KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 -- Step into Rogayah Ali’s house and your tummy immediately starts rumbling. It doesn’t matter if you are hungry or not; the heavenly fragrance of Biryani rice sprinkled with saffron and cooked with raisins and cashew nuts is enough to make you WANT to eat.

Rogayah, 58, who is better known as Gai was preparing chicken korma and dalca (vegetable curry with lentils) for a surau nearby on the day we visited. Her younger sister and mother were helping out by dicing cauliflower, aubergine, potatoes and long beans.

Classical music was playing in the background as she threw in the rempah ratus (spices) into the pots.

“I love listening to music when I’m cooking alone in the kitchen. Especially classical and R&B,” said Gai who was sporting a red bandanna that day. The best thing about cooking at home is that you can dress comfortably in anything you want.

A master of Indian-Muslim cuisine, she used to help her parents at their Indian-Muslim restaurant on Beach Street, George Town when she was a child.

She said Penangites are a very close-knit community and she still cooks for her neighbours even after she moved to Subang Jaya 20 years ago. Her family continued their F&B business in Subang Jaya the last 20 years but her parents have retired since.

Gai’s mother cutting up the potatoes for the dalca (left). The aromatic scent of Gai’s cooking makes you dizzy with hunger (right)

Although she no longer works in a restaurant, she still cooks for her family and friends. Now Gai does catering for her community, cooking for open houses. Her nephews also enjoy her cooking and would come by her house in Subang Jaya to eat their favourite dishes.

“You need to have passion to do what you do,” Gai told me. “Just like you have a passion for writing and you use words to string a sentence, I love the entire process of cooking, from cutting right up to washing up,” she said while skilfully cutting vegetables at lightning speed.

If you try asking Gai for recipes, you will be disappointed though. The experienced cook does not measure out her ingredients. If she has an order for 200 people, she would make enough food for 250. And she just puts in as many star anise and cardamoms as she pleases. There is no exact science in her cooking.

So what differentiates Indian-Muslim cuisine from Indian or Malay food?

“Fennel powder. In Indian food, you would find cumin in the dishes. We use fennel powder instead,” she said while I took a whiff of the two different spices from a jar and a packet.

“We also don’t have a lot of ‘lemak’ in our dishes,” said Gai, referring to the coconut milk used generously in Malay-styled curries.

Gai’s 77-year-old mother tells me that in Indian-Muslim dishes, garam masala is used in most of the dishes. She mentioned that her father -- Gai’s grandfather -- loved chicken and rice. He didn’t eat crabs and prawns because Pakistan is a landlocked country and he found seafood foreign even after he settled down in Penang.

Straits Muslims like Gai and her family cook fusion food with Indian, South-east Asian spices and Malay herbs. Gai’s mother says they also call themselves “Jawi Pekan” which is short for Jawi Peranakan.

“Jawi Peranakan were often descendants of Indian and Arab (mostly Yemeni) spice traders and business men whose women became very familiar with the large variety of spices available in the port cities of the Straits of Melaka.” -- Wazir Jahan Karim, Feasts of Penang Muslim Culinary Heritage.

Once you try Gai’s chicken korma, you would want seconds and thirds

The fusion recipes are passed down from generation to generation, preserving well-kept family recipes that make Indian-Muslim dishes unique from others.

Another one of Gai’s secret is halia bawang (ginger and onions). “Onions bring out the flavour in the dishes,” said Gai as she poured blended onions and ginger into the pot of cooking chicken korma. She said Indian-Muslims use more onions in their dishes compared to Indian or Malay cuisine. While Gai was busy in the kitchen, I sat at the dining table with her mother. She offered me some Kuih Seri Muka (made of glutinous rice and pandan topping) she had made the night before for her grandchildren.

I thoroughly enjoyed the richness of the coconut cream with fragrant pandan flavouring which paired beautifully with the soft glutinous rice layer.

Gai learned how to cook from her mother and it was clear the older woman had not lost her touch.

Both women are experts when it comes to cooking hearty meals with good ingredients and spices. If Gai’s Biryani Ayam and Dalca taste so delicious, her mother’s cooking is just as good or probably better.

If not, why would people go “Oh, that very popular Indian Muslim restaurant!” when I mentioned that she used to run the restaurant in Whiteaways, Beach Street many years ago?

After I ate my last spoonful of Kuih Seri Muka, Gai’s mother got up from the chair to get Kuih Milo from the fridge.

It’s actually Milo-flavoured agar agar (jelly) and it was so delicious, I wanted to ask her for the recipe.

“Makanlah!” said Gai’s mother. She reminds me of my grandmother who was always feeding us assorted home baked goodies whenever we visited her.

After Gai finished cooking, her sister helped “bungkus” the yummy looking Nasi Biryani, Chicken Korma and Dalca for me and my colleagues.

Later on, when I tasted the food I knew that I HAD to eat it again. And again. So I contacted Gai to see if she catered. Also, how much per person if I ordered?

“I didn’t give you my salad yesterday because I made it later. It’s RM7 for the Nasi Biryani, Dalca, salad and chicken korma. No minimum order but I don’t do delivery,” she replied.

I wondered what salad she made. “The Malays call it Salad Timun Nenas but I add more than that. It has onions, carrots and an assortment of fruits and raisins. To taste, it’s got salt and sugar but no vinegar,” Gai messaged back.

Sounds divine! Now I know where to get my Indian-Muslim food fix.

SMS Gai at 016-3462723 to place an order or for catering.

This story was first published in the print edition of The Malay Mail, August 2, 2013