Well, it’s time for making Chinese New Year goodies again.
On Thursday, I went to JB for another bad haircut and groceries and many of the shops were selling homemade cookies.
Besides a sticker for the Chinese symbol of “Luck”, they bore no other marks. It would be impossible to tell what went into those cookies and who made them.
If the China melamine milk scandal had happened during Chinese New Year, I think it’d be an utter mess trying to trace the source of foods and a lot more people could’ve been adversely affected.
And so today, we began our own “homemade” factory. And I threw my father off the production line, two minutes after he joined in to help us.
Was it terribly evil of me?
For those who know, we hand slice all the pineapple and reject the hard core of the pineapples. It has to be thinly sliced one way, then cut into strips along another way.
Many, perhaps most, people do not even do this.
Factories use the entire pineapple and blend the pulp together. You know how it is, a huge lump of blended jam with absolutely zero texture.
The woody core of the pineapples have very little flavour. So when mixed with the tasty parts of the pineapple, the entire pineapple flavour is compromised. So the sugar content is upped to compensate for a lack of flavour.
I’ve had people tell me, the jam of the tarts is great, and all I can taste is sugar, sugar, sugar.
Think about this. Except for particular pineapples where the texture of the pineapple is very fine, you would not eat the core of the pineapple. So why would you use it in pineapple tarts?
Saves money, of course.
I know of a family who sells homemade tarts too, made by a property agent and an army of maids.
The process begins early, some two months before Chinese New Year.
The dough is made, the casings are shaped and placed on trays. Then they’re frozen.
They bulk buy pineapple tarts – no problem with this. And then send these pineapples to a store to be blended, exactly the same way as factories do.
Closer to Chinese New Year, these cases are all defrosted, filled and baked.
This person sells thousands of tarts and makes thousands of dollars from this yearly enterprise.
The only homemade component of this enterprise is the assembly line – cooking the jam, making the tart cases, putting the jam on it, and baking it.
The person who sells this describes her tarts as “melt in your mouth”.
In reality, upon contact with saliva, the dough melts into a clump in your mouth.
There is hardly any pineapple, since to them that is the most expensive component of the tart. Labour is cheap, since maids are hired.
And since maids are not trained, the tart cases also look like they’re made in a factory.
To me, this gives the term “homemade” a bad name.
Why did I throw my father off the line? Because he was chopping the pineapple, rather than slicing the pineapple.
To you, that may seem like nothing, but it really makes putting the pineapple jam into the tarts difficult. All the unwieldy bits of pineapple are hard to shape. Furthermore, when it is baked, all these jutting out pieces burn, which does not make it pleasing to the eye.
This is why factories prefer to pulverize everything. It makes it damn easy to fill a jam tart. But the result is jam tarts that have zero bite.
The thing is this, we already spend so much effort to make our tarts. We should do it the right way. If not, it is better to purchase factory made ones.
When we use the term “homemade”, it should not be because we made it inside somebody’s house but because we’re taking the effort to make it extra special. To distinguish it from the mass.
To me, “homemade” is to take pride in what you do. Otherwise just don’t do it.
For everything we do, there is a reason why we do it the way we do it. Nothing is arbitrary.
The way we cut the pineapple ensures the jam has crunch, while being soft. My aunt once told me: “Kueh bangkit should melt in your mouth, but pineapple tarts should not.”
Our crust has a higher content of butter and eggs and makes a very wet, but luscious and soft dough, that is malleable and does not clump up in the mouth.
We individually mould our cases and pinch it with copper cutters and pinchers that have been in our family for over 25 years.
On each tart, we make 15-25 pinches on the case. The more you can pinch, the more refined the tart looks. And the more skilled you are, the more you can pinch.
How do I know this? Through practice. Each year, I get better at it. And I can pinch the tart cases more. I also notice that when I’m tired, I concentrate less, and can’t fit as many pinches in.
Before hitting the oven, tart is carefully egg washed. Because of the soft dough, you can’t just push your brush over it, because the tart will lose it’s shape. The wash has to be spread evenly, or the tart will brown unevenly. Too thick and it will burn entirely.
I ensure good colour on the top, then I randomly inspect the bottom of the tarts in a few key areas of the tray to ensure the crust also has colour at the bottom. If not, it’s back in the oven.
All this effort we take for a pineapple tart that people only look at for quarter of a second and gobble up in 5 seconds or less. They may not notice the craft or effort. But we hope they taste the difference.
PS: For the hard cores of the pineapples, we throw this in water and sugar, boil it up to make a pineapple syrup which we mix with water and ice. After all that hard work of cutting, it makes a great refreshing drink. After that, we throw the now-tasteless stuff into the compost heap.