I remember it was during my first trip to Melaka that I tried Satay Celup, which consists of skewered meat, fish balls, seafood, vegetables and everything in between cooked in a thin peanut gravy. It felt like a cross between steamboat (aka hotpot) and satay; I only ever had it once – it was a literal case of so much food, so little time in Melaka – so I never got to truly appreciate it.
My Masters of Malaysian Cuisine (MOMC) chef and Melaka native Debbie Teoh on the other hand, has a special fondness for this dish, as she explains in our first episode of Street Food Journeys: Malaysia, before giving us a lesson on how to make it.
Click here to watch the 26-minute episode: Street Food Journeys: Melaka
Klebang Coconut Shake, like Satay Celup, is synonymous with Melaka; I was introduced to this refreshing drink on a separate trip by my tour guide, Shaukani Abbas. In my segment, I demonstrate how to make a simplified coconut shake to our Masters of Malaysian cuisine co-founder, South African Paul Gray.
We also get to talk to Jennifer Tan whose parents Donald and Lily started out as hawkers in Melaka before eventually establishing their own internationally-acclaimed eatery that specialises in Nyonya food. We hope to share more hawker stories throughout the rest of the series, because I believe they are an important part of the culinary history of Malaysia (my own parents were hawkers in Seremban back in the day).
Multi award-winning tour guide Shaukani Abbas (whom we have to thank for the video footage of Melaka) gives us a glimpse of the sights in Melaka town, and we get to check out the interior of a Peranakan house courtesy of the Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum.
Our good friends The JetLag Warriors, who spent a year in Malaysia last year thanks to Covid-19, give us their take on Satay Celup from when they travelled to Malaysia’s birthplace. Finally, our MOMC chefs Bob Adnin and Debbie Teoh answer the question: “What dishes do you think of when you think of Melaka?”
If you’d like to get Debbie’s Satay Celup and my Coconut Shake recipes in your inbox, make sure you sign up at MalaysianChefs.com/StreetFoodJourneys . Along with recipes, we have a ton of extras in the form of video clips and other fun content which we’ll make available for our community.
Putting together a series like this without being able to travel to Malaysia thanks to Australia’s borders being closed, is a challenge I relish – I’m hustling everyone I know for content and footage, and making Paul burn the midnight oil to stitch it all together. I hope in the process we get to entertain and educate our audience in equal measures, and get everyone to start making plans for when we can travel again.
Jackie M.
