My paternal cousin mentioned in passing that night at his birthday dinner that he had never tried babi hutan (wild boar) before for fear of its gamey smell but he had heard of people cooking it with a whole lot of ginger, lengkuas (galangal), serai (lemon grass), pepper and everything else but of course, you would never catch us doing that, not in my family.
My friend, Mandy, on one of her working trips to Selangau and beyond, did get to eat it cooked that way, probably at the zhi-char place at this coffee shop, along with all the other exotic meats available there. She said that every dish was cooked that same way and with all the ingredients used in the cooking, she could no longer tell what meat she was eating…and she added that everything was way too oily so she did not enjoy any of it at all.
The way we cook it is very simple and I did blog about it here – no ingredients are required except perhaps some salt and msg at the end, if one so desires and these days, with the slow cooker, it is a lot easier and there is no need to worry that the meat will be tough, no need to put a porcelain spoon in the soup during the process of simmering either.
Well, it so happened that I managed to get a couple of kilos of the much coveted meat at the Selangau market so I cooked the soup…
…and gave a bit to my cousin to try – just a bit in case he did not like it and would throw it away, such a waste of such good stuff and of course, we got to enjoy it…
…ourselves that day.
He and everyone in the family tried it for dinner that night and even before it was time to sit down and eat, they were bowled over by the lovely fragrance that filled the whole house when they were heating up the soup. Yes, they loved it! The soup was so very nice, he said and the meat was so tender and when eaten with the super-spicy chili sauce from Payung…
*Archive photo – current stock in bottles of a different shape & size*
(I gave them a bit along with the soup), that sure brought it to a whole new level.
I was such a great cook, he said but honestly, it does not need a great cook to cook that soup. If you click the link to look at how I did it, you would agree that any kid would be able to do it.
The next day, we had a little bit left in the house so I decided to do something different with it for a change. I got these ingredients…
– a shallot, peeled, three cloves of garlic, crushed, some slices of ginger, a few thin stalks of serai (lemon grass) bruised at the ends, some daun kesum and tapioca leaves, crumpled.
I lined the bowl with young daun kunyit (tumeric leaves), mixed everything together in the bowl…
…and put it in the steamer to steam till it was good and ready…
There was just enough for one meal, that one bowl…
…and yes, we enjoyed it very much. For one thing, the fragrance and taste of all the ingredients drowned out that of the wild boar meat but since it was also good cooked this way, I will keep the option open – sometimes, we may cook it like this again for a change.
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 