The established food writer and chef behind popular private dining establishment Fatfuku will be showcasing her unique spin on traditional Peranakan dishes
Following the successful debut of its year-long Private Chef Series with the Pasirpanjangboy last month, Raffles Courtyard has announced its second instalment, featuring the inspired Peranakan fare that has made Annette Tan’s private dining outfit Fatfuku one of the most sought after since she started the business in 2017.
Tan has cooked in collaboration with several restaurants, where she showcased her unique spin on traditional Peranakan dishes to sell-out sessions. As it is with all the best purveyors of heritage cuisines, hers boasts a repertoire rooted in traditional family recipes but parsed in modern cooking techniques. This has allowed her to reimagine some of her signature dishes to suit the modern-day appetite and changing demands; the latter includes the need to cater to a much larger party daily.
Her signature crispy mee siam, for example, is served here as a “mee siam rosti”, which is essentially crisp and fluffy potato pancakes topped with prawns and quail egg sambal, served with a Nonya-style mee siam gravy (a treasured family recipe, of course) to drizzle over.
“I guess the food I cook is best described as the food I grew up with and the food I like,” Tan tells Tatler Dining. “Yes, it has its roots in Nonya cuisine, but it reflects what I like to eat. Obviously, like most people, I'm partial to crispy foods, hence the crispy mee siam. I also love fried potatoes, so why not a potato rosti to replace the dry mee siam component of the dish,” she adds.
While available a la carte, the dish pairs naturally well with her rather lavish nasi lemak buah keluak creation. Served atop jasmine rice cooked with a blend of coconut oil and coconut milk for a lighter alternative is the star of this deceptively simple dish—a generous serving of her buah keluak sambal. Based on the traditional pais buah keluak, Tan’s updated sambal is enriched with minced prawns and pork for added sweetness to balance the distinct earthy nuttiness of the buah keluak, complemented with the sweet-savoury tang of homemade achar on the side.
(Related: Julien Royer of Odette on Finding Hope in Challenging Times)
