Malay heritage recipes from Kedah
Chef Mohamad Zaidi may live in Kuala Lumpur now, but his mother’s Kedah heirloom food (some of which she cooked for royalty) remains a firm favourite.
CHEF Mohamad Zaidi is warm and instantly likeable, exuding a natural charm that comes from being incredibly humble and oh-so nice, despite holding the lofty position of executive chef at the opulent Majestic Kuala Lumpur.
In many ways, Zaidi’s affability is in keeping with his background, which saw him growing up in the town of Anak Bukit in Kedah, which was just a stone’s throw away from the royal palace.
There, a sense of camaraderie was present among villagers and Zaidi recalls how everyone would pool their money together (in a scheme called pakat) to pay for village weddings. There would even be a meeting with the villagers one month before the wedding, where major decisions would be made.
“Everyone would come and they would ask each person what they would like to cook for the wedding!” says Zaidi.
Zaidi’s late mother was an integral person in the village as she was the village’s pengolah (spice mixer). Every time there was a large occasion, she was in charge of mixing spices for all the curries and dishes, as she was famed for her cooking skills.
In fact, Zaidi’s mother was so well-known for her food that even the royal family sought her out! She was often tasked with making kampung food like nasi ulam and ikan pekasam for the palace, which was delivered on a sampan to the royal family.
“The late sultan liked simple kampung food, so there were often requests for home-cooked meals,” says Zaidi.
Zaidi himself learnt how to cook when he was eight years old, as his mother had a stall selling mee rebus and nasi campur and he was often asked to help out. When he grew older, he started working in hotels and over the years, moved up the rungs. Although he is doing incredibly well now, the food that his late mother cooked still remains such a perennial favourite that he now makes it for his own family.
Like his mother’s delicious ayam masak kunyit kering, for example. The dish features creamy, slightly spicy chicken that is so tender, that according to Zaidi, if you pick up a piece once it’s cooked, the meat should fall off the bone when given a good shake!
“This is something my mother used to make for Hari Raya. It is a must for us and is famous in my family,” he says.
Then there is her dish of gulai Siam. While there are many iterations of this dish, Zaidi says his mother’s version is different because she adds freshly sliced herbs, which give it a more herbaceous note. His mother used to make this often as the family lived near rice fields and paddy fish were in abundance after the rice was harvested.
“Once the rice was harvested, there were a lot of fish like snakehead fish, catfish and perch swimming in the water. So as a kid, I used to get an old oil can, follow the tractors, dunk the can in the soil and catch some fish! Sometimes we even caught snakes!” he says, laughing mischievously at the recollection.
Daging merah is another dish that Zaidi picked up from his mother. The dish features tender beef cooked in coconut milk, condensed milk and evaporated milk, resulting in a deliciously thick gravy that has spicy nuances and a prevailing sense of sweetness.
“Every time there was a wedding in the village, my mother would be asked to cook this dish and to this day, everyone in my family loves this dish,” says Zaidi.
While mee rebus (yellow noodles in a thick gravy typically made from beef, shrimp and sweet potato) is an undisputed Kedah staple (even Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad is said to be a fan!), no two recipes are the same. Zaidi’s mother’s recipe calls for both beef bone and beef brisket to be cooked together, resulting in a thick gravy that is aromatic, sweet and sumptuous, with other textures adding depth and dimension.
“While the ingredients are nearly the same, my mother’s version has ginger in it, so it’s a bit stronger. But this is something we always eat at festivals and family get-togethers,” he says.
All these recipes advocate for slow-cooking over an open flame which is something Zaidi says his mother and other villagers used to do often.
“The longer you cook it, the nicer it tastes. We used rubberwood, and the taste was more intense,” he says.
Ultimately, Zaidi says he hopes people will enjoy his mother’s recipes as much as he enjoyed her food growing up. “I miss her food so much! All her recipes are agak-agak, but I’ve tried to remember the taste of what she did and I continue to make them often so I don’t forget her heritage recipes,” he says.