**Although the Penang public is familiar with the spelling of "Nyonya", for the purpose of standardisation and to reflect the author's intent, "Nonya" is spelled without the additional "y" in this article.
I RECALL THE choon piah I ate at the extant Tanjong Club to have an unexpected taste; it was flavoured with ngoh hiang hoon, or five spice powder, instead of the usual cinnamon and clove like the ones typically served at old Hainanese restaurants.
How and when was the spice included in the making of choon piah? My research led me to look into the ingredients used for lor bak, heh and chim choe, and bak and tu kua kian. These are traditional dishes that I grew up with in Penang.
Over the years, modifications have been made to them which resulted in a great many variations between families, dialect groups and regions. The names of the dishes have also been mixed up; lines are now blurred between the fillings used for choon piah, roti babi, chim choe, bak kian and even, lor bak.
Cecilia Tan of Penang Nyonya Cooking: Foods of My Childhood describes “lobak or chun piah as a meat-based version of poh piah”. The Medan Nonya chun kian in Deety Lenton’s recipe looks to be lor bak, but has all the ingredients of choon piah; and when I ordered ngoh hiang in Singapore recently, I was served eight balls which resembled heh choe.
But here is what I discovered of their differences:
