Popo’s Pig Trotter

my grandma is turning 80 soon and, for the first time, I watcher her look small in a hospital bed.

that’s the moment it hit me: I am running out of time to learn everything she knows. one way that we usually bond is through my love for her cooking, so whenever I get the chance, I ask her for tips and tricks on the dishes she’s made for me over the years.

this time, I asked her for a dish that I’d actually never tried before. I’d always heard about her famous pig trotter vinegar dish, but I had no memory of ever eating it. when I asked her why, she said simply “everyone snatch away a portion and you are just too slow! so I guess you didn’t get to try it.” word has it that the dish is so good, my family members still talk about it to this day.

often served as a confinement dish, pig trotter is known for its health benefits, one being that it’s good for your complexion, thanks to its high collagen content. I’ve never fancied high-collagen dishes like this because I assumed they’d be too fatty, but my grandma swears that no matter how many portions of pig trotter you eat, you won’t gain weight (haha). so one afternoon, she finally taught me how to make it—and my oh my, it was absolutely delicious. I can’t wait to share it with you.

one tip that she swears by: use Chan Kong Thye Black Sweet Rice Vinegar, the one with the pink label one it (it has a dog on it, that’s how she describes it). this vinegar yields the best results. it has the best balance of sweet and sour, and adds a depth of flavour to the pig trotter stew that I can’t quite describe. it is also great at cutting through the fattiness of the meat beautifully, making the dish moreish.

give this recipe a try and let me know what you think!

More tips from popo:

• ask for the front legs rather than the back legs. they are meatier and more collagen-filled

• use black sugar rather than brown or white sugar for a deeper and more caramelised flavour

• add in more ginger for a spicier kick, the kind that feels like it can clear your sinuses instantly. cut back if that’s not your thing. remember to smash them before putting into the pot to release its flavours

• allow it to sit for at least an hour, but best served the next day as flavours are more intense

@nomies.cowho needs a confinement nanny when you have the wisest grandmother at home 🥰🤪 #sgfoodie #recipe

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looking for more inspirations? check out the following recipes:

There was a period when I made a massive batch of kimchi and basically ate it with everything. Rice? Kimchi. Noodles? Kimchi. Leftover chicken? Kimchi. At one point, my blood was probably made of kimchi juice.

But honestly, having a big jar of kimchi in the fridge made me feel like I was eating really well. It was crunchy, spicy, sour, full of vegetables and somehow made even the most boring meal feel a little more exciting. And because kimchi is fermented, I also had the added satisfaction of telling myself that I was being healthy while eating something delicious.

The batch lasted me around six months, and by the end it had become seriously potent. The cabbage had softened, the sourness had intensified and the whole thing had developed that deep, funky fermented flavour that you just don’t get from freshly made kimchi.

That transformation is basically the work of lactic acid bacteria. These naturally occurring bacteria feed on the sugars in the vegetables and produce lactic acid, which gradually makes the kimchi more sour and creates an environment where many undesirable bacteria struggle to survive. As fermentation continues, the flavour becomes more acidic and complex.

And this is also where kimchi gets its reputation as a “probiotic” food. Kimchi can contain significant amounts of live lactic acid bacteria, alongside plenty of fibre and nutrients from the vegetables themselves. These bacteria may support the gut microbiome and digestive health, although exactly how much benefit you get depends on the kimchi, how it was fermented and how much you eat.

Which brings us to the increasingly popular idea that gut health affects the rest of your body. Your gut is involved in digestion, nutrient absorption and immune function, so it makes sense that what you eat can have effects beyond just what happens in the toilet. There’s even research looking at possible links between fermented foods, inflammation and skin health — although I wouldn’t start rubbing kimchi juice on your face just yet. Your skincare routine does not need a side of cabbage.

For this recipe, I wanted to make kimchi as uncomplicated as possible. There’s no flour paste, no complicated cooking and no need to spend your entire Sunday making a jar of cabbage. It’s essentially cabbage, seasoning and fermentation, with the process doing most of the work for you.

I also like making it myself because I get to control exactly what goes into the jar. Store-bought kimchi can be perfectly good, but depending on the brand, it may be pasteurised or otherwise processed for longer shelf life, which can affect the amount of live bacteria present. Making a fresh batch at home means you can choose your ingredients, control the seasoning and let it ferment to exactly the level of funk and sourness you like.

And perhaps the best part is simply having it ready in the fridge. A spoonful can turn leftover rice into something worth eating, add acidity to a rich meal, or give instant life to noodles, eggs, sandwiches and pretty much anything else that needs a little help.

So if you’ve never made kimchi before, this is a good place to start. Make a big jar, let the little bacteria do their thing, and suddenly you have a condiment that makes eating more vegetables feel less like homework.

@nomies.cooppa darren went from making kimchi for work to making it for fun🥹 #buscaptaincareers link in bio for this kimchi recipe! #fyp #sgfoodie #kimchi

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Basically: make kimchi once, and let future-you thank you every time you open the fridge.

click in the links to see where we bought our ingredients!: gochugaru, coarse sea salt, chinchalok

to learn how we turned this kimchi to kimchi jjigae, check out the recipe in the video below!:

There are some dishes that make you realise how silly food borders can be. Gado-Gado is one of them.

