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Seafood Prawn Crackers @ PTP Sekinchan Seafood (适耕庄食品)

Sekinchan, Selangor, Malaysia - December 2016
"Huh? Writing a blog about prawn crackers? What's there to write about prawn crackers?" my wife quipped.

Enjoying a piece of deep-fried prawn crackers.

That was precisely what I thought too about this simple food that are often taken as desserts and sometimes added to main dishes to complement them (like in fried chicken, fried rice, etc.). But my mindset changed when I visited the PTP Sekinchan Seafood prawn cracker factory in Sekinchan; actually they operate on a smaller scale (but not that small) on the lines of a cottage industry.
These crackers are yummilicious, but hold on to your horses .....

.... they don't start off looking like that. They start off looking like loaves of bread; these are made from a dough mix of flour and minced individual seafood. The dough is mixed in a large mechanised mixer. these days manual work is reduced to a minimum. The exact mix ingredients & proportions is a trade secret.

The colour of the loaves may vary depending on the type of crackers, the above yellowish ones are for clam (Lala) crackers.

The loaves take about 1-1/2 hour to make and are then put onto these perforated trays .....

Which are the inserted into these steamer oven for a 2-hour pre-cooking.
After cooling down, they are put into a refrigerator for them to harden overnight or slightly longer (the important thing is that they must be hard enough for cutting).

The hardened loaves are then cut into slices about 1 mm thick, and laid out in trays.

The shop has a large backyard where these trays a laid out for the crackers to be sun-dried. Sun drying takes a minimum of two days if there is a strong continuous sunlight. When the skies are overcast, the drying takes longer.

The trays are made of wire-mesh with a wooden frames and are sometimes stacked a few trays high. Hot air can circulate in between to ensure both sides of the crackers are drying.

Some trays are made off nylon meshes, but the convection drying process is the same.

After a first round of drying on the mesh trays, some crackers (the wetter types ones) are spread out on ground sheets for further drying.

After adequate drying, the crackers assume a curl up shape similar to that of potato chips. The darker crackers seen above are fish crackers.

The dried crackers are collected, stacked up and ready for packing. This pinkish white ones are prawn crackers.

The crackers are packed in packets of 500 grams.

These dotted ones are sotong (squid) crackers.
PTP Sekinchan Seafood is the only manufacturer of these seafood crackers in Sekinchan. They are one of few manufacturers who make the Squid Crackers AND the only one that make the Clam Crackers in Malaysia.

The crackers can be bought in its "raw form" for self frying at home; or in their deep-fried form, all ready for immediate eating. PTP allows customers to sample their fried crackers.
Pricing at the time of this blog is as follows:
500 grams "Raw" crackers of all flavours :$20/= per bag.
Fried crackers of all flavours : $8/= per bag.

A satisfied customer with raw and fried crackers. This is my friend Sin, many of us park our cars and cycle around Sekinchan as it is more convenient.

PTP SEKINCHAN SEAFOOD

274, Lorong 10, Bagan Sekinchan, 45400 Sekinchan, Selangor Dharul Ehsan, Malaysia.
Phone: +6016-6621522 (Peter) / +6012-2347274 | Email: peterpuaq@gmail.com
Facebook: PTP Sekinchan Prawn Crackers

Hours: 8:00am to 6:00pm
GPS: 3.50749, 101.09589

(Click here for Google Street View)

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