Growing up in the far north, my favourite dish was always Perlis ikan bakar. My family lived only 20 minutes away from Kuala Perlis, where there's an abundance of fresh seafood restaurants to choose from, so it was a regular occurrence for us to feast on ikan bakar and sotong goreng tepung. It wasn't until I moved to the city that I learned our way of making the dish was vastly different compared to the rest of the country.
What I found out at the tender age of 20 was that in most of Malaysia, ikan bakar is made with some form of sambal, which gives it an acidic taste with just a hint of sweetness at times. This shocked me to my core. In Perlis, ikan bakar is grilled with a baste made up of condensed milk (yes, that thing you put in your Milo), coconut milk (santan), butter, and turmeric.
This surprises a lot of people I've told this to, as most Malaysians apparently don't associate ikan bakar with a sweet flavour profile. I will admit, if you've never tried it, it does sound weird that fish is cooked with something that we usually put in desserts. However, I can assure you that while it is sweet, it's not overwhelming to the point where it's not a savoury dish anymore. In fact, it enhances the flavour of the fish, especially if you use Siakap, which already has a natural sweetness to its flesh.
Another thing that blew my mind was that outside of Perlis, people don't combine the rice with curry when eating ikan bakar, but instead use sambal or sweet soy sauce — I know a few people who eat ikan bakar with plain rice, which seems utterly dry to me.
So the next time you find yourself in the northern state, try something different. I cannot recommend this sweet-savoury dish enough, it is the culinary highlight of Perlis (along with Harumanis mangoes) and I promise you, you're missing out if you don't give it a chance.
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Ikmal Rozlan (muhammadikmalrozlan424@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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