If you grew up in Singapore, you’ve probably seen it around: blanched vegetables, tofu, sometimes tempeh, potatoes and egg, all covered in a generous amount of peanut sauce. You’ll find it at some Malay stalls, Indonesian restaurants and hawker centres, but compared to nasi padang, mee rebus or ayam penyet, gado-gado still feels like the quieter kid in the class.

Gado-gado is generally associated with Betawi food culture in Jakarta, and which name, in Betawi Malay dialect meaning “mix-mix”. The Betawi term ‘digado’ also means to eat a meal without rice (in its regular steamed form, that is). There isn’t really one fixed recipe for this dish and depending on where you are, you might find cabbage, bean sprouts, long beans, potatoes, cucumber, tofu, tempeh and egg, all brought together with a rich peanut sauce.

Gado-gado has some pretty close cousins, with the most obvious is pecel, a Javanese dish particularly associated with Central and East Java. Like gado-gado, it brings blanched vegetables together with peanut sauce. The differences are that the sauce in pecel is usually punchier and involves sand ginger (kencur) whereas gado-gado sauce doesn’t. Gado-gado is also always served with lontong and also boiled eggs, whereas pecel is often eaten alongside steamed rice.

Then there’s also karedok, another West Javanese relative where the vegetables are served raw, giving it a much crunchier, fresher character.

Whether gado-gado directly evolved from pecel is harder to say. What is clearer is that these dishes belong to a much bigger Nusantara tradition of pairing vegetables with intensely flavoured peanut sauces. Pecel itself has a much older documented history in Java, with references going back centuries.

And these foodways didn’t exactly stay in Java.

We actually have evidence of gado-gado being known in Singapore decades ago. A Malay cookbook, Memilih Selera by Siti Radhiah published in the 1953 included gado-gado alongside a whole collection of recipes from the wider Nusantara, suggesting that it had already entered the culinary vocabulary here, even if it never became quite as mainstream as some of its other Indonesian cousins.

And maybe that’s why I find gado-gado so interesting. It sits somewhere in that wonderfully blurry space where Nusantara food becomes Malay food becomes Singapore food, with it being a symbol of the culinary connectedness within the region - and how the different recipes of gado-gado in Singapore shows how culinary traditions are still evolving.

For my version, I wanted to lean into that flexibility even more. So I used vegetables that aren’t necessarily the usual suspects, including soybean sprouts instead of the more common mung bean sprouts, as well as snow peas. The point wasn’t to reinvent gado-gado for the sake of it, but to show how adaptable the dish can be. If you have vegetables sitting in your fridge that need some attention, gado-gado is basically an excuse to throw them all together.

And this is what I love about it: it's mostly vegetables, but it never feels like you’re being ‘punished’ for trying to eat more of them. The peanut sauce is doing a lot of heavy lifting here — salty, sweet, nutty, spicy and savoury — but it’s not just about the sauce either. The tofu, egg, vegetables, crunchy bits and rice all bring different textures and flavours to the plate. It is the sum of all these slightly random things that makes gado-gado so good.

I also like thinking of gado-gado as one of my favourite ways of decolonising “healthy food.” So much of what gets presented to us today as healthy eating comes wrapped in a very Western ideas of healthy eating: quinoa, arugula, avocado toast, grain bowls etc.

Meanwhile, Southeast Asia has been putting vegetables, legumes, tofu and herbs together with deeply satisfying sauces for generations. We just never bothered giving it a $22 price tag and calling it a “nourish bowl.”

Gado-gado is a great reminder that eating more vegetables doesn’t have to mean eating sad food. Sometimes you just need a really good peanut sauce. So here’s my version — a little different from the traditional combinations, but very much in the spirit of ‘mix-mix’. Hopefully it gives you an excuse to eat a few more vegetables too!

@nomies.co64 years old and cycling 16km to work? gurl i cant even walk 300m to the mrt station for work link in bio for our gado gado recipe! kickstart your sporting journey with ActiveSG, book here: activesg.gov.sg! #sgfoodie #sports #fyp #gadogado

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I visited Taiwan years ago, and one of the street snacks I kept going back to whenever I found myself at the night markets of Shilin and Raohe in Taipei was stinky tofu. If you’ve never had it before, the smell is probably the first thing you’ll notice. It has the distinct ability to make an entire street smell like someone has left something very questionable in a rubbish chute. But somehow, once you actually eat it, all of that disappears. The tofu is crispy on the outside, soft in the middle, deeply savoury, funky and full of umami. Your nose says “absolutely not!”, while your mouth is like “please give me another one!”.

So when I recently came across a video by Muslim food creator Sharmin (@mintydollz on TikTok) making a halal version, I immediately wanted to try making my own. The recipe I found was a much easier home-cooked version that uses firm tofu, fermented white bean curd, garlic, vinegar, salt and water. The white fermented bean curd is particularly important because, apart from being fermented, it already has this slightly sulphuric, funky smell with hints of miso-like umami. I mashed it up with garlic, some of its own brine, vinegar and water, submerged the tofu in the mixture and left the whole thing in an airtight jar in the fridge for a week, flipping it every couple of days so the brine could reach all sides.

