It’s been a fantastic morning, with a visit to Petanak Wet Market, followed by Swee Kang Ais Kacang and Kuching’s most famous banana fritter stall. But there’s more to come. In the afternoon, it’s time for a Malaysian cooking class.
Our class begins with a trip to Satok Market where we buy ingredients for the dishes we’re about to cook. We’re each given a woven basket like what the Dayak people traditionally use (which, let’s face it, immediately identifies us as tourists :)). Kuching tour guide Joseph gives us a guided tour and we load up our baskets with fresh produce as we move through the market. I’m glad I’m not the one who ends up carrying the heavy poky pineapples.
We pull up outside the market and soon as we open the bus door I smell it… glorious, pungent durian.
Durians, RM$5 each
Serious durian selection process taking place
The durian sorter’s stance
As we walk towards the covered market stalls, the air smells of the sweet, ripe tropical fruit that is in abundance.
Bananas, papayas, pineapples, oranges
I have stumbled into Banana Land!
Bananas and melons
Australian banana growers have had a tough year with Cyclone Yasi in Queensland (where most of our bananas are grown) and floods in the North West of Western Australia flattening whole plantations and destroying three quarters of Australia’s banana crops. During the year, the price of bananas went up as high at AU$15 a kilogram. At the time I was in Kuching, I had been banana-deprived for many months, so you can imagine my excitement to see beautiful ripe plump bananas for sale in Kuching at RM2 a kilogram – that’s around AU60 cents a kilo, unheard of in Australia, even without flood-affected prices. It’s taken months for the Australian banana industry to recover, but prices have begun to become affordable again across Australia and we’re back to including bananas on our grocery shopping list.
Bananas
Bananas and melons
But as I mentioned in my post about Kuching’s most famous banana fritter stall, Malaysian bananas are so much sweeter than the ones I eat back home.
More bananas!
I think these are the bananas they call “pisang tanduk” – “tanduk” means “horn” (as in cow horn, buffalo horn) in Malay.
Bananas
Bananas, jackfruit, papaya, langsat
The colours of the fresh produce at Satok Market are truly a feast for the eyes.
Satok Market
Arranging chillies on a saucer
Chillies
Chillies
Such colourful fresh produce!
Beautiful shiny tomatoes
There is work being done at the stalls, including the peeling of galangal and the sorting and bundling of snake beans ready for sale.
Peeling fresh galangal
Bundling up snake beans for sale
Ginger flowers, which I have never seen before
Time for a smoko
The smell of the dried fish, shrimp and anchovies remind me of my childhood.
Dried fish and shrimps
Dried anchovies
Cabbage appraisal
You can’t see it in the photo, but this woman was engrossed in reading her newspaper.
Minding the stall, reading the newspaper
More dried fish and anchovies
The rempah man sells fragrantly spicy sambal and curry pastes. You can buy as much paste as you need, by weight, or choose one of the prepackaged pastes.
The rempah man, who sells curry pastes and sambal
We reach the wet section of the market where whole birds are on display at the chicken stall.
Chicken stall
It’s warm in the undercover market and as we tread carefully through the wet section, the scent of raw poultry and fish are strong.
We’ll be cooking rendang ayam (chicken rendang), but one of our group does not eat chicken, so we make a stop to buy some fresh fish for her fish curry.
Your friendly neighbourhood fishmonger
This fishmonger is pretty proud of his river king prawns – these are like the large prawns fried in butter and garlic that we enjoyed at Top Spot food court the night before.
River king prawns
Just as I did at Petanak Wet Market, I marvel at the different species of fish for sale, many of which I can’t identify.
Many varieties of fish
Many varieties of fish
Fish
Is this fine red fellow a red emperor?
More fish – hairtail in the foreground on the left”
We buy some mackerel for the fish curry, which the fishmonger chops into pieces upon request.
Slicing up a mackerel
Adding ice to the fish to keep it cool
Wellington boots are the footwear of choice at the fish market
Amidst all the activity, there’s a spot for a nap.
