Serabai Special

What do you get when you cross and idli with an appam, the answer is serabai

By The Foodster

Photography by FriedChillies

Posted on Wed, November 13, 2002 - 11:27:11 AM

What on earth is serabai? Is it any good? Today, I'm going to tell you about a piece of soft cake-like food that's very rare to find in Malaysia. As far as I know, there's only one stall that sells serabai and it's located at the food court, Taman Tun Sardon, Penang. This place starts selling serabais by the hundreds from seven am and by ten... its all gone.

The serabai stall is family run and was started over forty years ago by En. Jamaludin's mother. At that time, his mother was selling all sorts of traditional Malay kuihs part time to the local stalls around her area. With some coercion and support from her family, she opened her own serabai stall. When his mother passed away more than four years ago, the sad news was even aired by the local radio DJ who was a fan of this special serabai. Now Serabai Special is run by En. Jamaludin and his wonderful sisters. Although the serabais are a bit smaller now, I am happy to report that it still has that original serabai taste.

Serabai looks a bit like idli but a lot less sour and a wee bit smaller. The preparation of serabai is also similar to idli. Rice is finely grounded and marinated overnight. This ferments the rice mixture and turns it slightly sour. Coconut milk and some sugar are added to the serabai batter. Serabai is made by pouring the batter in an iron cast (acuan) with several six-centimetre diameter oval shapes. The batter is baked over a slow flame for about 5-10 minutes until it turns solid. It is then ready for hungry breakfast goers! You normally take idli with some curry or chutney. With serabai, there's an original homemade kaya gravy specially made for it.

"Must have it with the homemade kaya"

Serabais taste absolutely wonderful. Not only is it soft, it has a kind of addictive sweet soury taste. The plain white serabai goes very well with the homemade kaya which is not too sweet. The best description I can come up with is that serabai tastes a bit like a cross between Indian white apam and idli. If you are a bit more adventurous, try a modified version of the white serabai call asin asin orang lama. This has the addition of gula merah so it looks redder and tastes sweeter than the white serabai. With asin asin, you don't really need the kaya gravy. Although asin asin is quite good, if you ask me, I still prefer the white one.

Serabais are best taken hot and in most cases five to six pieces of serabai per person is enough to fill you up until lunchtime. I ate about ten pieces but hey.. that's me. Oh yes! They also do serabais for special functions.

Pros: It still tastes the same after all these years

Cons: Since they are small and fluffy, there's a tendency to overeat

Address: Food Court , Taman Tun Sardon Market, Taman Tun Sardon, Gelugor Gelugor Penang

Telephone: 019 4561030

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