Hi I'm Thomas and I'm Sheena and we're Chasing a Plate, this morning we're in
Penang, Malaysia and we're exploring a wet market for breakfast these wet
markets come alive in the mornings with a frenetic activity of fruit buying, food
eating, meat purchasing, everything you can imagine is here to see so we can't wait to explore
this market in Penang, we're starving, let's eat
we're in Pulau Tikus wet
market which is a few kilometres by car outside of George Town, this place is a
hive of activity and we are going to be filming a bunch of food videos in
Penang which is widely regarded as a food paradise so
remember to pop down below hit subscribe to follow more of our food adventures in
the meantime we've spotted our first breakfast snack so let's go and grab some,
we spotted these putu mayam or string hoppers which we just had
to try so you can see that the string hoppers are made out of a rice flour
they're almost like a rice flour noodle pancake and they're really prevalent in
Sri Lankan and Indian cooking, they've been covered in some fresh grated coconut
and then also there's a sprinkling of soft brown sugar, these string covers have
been freshly steamed so what they've done is pushed the rice flour mixture
through a sieve straight onto those rattan steamers and then popped them in the
steamers, they are looking really moist, now they're green because they're pandan
flavoured, so if you've never tried pandan, pandan is a leaf that is used widely throughout Southeast Asia to flavour
desserts and rice and it imparts this beautiful fragrance, I like to describe
it as the vanilla of the Orient, it's stunning and you have to try it when you're in Asia lets just give this a go, I'm
gonna mix up the coconut and the brown sugar a bit and then just grab one of those string
hoppers, Abang's just given me some more gula melaka so that's coconut palm sugar, he dumped a whole lot
on to that mixture so let's just give that a go, that first mouthful was so stunning
the sugar just melted in my mouth the string hoppers are so soft
and that coconut was so beautiful and fragrant,
mmmm that gula melaka or coconut palm sugar imparts a beautiful, caramelised almost smoky
flavour to this dish what a great way to start our breakfast tour of this wet market
Uncle has just offered to let me have a turn to make the string hoppers so he's grabbed the rice flour, salt and water mixture and pandan juice
and popped it in the sieve. You go first. You put it in the mould...
popped it in the mould... and you make a full circle, one, two, that's all. Okay
I hope I don't make a hash of this
okay good, that's right. Higher bit, higher bit. Not bad hahahahaha not bad....
next up we've found a really cool little stand selling chee cheong fun
which is a rice noodle but it's a very big steamed rice noodle which is then
wrapped into a roll, cut into small segments you may be familiar with this
dish from going to yum char and having dim sum but when you have it for yum
cha it's always a bit more involved than what we're having... how we're
having it now so we're having it as a breakfast dish when you have it at yum
char this would have barbecue pork or prawns inside however this version is
just the rice noodle wrapped and cut without any protein inside but you can
get sauces on top you can be very simple and have just sesame seeds or you can
get all the sauces like we have, you can see the rolled rice noodle here cut into
sections so at yum char which is a Cantonese brunch sort of meal that I
spoke about before this is where the meat would be inside here but in this
case it's just the noodle rolled up we've got all the sauces they had our
offer on here so there's chilli sauce, there's a hoisin sauce and there's also
I think a dark sweet bean sauce and then we also have some sesame seeds sprinkled
on top let's give everything a big mix up because you want to be able to taste
everything at once you don't want a big hit of the sweet sauce or a big hit of
the chilli you just want that beautiful rice noodle coated in everything and
that is looking pretty good let's give it a go, they're very slippery
Oh
the spice is very spicy much more spicy than I was expecting so that is really
good I don't like it when it's much too sweet the spice and especially because
these other sauces are very sweet so those sweet sauces with that chilli
sauce makes for a perfect combo the rice noodle itself doesn't have a whole
lot of flavour it doesn't taste like rice it's just a beautiful texture very
slippy very silky they just break apart in your mouth hmm the sesame seeds are popping
in my teeth and adding that beautiful sesame flavour I can't get enough of this
it's so tasty and you can tell that these guys have been at it for a long
time because you've got this amazing old stall which is on a pushbike it's um got
no signage at all that's always a good sign and a huge queue so all the things
combined there to make this seem like something we had to try it has got a
great spice it's really catching in my throat you might be able to hear my
voice waving a little bit let's try one more bit
hmm that sweet sauce combined with that chilli, sesame seeds that is a must
eat, remember we always put down below directions about where we are this one
it might just be where the market is but you'll see the shots of these stalls and
you'll be able to find them too when you come here
we've found a kueh stand which
had a lot of savoury and sweet snacks so kueh are Malaysian sweets or
snacks they're usually eat in the afternoon with a cup of tea or coffee
