Recreate the Restaurant A380 @Changi Peranakan Dishes in Your Own Home

Like many Singaporeans, cookbook author and chef Shermay Lee has fond memories of flying with Singapore Airlines. “I lived overseas for ten years and flying SQ was always the way I returned home. Whenever I get on the plane and see the perfectly coiffed crew, read The Straits Times, and eat something familiar like soup noodles or rice with a sambal flavour, I feel so comforted and I know I’m nearly home,” says Lee, founder of Shermay’s Singapore Fine Food.

So this year, for Singapore Airlines’ Restaurant A380@Changi dining experience, Lee volunteered her time to design the Peranakan menu featuring iconic dishes based on her family’s heirloom recipes.

“I am proud to support our national airline and to showcase the unique flavours of our heritage. It is time to rally around our Singaporean brands and to tell Singaporean stories by providing a memorable dining experience,” says Lee, who authored The New Mrs Lee’s Cookbook Volumes 1 and 2. The cookbooks are based on family recipes by Lee’s grandmother, the late Mrs Lee Chin Koon, who was a doyenne of Peranakan cuisine.

For Restaurant A380 @Changi, Lee curated a range of heirloom dishes, including bawan kepiting soup (crab meat, minced pork and fish meat in a crab shell and served in a light broth) and nonya nasi lemak (coconut rice served with a variety of ingredients).

If you were unable to snag a seat at Restaurant A380@Changi, why not re-create some of these delicious dishes at home with the recipes from Lee’s cookbooks and a range of Shermay’s easy-to-use chillis and curry powder. Lee shares her tips and tricks to replicating the delicious flavours of Peranakan cuisine at home.

Many people are familiar with nasi lemak, a dish comprising rice infused with rich coconut milk and fragrant pandan leaf that is eaten with side dishes such as egg, fried ikan bilis (anchovies), sambal (cooked chilli paste) and fried chicken, as an everyday meal.

Lee says the lesser known nonya style of nasi lemak, which her family eats, is a more elaborate dish featuring various seafood dishes to go with the coconut rice. Lee’s version, which is based on her grandmother’s recipe, was first served by Singapore Airlines as part of its Singapore Heritage Cuisine menu to commemorate the country’s golden jubilee celebrations in 2015. This popular dish has been brought back for the Restaurant A380 @Changi first and business class experience, where it is served with fish in a tangy tamarind-turmeric gravy, sambal prawns, fried ikan bilis and cucumber pickles.

The recipe for making the rice and its various side dishes can be found in volume 1 of The New Mrs Lee’s Cookbook. Lee advises home cooks to pay special attention to the technique for cooking the coconut rice. “The rice is a key component of nasi lemak so it has to be exquisite,” she says. “Instead of cooking the rice in a rice cooker, steam it so that it is fluffier and more aromatic.”

Here are her tips for steaming rice:

• Wash the rice thoroughly to remove the powdery and starchy residue before soaking it for at least an hour.
• Drain the soaked rice and place it in a steamer until it is half cooked.
• Stir the half-cooked rice into a pot of coconut cream/milk and salt, carefully mixing the rice and coconut cream/milk together, as delicately as folding a light chiffon batter mix, so that the individual grains are not broken. Leave it for 20 minutes or until it has absorbed all the liquid. 
• Gently scoop the rice back into the steamer and add knots of fresh pandan leaves to the rice.
• Use a chopstick to create vents in the rice by poking holes all the way to the base of the steamer to ensure an even distribution of steam, therefore, even cooking.

Cilicuka is a classic chilli dip made with sun-ripened chilli, garlic and vinegar. In Peranakan households, it is commonly served with iconic dishes like kueh pie tee (a crispy pastry tart shell filled with vegetables and prawns), popiah (spring rolls), ngoh hiang (five spice pork rolls) and keropok (fried prawn or fish crackers) as a starter or a side dish. Lee’s Cilicuka is based on her grandmother’s handwritten notes and was tested by her family until they were satisfied that it closely replicates what her grandmother used to make.

To cater to different taste palates, the dips come in three different heat levels. Cilicuka Original is made with regular chillis which makes it full of flavour but low in heat, while the Cilicuka Very Hot mixes spicy chilli padi (bird’s eye chilli) for some extra heat. These two dips are ideal for eating with keropok or to add a touch of spice to richer foods like zi char (local cooked food) style dishes such as fried chicken wings or stews like pencai (layers of seafood cooked in a claypot).

Cilicuka Very Very Hot, which is entirely blended with cili padi is the spiciest of the three dips and it can also be used when cooking to add heat to a dish. Lee suggests, “When you want some heat in your cooking, add a teaspoon or two to any food you are stir-frying, noodles or fried rice so that you can amp up the flavours without having to prepare a chilli paste from scratch.”

Curries are very popular in Peranakan cuisine, with many families passing down secret recipes from generation to generation. For a taste of heritage curry, use the Nonya Curry Powder, a long lost family formulation that was rediscovered after Lee found her grandmother’s handwritten notes on a scrap of exercise book paper. This spice mix, which is believed to be at least half a century old, includes turmeric, a signature ingredient in nonya curry, that gives the dish its bright orange-yellow hue.

This curry powder won the UK Great Taste Award and is also used by Singapore Airlines in its Nonya Chicken Curry. An easy-to-follow curry chicken recipe is included on the packaging for those who would like to savour Lee’s original recipe. However, she also encourages modifying the recipe to come up with your own version. For instance, as the curry powder itself is vegan, it can be used to cook vegetables to make a vegan curry.

“I’ve seen people add different ingredients aside from potatoes, carrots and onions, which is faithful and true to my grandmother’s style. Some add tomatoes, okra or curry leaves. There is no right or wrong way to cook curry and I prefer that people adjust their recipes according to their preferences and make their own version,” Lee says.

“Rice is a common accompaniment but in my home, we also enjoy having curry with roti jala (net crepes), prata (Indian flat bread) or a baguette to make it more texturally interesting.”

Images are from Singapore Airlines or copyright of Shermay Lee.

To savour classic Peranakan flavours with ease in your own home, check out Shermay’s Singapore Fine Food collection on With Love, SG.