Cookbook: A Singaporean recalls the delicious Filipino food his helpers whipped up
Growing up in Singapore, Bryan Koh remembers how the domestic helpers at home served him delicacies such as sinigang when he got back from school, and more elaborate meals in the evening when the whole family was home
You might have a hard time finding this heavy (more than 600 pages!) 2013 volume, unless you travel to Singapore, where it’s available in bookshops such as Kinokuniya. You can also order it on the Kinokuniya website, which ships to Hong Kong. A new edition, called Milkier Pigs & Violet Gold, I’m told, contains even more information.
Author Bryan Koh fell in love with Filipino cuisine through the food prepared by the domestic helpers at his parents’ house in Singapore. What they cooked for him after he got home from school was delicious, he says, but quite basic: quick and easy dishes that could be made when the helpers “had more pressing things to do, rooms to sweep, dogs to feed, hair to curl, talons to paint, friends with whom to gossip”.
There was sinigang, “a kind of soupy stew”; green mung beans “cooked in water to a thick sludge” then fried with other ingredients and eaten with steamed rice; or a tomato and salted duck egg salad served with garlic fried rice.
When Koh’s parents were home in the evening, though, “their presence usually spelled a broader selection of dishes. As most chores could be accomplished by mid-afternoon, my helpers had more time to prepare the evening meal, which meant more impressive things could be made.”