One week later, it was time to find out if I had successfully made stinky tofu or just made tofu that had spent a week having a garlic bath.

The smell, surprisingly, wasn’t that bad. It was much more garlicky than stinky, which should probably have been my first clue. I drained the tofu, tossed it with a little baking powder to help make the texture lighter and airier, then fried it until the outside was crispy. And honestly, it looked pretty damn good.

But before eating it, I started wondering what actually makes proper stinky tofu so damn stinky in the first place.

Turns out, the real thing is considerably more involved. Traditional stinky tofu isn’t simply tofu soaked in some funky liquid for a few days. The magic happens in the stinky brine, which is itself fermented. Depending on the producer and region, the brine can be made from things like fermented vegetables, cabbage, bamboo shoots, amaranth and other ingredients, with some traditional versions also incorporating shrimp or other protein-rich ingredients. The mixture is left to ferment for weeks or even months, allowing a complicated community of microorganisms to break down proteins and produce all those wonderfully offensive aromas.

In fact, studies of traditional Taiwanese stinky tofu brines have found a surprisingly diverse mix of bacteria and fungi living in them, while researchers have also tried isolating specific microorganisms to make the fermentation more controlled and consistent. So behind that seemingly simple night-market snack is actually a pretty sophisticated fermentation process.

Which also explains why my little one-week experiment wasn’t quite the same thing.

After frying, my tofu was crispy, airy and had a nice fermented savouriness. It was genuinely good, and for a shortcut version made in the fridge in a week, I can’t complain. But then I took a bite and realised...

This isn’t the stinky tofu I remember ;(

I wanted that aggressive funk. That smell that hits you before you even see the stall. That slightly rotten, almost ammonia-like aroma that makes you question whether you should be eating it, followed by that ridiculously satisfying umami flavour once you actually do. Mine was more like stinky tofu’s well-behaved younger sibling. It had the idea of stinky tofu, but none of the social menace.

Still, I think that’s also what makes this version fun. If you’ve always wanted to try making stinky tofu at home but aren’t quite ready to spend months cultivating a vat of fermented vegetables and microbes in the name of dinner, this is a much more approachable introduction. Just don’t expect it to taste exactly like the stuff you get in Taiwan.

As for me, I think I’ll have to try making the proper version one day.

Although I should probably let the neighbours know first.

@nomies.coDay 67 of letting my neighbours think I forgot to dispose my garbage🤮 recipe is on our substack! #sg #sgfoodie #fyp #chinesefood

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if you wanna try to make other fun kitchen projects which involve fermenting and/or pickling, try these recipes!:

MARMITE HAS DISAPPEARED FROM SINGAPORE!

Not “I went to three supermarkets and couldn’t find it” disappeared. It’s ACTUALLY discontinued.

Unilever announced in July that Marmite would no longer be distributed in Singapore, citing ongoing supply challenges. Supermarkets are trying to bring in alternative overseas stocks, while restaurants are scrambling to find replacements. Some are even testing Vegemite.

Which got me thinking: why do we care so much about a British yeast spread?It’s because somewhere along the way, Marmite stopped being just a British thing and became weirdly Singaporean.

Marmite was invented in England in 1902, made from concentrated yeast extract, and originally marketed as a nutritious food because of its B vitamins. But it was already being sold in Singapore during the colonial period. I found a 1937 Straits Times advertisement telling people to add a teaspoon of Marmite to soup, meat pies and “any other meat dish”. By the 1950s, it was being advertised here as a family food and something to add to everyday meals.

So somewhere between British colonial food culture, Chinese households and Singapore’s general talent for taking foreign ingredients and doing our own thing, Marmite found a second life here.

And this is where things get interesting. We didn’t just put it on toast.

People in this part of the world started stirring it into plain congee or rice for an easy hit of savoury flavour, while Chinese restaurants and zi char stalls turned it into sticky, sweet-savoury sauces for chicken, pork ribs and other fried things. Marmite chicken eventually became such a familiar local dish that there are now restaurant recipes specifically built around that combination of salty yeast extract and sugary glaze.

But then I tried to find out who actually invented Marmite chicken, and... NOTHING.

No famous chef. No eureka moment. No “Marmite Chicken was created in 1987 by Uncle Lim of Somewhere Seafood Restaurant”.

It seems to have emerged organically from Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese cooking, which honestly feels quite appropriate. Take a British pantry ingredient, throw it into a Chinese-style fried chicken dish, add sugar until it becomes addictive and suddenly you’ve got something that feels like it has always belonged here.

Now that Marmite is disappearing, restaurants are having to confront the slightly ridiculous reality that an imported British yeast extract has become important enough to threaten an entire category of local dishes. KENG ENG KEE, for example, has had Marmite chicken on its menu for more than 20 years and is now testing Vegemite as a replacement. Other restaurants are looking for alternative suppliers or considering taking their Marmite dishes off the menu altogether.

