NYONYA RICE DUMPLING

Had been wanting to try to make nyonya rice dumplings since ages ago. Unfortunately, one crucial ingredient - the pea blue flower was not available here. The blue tinge to the rice dumplings was the distinctive mark to a 'true-blue' nyonya dumpling. Fortunately, Jenny gave me some of the flowers (sourced from her garden) and I also managed to buy another packet in Nancy's Kitchen. Sourcing the recipe from the internet - I am proud the results are quite authentic.

 All the prepared ingredients laid out. The blue rice is on the left.

The final product

Nyonya dumplings are 'lemak' as santan is used in the rice. The preparation takes more work than traditional rice dumplings. But the result is worth the effort. Any orders?

Malacca V - Heritage Hotel

We stayed at Puri Hotel which is a boutique hotel situated along Jalan Tun Tan Cheng Lock (formerly known as Heeren Street). The rich Baba Nyonya built their family homes along Heeren Street. I guess they were not the super-duper rich but upper middle class rich. (The super-duper rich would have huge mansions with large gardens, I'm sure.) Most of the houses had narrow frontage but very long interior. This was because the Dutch taxed houses according to the width of the house. Trust the Chinese to find a way to circumvent this ruling!

The frontage of the boutique hotel.

The interior usually had a front sitting room for receiving guests, then there is inner second room where the family congregate, followed by 2 air wells

The second sitting room ( for family members). The floor tiles are original pieces.

 Notice the intricate design on the top wall.

 The third portion of the house where it used to be the dining area.Original tiles too.

 The courtyard - now breakfast is served here.

 The spiral staircase. So elegant.

 The air well behind the staircase.

 Just relaxing.....

Malacca is indeed a living museum city

Malacca IV - CHILDREN'S AGENDA

In any trip, young children are a hassle.They can't be out too long, otherwise they get cranky, they need constant supervision, lest they get into trouble.... yet we love having them tag along. Mainly they amuse us with their antics. And hopefully, we can sneak some 'education' into their eager and inquisitive minds.

 Here's the 'button-pushing' toddler hard at work.

 Two IT-savy youngsters with granny's I Pad

Looking skeptically at the potential playmate : "Are you sure you can play boys' toys?

 

Here's a shot of our young man - looking resigned to the fact that he had to be 'collared'.

I wish I have more of these candid shots. But most of them are too blur or taken at wrong angles to be of any use. anyway, children, being children, will always find a way to have some fun together. I wish they could meet more often. Hope some memories remain with them.

Malacca III - THE TOUR

 We did manage to cram in some sightseeing. We visited the Admiral Cheng Ho Museum. Admiral Cheng Ho, as you would remember from your history, was the famous Chinese Admiral during the Ming Dynasty who navigated to South East Asia and as far as Africa and South America with his mighty fleet. He visited Malacca and re-affirmed Chinese patronage to the Sultan. (This gave the Sultan a boost of confidence - as he was living in constant fear of Siam).

 Admiral Cheng Ho's fleet

One section of the museum showcased the Chinese porcelain. Wow ! Such fine works of art. No wonder the Westerners would kill for such fine pieces. I would love to own one of those porcelain plates or jars.

 Another part of the museum featured some of the cargo the ships carried on board. The kitchen implements were all included - like the stone mortar for grinding rice. There were even musical instruments to entertain the crew .Some of the ships had animals and some were floating gardens. In that way, the sailors always had fresh food on their long voyages. How clever !!

 The cruise on the Malacca River was interesting as well as informative. For RM 10.00 each, we had a 30 minute cruise. It was good value for the money.

The view was spectacular. But some junior tourists were more interested in the boat than the view !!

 Below is the Stadhuys by night.

 There was Jonker Street, the Baba Nyonya Heritage Museum (very interesting), the Indian Temple, and the Chinese Temple (the oldest outside China).We did not not take many photos of the town.Most of the time we were distracted by the children - who had their own agenda !!

Malacca II - FOOD

Well, so much for history lesson. Apart from that education visit, we mostly by-passed Malacca enroute to Batu Pahat. We did drop in to my friend,  Jenny's house from time to time - but that was all to it. Malacca hardly merited any special visit ..... until we watch a tv programme about FOOD in Malacca. That prompted dad to plan another Tour le Malacca !

This time we didn't visit any historical spots. It was impossible with 2 babies tagging along. But we did focus on food. What an epicurean delight Malacca had to offer!!

 The delicious 'pie tee'

Tucking in - Blue seems to be the theme !

Nyonya laksa - halfway through, we remembered to take a shot.

 Naan bread with different condiments

The famous chicken rice balls - from the looks of our 

faces you can tell the food was not up to our expectations.

Jenny and Patrick were very hospitable. Despite their tight schedule ( they were to fly off to UK the next day), they insisted on taking out to certain outlets, known only to locals, to sample some of the local delicacies. We had durian cendol, satay ( with unique pineapple peanut sauce), ayam ponteh, assam fish, and a host of other food. Unfortunately, when the food was served, we were so entralled and started devouring thee food that we forgot to snap any photos. Only when the plates were licked clean, did we remember, " OMG, we forgot to take photo!" We are such terrible food bloggers!!

Malacca I -HISTORY

During our school days, we were feed with so much of Malacca history that it was difficult to differentiate fact from fiction. Malacca was portrayed as the place where history began. There was this unknown prince from Palembang (Sumatra) who had a tiff with his relative, ran off to Singapore and after killing his host in Singapore, fled to a small village in the mainland. He saw its potential and settled there. Eventually he developed the place to a great entre'port  and from then on, there was no turning back. Malacca became a great empire under several 'great and visionary rulers'. 

However, the Dutch, the Portuguese came and wanted a piece of the flourishing business. After some bloody battles, Malacca fell to these foreign invaders. An interesting 'information' I got when attending a refresher History course a couple of years back was that Malacca was attacked 19 times but the Portuguese failed to take the city. Malacca had 20,000 mercenary soldiers (Javanese and Parsi), 150,000 local soldiers, 400 cannons and 20 elephants (impenetrable) whereas the Portuguese only had 800 soldiers, 600  Gujerati soldiers, 19 ships and 40 cannons. Yet, Malacca fell - due to betrayal. The 'lecturer' based his lesson from the book "Sejarah Melayu". The lecturer surmised that  the Portuguese sacked Malacca and used the stones from the great palaces and homes of people to build the A' Fomosa. How accurate these statistics are is yet to be ascertained. "Sejarah Melayu" made no mention of stone palaces nor great stone buildings. Buildings then were mostly timber.

 (The Portuguese Fort A' Fomosa) 

 (Part of Dutch buildings - the Stadhuys)

The British too wanted a piece of the economic pie, and ousted the other two.Thus what remained  today are the Stadhuys or Dutch buildings and the fort known as the A' Fomosa built by the Portuguese.  When the children were very young, we made an education tour of the town. However, I doubt it made much impression on their young minds.