Currying Favour

When you think about Malaysian cuisine, what comes to mind? Perhaps toast smothered with jade-coloured kaya jam and dipped into a quivering soft-boiled egg. Perhaps it’s an omelette fat with oysters and scattered with zingy fresh herbs. Unless you have made the journey down the Strait of Malacca yourself, it might well be curry mee, a rich, spicy broth laden with noodles and seafood that is also a popular flavour of instant noodle in the country and across the world. 

Compared to the sweet-spicy-salty interplay of the cuisine of neighbouring Thailand, or the pointed Spanish influence in Filipino food across the pond, Malaysian food’s defining characteristic is its diversity. Take nasi lemak, a dish of fragrant coconut rice served on a banana leaf and paired with a generous array of garnishes: fried anchovies, slippery cucumber, oily peanuts and the fudgy yolk of a hard-boiled egg. It’s a flavour and texture sensation, and that’s before you’ve even got to the sambal, Malaysia’s famous chilli sauce, which comes in a variety of textures, colours and heat levels. 

This outrageous abundance that characterises Malaysian food is the result of centuries of cultural exchange. Human habitation in Malaysia goes back millennia, and waves of migration from Chinese, Indian, British and Dutch populations, not to mention the culinary contributions of the native Orang Asli people, have made the country’s food some of the most adventurous in the world. Penang, a vibrant state on the Strait of Malacca, might be said to be Malaysia’s culinary heart, where one can have an Indian roti canai for breakfast, a Hokkein char kway teow for lunch and Filippino chicken adobo for dinner, all on the same street.

Just in time for Christmas, hospitality company Belmond and interiors magazine Apartamento have collaborated on a new cookbook to celebrate Penang’s rich culinary heritage. Penang: Recipes & Wanderings Around an Island in Malaysia brings together personal essays, recipes and photography in a celebration of Penang’s food scene, from the bustling street hawkers shifting satay to the cosier homestyle dishes made in grandparents’ kitchens. 

As well as more familiar dishes like nasi lemak and wanton mee, the book delves into the kinds of local specialties that most cookbooks won’t cover. We take a journey to a spice processing factory, where lacy threads of mace are separated from the central nutmeg kernel and used to make a refreshing juice. Elsewhere we visit third-generation Peranakan Chinese makers of kuih, bite-sized desserts typically made from glutinous rice. Variations of kuih can be found across Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines, but infused with butterfly pea flower and pandanus leaf, the Malaysian kind is certainly the most colourful.

Written contributions from chefs Abby and Malcolm Lee and writers Tash Aw and Anna Sulan Masing are paired with stunning imagery by photographer Luo Yang, who captures Penang with the visual richness one might expect of Apartamento. Even if we may not have an ample supply of fresh nutmegs to juice, Penang allows you to recreate the country’s exciting cuisine within the comfort of your own home (a good ingredients stockist notwithstanding!). A perfect gift for your foodie family member, Penang is out now. Jemput makan!