So I started wondering, are we actually okay with Marmite disappearing?

Well, I wasn’t.

And rather than paying some insane online resale price for a tiny jar, I thought; “how hard can it be to make Marmite?”

I found a recipe by chef Alex Bond that makes a Marmite-like spread using stale sourdough, brewer’s yeast and sugar. The bread is toasted until very brown, soaked in yeast and water, fermented, squeezed out and then reduced. And when I say reduced, I mean 4 litres of liquid becomes about 200ml. The final reduction alone takes a couple of hours.

Which was when I realised something slightly embarrassing. I had never once thought about how Marmite was actually made. It had always just been there — sitting in a little jar, ready to be aggressively spread onto toast or dumped into a Marmite chicken.

After spending hours watching a giant pot of fermented bread water slowly disappear into a dark, sticky, deeply savoury paste, I started appreciating that little jar a lot more, especially when I used my painstakingly-homemade Marmite to make Marmite chicken.

Maybe the supply shortage is annoying. Maybe Vegemite will eventually save us. Or maybe Singapore’s collective Marmite addiction will force us all to learn how to make our own.

Either way, I now have a jar in my fridge, and I am guarding it with my life.

@nomies.cosorry it took me 4 DAYS but here’s your marmite chicken 🥹🥹” #recipe #chicken #fyp #marmite

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The algorithm gods have brought me to some pretty interesting corners of the internet, including how to make dishes I’ve never even heard of before. One of them was Nem Chua, a Vietnamese fermented meat snack that immediately caught my attention.

Traditional Nem Chua is usually made with minced pork, seasonings and a curing/fermentation mixture, often with shredded pork skin mixed through for that slightly chewy texture. It’s then left to ferment, which gives it its signature sour, tangy flavour and that surprisingly vibrant pink colour. It’s commonly eaten with garlic, chilli and sometimes herbs — basically a Vietnamese cold cut, except it’s fermented rather than cooked.

And as someone who loves cold cuts, raw-ish things and food that looks slightly questionable, I obviously had to make it.

The only problem was the pork.

So for my halal version, I swapped it out for good-quality minced beef, making sure there is no tough sinew in the mince (trust me you don’t want random bits of connective tissue stuck in between your teeth)

The pork skin was a little trickier. I wanted that extra bit of texture, but obviously pork skin was out. So I tried tang hoon, or glass noodles, instead.

After mixing everything together, I packed the meat into a ziplock bag and let it ferment according to the curing mix instructions. Now this is where things get a little crazy: the beef starts off looking oxidised and brown, but after fermentation, it turns this incredibly vibrant pink.

Once fermented for 24 hours, I portioned them up and wrapped each piece with garlic, cili padi and laksa leaves — the way Nem Chua is commonly enjoyed.

The result? Sour, savoury, garlicky, spicy and moreish. Now obviously I’ve never tried OG Nem Chua but visually, it looks pretty damn close (I’m thinking if I should get my Vietnamese friends try this…)

One important note: this is a raw fermented meat product, so the curing mix, measurements, fermentation time and temperature matter. Don’t freestyle this one — use a curing mix specifically intended for this type of preparation and follow its instructions carefully.

If TikTok hadn’t sent me down this rabbit hole, I probably would never have discovered Nem Chua. Now I’m wondering what other fermented meat snacks the algorithm has been hiding from me!

@nomies.cook fr.. if I were to sell this, would y’all buy?🤔 recipe is on our substack! #sg #sgfoodie #fyp #food #vietnam

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get the ingredients for the recipe in the links below!:

Nem Chua Powder, Tang Hoon, Fish Sauce, Minced Beef

try our other Vietnamese recipes here!:

Sotong Masak Hitam occupies a familiar place in many Malay kitchens across Singapore and the wider Malay world. The defining ingredient is, of course, the squid’s own ink, which lends the dish both its distinctive black colour and a subtle marine richness that cannot be replicated by any other ingredient. Like many domestic dishes, there is no singular or canonical recipe. Each household prepares it differently, reflecting inherited preferences, regional influences and the ingredients available to them.

In my own Singaporean Malay family, Sotong Masak Hitam has been part of our regular cooking for as long as I can remember. On mornings when there was time to visit the wet market, my mother would return with fresh sotong and prepare her version of the dish. It was never considered elaborate cooking, but rather an everyday meal, served simply with steamed white rice and sambal belacan. Such dishes often leave the deepest impressions, not because they are reserved for special occasions, but because they quietly become part of one’s culinary vocabulary

Recently, I had the privilege of learning another interpretation from Mdm Nooraini, whose family traces its culinary traditions to Singapore’s Southern Islands. Her version differs noticeably from the one I grew up eating, most evidently in the consistency of the gravy. Rather than remaining loose, it is reduced until it reaches a nappé texture, coating each piece of squid in a glossy black sauce.

