Sunday, September 27, 2009

KUIH RAYA

Tahun ni banyak sungguh kuih raya, tapi aku kurang teruja nak makan sangat. Sebab, berbeza dengan tahun-tahun lepas, tahun ni semuanya 'kuih tunjuk'. Both the gas oven and the electric oven went bust, and no one bothered to send for repairs. Too bad lah.

Ever since I can remember, we've always made our own Raya cookies. Mom used to enlist me & sis to help 'terap' (using a cookie cutter) the cookie dough, and to put the 'mekap' - sapu telur, letak ceri, letak badam, tabur cornflakes etc - depending on the cookie recipe lah. When I was in college, mom 'retired'. So me & sis bercekang mata baking cookies after terawih sampai pukul 2-3 pagi.

We would try out new recipes, but we always have several biskut wajib di rumah ni - peanut cookies, dates roll, tea biscuit, semolina biscuit, and mom's special pineapple jam tart. Ada jugak buat kuih yang traditional, like samperit, buah redan, kuih gunting, kuih goyang, kacang tojen, bahulu, masa arwah nenek was still around.

Peanut cookies - easy peasy. Ground peanuts, sugar, flour and some peanut oil to bind all the ingredients. I suppose that's how the name 'Biskut Mazola' came around, tumpang nama oil tu.

Dates Roll is more complicated. Ada custard powder and powdered milk in the dough, which is rolled out, cut into strips and wrapped around slivers of dates, Then sapu telur and tabur crushed cornflakes on top. Yang leceh, the dough is so lembik and expands after baking, so kena buat kecik-kecik sebesar jari kelingking. Berchenta nak abih satu adunan pun.

I have no idea where Tea Biscuit got it's name, perhaps it was served for tea in it's country of origin? Mom got the recipe from her kakak ipar masa awal kahwin dulu, who got it from some mat saleh friend of hers. I really love this cookie. It's got cornflour and powdered milk in it, so it's quite garing and lemak, especially with a topping of finely ground almonds, yummy!

Semolina Biscuit is another easy peasy one, it's the first biscuit mom let me make by myself masa sekolah rendah lagi. Just the basic ingredients of butter, flour, sugar plus a dose of semolina. I love the crispy and grainy texture of this biscuit!

And then, the all-time favourite Pineapple Jam Tart. Mom has collected several tart recipes over the years, a different one for open-faced tart, lace tart, tart bentuk nenas, tart gulung. This one is really a favourite among our guests, satu adunan (about 100 pieces) is usually finished by second Raya.

We make our pineapple jam from scratch. Usually 3 or 4 pineapples are grated, mixed with sugar and cooked over a slow fire until the jam thickens. The aroma of the cooking jam wafting... mmm... menggoda betul time-time puasa tau. But I hated the process, lenguh tangan kacau jem, lama weh!

These days mostly orang buat tart gulung, where the dough is pushed trough a cookie press to form a strip, and rolled around some jam. It's easier to make and store. Ataupun tart bentuk nenas, where the jam is put in the middle of the dough, and the dough is snipped all over with the ends of a scissors to resemble pineapple skin. But personally, I like the open-faced ones. It used to be my job to drop a blob of jam into the depressed centre of the tart dough, and then to lay thin strips of dough criss-cross over the jam, so that it doesn't get messy when stored in stacks later on.

Alahai, too bad tahun ni aku takde buat kuih raya, tak dapat upload gambar...

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