GUA MUSANG: 'Latok' is a type of seaweed dish which is a traditional food of the community in Sabah, while in Kelantan, its popular seaweed dish is the "kerabu sare".
Kerabu meaning salad and sare (pronounced sar + rare) is the local dialect for the word "sarang" which means nest.
Seaweed-based food entrepreneur Nisah Jaafaar, 66, said "kerabu sare" is a popular dish in Kelantan, especially during Ramadan for the breaking of fast.
"Kerabu sare is a salad dish comprising a combination of seaweed, the meat of stewed fish and desicated coconut and mixed with a type of gravy, "sambal tumis" and a squeeze of lime juice.
"The kerabu sare has a crunchy texture and can be eaten with rice," she told Bernama recently.
According to Nisah, the process of cleaning the seaweed is tedious, time-consuming and complicated.
"I repeat the process of washing and rinsing the seaweed est at least five times to remove the smell and dirt. After the seaweed has been cleaned, it has to be soaked for five hours to make it fluffy and soft to eat.
"Preparing the gravy, which uses coconut milk, also takes a long time. First, blend onions, ginger, galangal and pepper and then simmer the mixture in coconut milk until it thickens, " she said.
Nisah said she has received very high demand from the local community since the start of Ramadan and has processed more than 30 kilogrammes of seaweed.
"Even on normal days, I do prepare the kerabu sare to be sold, but the amount is not much, Only about 500 grammes of the seaweed, but during Ramadan, the demand usually doubles and for this year I process two kilogrammes of the seaweed every day," she said. – BERNAMA
