17 Nov
The making of Pai Tee (Top Hats)
Pai Tee, a Nyonya delicacy is a popular treat in my family. The children will usually bugged my mum for making it. It requires a lot of patience because the making of the cases is tedious and so mum will make it a special treat on certain occasions such as the annual CHINs’ gathering.
First, whisk the batter with hand until it becomes smooth. Then the iron mould is heated in oil, then dipped carefully in batter and then back into the oil again.As the batter gets cooked the edges of the batter will flaired out. Carefully use a spoon to slide the cases out of the mold. Fried it for a few seconds until it turned golden brown. The cases will look like a blossoming flowers, wonderful!
Not to forget the Jeu Hu Char with lots of dry cuttlefish slices for flavouring! Omit sugar if possible as the bangkuang will give the dish a natural hint of sweetness.
We spent the whole morning helping mum with the whisking and frying to get a large batch like this! It’s all about your experience and be ready to learn from mistakes. Some cases cracked and some were haywirely out of shape. Eventually we become familiar with the task as time passed, all the cases turned out to be perfect and none was abandoned.
Fill the ultra-thin crispy top hats with one scoopful of Jeu Hu Char, put one in your mouth and whole ensemble disintegrates, filling your mouth with intense sweet flavours. The Pai Tee was heavenly!P/s: My mum is a spontaneous cook without recipes and I couldn’t seems to search for any online recipes, refer to Rasa Malaysia’s site for some excellent pictures and simple to follow recipes on Pai Tee.
