Popiah or Popia is a dish which my mum usually cook during evening tea. I have yet to learn this dish because it is labourous and demanding. I must say that I am quite biased (and with good reasons) with Popiahs because to me, only mum’s Popiah is the best (and many others say so too). Her Popiah is unlike what is sold commercially as it contains more than 10 ingredients and the vegetables are painstakingly cut into fine slivers (just slightly thicker than a toothpick) rather than going through a shredding tool. It is no wonder then that relatives would “book” a few (or quite a lot) rolls of Popiah whenever they hear that she is making some.
According to mum, there can be no shortcut to making a good Popiah. The ones sold outside which are predominantly turnip and carrot filling just don’t do justice to how a good Popiah should be made and taste like. Even the sauce spread is sourced from southern Johor / Singapore – sweet flour sauce. I suppose this is because coming from Pontian, our tastebud is much influenced by what’s available down south. And that’s not all, Popiah skin which is specially ordered from the market is used rather than the ones sold in supermarket and kept frozen. Yes, we are very particular indeed in making a good tasting Popiah.
When I asked mum for the recipe for this Popiah, I was stuck actually because mum does not use a measuring type of recipe. Rather, just like how cooking is like second nature, the ingredients and seasoning are a matter of estimates or what we Malaysians call “agak-agak”. Hence, I had to help her to make a rough estimate of the ingredients used to make this delicious dish of Popiah. Time goes by and I started to think, why don't we sell it? thus, we did. That is why we started to sell popias in the first place. Be sure to try it. :)
NUR ALIYA