Equally instructive was her choice of squid. While Sotong Torak (Swordtip Squid) is the variety most commonly found in Singapore’s markets, she prefers Sotong Nos Karang (Bigfin Reef Squid). The distinction is not merely academic. Sotong Nos Karang yields a darker and more abundant ink, giving the finished dish a deeper black hue, while its flesh remains firmer and more substantial after cooking. It is, however, considerably less common in Singapore today and is available only through a handful of specialised seafood suppliers.

This recipe, to me, is an attempt to reconcile these two traditions: the one I inherited from my family and the one generously shared by Mdm Nooraini. Its flavours are familiar yet layered—the gentle smokiness of dried chillies, the rounded acidity of asam jawa (tamarind), and the citrusy fragrance of makrut lime leaves, which lifts the richness of the squid ink without overwhelming it.

The squid should first be cleaned thoroughly and rubbed with salt to remove any residual slime, before rinsing it with water. More importantly, care must be taken not to rupture the ink sac during cleaning. Preserving it intact allows the ink to be introduced deliberately into the pot, where it disperses evenly through the gravy and gives the dish the appearance and flavour for which it is known. Such small acts of care are characteristic of Malay domestic cookery, where technical knowledge is often transmitted through observation rather than written instruction.

Recipes such as this are seldom fixed. They evolve from one generation to the next, shaped by memory, circumstance and the cook’s own judgement. This version reflects that continuing conversation, bringing together the flavours of my childhood with the knowledge so generously shared by another family whose culinary heritage forms part of Singapore’s rich Malay food traditions.

@nomies.cowatching this makes me want to have a work bestie too 😍 link in bio for the recipe! kickstart your sporting journey with ActiveSG, book here: activesg.gov.sg! #fyp #sg #food #sgfoodie

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this dish has been living rent-free in my mind ever since I first tasted it three years ago at a Korean restaurant in Tanjong Pagar. raw and lightly cured seafood has always been among my greatest culinary pleasures—whether it’s sushi, sashimi, ceviche, kinilaw, Thai raw shrimp in fish sauce, fish carpaccio or poke.

when I finally found the time to develop my own Ganjang Gejang recipe, I was genuinely thrilled to revisit that unforgettable experience: the rich, creamy sweetness of raw crab flesh and luscious crab roe, enveloped in a deeply savoury soy marinade. after several rounds of testing and refinement, I arrived at a recipe that truly satisfied what I had been craving.

one aspect I refused to compromise on was the quality and freshness of the crabs. Since this dish is never exposed to high temperatures, using live crabs is, in my opinion, essential. with crabs that have already died, there’s simply no way of knowing how long they’ve been sitting before reaching the market. as they won’t be cooked, the risk of bacterial growth and foodborne illness is considerably higher if the crabs are no longer at their freshest.

live flower crabs can be surprisingly difficult to source in Singapore, with live mud crabs being far more common. we managed to find ours at Auntie Crabs at West Coast Market. if that’s a little out of the way, The Ocean Mart in Geylang also stocks live flower crabs every Tuesday and Saturday.

as for the soy marinade, I spent a fair amount of time fine-tuning the balance until it was exactly how I wanted it—a harmonious combination of savoury depth, gentle sweetness and a subtle kick of chilli. just as important as the marinade itself is the curing time. I found that allowing the crabs to marinate for 48 to 60 hours produced the ideal result: enough time for the flavours to fully permeate the crab meat while preserving its delicate sweetness and avoiding excessive salinity.

get the ingredients of this recipe here!
light soy sauce, korean rice syrup, dried kelp (dashima), mushroom seasoning, seaweed sheets, shortgrain rice

if you’re looking to try making other crab recipes, check them out here!:

our recent feature on a neighbourhood Malay hawker stall in eastern Singapore offered a rewarding opportunity to uncover the stories, traditions, and culinary heritage behind one of the community’s most beloved food establishments.

instantly recognisable for her warm smile and welcoming personality, Mdm Aishah is the owner of Dapur Aishah in Bedok, where she serves a wide selection of Singaporean-Malay favourites, including Nasi Lemak, Rendang, Mee Rebus, Mee Soto, and her signature Nasi Rawon.

having migrated from Madiun, East Java, to Singapore in the 1990s, Mdm Aishah shared her inspiring journey from working as a hawker assistant to eventually establishing her own business, driven by her unwavering passion for cooking and sharing her own heritage through food.

in a generous gesture, she also offered to teach us her recipe for Rawon, a celebrated beef soup originating from her hometown. the dish is distinguished by its use of buah keluak, a fermented black nut that lends Rawon its characteristic dark colour and rich, earthy flavour. Mdm Aishah explained, however, that her version reflects the Singaporean-Malay adaptation of the dish and differs from the traditional preparation found in East Java.

one notable distinction is the addition of curry powder, which introduces greater depth and complexity to the spice profile. tn contrast, the original Javanese recipe typically relies on a simpler blend of coriander and cumin.

the accompaniments also reflect local adaptations. In East Java, Rawon is traditionally served with sambal, salted egg, and mung bean sprouts. By comparison, the Singaporean-style Nasi Rawon is accompanied by a more generous spread that includes cuttlefish sambal, bergedil, serunding (coconut floss), fried tempeh, and crispy fried cow lung (paru), creating a heartier and distinctly local interpretation of this cherished classic.

