Hock Chew Specialities

By CLARA CHOOI
Photos by LEW YONG KAN and SAIFUL BAHRI

When in Sitiawan, do not miss out on the opportunity to feast on Hock Chew food and biscuits.

WHEN the Hock Chew migrants from China settled in Sitiawan in the early 1900s, they brought with them a host of interesting specialities.

Today, this bustling coastal town of Perak is known for its signature “sweet and sour” Hock Chew or Fuzhou cuisine that tastes delightfully different from most other kinds of Chinese cooking.

Some of the best Hock Chew food can be found in the Bei King restaurant on Jalan Raja Omar, right smack in the middle of Sitiawan.

Restaurant proprietor Ching Kin Eng has more than 20 years of experience behind the wok, whipping up the very dishes her ancestors used to prepare.


Signature dishes: Ching with some of the Hock Chew specialities she serves at her restaurant in Sitiawan.

However, even the skilful Ching has to admit the Hock Chew cuisine may not suit the palate of every Malaysian, whose taste buds have already been sullied by the spice-packed foods of the country’s various cultures.

As such, the shrewd businesswoman has successfully concocted her very own “special brew” of the Hock Chew food.

“What I’ve done is modify the dishes according to taste. This is to make sure every dish is special on its own; people who eat it will know immediately that I was the one who cooked it,” she jokes during an interview at the air-conditioned restaurant recently.

One of Ching’s bestsellers is an all-time Hock Chew favourite – red wine thread noodles cooked with tender chicken.

Served steaming hot in a huge bowl, this dish can be found in most restaurants that serve Hock Chew food.

Ching’s version, however, is probably one of the popular ones among the locals.

Why?

“It’s obvious, really. I make my own wine here. And as popular belief suggests, homemade food tastes better than commercialised food,” she says.

For the dish, Ching uses “long-life” noodles, which are white in colour and has a slippery softness and a milky flavour when boiled.

“The noodles, too, are handmade. That’s why they taste better,” she says.

To make the tangy-tasting red wine, Ching, declining to elaborate further on her secret recipe, says: “Plenty of materials are used.”

“I use only quality products to make the wine. The pulut and yeast used are the expensive ones.”

As a result, the dish has a myriad of tastes – sour and tangy, a dash of saltiness and a sweet aftertaste.

Another of Ching’s delights is the fried oyster egg.

The oysters used for the dish come from the day’s morning catch and are always fresh and fragrant.

The eggs are beaten to a fluff then fried with onions and chillies before the oysters are added in.

The result is a golden brown omelette, stuffed with loads of juicy, slightly salted oysters, still glistening with the taste of the ocean.

“This is always a favourite amongst our customers. After all, everyone loves their omelette,” says Ching.

One must-have dish is the sweet and sour sea cucumber thick soup cooked with fish maw.

This dish is partly spicy and is addictive to say the least.

“Hock Chew food is known to be mostly sweet and sour. For this particular dish, we make it slightly spicy to suit Malaysians,” says Ching.

The sea cucumbers are cooked until tender with a blended concoction of fish maw, chillies and ginger.

If one is not already satisfied with the first three dishes, do not forget to try another Hock Chew favourite – the homemade fish balls.

These fish balls are different from most as they are stuffed with salted minced pork and prawns.

“We make them here ourselves and customers just love them.”

Besides that, customers could also order other specialities of the outlet such as fried soft shell crabs, sliced sweet and sour fish, and chicken with salted egg.

Another mouth-watering Hock Chew creation found in Sitiawan is the “Gong Pian” biscuits.

Hard and crispy on the outside, these savoury biscuits are one of the oldest favourites brought by the Hock Chew settlers from China.

Where can you find them?

A hop, skip and jump away from Bei King will lead you to the Sitiawan Cheong Cia Gong Pian shop, located behind Wisma Ganda, on Jalan Tok Perdana.

The age-old family business is just booming. Come rain or shine, the rather unsuspecting looking shoplot is in a constant flurry of activity.


Special ingredients: Cheong Hiong Koh preparing Gong Pian biscuits for the clay oven.

In the midst of this, one will find proprietors Cheong Hiong Koh, 41, and his brother Heong Poh, 33, who took over the business from their granduncle over 10 years back.

The two successfully tweaked the original “Gong Pian” recipe to create what you will find sold at their shop today – biscuits stuffed with sweet “char siew” or slightly salted fried onions.

They may not look like much to the naked eye but take a bite into one the moment it is taken out of the clay oven and your taste buds will convince you otherwise.

“The original recipe is very plain and the biscuits have no fillings.

“People love the new recipe of “Gong Pian” that we have created. In fact, some customers come in and buy over 300 pieces per order to take away,” says Hiong Koh.

The biscuits are made from wheat flour, yeast, salt and lard. The dough is kneaded carefully by hand before it is put into a machine to be rolled. After that, it is flattened and rolled into smaller pieces, stuffed with the fillings and rolled again with a rolling pin.

“Once done, we put them into the heated oven (tandoor) where they are baked for a few minutes until they are hard and crispy,” says Hiong Koh.


Hot stuff: The Gong Pian biscuits sold at the Sitiawan Cheong Cia Gong Pian shop.

The onion-filled biscuits cost 60 sen each while the “char siew” ones cost 90 sen each.

“We make at least 1,000 biscuits a day. The first batch is ready for sale at about 10am every day.”

Three batches are made and every single biscuit is snapped up even before the shop closes for the day in the evening, he adds.

“It’s a bit hard for us to make so many biscuits because the preparation and baking for each batch takes about one and a half hours,” he said.

In fact, business is so good for the family that the shop is closed during public holidays.

“As it is, the orders are for more than we can make every day. If we open during public holidays, I don’t think we can keep up with the demand,” says Hiong Koh.

So when in Sitiawan, do not miss out on the opportunity to feast on Hock Chew food, including the delicious “Gong Pian” biscuits.