Sambal Shiok: The Malaysian Cookbook

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The best restaurant cookbooks, just like the best restaurants in London and the wider world, are a really varied bunch. From the gorgeous Indian dishes Asma Khan shares from her family cooks in Ammu to Jon Chantarasak's bright, bold, and beautiful Thai cooking in Kin Thai, there really is something for everyone when it comes to the best cooking books of 2023.

Buy it: Moorish: Vibrant Recipes from the Mediterranean Silo: The Zero Waste Blueprint, Douglas McMasterMalaysian food results from the unique merger over centuries of indigenous Malay ingredients with Indian spices and Chinese techniques. Every dish delicately balances sweet, sour, salty with chili heat and a hint of bitter. With Mandy's evocative look at Malaysian food culture, her recipes, and the basics of a Malaysian pantry (shrimp paste, lemongrass, tamarind and coconut milk), you can easily enjoy the most delicious Malaysian meals at home. BBC.com's World's Table "smashes the kitchen ceiling" by changing the way the world thinks about food, through the past, present and future. Having bought two fat tubes of fresh egg tofu (which I love) just days before the book arrived, the first recipe we made was Soy-Braised Egg Tofu. There’s a lovely vignette in the recipe’s summary about the rustic family-style restaurant in Sarawak in which Yin tasted this dish, where three generations of women cooked and served customers, whilst the youngest member of the family slept in a baby basket to one side. Although the recipe includes pork mince and oyster sauce, it’s listed in the Vegetarian section of Home-Style Dishes, with suggestions from Yin to sub rehydrated shiitake mushrooms for the pork and mushroom sauce instead of oyster to make it vegetarian. We make the pork version and it’s fabulous; wobbly discs of egg tofu have a hint of crispness on the surfaces, with insides that are meltingly soft and silky, they are so good against the simple pork. Whilst our sauce doesn’t come out remotely as dark as that pictured, it’s wonderful mixed into the rice. We love this dish and have made it a few times already, even at the expense of trying more recipes. You can use more laksa leaf if you prefer a more aromatic version. If you cannot find laksa leaves, use a small bunch of mint, stalks and all. Lawyer turned street food vendor turned restaurant owner, Yin’s path into food is one that’s become increasingly common – passionate food lovers burned out by demanding careers switch instead to the food industry, often with no formal training but harbouring a burning need to find careers that feed their souls rather than their bank balances. The diversity, determination, lateral thinking and business acumen such individuals bring to the table enriches the hospitality sector.

We are delighted to share these two recipes from the book, with permission from publisher Quadrille [first recipe posting tomorrow]. Recipe reprinted from Sambal Shiok: The Malaysian Cookbook by Mindy Yin, Quadrille Publishing Ltd, 2021) The book’s introduction starts with Yin’s reminder of the manifold origins of Malaysian cuisine and her intention to celebrate the diversity of the country and its people. The recipes shared are through the lens of Yin’s own experiences and food memories, and whilst not all of them are exactly what you might traditionally find in Malaysia, all are firmly rooted in Malaysian flavours. Like the many generations before her, Yin rejoices in bringing together the flavours and foods of her land of birth with the ingredients and ideas of the UK. Buy now: Berber & Q: On Vegetables The Pig: 500 Miles of Food, Friends and Local Legends, Robin HutsonI’ve been anticipating the publication of Mandy Yin’s Sambal Shiok cookbook for many months, and now the book’s in my hands, it doesn’t disappoint! As Yin explains, Malaysian food reflects the diversity of the Malaysian people and encompasses a glorious range of ingredients, flavours and techniques from the Malay, Chinese, Peranakan, South Indian and indigenous peoples (such as the tribal Iban) that make up the country’s population. In addition, there are influences from the neighbouring cuisines of Thailand and Indonesia, not to mention the marks left by European colonisation and trade. As you can imagine, this has created a rich and enormously diverse cuisine. Buy it: The Hand and Flowers Cookbook Jikoni: Proudly Inauthentic Recipes from an Immigrant Kitchen, Ravinder Bhogal Note the difference, btw in Malaysian versus Malay; the former refers to the people and culture of the whole country whereas the latter describes an Austronesian ethnic group native to an area that encompasses East Sumatra, the Malay Peninsula, and coastal Borneo. What: George Ryle’s Garden Cafe Cookbook is a unique look behind the scenes at one of London’s true hidden gem restaurants. Since reopening in 2017 with Ryle at the helm, the Garden Cafe has gone from a bog-standard sandwich and cake offering to one of the most pleasing outdoor restaurants in the city. The cookbook lifts the lid behind day-to-day life at the restaurant, as well as sharing Ryle’s most popular seasonal recipes.

What: Asma Khan’s debut cookbook ‘Asma’s Indian Kitchen’ was a smash hit, scooping a number of awards thanks to Khan’s very natural cooking and writing style. Her second book, Ammu, promises much of the same, with a book’s worth of new recipes inspired by her mother. Khan has always been an engaging storyteller and though the book is worth its price for the fantastic recipes alone, it’s also a fascinating insight into the connection between food, family and love.