Catching a nap
There is more seafood and other fresh produce at shops across the road.
More fresh produce at shops across the road
With our baskets full of fresh ingredients, it’s time for our cooking class…
Happy shoppers heading home
Satok Market
Jalan Satok, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia
Telephone: +60 82-246 575
TFP visited Kuching, Malaysia as a guest of Malaysia Kitchen, MATRADE and Tourism Malaysia.
Read the posts in my Kuching Trip 2011 series
There are more Kuching posts to come.
I’m currently on holiday in Sydney and having fun, taking lots of photographs and eating great food. While I’m away, The best way to keep up to date, get your daily dose of TFP and join in discussions is to follow me on Twitter, visit/like my page on Facebook or check the Twitter and Facebook widgets in the right sidebar on any page of this blog.
I'm TFP, a food blogger from Perth, Western Australia.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
Loved this post, especially banana land! I live in the US, and even though bananas are plentiful and cheap here, I’ve never been fond of them. However, whenever I go to Asia, I love to eat the bananas there — I agree that over there, they just have a differently flavor entirely! I especially like the little finger bananas (don’t know what they’re called, but they’re all over the markets in Hong Kong).
Cheers Megan, glad you enjoyed it.
Those little bananas are among my all-time favourite fruits. I salivate at the thought of them! :)
Ginger flowers have always been a favourite of mine. I like that they don’t seem delicate, and come in that vibrant pink colour. Simply gorgeous! What I really love about living in the Southeast Asian tropics is that I can eat my fill of tropical fruit without spending a bomb. Not just the usual papaya, watermelon and pineapple, but I really enjoy fruits like jambu air, duku langsat, guava, jackfruit and mangosteen!
Dea,
I dearly miss having access to the whole range of fresh tropical fruits. My favourites are pisang emas, jackfruit, papaya, rambutan, and of course, durian.
All those durians! I think “Ouch.” Wouldn’t want to accidentally step nor fall onto any of them. ;-) Bananas galore! Wow. Yes, the produce is very colorful. I definitely recognize the red chile peppers; one variety in particular is grown here. I can’t quite get used to dried fish. But we’re landlocked. I’ve only had dried prawns (the little ones). Someone sleeping on the job. ;-) He looks comfortable. The heat and humidity must be awful to contend with, even if you’re used to it.
Cindy,
Hahaha, yes – lots of ouch there! :) I guess you could tell I had a great time pointing my camera at everything I saw! :D
I’m not fond of humidity – I hate feeling constantly sweaty and dirty, my clothes clinging to me. Good thing I was too busy having fun to get cranky about it.
Wow, bananas went to $15? and I was telling people that $10 was way too much.
Ayden,
Yep. Some years ago after Cyclone Larry bananas cost even more than that per kilo for a while. Pretty tough times for banana growers and banana lovers.
Hey TFP!
I think i saw you today at Carousel! just outside the post office. I walked past you and thought u looked familiar.. and when i realised that it was you, i had already walked outside towards my car. next time i see you i’ll definitely say hi!
Karene,
Eek, sprung! :) Yep – that was probably me as I was at Carousel!
You got some great pictures at Satok. We always go in the afternoon, and the lighting isn’t so good.
Are you sure those are langsat in the picture with the bananas, jackfruit and papayas?
Nate,
Hmm…I was told they were langsat, maybe they’re not after all. Happy to correct if they are something else.
The yellowish ones definitely are not langsat. The brownish ones could be langsat, but they look awfully old and moldy to me. Fresh ones should be cleaner.
those aren’t langsat at all. should be some sort of forest fruit cause they rarely sell langsat in a hanging bunch in kuching :)
reading your post made me miss home :( :P
YOU GUYS HAD DURIAN!!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…. *sigh* so would have loved to have made it :(
msihua,
Yes… you’d have had a great time. I’m sorry you missed out. Funnily enough I just got back from Sydney and I reckon I ate more durian there than I did in Kuching! But nothing’s as good as fresh out of the spiky shell, of course. :)