Raw cockles can be bought from the wet markets or hypermarkets. — Filepic
For those who are regulars at the food courts in Penang, you would be familiar with the stalls selling the combo dishes of kangkung (water spinach) in shrimp paste sauce and cuttlefish, and plain boiled cockles to go with sauce. In the Klang Valley,
it’s probably more common to find stalls selling a combo of tauhu bakar (stuffed toasted bean curd) and kangkung instead of cockles.
It could be because people are a little more health-conscious these days.
Also, perhaps city folk often don’t have the luxury of time as it’s not the kind of food which you would want to rush through like a bowl of noodles, and you need to get your hands dirty as well to enjoy eating cockles.
Cockles with garlic sauce. — Photos: TEOH KAR YEONG
While there’s a bit more effort involved in making the kangkung dish as you have to source for the right ingredients, the cockles can be easily prepared at home and there’s practically no cooking involved, aside from boiling the cockles.
Here’s my version which I do every now and then for my family. I get my cockles from Segi Fresh but you can just as easily get fresh ones from any of the hypermarkets near you, and of course, the morning wet market. I used cili padi (bird’s eye chilli), but you can use normal chillies which aren’t as spicy, or omit chilli altogether if you prefer something milder.
For my sauce, the garlic is eaten raw but if you prefer, you can fry the garlic in two tablespoons of oil before mixing with the rest of the sauce ingredients for a more fragrant mixture. ― Contributed by TEOH KAR YEONG
Spotlight on the cockle.
Cockles with garlic sauce
Ingredients
750g fresh cockles
Sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp dark vinegar
1 tbsp sugar (or honey)
6 to 8 cloves garlic, minced
5 cili padi, cut small (optional)
2 stalks cilantro, cut small
3 stalks spring onion, cut small
Method
1. Rinse the cockles a few times and scrub them properly with a brush as sometimes mud, sand and other impurities might be clinging onto the shells.
2. In a container, cover them with water that’s been added half a teaspoon of salt and leave in the fridge for a few hours. This serves to force the cockles to open up, and rid them of any mud and sand inside the cockles.
3. To make the sauce, mix all the sauce ingredients together in a bowl, then set aside.
4. Fill a big pot with water and bring it to boil. Dip the cockles in for 20 seconds or so, and maybe even less if you like them bloody and barely cooked. You may want to experiment with a handful first as the time taken to cook depends on the size of the cockles.
As soon as they’re cooked, quickly remove from the hot water as you don’t want to overcook them. Open them up and remove one side of the shell for all the cockles, and place them facing up on a serving plate.
5. Pour the sauce over the cockles and serve.
