It was on a trip to the Chinese city of Taishan in Guangdong, China in 2013 that Madam Chin Lai Yin learnt how to make claypot eel rice.

The 70-year-old born in Penang had not tasted the dish, which is native to her parents' home town, until much later in life.

Madam Chin, a Singaporean, now has a platform to share her passion for the relatively unknown Toishanese cuisine at the Singapore HeritageFest.

As part of this year's festival, cooking enthusiasts can learn how to prepare two Toishanese dishes, including the eel dish, through a video titled Our Roots And Foods.

The Toishanese trace their roots back to Taishan city. Their ancestors were among the earliest Chinese migrants to settle down in Singapore, with many working in construction and carpentry.

Toishanese clan association Ning Yeung Wui Kuan is the oldest locality clan here, founded in 1822.

There are at least three Toishanese kinship and locality clans here, and their combined membership is in the thousands.

In the video, Madam Chin, who is semi-retired and considers herself a fourth-generation Toishanese, teaches another person of Toishanese heritage, Mrs Vivienne Tan.

Madam Chin, a grandmother of seven, learnt to make claypot eel rice from a nephew, a chef in Taishan, on a visit to the city with her siblings to find out more about their heritage.

For the dish, raw eel is torn by hand and stir fried with ingredients like tangerine peel, red dates and shallots, while its bones are used to prepare a stock that the rice is cooked with.

The eel meat and rice are eventually combined and served in a claypot.

Meanwhile, shrimp stars in the second dish featured: steamed pork belly with salted shrimp paste.

The paste consists of just two ingredients: fresh shrimp and salt.

A continuous process of stirring and exposing it to sunlight and air causes the mixture to ferment, creating a paste that is ready to consume after about a week.

For heritage researcher Lynn Wong, who helped to produce the video, talking about food is the doorway to discovering more about different cultures.

"Food is just an entry point, because Singaporeans are foodies, but beyond that, we can understand more of the culture's richness," said Ms Wong.

Madam Chin said: "Without an appreciation of our roots, food will just be food. But knowing the roots, the dishes are something that are ours, that we identify with."

Ng Keng Gene