Monday, August 16, 2010

Iftar Specialities

Sometimes I find it ironic that during Ramadhan when Muslims all over the world are required to fast (hence less food consumption) there are actually more food sold than during the rest of the year! Anyway, since we are living in a basically 9-to-5 world, these sellers are a Godsend allowing us to buy food for iftar (or even sahur), so that we do not have to prepare it ourselves.

Even though my wife prepares the food for iftar everyday, I am sometimes on the look out for some dishes sold at the bazaar Ramadan. Although I dare say that there is actually not much variety, there are always something to tempt my tastebuds. Some of my favourite food during Ramadhan (even for the rest of the year actually) were:

Murtabak - basically roti canai with beef/chicken filling and egg batter. Most of the sellers bulk up their product with cabbage, onion or potato/sweet potato...and not much beef or chicken! My wife usually loathes this kind of murtabak. However I came to know Pak Zubir who sold murtabak at Batu pahat's Bazar Ramadhan Pesta. His is the best I have tasted so far - although quite thincompared to some others', you know there is ground beef/chicken in there rather than beef/chicken flavoured potato!

Roti John - a batter of meat, onion and eggs is fried in a flat pan onto which a halved baguette is placed on it. It was then garnshed with chili sauce and mayonaisse. As with murtabak above, some sellers have less meat. Another version, which I liked very much is by stuffing curried meat/onion/potato into the baguette, coat it in batter and fried. This version, as far as I know can only be found at Pesta. Better yet, that particular kakak stuffed the beguette real good with meat and charged only RM2.50!

Nasi Ambang/Ambeng - this Javanese dish is white rice with lauk consisting of salted fish, chicken in soy sauce, fried kacang panjang and serunding. Since this is Javanese dish, I can only find them in Batu Pahat, not Kedah!

As you can see, I constantly refer to the Ramadhan Bazaar in Pesta - to me the best bazaar I have been and I made it a point to visit them during the last few days of Ramadan when I balik kampung for the Aidil Fitri.

2 comments:

Hairil Rizal said...

Was there last weekend. Less stalls but still jam packed as usual.

Murtabak Pak Zainal? Was it the guy with the long beard?

Alpha said...

It's actually Pak Zubir....yes, the guy with the beard.