When I was a child, hot hawker food was often sold wrapped in a light brownish wrapping known as opeh leaf or opeh hak.
Char kway teow, fried Hokkien mee, chai tow kueh, char hor fun, fried crab bee hoon, orh luak, etc. Can you name more?
Opeh leaf is an excellent hot food wrapping as it insulates heat very well with lots of small air pockets inside its sheet, like organic bubble wrap. As an organic product it is earth friendly too.
But, opeh leaf or opeh hak is a lot more than just a traditional food wrapper. When the brown sheet wrap around steamy hot food and its sauces, they all interact with each other, infusing the food with a nice woody fragrance. The opeh hak was more than just a wrapping - it was like one of the essential ingredients for the best fried Hokkien mee, fried hor fun, fried kway teow, etc.
It is hard to describe that smell and taste but anyone who grew up in that era (Malaysia and Singapore up to the 1980s) will know it.
In recent years, opeh leaf has made a come back, not as a wrapping but an underlining or decorative tray for nostalgic reasons. Used in this way, it imparts little if any fragrance to the food 😔
Where do opeh leaf or opeh hak come from?
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The betel nut palm leaf sheath is made into plates, bags and other products in India. Using opeh for food wrapping is probably started by south Indians in Malaysia (though I have not seen Indian food in opeh wrap myself yet). If you know, please share 😊
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Take a photo of opeh "leaf" and email it to 📧 johorkaki@gmail.com
Thank you.
Reference:
Palm morphology and anatomy
Betel nut palm
Date: 10 Jul 2020
Not only is banana leaf a great decomposable wrapping for nasi lemak, it gives a lovely fagrance to the rice too. Best of both worlds!
ReplyDeleteYes yes organic food wrappings are the best.
DeleteGood read! Found your article as I was searching about Opeh Leaf Hokkien Mee. Found a new favourite food delivery with minimal waste, from Ah Soon Geylang Lor 29 Fried Hokkien Prawn Mee. There is an option for delivery in Opeh Leaf! Not in plastic nor polystyrene!
ReplyDeleteThanks! Hokkien mee tastes so much better with opeh :-D
DeleteAh yes, my parents also used to buy back the black hokkien mee in opeh leaves. We called it zichar hokkien mee to distinguish it from the other type of hokkien mee. Nowadays, younger Singaporeans think that the black/zichar hokkien mee is "KL hokkien mee", as if Singapore copied it from the KL restaurants. They don't know it existed in SG from a long time back, and isn't copied from KL.
ReplyDeleteMy father was a hawker and I remember helping him to wash and trim the opeh leaf, in the 70s and 80s. Some were recycled... haha. At least I did my best to wash them before recycling.
ReplyDeleteyah , my mum loved such . During my teenager days I would save my pocket money to buy food of such for Family Supper. One of such is the popular from Fatty Restaurant, the popular fried HKT at beach road ( 海南) and those island wide . Even till today , I would still do for mother’s request - even through platform like grab n panda / islandwide
ReplyDeleteYes!!!!! And the food tasted soooo good! No food in plastic lined paper can ever come close, not themee goren, the kway teow, the hokkien mee, the Indian rojak or any other foods!😌☺️
ReplyDeletesomehow the food taste much nicer wrapped in upih! it's a treat for us children when parent brought this home, but must share with siblings!!!
ReplyDeleteYes , I remembered , that's the wrapping from the " Beetle Nut " palm leaf base .We used the whole " Beetle palm " leaf , sit in them and pulled along by grabbing the leafs , partially identical to the coconut palm leaves in the front only . The rear are wide and pliable where you can sit on
ReplyDeleteThose days indian muslim food like fried mee goreng. Indian rojak are packed this this
ReplyDeletemy father used to buy hokkien mee and whole sauce duck every pay day. both wrapped in those opehs. i remember tiong bahru plaza one stall still used it in the early 2000s . i used to go there and eat. dont know if its still there.
ReplyDeleteIt's best consumed an hour after its been wrapped,can smell the strong aroma and the tastes of its ingredients
ReplyDeleteThose were the days.. heathy food with no plastic.. upeh leaves can maintain the heat of the food.. my late dad used to bring mee Hong Kong in upeh leaves.. it was such a luxury to have mee Hong Kong those days..
ReplyDeleteMy late dad used to da pao ee mee in these leaves for supper when he returned home from his taxi shift past midnight. Everyone got one pkt. Nonetheless, we didn't appreciate them coz he would wake us up to eat but we had to wake up at 6 a.m every morning to go to school !
ReplyDeleteOnly pioneer n medeka generation have this sentimental feeling. Food cheap n nice with quality and quantity. One packet is enough for a family of four. Now one packet is just enough for one child not adult.
ReplyDeletekeok road the old coffeeshop where the lok lok satay is has one of the best black hokkien noodles
ReplyDeleteWhen I was young, the hawker would wrap CKT in opeh ( leaf sheath of a palm). CKT tasted exceptionally fragrant.
ReplyDeleteA head chef once demonstrated to me the same hor fun with and without opeh leaf. He said most eateries stop using this leaf due to the high costing. And you need to use a brush to remove bug eggs between the grooves.
ReplyDeleteJust wrapped it for 5 min minimally and try it. It’s was extra smooth and the wok hei flavours locked back into the food.
Tony Boey no problem at all. I was very fortunate to be able to taste the difference side by side. The smoothness is evident and the sheen on the noodles is unlike the usual plating. One leaf was said to cost $1 ten years ago. I’m not sure how much it cost now per sheet.
ReplyDeleteOpeh leaves are still available. It is our hawkers who removed free condiments and charge for it and supported by the current generation that left our heritage dishes in shambles.
ReplyDelete以前的食物，全部用香蕉叶来包的，味道真的很香。现在年轻的一辈根本没有机会去感受那种感觉😋
ReplyDeleteRecently I was trying to ask where I can buy these so-called open leaves but I don’t know where.
ReplyDeleteIn my younger days I loved it. The Indian food pedaled used to sell died Mee goreng and rojak in it.
Nice article! Sad that it's very rare to find opeh-wrapped hawker food in Singapore nowadays. Btw, I would like to add that "hak" is Hokkien for "leaf sheath", not "wrap". It is written as 箬, ha̍h.
ReplyDelete