KN, The Seri Kaya Maker

My first memory of sweet creamy seri kaya was when I was six years old. It was a year my father's tour of duty to Simanggang, Sarawak. Once again, my parents dragged all of us across the country to grandmother's house in Penang. It was the end of the year, a long school holiday. Beginning of the next year I would start a standard one (gred one). I was fortunate because the school was just opposite grandmother's house across the street.

Two days later my father left grandmother's house. He had to catch an early train from Butterworth, so I was still in bed when he said goodbye to my mother. I don't remember what actually had happenned, but my mother told me I refused to eat breakfast and sat on the swing all morning until noon under grandmother big house waiting for my father to return home.

Grandmother said I was spoiled and forbade my sister KN to bring down my favorite roti seri kaya (white bread sandwiched with sweet concoction made of eggs, coconut milk and brown sugar and not to forget daun pandan). Mak bought two loaves of bread every other morning from mamak roti.

Every morning, mamak roti (an Indian man whom we called mamak) rode his big bicycle would stopped in front of grandmother's house. The whole year I was at grandmother's house I never saw mamak wore anything else other than white clean sarong and white shirt. He always smelled minyak attar (perfumed body oil).

He had this specially built a 2'x2'x3' glass box with wood panel attaced at the back of his bicycle. He kept all his freshbaked bread loaves in this box along with seri kaya in cans. The front side of the box has a little door. He pulled out a little piece of cutting board from under the glass box. With his sharp knife he sliced the bread. For us the kids, watching mamak sliced the bread was one of highlights of the day before the sun set, something we did not want to miss.

My sister came downstairs anyway and asked me to go to a grocery store with her. When we were about a stone throw away from grandmother's house, KN handed me a small newspaper wrapped packet.

"What is it KN?"

"Open it."

I unwrapped the newspaper and there was my sandwich lathered with egg seri kaya. The caramelized color of seri kaya glistened under an afternoon sun. The afternoon breeze brought out a heavenly scent of pandan leaves.With my index finger I swiped the creamy seri kaya along the edge of sandwich and licked it.

I took small bite and chewed the sandwich dreamily. As my sandwich was getting smaller, the tastier the seri kaya had become. By the time we hit Bakar's front store KN's sandwich was making its way into my system. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and licked my sticky fingers one by one.

"The serikaya was good, KN."

"Yes, I know. I made it."

"Your serikaya is hundred times better than mamak roti's seri kaya."

KN is a genius cook. She learned early to master most of Malay dishes. Nobody could keep their secret recipes from KN. When she tastes a new dish for the first time, she could generalize what's in it. The second time she eats it, she could break down every single spices and ingredients in the dish. And she rarely makes a mistakes.

Comments

[angie]

sorry to disappoint you all, but actually seri kaya originates from hainan island. i suppose during the old days when the chinese immigrated to malaysia and let other fellow malaysians taste it, it spread like wild fire all over malaysia and singapore.

[lightspeech]

uhm hmm ...I think so...not sure if they sell it where I'm at...

[anasalwa]

lightspeech: Thank you for stopping by and read my blog. I'm sure you had SriKaya before, haven't you?

[lightspeech]

Enjoyed reading your blog! Got me drooling..

[anasalwa]

Pak Idrus,
Who can say who started it first? We've been living together with our Chinese and Indian friends/neighbors not to mention other ethnics for a long time. Not long ago I saw kuih abok-abok imported from Japan at Super88Market. Abok-abok is made of rice flour and has either mungbean-brown sugar or coconut-brown sugar filling. The outside of abok-abok is dusted with roasted ground mungbean. when I saw it for the first time, my first reaction was, "Hm...did the Japanese learn it from Malay old folks during their occupation? Or the other way around? But did those Japanese soldiers had time to make abok-abok when they were not running around chasing roosters and chicken in the village or hunting down their victims?