THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

356 Memoirs of Mustapha Hussain
singing praises of his American-made cleaver. The bones were then boiled
with onion sprigs and some nutmeg powder, after which he recommended,
“See this stock? You should drink it. It will make you strong.”
As a lecturer, I only needed to work with my mouth. Using a heavy
cleaver to break the bones was not easy. So, I replaced cattle femurs with
chicken bones bought from Saaim, the satay-seller. The American cleaver
was replaced by a regular knife. My chicken stock was tastier than
Amjah’s and many people loved the taste. Amjah wrote down his ‘special’
noodle sauce recipe on a piece of paper. As soon as I memorised it, he
burned the paper. “We must destroy this. This is big secret, Brother!” I
liked his sauce; it could stay fresh for a couple of days and could be used
for both fried noodles and noodles in gravy. Without his knowledge, I
experimented on the sauce with my children as tasters. By adding some
vinegar, sugar and fried dried prawns, it became a delicious spicy Malay
vegetable salad dressing. Amjah was both surprised and proud that his
simple noodle sauce was so versatile. He next showed me a tin of tasteenhancer
called Ve-Tsin. He said, “This is another secret, Brother! 7 After
using, throw the tin out of sight. Do not let others see what we use.” It
was fun learning from him. He also taught me to cook beef steak and
fried rice which I improved upon using tips from a recently released
Hailam Chinese detainee who sold drinks in another part of town.
Next on my agenda was the equally important drinks department.
Amjah told me that the best teas were brown like the colour of chiku
fruit before the addition of one teaspoon of sugar and three teaspoons of
condensed milk. “Brother, if you follow my instructions, you can economise
on the milk. One tin can make fourteen to seventeen cups!” He could
not stress enough the importance of boiling water. He also taught me to
make coffee but coffee was not my stall’s strong point, even though I
ordered the coffee powder from a Nibong Tebal Malay coffee-maker,
Osman Ahmad. It was only after adding some Nescafe into the mixture
that customers begin to double. I also sold coffee-powder sent to me by train.
At about this time, Chik Aishah Ghani (later Minister of Social Welfare)
opened her Kedai Sukaramai eatery next to ours. I knew her as a
leftist freedom fighter and Padang Rengas was her stronghold.
A young man I had taught to make tea turned out to be a superb teamaker
and he attracted countless tea-lovers, even though my shop was
rather far from the main road. That was why I called it the Tengah
Restaurant (tengah meaning middle in Malay) as the shop was in the
middle of the Sunday Market. This confirmed Amjah’s words, “Brother,
it does not matter where your stall is. If you serve delicious food and
drinks, the customers will look for you.”