KUANTAN, June 8 — Opor, a traditional meat dish of Pahang, is difficult to make and requires a lot of patience as it takes five to six hours to prepare.

According to stall operator Normah Yakun, 47, the long hours of preparation meant that she and her husband Muhammad Ata Mat Salleh, 49, had to start cooking the opor as early as 7am although they would only start business at 3.30pm.

"Opor is the first dish to be prepared. It takes more than five hours...if not, the taste would not be right,” she told Bernama when met at the Ramadan bazaar at the Darul Makmur Stadium grounds, here, today.

Normah, who is from Ubai, Pekan, and runs a restaurant in Jalan Bukit Ubi here, said she and her husband only used sirloin beef to make the opor, following a family recipe.  

The mother of two said besides plain rice, opor could be eaten with other food like nasi minyak, ketupat or lemang and is also known as  ’rendang Pahang’.

The ingredients that go into making opor include coconut milk, shallots, garlic, dried chillies, ginger, kerisik (toasted grated coconut paste) and a mixture of spices.

Normah  said cooking opor required special skill in controlling the fire as a big fire was required in the early stages of cooking but reduced during the later stages.

She said although it was difficult to make opor, she was satisfied at the end of the day when it was all sold off and when her customers came back for more. — Bernama