but we're gonna try these now for breakfast I grabbed this triangular
shaped one, the Uncle said that it was spicy so I assume that it is savoury and
it's been wrapped up in a banana leaf and charred over a grill you can see those
char marks on the leaf so, oh it seems to be made out of sticky rice, glutinous
rice which is called pulut here in Malaysia I'm just going to whack off that
top of the cone oh my gosh it's filled with this beautiful bright orange
mixture I think it might be coconut let's just give it a taste mmm mmm mmm
so that sticky rice is quite salty and then that mixture on the inside is a
spicy coconut mixture, I assume it gets it's orangey colour from maybe turmeric and
then it's got a chilli flavour and that is really delicious it's quite simple so
really just the glutinous rice and then that spicy coconut mixture but it's
damn tasty we also picked up this snack which the uncle told me was vegetarian
to me it looks like it's maybe fish paste which has been coated in a bean
curd skin and then deep-fried, I can see a peanut in there let's just give
it a go
not fish paste, it looks like look some sort of starchy maybe potato or yam
it's been moulded into a ball and then covered in that beancurd skin
and then deep-fried, there's a little bit of carrot in there, there may be some spring onion
actually I think it might be taro, Thomas give it a try
hmm the vege flavour's really strong I think Sheena's right I think it's taro
quite squishy and then the bean curd's really crunchy on the outside
our final snack from the kuih stall, I think the kuih are actually Nyonya kuih
So Nyonya if you don't know are the descendants of the Chinese migrants who came to
Malaysia and who intermarried with Malay locals so the food is like a mash-up of
Malay and Chinese cuisines this treat looks really interesting
so it's basically two slabs of sticky rice so these two blue slabs of sticky
rice and in the middle the Uncle just slapped a whole dollop of kaya
or coconut jam and sandwiched it together the sticky rice is blue because
it's been coloured with the petals of the butterfly pea flower I don't know if
they have indeed used the actual petals or whether it's food colouring but
traditionally it's the petals of the flower let's just give this a taste
anything with kaya is okay by me so kaya like I said is coconut jam
it's made with coconut milk, eggs, sometimes a bit of sugar and sometimes
it's flavoured with pandan which was what was was flavouring the putu mayam
that we had at the beginning it's just so sweet and so fragrant and then that
sticky rice doesn't have too much flavour but it's perfect because what really shines is
the kaya and that strong coconut flavour super tasty
you absolutely have
to spend some time exploring morning wet markets when you're in Asia they
are our hive of activity they're a great place to sample local food and it's one
of my favourite things to have all wander through all the fresh produce so that I
can familiarise myself with some of the local ingredients that you then see
later in the dishes that you eat it's amazing
in the wet market itself are a number of stalls selling food mainly noodle
soups now noodles soups are a really common breakfast item in Asia and so we've sat down to a
hot bowl of Koay Teow Th'ng which is Hokkien, it's basically meaning
koay teow which are these rice noodles, thin rice noodle, soup so it's
got the rice noodles, these bouncy looking fish balls, some sliced, poached
chicken, spring onions, some fishcake and then it's sitting in this beautiful quite thin
broth, let's start with a spoonful of that broth, ohhhhhh
it's really peppery and it's just a really hearty, strong chicken broth or chicken
stock let's give these noodles a go they've
already slurped up quite a bit or soaked up quite a bit of that broth
ohhh got it all over my chin, so silky, they just slip down your throat, I'm gonna try that
fish ball
perfectly cooked, really soft, a little bit bouncy, great texture,
they've also given us a little container filled with a bit of soy and some sliced
chillies so I'm gonna add a bit of that for some heat this is the perfect way to
start the day I know a lot of people aren't used to eating noodles or rice
for breakfast but I promise you once you jump on this bandwagon you won't want to
get off, all right, I'm gonna try some of that chicken
really tender still has a bit of bite so it's not just mush, that is such a good breakfast,
and this kind of atmosphere is so buzzy, it's really loud, people are going
about their business, slurping bowls of noodles, drinking cups of this amazing hot
kopi, this is incredible stuff if you're in Malaysia, order a kopi
K.o.p.i it's literally just really strong filtered coffee with a tonne of condensed milk in it so it's really thick and
really sweet and gives you that real hit in the morning that you need and that
completes our morning at this great market make sure you check this one out when
you're staying in Penang or staying in George Town it's super good and remember
details down below we have to fly off now because we are jumping on a bus to get
back to KL we've just spent two months in KL and we're about to spend
another month there so watch out for lots more videos on our channel don't
forget to hit subscribe if you enjoyed this one and if you want to see some
more content from Malaysia thank you so much for watching we hope we inspired
you to eat and explore like a traveler not a tourist remember to give this
video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it and we'll see you next time
jumpa lagi, jumpa lagi!