CHAPTER 4.3: Rituals of Hari Raya Aidiladha

Cooking is one of the main customs but there is one other ritual that is carried out during this celebration. It is commonly called the korban here, meaning sacrifice in the local language.

The meat cutting of a slaughtered goat 

A brief history:
Hari Raya Aidiladha (Feast of the Sacrifice) is an event for Muslims to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim and follow Allah's command to sacrifice (korban) his son Ishmael. Nowadays, the sacrifice is held as a symbol to reaffirm the Muslims' faith in Allah and give thanks to the blessings that they have receive. Four-legged livestock are sacrificed and the animals will be slaughtered at their neck. After the blood is drawn out from the neck, the meat will be cut and given out to the less fortunate Muslims. None of the body part of the animals can be sold for profit.

We did not actually attend the ceremony, but caught sight of some men cutting and cleaning up a slaughtered goat from the ritual. 

Moving on to a less gory scene, here are the food collective that we've made for the celebration.

Hari Raya Aidiladha food

These are the common dishes made for the celebration and from the picture above, we have (clockwise from top-left corner): lemang, rendang daging (beef), dodol, rendang ayam (chicken), kuah kacang and ketupat. Each dish is covered by different groups in our class (like how we did the kuah kacang) so go check them out (we'll update each dish with the link once we have their approval).

That will be all for this chapter. We'll see you in our last chapter, sharing our thoughts and opinions on the kampung. Bye!

P.S. Special thanks to Zaza (a classmate of ours) who gave us a picture of the korban aftermath as we did not have any of our own. Thanks!

CHAPTER 4.2: Recipes, Ingredients and Processes

We've mentioned making the kuah kacang (peanut sauce) previously and here are the details on how to make it. The portion we have here is for approximately 200 people, since dishes like this are commonly cooked for a large crowd of people and can be done in one go, so scale down the portion to suit your preferences.

Ingredients:

3 kg           roasted peanuts

1 kg           bawang merah (red onions)

15 sticks    serai (lemongrass)

1" piece     lengkuas (galangal)

1.5 kg        dried chilies

300 g         dried shrimp

1 pack       belacan (shrimp paste)

3 tbsp        salt

300 g         granulated sugar

1 piece      gula melaka (palm sugar)

                 cooking oil
                 water

Directions:
1. Place the dried chilies in a pot and add enough water to cover the chilies. Blanch the chilies until they soften, strain and put aside to cool. 

Chop and blend the onions, serai and lengkuas

2. Roughly chop the onions, serai and lengkuas and blend them together, adding a cup of water to the mix (or enough to ease the blending, don't worry about adding too much, the water helps soften and cook the peanuts later). Pour the mixture into a big bowl (we reused the basin) and leave aside.

Roast and blend the belacan with the dried shrimps

3. Roast the belacan either in a dry pan over medium heat or in an oven until the surface turns into a slightly darker brown. Break up the belacan into smaller bits and blend with the dried shrimp, adding water accordingly. Put the shrimp mixture aside.

4. Put a dry pot over medium heat or use an oven and roast the peanuts, as roasted as you like,  then remove and leave to cool.

Blend blanched chilies with oil and water

5. Now back to the blanched chilies. Blend the soften chilies with some water and oil (about half the amount of chilies) to break down the seed. Once done, add to the big basin of blended ingredients.

Crushed peanuts

6. Put the cooled roasted peanut into a blender and crush the peanuts. 

Heat oil and stir in blended chili and shrimp mixture

7. In a big pot, add approximately a cup of cooking oil and heat over medium heat, then add in all the blended ingredients except for the crushed peanuts. Stir and allow it to simmer for 10 minutes.

Stir in the blended peanuts and mix well

8. Add in the crushed peanuts, mix well until it boils, add two basins of water (approx. 20 cups of water) to the mixture and leave it on medium low heat. Come back to stir the mixture every half and hour or so.

Chop and add the gula melaka, salt and sugar

9. While the peanut mixture is cooking, chop the gula melaka into smaller bits. Add the gula melaka, salt and sugar to the pot after an hour.

Et voila! Initial orange sauce slowly cooked into a brown delicious sauce

10. Leave it to cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally. The sauce should be done when all the water added earlier in the blending process has more or less evaporated, leaving you with a sauce of thicker consistency and a darker colour.  

You now have a pot of staple traditional dish. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 4.1: Hello! Once again.

Hi all! We're finally back with some new stuff to show off and this time it's about Hari Raya Aidiladha, which was the Qurban celebration that we've mentioned back in Chapter 1. 

So here's a short intro video of what we did on the eve of the celebration and some of the people involved in helping us with the cooking of the usual celebration dishes. Enjoy.



Generally, each group is in charge of helping out in a kind of dish and we got a dish called the kuah kacang or peanut sauce, which is a staple dish easily paired with other dishes like lemang, ketupat or even plain rice.

While making the dish, we were, of course, lead by a few old hands who've done this a thousand times over. 

Ms. Noraishah guiding the preparation

We have Ms. Noraishah, who took us through the process of cutting, blending and cooking.

Ms. Rozita introducing the ingredients

And Ms. Rozita, who patiently explain the ingredients and how we should use it to get the best results.

There were others who helped in the cooking, but Ms. Noraishah and Ms. Rozita were the main guidance for our dish so we would like to extend our thanks again, not only to them but to all who had patiently took us under their wing. Thanks!