Kueh Pie Tee’s Peculiar Past

How did kueh pie tee get its name? Why is it considered a Peranakan dish? Cookbook author Christopher Tan dives into the mystery of this crispy snack as he makes them using vintage moulds.

Kueh pie tee shells with rims, also called “top hats”. Commercially made shells do not typically come with rims as they break easily during the packing process.

Host Paddy (left) watching nervously as Christopher blots excess hot oil from one of the moulds before it is dipped into the batter and returned to the hot oil for frying.

Recipe

Susie Hing’s recipe is for “Kroket Tjanker (Java Kwei Patti)”, but according to Christopher, there aren’t any Javanese recipes with the same name. One can only speculate that she got the name “kroket” from “croquette”, a deep-fried roll made of a creamy filling wrapped in mashed potato, egg and breadcrumbs. Perhaps she was inspired by the filling of the Dutch-Indonesian croquette, which is almost identical to the filling for her kwei patti.

Recipe for kwei patti, showing measurements in ounces and kati. These imperial and local measurements were dropped after the metric system was adopted in Singapore in 1971.

Christopher used different moulds to make the pie tee shells, including local modern and vintage pie tee moulds, and American moulds.

The American moulds made by Hirco, perhaps sometime during the 1950s–70s.

The American moulds by Hirco came in a set of many different shapes and could be unscrewed from the handle.

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Related Books

Hing, Susie. In a Malayan Kitchen. Singapore: Mun Seong Press, 1956. (From National Library, Singapore, call no. RCLOS 641.59595 HIN-[RFL])

Lee, Chin Koon. Mrs. Lee's Cookbook: Nonya Recipes and Other Favourite Recipes. Singapore: The Author, 1974. (From National Library, Singapore, call no. RSING 641.595957 LEE)

Wee, Sharon. Growing Up In a Nonya Kitchen: Singapore Recipes From My Mother. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish Cuisine, 2012. (From National Library, Singapore, call no. RSING 641.595957 WEE)