the steps.
Within the pineapple’s true residence in South America, in addition to the Caribbean, the fruit symbolises friendship and hospitality. Households cling pineapples as an edible invitation exterior their properties to fragrance the doorway and welcome friends.
Within the sixteenth century, Italian explorer Christopher Columbus took the pineapple from the New World to Europe and it grew to become a logo of royalty and the Aristocracy, as its lush progress of exhausting leaves resembles a crown.
In the identical century, it was additionally launched to India through the Cape of Good Hope and through the Pacific Ocean to Macau, Taiwan, Manila and Singapore.
I used to be deeply moved by the numerous heartwarming messages I obtained in response to my hen briyani recipe final week, together with a number of from Singaporeans based mostly overseas in Australia, Britain, Canada and america. Nearer to residence, third-generation spice vendor Jeya Seelan advised me he has obtained a spike in requests for his briyani combine.
Could meals proceed to carry us collectively throughout borders.
Pineapple Tarts
