Singaporean Flavors

By Robert Danhi, CHE, CCE, CEC, CCP, Contributing Editor

In Singapore, foodies are not just a group of folks from the more-affluent parts of the population. Every socioeconomic level within this small city-state, which comprises only 246 square milesand is home to over 100,000 registered hawker food stallshas a keen interest in food. This provides a platform for one of the most-dynamic, multiethnic and pervasive food cultures around. We can look to Singapore for more than just what is deliciouswe can learn how to improve our food quality, increase foodservice turnaround and get ideas on how to create collective eating arenas for food.

A cultural stir-fry

Instead of the frequent melting-pot analogy, I prefer to look at Singapore as a stir-fry of cultures. Each ethnic group retains its identity, and in their cuisines, they simultaneously come together to form a synergistic blend of flavors.

More than 70% of the population is Chinese, mostly of Southern Chinese descent, and their dialects are sometimes used to label the various styles of food, restaurants and dishesnowhere else have I seen this. For instance, Hakka pork belly with taro (thick wafers of pork belly simmered in a spiced, black-vinegar sauce), Hokkien mee (fat wheat noodles slathered in a thick, pork-crackling soy gravy), and Hainanese chicken rice (poached chicken, aromatic rice and chili-ginger sauce) all hail from groups that speak each respective language. Two other major cultural groups are the indigenous Malays and Indian, mostly from Southern India, each at about 10% of the population. The remaining inhabitants are made up of immigrants from around Asia. These major ethnic groups can be found peppered across Singapore, yet there are ethnic enclaves like Chinatown, Kampong Glam (the Malay-dense community) and Little India.

Chinatown is one of the only places you can still eat on the streetliterally. In the evening, the street is closed to traffic, and the tables come out. Chinese cuisine can be found all around the island: Fine-dining restaurants, casual eateries and stalls within the hawker centers churn out authentic Chinese cuisine from all around China.

The hawker centers, essentially food courts, illustrate how a society can take its core competency and leverage it to build a brand and provide consistent food to those in need of a flavor fix. Large platters of steamed fish with ginger, soy and sesame highlight the brilliant fish from the region. Wonton mee consists of resilient bundles of noodles, resting in a pork-laden gravy with a side of wonton soupserved with the main dish, not as a starterto sip as you eat. The hawker centers present a true gastronomic adventure.

Exporting inspiration

Singaporean chefs are creating contemporary, Chinese-flavored menus like those found within the Tung Lok Group of restaurant chains led by Sam Leong. He is known for creative titles to illustrate the emotional side of a dish. At one of the groups restaurants in Singapore, My Humble House, the menu includes A Duet, for Love, for Life, which features crisply seared foie gras marinated with seven spices and caramelized watermelon. The two locations of Tung Lok Signatures feature popular dishes from across the group. One sweet dish on the menu is chilled mango, pomelo and sago with ice cream served in a young coconut.

Innovation and evolution does not stop there: Chye Choon has launched a Brown Rice Vermicelli under the Peacock Brand for the demands of todays whole-grain-hungry consumer, exported to the United States. These noodles are an easy substitution for the noodles in bowl dishes that already have infiltrated fast-casual chain menus.

Singapores Malay cuisine is a bit more down to earth with its spice-paste curries with lemongrass, galangal and chiles; grilled satay with peanut sauces; coconut, rice, chili and sambal breakfasts; and fruit (pineapple, star fruit and mangos) and vegetable (jicama, cucumber and water spinach) salads laden with shrimp paste. There are a handful of fine-dining Malay restaurants where tablecloths, formal service and prices to match are available, but most of the food is devoured at casual restaurants and hawker centers. Satay, usually Thai-style, with its coconut-rich satay sauce and simple dry spice and sugar marinade, is already a popular dish in U.S. foodservice, yet no retailers have really hit the mark with a ready-made, heat-and-eat version of the skewers with the spice-enriched peanut sauce.

Taking a walk through Little India, I become intoxicated by the scents of hundreds of spices and tropical flowers. Each time I eat at a banana leaf restaurant, where each diner gets a large, fresh banana leaf placed in front of them and the servers portion right onto the jade leaf (the leaf is not meant for consumption), I dream of meal kits that use these sustainable leaves as creative packaging. I have only seen prototypes of real banana-leaf packages stuffed with rice and curries, but these leaves freeze great, although a darker color prevails, and the filling opportunities are endless.

One item that I have seen translated really well onto U.S. shelves is roti prata, called roti canai in Malaysia, often served with curry. These multi-layered Indian flatbreads are usually tossed to order (to see a video of this, visit southeastasianflavors.com/malaysian_and_singaporean-recipes.shtml). These flatbreads can be used as sandwich wraps (stuffed with grilled meats and slaws), thin-crust Indian-style pizza crusts (topped with spicy chutneys) or pulled apart for dipping in curriesor, as children are often seen doing, in granulated sugar. Bakers have frozen raw dough with success for decades, and the quality is still amazing.

Rising to the top spot in popularityfrom the hawker stalls to restaurantsis Singaporean chilli crab, mud or soft-shell crabs in a chilli and tomato sauce. They claim to have invented the dish in Singapore, although Malaysians would argue this point. The sauce, made with tomato ketchup and soy sauce, is mopped up with deep-fried or steamed buns called mantou. The sauce is egg-laden, like egg-drop soup, and has a sweet and salty flavor profile that goes well with other seafood, like shrimp. I think that a bao product stuffed with chilli crab, deep fried or steamed, has much potential in the United States.

Hybrids of the three prevailing ethnic groups in Singapore have formed new ethnicities with flavorful cuisines to match. For instance, many of the Chinese that immigrated to this area married local Malays, creating the Peranakan culture. The resulting food is referred to as Nonya cuisine. One dish that I find Americans like right away is pong teh, a chicken and Chinese black mushroom (shiitake) stew thickened with a purée of shallots and garlic, enriched with fermented soybean paste and given a deep, rich, brown color with soy sauce.

The lesson for product developers to learn with pong teh is familiar with a twist, an adage that goes a long way when introducing consumers to a new cuisine. The stew includes chicken legs and thighs (something familiar), large chunks of potatoes and mushrooms (common vegetables) and a savory soy gravy (soy is identifiable). These all come together into a familiar taste that would likely resonate with the majority of the American population.

The next step is transforming this dish through R&D into a heat-and-eat frozen meal that still maintains culinary integrity. An R&D team might treat the chicken (perhaps vacuum-tumbled to keep it moist) and add a gum and/or starch system to the sauce to keep it homogeneous and freeze/thaw-stable.

Singapore is a breeding ground for new culinary inspiration for food products around the globe. In a sense, Singapores hawker stalls are quite similar to many successful American chains. They have figured a way to combine outsourced bases, cut vegetables and proteins with on-premise specialty flavor componentsand fast.

Robert Danhi, CHE, CCE, CEC, CCP, is the principal of Chef Danhi & Company, Inc., El Segundo, CA. His recent book, Southeast Asian Flavors: Adventures in Cooking the Foods of Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore, was nominated for a 2009 James Beard Award. His full-service consulting agency provides expertise in menu and product R&D, consumer brand spokesperson services, sales and marketing support, and educational and training programs. For more information, please visit southeastasianflavors.com and chefdanhi.com.