Red Spice Base Stories
A Basic Eurasian Spice Base
At the beginning of a few Eurasian cook books I own, there are instructions for making a ‘basic’ rempah or spice base. In Celia Marbecks Kristang Cuisine it’s called Fresh Herb curry paste, In Mary Gomez’s The Eurasian cookbook there’s a Standard Rempah and in Melba Nunis’ Kristang Fanily Cook Book she has one called Laksa Rempah but describes it as ‘a base for many of the curries’ in her cookbook. I’ve also heard it described as just ‘ curry paste”. For reasons I’ll explain in the near future - I’m going to title all of them as Red Spice Base.
The recipes for these spice bases usually describe the grinding of these ingredients together: onions, dried chillies, candlenuts, lemongrass with some variations: Nunis’ recipe adds Galangal, Gomes’ adds Turmeric & Belacan and Marbeck adds Galangal and Turmeric.
These recipes are almost identical to the classic South East Asian Spice Base I wrote about in Spice Base Stories that utilises a more universal Flavour Base
Eurasian RED SPICE BASE
In Khir Johari’s Food of Singapore Malays there is a chapter called Mother Culture where he describes creole, hybrid and inter racial unions who ‘worshipped like their fathers but dressed spoke and ate like their mothers’. Not surprising then that a commonly used Eurasian recipe belongs to this Nusantara region. There are however some specific ways that this base is then used in the Eurasian kitchen which I detail below:
Fruit & Seafood Curries
One of my favourite curries growing up was Prawn & Pineapple curry. Similar to this was a Fish and Green Mango curry. Once during the the San Pedro festival in Malacca I tried a Sea Snail and Papaya curry. I didn’t care so much for the snail but the combination of sour sweet fruit and seafood ticked the same favourite boxes.
Meat & Vegetable Sour Curries
A staple of Kristang cuisine is Ambila - a combination of green beans and beef in a curry soured with tamarind or dried garcinia slices. Mary Gomes cookbook also has a Beef & Belimbing ( a sour relative of Star fruit) and a Pork & Lime Juice curry made with this spice base. The pairing again is of a protein with a sour fruit or souring agent.
Similar Malay & Peranakan Curries
While Prawn & Pineapple Curry was a regular occurrence on our Eurasian table, I’ve also seen it in Peranakan cookbooks and Malay Lauk offerings. In fact Melba Nunis describes it as Malay Prawn & Pineapple Curry in her cookbook.
Here’s a few examples of recipes for this curry found online:
There’s also a few Penang Prawn & Pineapple curry recipes but these seem to add cumin and coriander to the rempah
The circles certainly overlap here across Eurasian, Malay and Chinese Peranakan cuisine. There’s additional variation is in the addition of coconut milk that makes it creamier than versions without that rely more on a sour flavour, which I prefer. When it comes to adding coconut milk to the red spice base, I prefer its rich creaminess without the sour element to make another SE Asian classic: Laksa
Laksa
Both Marbeck and Nunis actully call it Malacca Laksa in their books and add a distinct flavouring Daun Kesom also known as Laksa leaf or Vietnamese Coriander. Its latin name is Persicaria Odorata. While laksa is usually percieved as a Malay or Nonya dish, I’ve written about its occurrence in Eurasian Cuisine in Laksa Stories
The Eurasian Kitchen
Just to thread the South East Asian culinary idea of Spice Bases to a Eurasian Kitchen - some key ingredients are reliant on the introduction of them by the Portuguese: Chillies, Pineapples and Papayas, all brought by them from South America in the 16th century.
Chillies would eventually embody this idea of a red and spicy base found widely throughout South East Asia, but Pineapples and Papayas would probably have emerged in recipes first from a Eurasian kitchen.
Whilst the central component of sauted onions as a base flavouring agent is also common to European sofritos as I describe in Flavour Base Stories the origin of this technique cannot be determined, although we know they are native to Central Asia, which would require them to be introduced here at some point. These lesser spiced onion bases do however feature in more western style Eurasian dishes that I describe in Malayan Colonial Cuisine.