Welcome to Singapore Noodles, a celebration of Asian culinary traditions and food cultures. Every week, you’ll be receiving historical tidbits, personal stories, and recipes from me delivered straight to your inbox. Archived recipes and other content can be found on the index. My cookbooks Wet Market to Table and Plantasia are available for purchase here and here respectively. Thank you for being here, and enjoy this week’s post. ✨ — Pamelia
THAT ONE DISH SPOTLIGHT
I had a wonderful time chatting with Shayne Chammavanijakul, a Chicago-based food writer, publisher, and illustrator. She writes that one dish., a weekly newsletter on Asian foodways through the lens of third-culture and hybrid cooking. In her that one dish. spotlight, I chatted about my food writing journey, my earliest food memories, and why Singaporean foodways mean so much to me. Thanks Shayne for having me!
OTAH TIGRES
It’s mussel season in the Netherlands, and while the classic preparation—steamed with white wine and garlic—remains a favourite, there’s always room for novelty. After purchasing a few discounted packs of mussels recently, I steamed them just until they opened and folded the flesh into a mixture of coconut cream, fish, spice paste, and tapioca starch in the style of otah—a fiery, aromatic fish custard traditionally grilled or steamed in banana leaves. While some home-cooked versions include slivers of squid or chopped prawns for texture, I found that mussels make a wonderful addition, their gentle chewiness punctuating the custard’s silky richness. Served with rice or spread on toast for a savoury breakfast, it was both comforting and luxurious.
After two years of living in the Netherlands, one snack I’ve come to enjoy—almost monthly—is bitterballen, the deep-fried bar staple found on nearly every menu. I’m a part of a walking group that meets every week to walk around our city’s canal and we inevitably end up at the tea house of the park for a drink. Designed for eating with a beer in hand and good conversation on the side, these bite-sized croquettes are usually what we’d order to share.
Crisp on the outside and molten within, each is filled with stewed meat folded into creamy béchamel. They remind me of tigres, a Spanish cousin in the croquette family, made not with meat but with mussels, folded into béchamel, spooned back into their shells, then breaded and deep-fried. Inspired by this, I stuffed my mussel otah mixture into the empty mussel shells. As the exterior crisps in the oil, the inside sets into a custardy filling that is fiery and deeply savoury. It makes a perfect pre-dinner snack. While the original uses breadcrumbs, panko is a lot more satisfying in its crunch and maintains crunchier for longer—an important consideration when you’re feeding a crowd at a party or bringing these for a potluck.
A tip: opt for larger mussels if you can find them. They’re easier to stuff and far more satisfying to eat. I recommend serving them with teaspoons—the best tool for scooping out every last bite of otah.
OTAH TIGRES
If you’re short on time, you don’t have to make the rempah from scratch. Use your favourite sambal—just make sure that it’s of the fried variety (e.g. sambal tumis or sambal badjak) rather than the raw variety, and adjust the seasonings in this recipe to your taste.
Serves 4 to 6