Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – It is 7:30 in the morning and the scent of fragrant spices fills the air around the Masjid Jamek Kampung Baru mosque in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur.
In the basement kitchen of the mosque, a group of eight volunteer chefs are already hard at work as they light two rows of pans – about 80 cm wide – to prepare a mixture of cinnamon sticks, fennel seeds, star anise, cloves and fenugreek.
They then toss in onions, garlic and fragrant pandanus leaves before adding ground beef and prawns and stirring the mixture with a giant ladle.
Once the meat is carefully browned, they add the rice – 15 kg (33 pounds) – submerging the contents of each pot in water and coconut milk and letting the mixture cook for over an hour.
Then it’s another hour of waiting before the chefs can add spring onions and sauteed shallots and bag the porridge, known as bubur lambuk, to be handed out to the growing line of people outside.
“We have our exact measurements and we just have to follow the same recipe that we’ve been using for 100 years,” chef Adham Abdul Manan told Al Jazeera as he unwinded from a busy morning in the kitchen, still wearing his green apron. . and black cap, and rustling through his checklist for the next day.
Located in a village now surrounded by skyscrapers and highways, the mosque is known for its creamy sweet-savoury porridge. It produces 15 pots a day during Ramadan, the Islamic month of fasting.
While many other mosques prepare the same dish for distribution to the public in predominantly Muslim Malaysia, Masjid Jamek Kampung Baru’s version of the dish is the most sought after.
Adham is the man behind the team in the kitchen and with 3,500 parcels to be handed out every day, his work is relentless.
The 63-year-old from central Pahang state was an air force officer before retiring in 2000.
“Working with volunteers and army-trained personnel is definitely a different experience, but I enjoy doing this,” Adham said, adding that he was always happy when the feedback was positive.
He memorized the bubur recipe by observing previous chefs during the years he spent as a Ramadan volunteer.
“We have to learn everything by observing and the first pot we make at the beginning of Ramadan is our trial and error process,” he said.
Adham leads 20 volunteers in the hot and sweaty kitchen.
The preparation for the morning is done in advance – the spices are prepackaged and the meat, shrimp and rice are measured out and set aside the day before.
The volunteers come from all over the village and some even from other parts of the city, many are willing to spend hours of their time in the kitchen, even though they are not allowed to eat or drink because it is Ramadan.
“We cook together, we work as a team and when Ramadan is over we meet in the morning for the Eid prayer,” Adham said, adding that they often joked with each other while cooking.
A blessing’
Kampung Baru, meaning new village, is just 15 minutes from Kuala Lumpur’s iconic Petronas Twin Towers.
Founded in 1900, despite the pressures of development, it remains an attraction for many who want to observe traditional Malay life in the city.
When the mosque first started making the bubur, there was no such thing as “crowdfunding”, so the people at the mosque gathered the necessary ingredients from people living in the wider village and distributed the finished product to the residents.
The idea was to ensure that even the poorest could eat a good meal when they broke their fast.
“It was like a potluck among the villagers in Kampung Baru and the tradition lives on even a hundred years later,” mosque commission chairman Mohd Khay Ibrahim told Al Jazeera.
Born and raised in Kampung Baru, Mohd Khay grew up eating the iconic porridge every Ramadan and is the third generation of his family to be part of the village’s mosque community.
“I used to be a little boy in the neighborhood and now I am one of the old men, but this is a volunteer role that I and other members of the mosque are happy to be a part of,” he said.
In the kitchen, the volunteers who have cleaned utensils and prepared for the next day’s cooking, while the porridge cools, get ready to pack and distribute the food.
A group of 10 men line up around the pots, two scooping the hot porridge into plastic packets with a ladle before three others dip their fingers in an ice bath to make the heat more bearable before beginning to tie the packets with string.
They can whip up to 200 packs from each jar in just 20 minutes.
At 4:30 p.m., they hand it out to those waiting patiently outside.
Mohd Nor Bin Salleh has heard of the porridge’s fame and is eager to try it for the first time. He has been queuing in front of the mosque since 4 p.m., waiting for his chance to take home a parcel for breaking the fast at sunset.
“I’m here to try it and I can’t wait to share it with my family,” he told Al Jazeera.
For regulars like Naharuddin bin Amri, the wait is worth it.
Naharuddin says he’s tried bubur lambuk in other places, but they “can’t argue with the taste” of the Kampung Baru mosque recipe.
“I come here every Ramadan to pick up the porridge whenever I get the chance because it’s delicious and the taste has remained the same over the years,” he said.
Mohd Khay agrees that it’s the unique taste, untouched by the passage of time and at least nine chefs, that keeps Malaysians, both Muslim and non-Muslim, coming back.
“As a Muslim, we call it Barakah, or blessing, so even though the recipe is an open secret and everyone who makes the porridge uses the same recipe, they can’t taste the taste of the Kampung Baru Mosque,” he said.