Post-CNY 𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑡

The main ingredients for my pengat: the pisang rajah banana,
yam and three types of sweet potato (orange, purple and yellow) 

My pengat (pe-ngat) or pungat (poo-ngat) was late this year. Usually, my family will cook this delicacy before Chap Goh Meh but this time around, it was unavoidably late. Why? It's because the pengat would not be a proper pengat if this traditional Chinese New Year fare does not contain any pisang rajah. 

Yes, the pisang rajah or the King of bananas. Only the pisang rajah is good enough for the pengat, not any other variety of local bananas. But the pisang rajah can be quite elusive. More often than not, it is not available when I need to buy it. That was why when I spotted a whole bunch of pisang rajah at the market 10 days ago, I immediately swooped in to buy a comb from the vendor.

Now, the problem with this particular comb of pisang rajah was that it was still green. Unripe. It would take time to ripen and the skin turning yellow. But never mind, I told my wife, we shall offer it first for worship of the Jade Emperor on Pai Tnee Kong Meh which was on the 29th of January night. Only the best banana variety for the Jade Emperor, see? 

That done, we targeted the pisang rajah to ripen by the fourth of February so that it could go into the pengat pot on Chap Goh Meh (the fifth of February). Unfortunately, the comb was only starting to get slightly yellow. So I told my wife that it was impossible to cook the pengat if the banana wasn't ripe enough. But then by yesterday, we noticed that three-quarters of the comb had ripened. Immediately, we started preparing the comb: unpeeling the individual bananas, slicing them and then boiling the slices with sugar. 

The next morning came the real hard task for me. Firstly, I had to peel the taro (more commonly called yam in this part of the world) and the three varieties of sweet potatoes (orange, white and purple). Next, cutting them up into diamond-shaped chunks. Since the raw tubers could be quite hard, it was difficult for me to cut them consistently into these diamond-shaped pieces. But I did try and I must say that I got quite a number of decent pieces out of them. The rest of the cut tubers, not being diamond-shaped, are put aside or even thrown away. That's why it can be rather wasteful if tradition is to be followed strictly. As for me, I do not throw them away. I'll dump these uneven pieces into the pot too. Nothing gets wasted in my pengat, what the heck! 

I've got to explain one thing: we were cooking pengat and NOT bubor chacha. Only the Penang Chinese of baba-nyonya descent will appreciate the difference. If one is a Penang Chinese and does not have any baba-nyonya blood in him or her, the pengat and the bubor chacha will be difficult to tell apart.

But I will say this. One of the biggest differences is that the pengat must include the pisang rajah. If there is no pisang rajah, I won't even contemplate cooking this. And I won't cook bubor chacha either. Certainly not in my kitchen. Another difference is the diamond-shaped cuts. But for this, I will compromise in order not to waste perfectly good ingredients just for the sake of visual presentation. And a third difference, in my opinion, is that there is no white bean or agar-agar jelly in the pengat. If at all, there'll only be pearl sago or tapioca powder that's cooked until translucent and then rolled into strips.

My pengat friends: from left to right, Alice, Heng Swee, Chiok San, Swee Hiang, Heng, Kwan, Lum, my wife and I, and Loh. Curiously enough, a common trait for all 10 of us here is that we've all been to the Nandaka Vihara at one time or another.