Beginning from March 1st 2012, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines will serve a choice of carefully selected Cristang meals on board of their flights from Kuala Lumpur to Amsterdam. Passengers can look forward to tasty dishes such as a Cristang salad, Chicken Curry Belanda or Beef Semur when they travel in Economy or World Business Class.
When I got the invite for the launch, I literally drooled over my keyboard and replied with a ‘Yes’, though the location of the event was daunting…
…because the launch was held at ..
SEPANG!
Our hot food was prepared in the LSG Sky Chef building, where most of the in-flight menus are prepared.
For the benefit of those who are unfamiliar with the Cristang cuisine, the cuisine is influenced by a variety of ethnic groups who settled in Malacca and who left their cultural and gastronomic traits behind. The food is a mix of delicious tastes, varying from spicy to salty, sour and sweet.
Original relatively bland European dishes has evolved into delectably spicy hybrids with the introduction of onions, garlic and chillies.
KLM Business Class Cristang meal on-board.
KLM Economy Class Cristang meal on-board.
Choice of Curry Chicken Belanda or Beef Semur.
The Cristang is also a new ethnic community of Malay, Indian, Portuguese and Dutch descent. The heart of all things Cristang, in particular all things Portuguese and Dutch in Southeast Asia, is in Malacca, Malaysia.
Thus, to ensure the authenticity and taste of the Cristang menu, KLM contacted Ms Celine Marbeck from Malacca, who’s an author of a few Cristang cookbooks. Her main focus is to promote the Cristang culture and its food, and her book Cuzinhia Cristang was the starting point of this whole idea.
Proud of her heritage and in her quest to propagate Cristang cuisine, Celine enthusiastically signed up for this project and gave all the necessary assistance by designing this delectable menu.
Below: Celine scrutinizing the dishes prepared and explaining to us the ingredients.
The meals will be available in Economy class for six months (1 March – 31 August) and three months in World Business class (1 March – 31 May).
The dessert in the menu is ” Bolu Cuco”, a Portugese coconut cake, which is commonly eaten by the Eurasians during festive celebrations like Christmas. I don’t fancy coconut cakes as I dislike dessicated coconut but this cake was really nice. The texture was alike chiffon or more accurately our local “kuih bahulu”; as Bolu Cuco is light & dry-ish in texture. The accompanying cardamon custard added moisture to the dessert.
This is the Cristang salad, also part of the whole Cristang set meal. Ingredients include lettuce, cucumbers, boiled eggs and hard tofu; with the key differentiating factor to be the salad dressing, a chilli sauce like concoction of which Celine shared the recipe – chillis, garlic and ginger, cooked in vinegar and sweeten with sugar.
Left: The Beef Semur and right; The Chicken Curry Belanda.
The Curry Chicken Belanda is creamy but not very spicy (or at least not to me). According to Celine, the chilli and crispy garlic toppings are a must.
Beef Semur, tender fillets of beef marinated with mixed spices, soy sauce and vinegar overnight. The beef is then boiled till tender with potatoes.
I grabbed a picture with Celine, the only Portugese cuisine maestro that I have met so far. I have every intention of buying a copy of her cookbook as well. If any of you would like a copy too, do drop me a comment here yea! 🙂
It’s about RM80.00 per copy and it’s not difficult to obtain a copy via bookstores. I will be ordering mine direct from the publisher as advised by Celine.
In a separate interview with Celine, I asked her if there are any good Cristang eateries around. She did mention one in KL, but I have received less than stellar reviews about the place so I shall not share it here.
Sadly, other than that, authentic Cristang cuisine is fast becoming a lost heritage. 🙁
Ok, enough about food.
Now, I’m itching to fly KLM to Amsterdam in April/May for the Tong Tong Festival which is Netherlands “Pasar Malam Besar”. There will be major music and dance artists performances as well as exhibitions and stalls offering merchandise and food. 😀
I hope the weather is not too cold then!
Cristang… Long time I did not hear this word….
Last time I use to travel to malacca for business trip… N my friend told me abt this…
Yes, Cristang community and cuisine is supposedly the most here in Malacca. unfortunately, it is now just “kept” within the families and ammong the communities. People like us won’t have the opportunity to experience their culture and cuisine
Hi Rebecca,
would like to get one copy of that book too!
Ok! Noted. my email [email protected]
So Nice the flight meal!
Something different yes? 🙂
I wanna fly to Holland! 🙁
Ooo I’ve flown klm, and it was good! Friendly staff, and free-flow of decent wines in economy class. Don’t recall the food previously, but Cristang cuisine sounds like it’d be really memorable! 😀
Yes, many people recommeneded KLM to me too, even fr flights that’s not to the Netherlands. Said fares were reasonable and service was good!
And yes, u would rmbr the WINES 😀 Hahaha
KLM quite expensive to travel with.
Oh really??
Overall so far I heard otherwise… maybe peak periods and destinations different?
Airplane food is not at the top of my list for taste testing! You sure have made it look good in this post though. 🙂
Nice le! So good to travel!
Haven’t travelled yet la ;p
Hope to go soon. I have not gone anywhere for months. So sad stuck in Msia 🙁
Malaysian food! really? there’ll be more ‘boroi’s on KLM after this! 🙂
“Borois”??
Worth to keep book is a cooking book. For sure u will need when the time comes
Yes! And then it also motivate me to cook! 😀
When i can taste your cooking? =p
When I have time. LOL!
Ok i will wait patiently..haha
😀
wow….nice food. i like.
It is! For an in-flight meal 😀
The food look so delicious! The cakes looked tastifully killing!
It is!
Wonder if other airlines’food are as good! AA’s and Firefly’s not that great ;p
Korea Air was so-so.
SIA’s pretty decent.