@nomies.cothrough her undying passion for cooking & dedication to serve the community, I guess Mdm Aishah alr 'ra-WON' in life 🥰🍛 link in bio for this delicious rawon recipe!🔥 #nasirawon #rawon #sgfoodie #fyp #recipe

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our kitchen studio was recently graced by a friend who is also an iconic name in the Singapore DRAG performance scene. 26-year old Nish (drag name: Nishilia Aishwarya Bernard of House of Mutiara) started his freelance career as a drag queen only 3 years ago but has already cast a wide following through his performances in several drag spaces & events, with his recent gigs at TUCKSHOP, a notable nightlife spot of local drag artistes.

this Pride Month (and PinkDot), we wanted to celebrate Nish’s achievements, as well as other drag queens who have contributed to the vibrant queer nightlife scene in Singapore while pushing boundaries & building spaces for the marginalised.

below are Nish’s words, describing his memories of his grandma’s chicken curry, following the recipe.

“my late Patti’s (grandmother in Tamil) chicken curry, to me, is special and no one does it like her. my mom is Malaysian, so my family would often visit my mom’s side of the family, more so when we were younger, so I spent a good portion of my childhood in Malaysia. a distinct and unforgettable memory of my childhood was entering Patti’s Malaysian home & getting a whiff go her chicken curry. every time we visited, the dining table became the first stop for us.”

“it’s a shame I never got fluent in Tamil because there was always a language barrier between me and my late Patti. despite it, she never failed to express her love for us in her own ways.”

“my mother still keeps a written recipe of Patti’s chicken curry but she often adjusts the dish to suit my father’s taste preferences. since Patti’s passing, nobody has made chicken curry quite like my Patti. I hope the taste and smell of this curry bring good memories and love into your life, just like it has to mine.”

“thank you Patti, for everything.”

@nomies.cook fr tho what drag name would you give Azfar?? 🤔💃🏻 #drag #lgbt #curry

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looking for other South Asian dishes at home? try our other recipes as well!:

TikTok has been raging with this VIRAL potato spuds dish, by night market stall Ministry of Spud, featuring a topping of rich & gooey Mac and Cheese, drizzled with ‘Bang Bang’ sauce. as foodies ourselves, we wanted to see what all the hype was about, and whether we could create this famous dish at home!

this decadent & indulgent street dish, while simple in its elements, turned out to be the PERFECT combination of guilty CARB ON CARB overload with a mixture of creaminess, sweetness, minimal chilli spice, cheesiness, saltiness & glorious umami! while the OG ‘MAC & CHEESE WITH BANG BANG SAUCE’ is a lot simpler, we threw in our own tweaks to elevate the dish by adding some touches.

firstly, we decided that the OG Bang Bang Sauce (which is simply a chilli-mayo mixture) lacked depth & complexity. this is when we added in ketchup for slight tartness & jamminess & honey for a sweeter & rounded flavour.

while the Ministry of Spud’s Mac & Cheese is characterised by its simplicity, without any mix-ins (unless you add additional topping of choice eg. chicken satay), we wanted ours to be more substantial and therefore the addition of HALAL chicken luncheon meat for added protein & shredded seaweed for a kick of umami!

if you haven’t tried this banger of a pasar malam dish, we suggest you visit Ministry of Spud & if you can spare some time, to make it your own, try making this recipe & tell us in the comments how it turns out for you!

@nomies.cobefore you tell me i tell you... 🤫🧀🥔 you can find the recipe on our substack! #fyp #bangbangsauce #macandcheese #sgtiktok #food thanks @Ministry Of Spud 🥔👑 for inspiring this

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try making these OTHER pasta dishes too!:

this one’s a kitchen project I’ve been waiting to try out in a VERY long time… especially since watching KwokSpots’ recipe video on Youtube, to which this recipe is accredited to. another push for me to make Peking Duck at home was the fact that HALAL-certified Peking Duck is hard to come by in restaurants in Singapore & I really wanted my family to be able to try it.

my process of acquiring the ingredients for this was easier than I expected. if you’re in Singapore & looking for duck which has gone through halal slaughter, supermarkets like Sheng Siong carry PERAK DUCK imported from Malaysia, sold as a whole bird.

the only challenge was to source for the right apparatus to accomplish the feat, particularly meat hooks (to hang the bird during the drying process), a bicycle pump (for separating the skin form meat & fat for optimal crispiness) & cake tester which I used to sew the cavity to contain marinade while the duck roasts.

with a bit of time (2 days to be exact), patience and a large enough oven, you too can achieve Peking-style duck at home. While it might not be up to par with the top restaurant ones, it would DEFINITELY be the talking point at dinner parties if done right.

