Kitchen Gadgets Trivia - The Answers

Here are the answers to Mom’s kitchen gadget trivia from my last post. Thanks for the creative responses, it was fun reading them.

Don’t scroll down if you are still working out the answers ;-)

Kitchen Trivia Answers:

(A)

Greg of Greg Cooks was half correct when he guessed that this is a cake knife. It’s made of a special kind of plastic that makes cutting of steamed sticky cakes easier. These steamed cakes are usually made of rice flour and coconut milk. Examples would be cakes like putri salat, kuih lapis beras, talam ubi.

(B)

I was not surprised that Kevin of Closet Cooking knew the answer to this one (I noticed lots of Japanese recipes in his blog archives). This is a takoyaki maker. Takoyaki is Japanese-style fried octopus balls which originated in Osaka, Japan’s third largest city. I know what you are thinking, but no, not in the literal sense – each ball Is made with batter, diced octopus, tempura scraps (tenkasu), pickled ginger and green onions. It is then topped with green laver (anori), Japanese mayonnaise and thin fish shavings (katsuobu) is part of the ingredients for this delicious street snack. This blog has a great step-by-step demonstration on how to make takoyaki.

A side note: Osakans are very serious about food and have a kuidore attitude, which means “eating until collapse”, and this applies to both physically and financially. Osaka was not called “the best kitchen under heaven” during the Edo period for nothing. Osakans are very passionate about food and are known to ruin themselves by overspending on fine food. Besides takoyaki, other homegrown dishes include: shabu-shabu, omuraisu (rice omelet), yakiniku (BBQ) and even instant noodles.

(C)

Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook was spot on when she guess that these are a multi-spout funnels for lacy crepes or pancakes called roti kirai or roti jala. Roti kirai is served at room temperature and eaten with a hot bowl of curry. Mom says that I make the best roti kirai in the East (*ahem*). The secret to making a beautiful lacey pattern is all in the wrist (steady hands, working quickly) and also the consistency of the batter. She gave me one of her three kirai funnels, so I can now make roti kirai in my Sydney kitchen and feature it on this blog in the future. It’s been a while, I hope I haven’t lost my kirai skills…

(D)

Muruku Press. Muruku is a deep-fried Indian snack, which is made up of spiced rice and lentil flour dough. The press has interchangeable discs (similar to a cookie press) that you can use to make pretty ragged edged coils or smooth ones. The batter is put into the press and by turning the handle like a mill, the batter streams out of the bottom directly into hot oil (Greg, that’s 2/5 for you!). Although Indians only make up about 8% of the 4.5 million Singaporeans, there are many Indian snacks and dishes that are popular with all Singaporeans.

I just asked Mom when she last used her muruku press and she said that she’s NEVER used it. She’s had it for 35 years!!! She had good intentions when she bought it but never got round to making her own muruku because she didn’t fancy having to use the deep fryer (which she also owns but only used twice).

(E)

KJ of A Cracking Good Egg was right that this contraption is for deep-frying. It's specially designed to fry rempeyek, a savoury Indonesian street food which is also very popular in Singapore and Malaysia. Rempeyak is a crunchy snack that looks like a small, thin wafer that is commonly made with peanut and tiny dried anchovy fillers. The batter is very flavoursome due to the coriander seeds, cumin, tumeric and garlic. The ones found in Singapore is usually "free form", but by using this contraption, you can make the rempeyek uniform in size. Mom's homemade ones are very addictive but she usually makes it "free-form", so this is yet another white elephant in the kitchen. ;-)

I hope that you had fun learning about unfamiliar kitchen gadgets and foods.

Tomorrow is my last day in Singapore (sob!) and I have one last post from here to share with you. It's a rather interesting one, so do drop by again tomorrow.