Poh Piah – Singapore’s Answer to the Burrito

Recently back from another trip to Asia conjures many wonderful memories of my early travels within Asia – as a teenager and as a young adult. This note is about ‘Poh Piah’. A Hokkien (Chinese dialect from Fujian province of China) word which literally means 'thin cookie'. Firstly, it's not thin, except the skin probably and secondly, it is nowhere close to a cookie. Poh Piah is a burrito-like roll filled with finely julienned turnip, carrots, lean pork with dried shrimps and bean sprouts. My best friend in Singapore always cooks this dish for me whenever I go back to Singapore. Cooked with only the freshest ingredients and with tons of love, her Poh Piah is the best that I’ve tasted. Incidentally, she loves to cut and dice; preparing this dish must be fulfilling for her!

Poh Piah is a DIY dish. Each diner starts off with a piece of paper thin poh piah skin (either the papery white or the springy egg ones), puts a piece of lettuce on it, smears it with a sweet dark soya sauce, chili and some minced garlic, adds in a good large dollop of the turnip and carrot mixture (excess liquid extracted) and tops it off with other condiments of boiled shrimp, cubed hard boiled eggs, crispy ‘flat fish’ and coarsely ground peanuts and coriander leaves. Then you roll the entire thing up like a burrito, bringing in the sides of the poh piah skin. The end result is a wonderful combination of sweet and savory (from the turnip mixture), soft (boiled eggs and shrimps), spicy (from the chilli paste) and crunchy (from the lettuce and peanuts or crispy bits of flat fish). A delectable snack indeed!

This is one possible recipe for Poh Piah. Many treasure theirs as the family recipe and ingredients vary, based on individual preferences.