Pengat, that sweet dessert that's the hallmark of a Penang Straits-born or Nyonya family, is normally cooked once a year to mark Chap Goh Meh which is the fifteenth day of Chinese New Year. This year, my family decided to share our Pengat with the Buddhist monks of the Nandaka Vihara meditation society in Bukit Mertajam.
In the video below, one of my ex-colleagues from the Ban Hin Lee Bank days, Jack Ong, shares his agak-agak method of cooking pengat. I must say that his method largely mirrors the style of my own family, which goes back at least four generations. My mother cooked it this way too, same as her mother and her mother's mother. Like Jack Ong and many other Straits-born families, we use only white sugar and not gula Melaka in our recipe. But I must try his style next time by putting in the purple tuber last.
Note: Because of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic that has been raging in Malaysia since last September, my Kongsi has not been able to celebrate Chap Goh Meh with the usual worship session. Everything has been very low-key and scaled down, including the amount of food and fruits offered to the deities and ancestors, and this year's worship was attended by only me and my Vice-President.
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