@nomies.copls don't come for me if your fridge smells like duck for a whole week 😛 #duck #chinesefood

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our recent experience of volunteering at The Buddhist Union @ Jalan Senyum, Singapore was a fruitful one. we got to learn so much, from formulating vegetarian versions of local Malay dishes to planning meals for a larger crowd.

on that day, Aunty Geraldine, a Peranakan mother who volunteers as a head chef at the temple invited us over to the temple kitchen to assist with the tasks of preparing food for 70 people, including congregants, monks, nuns & volunteers. as part of kitchen team, we got to learn Geraldine’s recipes for the vegetarian dishes she often serves at the temple.

we were amazed to learn how Geraldine was able to tweak recipes for the Malay dishes that she made, to not include any forms of meat and seafood and also onion & garlic. take for example, her delicious Sambal Goreng which we ended up serving with Nasi Lemak.

this recipe shows Aunty’s resourcefulness & creative thinking, using the base of serunding for the Sambal Goreng for a toasty flavour and substantial body. we were also collectively inspired by her team’s spirit of volunteerism and community service by selflessly coming together to make food the temple.

check out our other vegetarian recipes to try out this Vesak Day weekend!:

food is a necessity for survival, but more than that, we often subconsciously tie the flavours we love to a specific place, a cherished memory, or a loved one. a single bite can evoke some kind of feeling, ranging from fond nostalgia to bittersweet tears.

in this episode of What Are You Cooking Today, we met Fitri—a chef and home-based business owner. while he taught us this recipe, he shared his fond memory of Asam Pedas, a signature dish his late mother used to cook for the family.

however, life took an unexpected turn 3 years ago with Fitri’s diagnosis of kidney failure, which required him to make significant changes to his lifestyle and diet. this meant finding creative alternatives for the hearty, comfort dishes he once loved. this time round, he’s showing us how to recreate those nostalgic flavours with a dialysis-friendly Asam Pedas recipe provided by The National Kidney Foundation (NKF).

while his story touches on some heavy and sombre moments, Fitri maintains an incredibly positive outlook on life. adjusting to dialysis was a hurdle at first, but today, it is fully integrated into his routine. he’s still able to chase his passions eg: playing sports, working as a professional chef and even participating in competitions!

watch the full video below to hear more about Fitri’s journey:

@nomies.cothis asam pedas said “let’s take care of ur health AND ur soul”  link in bio for the recipe! If you are at risk, go for regular kidney screening so any issues can be detected early and managed appropriately. Find out more at bit.ly/saveourkidneys-ogs @nkf.singapore #assampedas #assam #healthy #fyp

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important note: the recipe below is designed to be dialysis-friendly, with a limited selection of vegetables and served with white rice, as dialysis patients need to moderate their potassium and phosphorus intake, which can be higher in certain vegetables and wholegrains. for those who are not on dialysis but would still like to enjoy this dish, you may incorporate more vegetables and/or pair the dish with brown rice. find out more here: NKF

if you are looking for more inspirations, check these link below:

when I tell you this might be the best chicken rice I’ve ever had, I am seriously not exaggerating! To this day, my colleagues and I are still raving about it in the office.

that very first bite had me “wow-ing” out loud, but I also felt a little bit sad mostly because I realised I’d never find anything this good elsewhere in Singapore! we were incredibly well-fed at Chef Kenneth’s home, but I left with more than just a full belly; I left with his secret recipe in my hands! (hehe)

so, with Chef Kenneth’s permission (a huge thank you, Kenneth!), you get to try this legendary chicken rice at home! the only catch? you’ll have to make it yourself... but trust me, it’s low effort and highly rewarding. worth every single minute.

before we dive into the recipe, you might be wondering: who is Chef Kenneth, and why is his recipe the gold standard? well, Kenneth has over 20 years of culinary experience in world-renowned restaurants like Saint Pierre and Les Amis, and he is currently the Head Chef of Bistro Du Vin. but beyond the fancy resume, he is a massive fan of chicken rice. he simply lives for it!

so combining his professional chef techniques with his personal passion, he has constantly experimented and refined this recipe until it reached absolute perfection. he’s done all the hard work and testing so that you can enjoy the best version possible!

the most shocking part of his process? the cooking method. instead of constantly attending to the chicken while its cooking, he has a better way. he brings the water to a rolling boil, turns off the heat, and places the uncooked chicken inside. he lets the residual heat do all the work!

this gentle poaching method retains all the internal moisture, ensuring the meat never overcooks or turns dry. once the timer is up, he plunges the chicken into an ice bath to stop the cooking immediately. this “shocks” the skin, making it tight, succulent, and incredibly silky. the result? Super juicy chicken that left us absolutely gobsmacked. can’t wait for you to try it out yourself!

a little bit more about his story in the video below:

@nomies.coqueue up for 1 hr for chicken rice 🙅🏼‍♀️ learn kenneth’s chicken rice 🙆🏼‍♀️ this story’s not just about chicken rice. it’s a story about how drug abuse affected Kenneth and his loved ones. because drug abuse affects not just the abuser but also the others around them. @cnb.drugfreesg #chickenrice #recipe #chicken #fyp

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if you are looking for more inspirations, check these links below:

@nomies.coso you're telling me i have to wait till im 60 to find my soulmate ...😢😢😢 link in bio for recipe! #sgfoodie #empanadas #fyp #sgfood

