Nonya cuisine is probably the world’s first true fusion food.
You can find it all down the Malay Peninsula and on to Singapore where I enjoy it often when we visit our friends and where there is quite a ‘Peranakan’ community.
The term Peranakan refers to the decendants of Chinese immigrants who went to the Malay peninsula between the 15th and 17th centuries. It less commonly also refers to Indian Peranankans, Arab Peranankans and Eurasian Peranakans.
These migrants married the local Malay people and became part of their community. The women are referred to as Nonya and the men as Baba.
Their traditional Peranakan houses are incredibly beautiful, architecturally, aesthetically, culturally, are very sought after today and command a huge price tag.
Nonya cuisine really is a fusion of cultures using Malay, Indonesian, Thai and Chinese flavours and spices and is also well known for a wide variety of delicious and sometimes unusual (to me) traditional cakes and sweets.
I was crazy for their delicate pineapple tarts and seem to have undertaken a one woman, Singapore-wide tasting of them. The best were at a traditional Peranakan house, now a shop, selling traditional crockery, clothing and highly ornate, beaded shoes but also selling, among other wonderful delicacies, their home made pineapple tarts. Old Aunty sits out the back folding the pastry on their curry puffs, wrapping sticky rice and fish floss in banana leaves or stamping out pastry for the Pineapple Tarts using a wonderful, old, copper Pineapple Tart Mould.
Now back at home in Sydney, my task has been to develop a gluten-free version of these delicious Nonya sweet treats. They are not hard to make, the pineapple jam just needs a bit of elbow-grease to stir constantly.
You can make the pineapple jam anytime. It stores well and is delicious used just as … well … jam.
The pastry is a very quick one and using salted butter gives an interesting savoury note to this sweet treat.
I hope you go crazy for them too.
Rosie
NONYA PINEAPPLE TARTS
Makes around 20 tarts
Pineapple Jam
3 pineapples, skinned, eyes removed (about 1.2kg)
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
3 cloves
1 cup sugar, more or less to taste
Roughly chop the pineapple and blend in a food processor until smooth. Place a muslin lined strainer over a bowl and pour the pineapple into it. Cover and weight down with a heavy object overnight to remove all the juices (use the juice for another purpose). If you have a juice extractor you can use it to extract the juice and leave you with the pulp.
In a heavy based saucepan over a medium heat, add the pineapple and spices and a little of the sugar, stirring to ensure it doesn’t stick and burn to the bottom of the pan. The amount sugar you add depends on the sweetness of the pineapple and your personal taste so add enough sugar to taste, however, the pastry bases contain no sugar so the pineapple can stand to be quite sweet. Keep stirring until the pineapple is a thick consistency and has a rich golden colour. Allow to cool completely.
Pastry bases
225 gm Revenge Gluten-Free Almond Plain Flour Mix (see below)
115 gm salted butter, cold, cubed
1 whole egg, whisked
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 egg, whisked for glazing
Place flour in the bowl of a food processor and, with the motor running, add the butter. Process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Add the egg and vanilla extract and process until the mixture comes together, adding water, a teaspoon at a time, if necessary.
Pat pastry into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
Preheat oven to 180°. Line a baking tray with non-stick baking paper.
Remove pastry from fridge and roll out in between two pieces of non-stick baking paper to ½ cm thick. Using a 5cm diameter round biscuit cutter cut pastry into rounds. If you have a pineapple tart mould (yes these do exist, I bought mine on line but sadly a plastic version of the lovely old copper ones) then use it to make the decoration around the sides as well as the central circular indentation on which to place the pineapple jam. Otherwise make the indentation using an improvised implement such as the end of a pestle or meat mallet etc. and decorate as you wish.
Place a heaped teaspoon of pineapple jam in the indentation on each pastry round and decorate, if desired, with a thin ribbon of pastry or other decoration.
Bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and brush the pastry with the egg wash. Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes or until golden brown.
Transfer to a rack to cool. Will keep for up to two weeks if stored in an airtight container in a cool place.
REVENGE GLUTEN-FREE ALMOND PLAIN FLOUR MIX
280 gm almond meal
210 gm besan flour
280 gm fine white rice flour
175 gm corn flour
Whip a batch and store in the fridge.