Singapore — News of Singapore Airlines introducing Teochew dishes across all cabin classes on Monday was eagerly lapped up by travellers.

For the next four months, passengers can get to enjoy dishes such as Teochew porridge, bak chor mee and braised duck with rice. For instance, First Class and Suites passengers can savour cold crabs and hei chor (prawn rolls) as well as orh nee for desserts. Business Class passengers can tuck into Teochew porridge, bak chor mee and tau suan.

Premium Economy and Economy class passengers are not left out, too. There will be three Teochew dishes for them — braised duck, egg, beancurd and chai beh with rice; stir-fried pork with sha cha sauce with rice and stir-fried fish fillet with kiam chye and tau cheo with rice. Even desserts have been thoughtfully interpreted. There is a water chestnut jelly as well as cheng tng jelly to look forward to for a sweet treat.

There will also be Teochew dishes available at the SilverKris lounge in Changi Airport. Selections include kway teow in broth, fish maw soup, kway chup and Teochew porridge with braised pork belly.

Singapore Airlines shared that the idea for this Teochew cuisine initiative germinated after the success of the Singapore Heritage Cuisine last year where Peranakan dishes were served as part of the SG50 celebrations as well as a desire for healthier meal options.

“This year in April, we launched our Deliciously Wholesome programme with healthier dishes onboard. We wanted to combine heritage food with healthy food, and thought Teochew cuisine was ideal,” explained Betty Wong, Singapore Airlines’ divisional vice president of customer experience. “It is known to be lighter and healthier, and it emphasises cooking methods such as steaming and the freshness of the ingredients.”

The team spent more about nine months on this project. They visited several Teochew restaurants such as Chin Lee Restaurant and Swatow Seafood Restaurant to get a sense of the flavour profiles. The chefs from SATS Inflight Catering then experimented with different methods and ingredients to prepare the dishes.

Some Teochew dishes had to be dropped as they were unsuitable for the plane conditions, such as oyster omelette, as the fried oysters dried up too quickly. Similarly, pork liver got rubbery and dry so it had to be excluded from the bak chor mee.

“We also wanted to do braised goose, but it was difficult to get fresh goose meat. The duck used for our braised duck was specially sourced. We used Peking ducks, as the meat is not so fat and better retains the moistness when cooked,” shared Singapore Airlines’ Richard Neo, manager food and beverages (QC and operations). “Even the way the braised duck is sliced has to be taken into consideration—our slices are chunkier compared to the typical Teochew way of slicing them thinly to prevent the duck from getting dry. Other details such as nailing the correct amount of water to grain ratio for the porridge to ensure consistency (“too much water and it gets too marshy”) and pepper in the pig stomach soup was endlessly experimented and debated on to ensure the right taste for passengers.

Now that Singapore Airlines has done Peranakan and Teochew dishes, what’s next? Wong was coy, saying that the airlines is constantly innovating and trying to present something new and exciting to customers. “And next year will be the 70th anniversary of Singapore Airlines, so we have plenty in store.” Serene Lim