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if you're Singaporean or Malaysian, you might be used to the traditional fried curry puffs enjoyed as a teatime snack, loaded with potatoes, chicken and sometimes boiled egg.

for overland travellers Nora and Susie who explore the most remote parts of the world, they find a piece of home through finding for curry puff adjacents in the countries they travel to.

one of their favourite ‘currypuff-like’ snacks that they discovered and have a lasting memory of is Beef Empanadas during their trip around Argentina. their memory was having these by a roadside stall with a warm beef filling which was lightly spiced. we recreated this element of their memory with our version of the country’s empanadas, paired with a tangy chimichurri sauce for dipping.

want to try making a similar beef pastry? here’s a Chinese Beef Roti recipe!:

@nomies.cosgreans on holiday day 1: look for interesting local food sgreans on holiday day 3: eh I craving for Chicken Rice alr 🤔😮‍💨🇸🇬 #lioncity #fyp #sg #crab #recipesoftiktok

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get ingredient for this recipe here! : galangal , candlenuts

having a crabby day? check out these other crab recipes!:

it’s been a while since I last learnt something from my nai nai. the previous time, she walk me through the painstaking process of making ngoh hiang, so this time I requested for something slightly simpler, but still uniquely hers.

recently, she discovered that miso paste works as a substitute for tau cheo (fermented yellow soybeans), which she now finds a little too salty for her liking. Since miso has a similar flavour profile, I was honestly quite impressed by her creativity and willingness to adapt. It may not be “authentic” in the traditional sense, but it’s authentically hers.

she still keeps some classic ingredients in the dish, like kim cham (dried lily buds), tau kee (dried beancurd strips), and glass noodles. beyond that, she mentions that it’s flexible, you can add your favourite vegetables, though staples like cabbage, mushrooms, and carrots are usually included.

I had so much fun spending time with my grandma in the kitchen, getting a glimpse of all the behind-the-scenes moments that go into the meals she cooks for us. It was also a gentle reminder that she’s growing older, and not to take these moments for granted, but to spend more time with her, especially in the kitchen!

if you have any other (nai nai) recipes that you are curious about, do drop them down in the comments below!

@nomies.coremember nai nai says "water is.... ✨PRECIOUS!!✨" if you don’t want nai nai to CHECK on you, remember to save water not just at home but at work and EVERYWHERE!! small habits make a big difference. Visit go.gov.sg/makeeverydropcount-n today and pledge your part to save water. #MakeEveryDropCount

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get ingredient for this recipe here!: kim cham , fried tau kee

if you are looking for more traditional recipes, check out the following:

ASAM PEDAS is undeniably the MOST quintessential homecooked dishes within the Malay world, especially in Singapore, most of the Malay Peninsula the Riau Archipelago & mainland Sumatra. it reflects the coastal geography of the region due to use of saltwater fish (except for the other variations of the dish which use beef or chicken).

as the name suggests, it showcases a flavour combination of ‘asam’ (sour) and ‘pedas’ (spicy).

in different households, asam pedas is prepared differently withe recipes varying from family to family & according to region and availability of ingredients. however, these TWO base ingredients are non-negotiable; CHILLI (dry or fresh or combination of both) & ‘ASAM’ or SOURING AGENTS (tamarind or types of dried garcinia).

the recipe below is one inspired by our recent visit to Restaurant Fiz, where we learned to cook Chef Haffizul Hashim’s version of the dish. while most home recipes tend to be simpler, Chef Haffizul’s takes it a step further through the additional preparation of a sour fish stock a.k.a. kuah pindang which forms the base for this ELEGANT and REFINED Asam Pedas.

@nomies.cogo fine dining eat fancy french cuisine ❌ go fine dining eat ASAM PEDAS ✅🤔 as part of @malayheritage’s Selera Warisan series, let's witness how chefs like @hafizzul.hmy & @azfarrocious brilliantly keep Malay heritage alive through food.  comment 'asam pedas' & we'll even send the recipe over!   curious about Malay culture? come explore Malay Heritage Centre's reopening: https://www.malayheritage.gov.sg/ #sg #sgfoodie #fyp #food

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get ingredient for this recipe here!: red snapper , barramundi , grouper , threadfin , asam gelugor (dried garcinia) , galangal , dried chillies , candlenuts , tamarind pulp (asam jawa) , fish sauce

craving for other delicious Malay recipes? check out these 👇🏼

@nomies.coI guess Chef Suria takes the assignment of 'homemade' VERY seriously with her sambal goreng ✨ As part of @malayheritage’s Selera Warisan series, let's witness how chefs brilliantly keep Malay heritage alive through food. Curious about Malay culture? Come explore Malay Heritage Centre's reopening: https://www.malayheritage.gov.sg/ #MHCYouSoon #MalayHeritageCentre #SeleraWarisan

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get ingredients from this recipe here! : soybeans , tempeh starter culture (ragi tempeh) , tamarind pulp (asam jawa) , gula Melaka (or brown sugar)

looking for other recipes to us your tempeh in? check out these other Nusantara dishes!: