When chef, filmmaker and writer Sarah Huang Benjamin wanted to make Hakka abacus seeds for Chinese New Year, her relatives were of little help. The exact recipe was something the older generation had not passed on. Armed with her childhood memories of helping to make the dish, Sarah spent hours doing research and conducting countless experiments before she came up with something she was happy with.

Sarah Huang Benjamin is a chef, content creator, filmmaker and writer. She won the inaugural Asian Food Channel’s “Food Hero” competition in 2014, and later hosted, wrote and produced multiple shows on the Asian Food Network. She creates videos for her YouTube channel, which has gathered over a million views.

What Sarah Talked About

  • 02:31 – What abacus seeds are
  • 03:23 – Whether abacus seeds are only for Chinese New Year
  • 03:46 – Why Sarah chose abacus seeds to demonstrate in the video for From Book to Cook
  • 04:56 – Learning how to make the dish
  • 09:27 – The difficulty of finding authentic abacus seed recipes
  • 10:03 – Researching recipes through cookbooks and family knowledge
  • 12:00 – Using fish sauce in her recipe
  • 13:42 – The size and history of the Hakka community in Singapore
  • 18:29 – Where to find abacus seeds in Singapore
  • 19:32 – Why homemade abacus seeds taste different
  • 21:21 – Sarah’s mixed Hakka and Peranakan heritage
  • 22:53 – Plans for Sarah’s future cookbook
  • 27:33 – What Sarah is working on now
  • 30:58 – Family recipe is…


Transcript and Resources

  • Read the transcript: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/podcast-putting-together-a-family-recipe-of-abacus-seeds
  • Watch Sarah make abacus seeds: https://biblioasia.nlb.gov.sg/all-sections/video-hakka-abacus-seeds


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This episode of BiblioAsia Podcast was hosted by Jimmy Yap and produced by Soh Gek Han. Sound engineering was done by Nookcha Films. The background music “Di Tanjong Katong” was composed by Ahmad Patek and performed by Chords Haven. Special thanks to Sarah for coming on the show.

Produced by the National Library Singapore, the BiblioAsia Podcast tells stories about Singapore history.

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