nonya recipe bibles

every singaporean mother whose kitchen i have walked into seems to have this book. it's like the bible of singaporean cooking. it's particularly awesome for nonya food and kuehs. my grandmother has her own copy, and this one was passed down to me by my mother. 

there's just something about yellowed pages and second-hand books that i love... all the stories that they would tell if they could talk :) of course another nonya recipe bible is the famous Mrs. Lee's cookbook, of which i also have a copy. this was also passed to me by my mother. i guess the reason why i prefer the singapore cookbook is that it has heaps more colour photos and the directions are a lot clearer than the former. but i do sometimes refer to Mrs. Lee to compare recipes. 

i've been experimenting with quite a few of these recipes lately. in the past one week i've made babi pong tay, bak wan kepiting (minced pork with crab and bamboo shoot soup) and ayam sioh (chicken in thick spicy tamarind juice). All of which have been absolutely delicious. i wish i had taken photos. i keep on forgetting to, and only remember after we have scraped the last morsels off the bowls.

i'll try to remember next time!