If there was a beauty pageant for food, ngoh hiang would lose. Though well-loved, the traditional dish is decidedly plain-looking — a brown, deep-fried lump of juicy minced pork, prawns, water chestnuts and five spice powder, all wrapped in wrinkly beancurd skin. But fashion designer Samuel Wong, a cooking enthusiast who has started making and selling ngoh hiang, has managed to zhng its homely look.

Just three weeks ago, the 34-year-old started an Instagram food business from home with his mum Ellen Kuah, 65. Called Mum’s Ngoh Hiang, they offer only one product — Ellen's dainty handmade pork rolls trailing billowy beancurd skin, which Samuel says “look like pillows”. He explains, “The ngoh hiang [sold by hawkers] is heavier. And it’s long, almost ruler-sized. One whole roll is very jelak. We want our ngoh hiang to be bite-sized. It’s like picking up nuggets, you can never stop!” The meaty parcels are sold in a box of 18 pieces ($20 a box), and Samuel personally delivers them island-wide.

He has a full-time day job designing his own fashion label called Evenodd for the past 10 years. Samuel also runs a boutique at multi-concept enclave Nomadx at Plaza Singapura (his clothing line is stocked at Design Orchard and Robinsons Heeren too). Due to the Covid-19 circuit breaker, he had to stop his design work temporarily as his boutique and production factory are currently closed.

As there was “nothing much to do” at home, Samuel decided to start an online business with his mum, who usually helps his dad out at the family’s heartland shop selling electrical lighting in Serangoon North. Offering her unique 20-year-old ngoh hiang recipe was a natural choice. Samuel reckons, “We wanted [to sell] something nostalgic and comforting. My mum has always been a good cook, and we hold a lot of parties. It’s our family’s wish to sell our food.”

Mother-and-son simply named their new biz Mum’s Ngoh Hiang, as Samuel shares, “We didn’t want a complicated name, since everyone says, ‘Eh your mum’s ngoh hiang very nice’. So I decided to make it into a brand.” His friends clamoured to buy the rolls and spread the word on social media. One of them gifted a box to veteran actress Cynthia Koh, who raved about the ngoh hiang and its crunchy water chestnuts in her Instastory. “A lot of her followers came to us after that. We had a blast of business,” Samuel recounts.

Ellen and Samuel have divided their roles efficiently; she preps the ingredients for the ngoh hiang, while he’s in charge of rolling them after learning how to make ’em under his mum’s “strict guidance”. He recalls, “I got scolded by her for a while! I’ve seen her make ngoh hiang for 20 years, but I’ve never done it before. Now I can roll five boxes [90 pieces] within 15 minutes. Every day I just sit there and keep rolling (laughs).”

While Samuel’s career is in fashion design, preparing food is not a foreign chore to him. “I do cook often at home. My mum only cooks when we host a party,” he says. To comply with the extended circuit breaker measures (which prohibits home business owners from selling food during CB), the duo had to stop their operations just two weeks after their launch. But they are already working on making more rolls for when they are allowed to reopen on May 12. “We’re working two weeks ahead; our delivery slots are all full,” says Samuel. As it’s a two-man show, he can only produce a maximum of 50 boxes for each of his delivery slots every Wednesday and Saturday.

While ngoh hiang is named after its key ingredient, five spice powder, Ellen’s recipe omits the spice blend. “My mum doesn’t like the taste of it,” says Samuel. He also uses a special pork cut for the ngoh hiang filling which he declines to reveal, except that “it’s usually more expensive than normal minced pork”. Each little ngoh hiang is stuffed with water chestnuts, prawns and onions, all chopped by hand, and wrapped in ethereally translucent beancurd skins. “We want to retain the juiciness, so we don’t use [a food processor],” he adds.

The ngoh hiang are then sold either deep-fried and ready-to-eat, or raw and frozen (all priced at $20 for 18 pieces). “We sell raw frozen ngoh hiang ’cos it lasts longer, and we deep-fry the fried ones on the day of delivery,” says Samuel. If you’re allergic to prawns, you can order a special prawn-less version (minimum order of four boxes, as the ngoh hiang is made in batches of four boxes).

We are amused by the ngoh hiang’s hipster packaging — each takeaway box is neatly packed and labelled in bold font: “18 pieces of ngoh hiang inside here”. As Samuel prints each label individually, he also offers his customers the option of personalising their labels. “You can include a message if you’re sending it to your friends,” he says.

He is launching an exciting new flavour in about two weeks’ time: mozzarella ngoh hiang with melted cheese in the pork filling. He shares, “We’re still fine-tuning it, and I’m doing taste tests. Generally people like cheese, and putting mozzarella into something traditional is different. But I’m making it limited-edition for now. I’m not sure if people would be willing to pay for something new like this. My mum also has another dish, curry chicken. But we have not decided if we want to sell it yet, ‘cos it’s too early to introduce a new dish.”

Each order of ngoh hiang comes with a container of homemade garlicky, vinegary red chilli dipping sauce, which Samuel says is so well-received that he’s also planning to sell individual jars of the sauce soon.

Samuel hopes to eventually stock his mum’s ngoh hiang at supermarkets like NTUC FairPrice. “There isn’t really a lot of frozen ngoh hiang on the market,” he notes, though he’s currently focusing on building his online business: “If we need more help after the circuit breaker, we’re thinking of getting my father and brother to help out. My father might let us use part of his electrical lighting shop in Serangoon North to sell ngoh hiang.”

But he’s still sticking to his longtime fashion designer job. Says Samuel, “I’m trying to fine-tune the process of making ngoh hiang so I can go back to my fashion line. I wouldn’t give up what I’ve been doing for the past 10 years for a new venture. But our customers, who started out buying a box to try, are now buying four to five boxes. It gave me the confidence to consider expanding this further.”

To pre-order for delivery after circuit breaker, drop a DM at www.instagram.com/mumsngohhiang.

PHOTOS: SAMUEL WONG/ MUM'S NGOH HIANG