I have these 2 books. They don't cover the whole spectrum of Singaporean cuisine, but the subjects they do cover are thorough enough to make you more knowledgeable than the general population in Singapore.
Amazon only offers one of them used starting $78.00 at this time. Alibris, my preference for used books, offered neither of them. You timed it right when you bought those.
Well, probably the most popular dish in S'pore is Hiananese chicken rice, followed by Mee goring, Nasi lemak, gado gado, Kueh lapis, and pineapple tart. Oh, and curry puffs....
Yeah, I got them both a long while ago; right when they first came out, I think.
I found another book on Singaporean food in my library. It's called "Shiok!: Exciting Tropical Asian Flavors". I missed it the first time I looked from the nonspecific title.
This is pretty much a recipe book. But each recipe has a somewhat informative introduction, and the recipes are grouped into categories like Hawker Favourites, Peranakan Classics, Home-style Dishes, etc.
So if you were to study the recipes carefully, you can kinda get a good sense of what Singaporean cuisine is all about.
Unfortunately, I believe it's out of stock on Amazon.
Made some Bak Chor Mee tonight with a recipe from the web. I liked it. A little pot intensive with all the toppings coming together for the final dish. I'd certainly make it again.
Charmaine Solomon's book has a section of Singaporean cooking (and Indonesian, Malay etc).
I think the book also exists in subsections.
I find the recipes pretty good. There are not many pictures/photographs in the book.
A good recipe book, but not very good for learning about new cuisines.
It doesn't have an introduction for every recipe; this becomes quite problematic when cooking a dish you are not familiar with, especially when it also doesn't include the picture of the dish.
I've been looking around amazon and came accross this series: "Singapore heritage cookbooks".
I thought they sounded pretty good, so I ordered one of the editions.
I can give you more feedback in a couple of weeks, if you want.
I've been looking around amazon and came accross this series: "Singapore heritage cookbooks".
I thought they sounded pretty good, so I ordered one of the editions.
If you're a Kindle user, they have three of the books at a lower price. I'm more epub focused though I theoretically know how to unlock the file and convert the format.
Most reviewers say the formatting of this book series is all messed up on Kindle. The other 2 books got pulled off the Kindle from too many complaints.
I'm a nerd. My comment addresses the different container types that ebooks come in. To a large degree, once you remove the Digital Rights Management, that locks you into a Kindle or a Nook or a Kobo, you can then convert the container format to wh to what
How does Singapore/Malay belachan/belacan compare to Thai belacan? Wikipedia is calling Thai shrimp paste kapi, but my Thai cookbooks usually call it belacan. Are they the same or close enough?
fish curry powder, I'm seeing this without clear reference. Google shows commercial varieties I can likely find and I'm seeing recipes. Anything I should particularly look for or a preferred recipe?
Black Bean Paste, I'm getting hints that this might differ from Chinese fermented black beans and the common variation black bean sauce with garlic in jars. I've seen a few suggestions of substituting miso instead which seems rather different to me.
Belacan, kapi, terassi and whatever you want to call it, are all the same and all different
That's really an answer you can do nothing with, so a bit more:
They are all shrimp pastes and you can use whichever one you want or can get.
They are all slightly different, but that's even within the name group. Not all terassi's are the same. Same for kapi, same for belachan. It depends which part of the country (sometimes even town) they are made.
As far as I know Kapi is the Thai name, Belachan or belacan the Malay name (Terassi or trassi, the Indonesian name)
Fish curry powder:
I know nothing about it, so can't help.
Black bean paste:
I use the beans and crush them. In Indonesia they are called taotjo.
I find you can sub with black bean paste. It's a little different, but not enough to worry about
I'm liking its analytical approach and style. Lots of seafood dishes or with dried shrimp inclusions which my daughter is sensitive to. Not sure what I'll attempt first.
Love shrimp in any form or way.
My dad used to use quite a lot of dried shrimp in his Indonesian cooking, maybe that's why
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