Hawker food is a convenient and affordable dining option for those living in Singapore, but how many of us actually know how to cook these dishes?
Determined to find out, content creator Michael Collins, 26, recently challenged himself to learn how to whip up a meal from the hawkers themselves.
In his Instagram series “Learning how to cook every hawker dish” launched on Jan 16, the Singaporean films himself approaching various hawkers and asking them to teach him how to cook their dishes.
So far, he has learned how to make popiah, prata, and bak chor mee.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DThNZ9fjNkU/
Speaking to AsiaOne on Monday (Jan 27), Michael shared that he started filming this series because of his love for hawker food.
“But like many Singaporeans, I’ve always treated hawker food as something that you only order outside, and not so much something you cook yourself. So I decided to challenge that notion and go out to learn how to cook these dishes myself,” he said.
The challenge is similar to another recent series he did, where he went around Singapore asking strangers for trade-ups as he tried to trade a 10-cent coin for a car.
“I found it extremely fun to have these spontaneous and interesting interactions with other Singaporeans. So I wanted to do another series centred around that, with hawkers specifically,” he told AsiaOne.
For the hawker food series, Michael hopes to create around 30 to 50 episodes, covering as many hawker dishes as he can.
And if viewers are worried about hygiene in these videos, he said he has completed a food safety training course with the Singapore Institute of Hospitality and only cooks his own portion.
“The last thing I ever want to do is get these friendly hawkers in trouble,” he said.
Michael may venture beyond hawker food as well, and learn how to cook restaurant dishes such as Din Tai Fung’s xiao long bao (soup dumplings) or mala.
https://www.instagram.com/p/DT38VUQE8HP/
When choosing which hawker foods to feature, Michael shared that he tries to select dishes that involve more manual preparation.
“This is so that it is more fun for myself and the viewers, as it may be very boring if I were just plating dishes from a cai fan (mixed rice) stall, for example. But apart from that, I hope to cover the rest,” he said.
Despite Michael’s eagerness to learn, not all hawkers have been willing to teach him the ropes.
“Of course, I do face my fair share of rejections, but it is all part and parcel of trying to do something new and different. So I try not to let it affect me too much and just move on to ask more stalls,” he said.
Overall, his experiences have been largely positive.
“Singaporeans are a lot more spontaneous and game than we tend to think,” Michael said.
“Everyone I have met and interacted with have been so incredibly friendly and happy to help me out with my very impromptu adventures.”
[[nid:719974]]
Read the full article here
