Famous Faces, Famous Places and Famous Foods
A Culinary Adventure in Malaysia
Our spicy breakfast with VJ is at Sampoorna Curry Shop, an Indian "hawker stall" in the heart of Kuala Lumpur (known locally as KL). There's thousands of these sparsely decorated miniscule food stalls in the capital city. Locals take respite from KL's 1.3 million people, buzzing motorcycles, belching buses, sleek Mercedes, and locally manufactured Proton cars. Businessmen wear crisp blue shirts and silk ties, Muslim women are swathed in elegant floral baju kurungs - flowing skirts, blouses and headscarves. Everyone's deal making on their cell phones. KL's success is evident: thousands of banks, textile, jewelry, and electronic shops, designer shopping malls, and luxury hotels crowd the skyline. Mirrored high rises vault thirty, forty, fifty stories with new ones under construction.
Religion is a vital aspect of Malaysian daily life: golden domed mosques broadcast the Islamic call to prayer five times daily. Chinese temples emit perfumed incense, which curls like dragon tails around fruit adorned altars. Hindu temples sport colorful deities like Shiva, Parvathy, Murugan, and elephant headed Ganesha.
But KL's modernity vanishes, as VJ leads us into Chinatown's Petaling Street market. This labyrinth of dark wet tunnels covering fish, fruit, and vegetable stalls from the blasting sun is depressing, even scary. I hear the "shoop shoop" of knives being sharpened, as roosters cluck sadly from their padlocked cages. In the seafood section, live crabs in bamboo baskets wriggle to escape, sea cucumbers float in murky buckets of water. Creatures large and small, you're going to be my lunch.
I see familiar vegetables like string beans, scallions, zucchini, carrots, onions, eggplants, red, and green chillies. But how do you cook galangal, lemon grass, cloud ear fungus? Watermelon, papaya, pineapple, bananas, football sized jackfruit are artfully displayed. Market vendors wave us over for samples. Tiny wrinkled Chinese women squat, slurping steaming bowls of noodles chatting with friends and family.
In Malaysia, you can eat Indian for breakfast, Malay for lunch, Chinese for dinner. Foreign traders from Indonesia, India, the Middle East, and China have influenced Malay cuisine. Hence the use of pepper, ginger, and cardamom. In Malay cooking there's ample use of coriander, cumin, aniseed, cloves and cinnamon. Shallots, garlic, fresh chillies, and fresh turmeric are often pounded in a mortar and pestle, then used as a base flavoring. Malay curries are usually flavored with lemongrass, galangal, lime leaf, coriander leaf or curry leaf.
Chinese cuisine served in Malaysia features bean curd, lotus seeds, Chinese mushrooms, mustard greens, kesum leaves, garlic, turmeric, and onions, combined with fresh seafood, chicken, beef, and pork. Condiments include soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, oyster sauce, rice wine, and chilli sauce. Noodles are a favorite in soups and entrees.
Indian cuisine in Malaysia also utilizes a wide range of spices and condiments to create hot, pungent, or fragrant dishes: turmeric, chillies, cardamom, cumin, aniseed, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, black pepper, coriander leaves, tamarind juice, coconut milk...all find their way into Indian dishes. Chicken, duck, mutton, lamb, pumpkin, spinach, and potatoes are key ingredients. Puddings made with milk, sugar, lemon juice, cloves, cardamom, and rose water are a popular dessert.
Rice has been cultivated in Malaysia for some 600 years. Malaysians adore their rice; it's served with every meal. Meats and vegetables are considered side dishes. A wide variety of rice is available, from long grain indica, to unpolished brown rice, herbal rice, Basmati rice, and fragrant jasmine rice. A popular Malaysian breakfast is Nasi Goreng, rice mixed with shallots, garlic chillies, beans, and ikan bilis - tiny dried anchovies. Nasi Lemak is a Sunday Brunch favorite: rice with coconut milk, screwpine leaves, salt, shallots, and ginger. Hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, and anchovies in hot sauce compliment this fragrant delight.
While reading the local papers, Warren and I learn how courage and tenacity are strongholds of Malaysian character.
The New Straits Times publishes an article announcing, "The Petronas 65 member Adventure Team will undertake a 60 day expedition in 20 four wheel drives and five multipurpose motorbikes, to explore seven countries. The journey encompasses deserts, mountains, forests, and extreme weather. This adventure will create new thinking among Malaysians, so they will be bold and courageous in facing challenges."
Another newspaper story from Borneo exclaims, "Lucky Granny escapes from Python!" A 72-year-old Kuala Terengganu grandma has escaped a python entering her house. "Unable to pull Granny down through the bathroom floor hole," the article notes, "not being able to enter in view of its own massive size, the python gave up and loosened its grip on her foot." Granny vs. python, Granny wins.
Being inspired by all these adventurous Malaysians, I'm delighted when VJ arranges a dinner on Langkawi Island in an ancient virgin rainforest. "You might see our flying lemurs and long tailed macaques," he says. "Possibly wild boars or giant water monitor lizards." I'm ready.
We fly northwest to Langkawi Island, where dense rainforest fringes intimate beaches, rural villages, thundering waterfalls, caves, and rice paddies. The island is postcard perfect.
At the luxurious Andaman Datai Bay resort, I meet a monitor lizard. As I paddle languidly in the resort's pool undulating through the rainforest, it begins to rain. Gentle at first, then a magnificent downpour. I take refuge underneath a bridge arching over the pool. Sir Monitor and I are eye-to-eye. A beautiful footling creature, his sticky tongue darts out to taste me. We become friends.
At sunset, Warren and I walk the lighted rainforest path along the Andaman Sea. Ghostly white crabs scuttle across the beach. We arrive at The Gulai House, a thatched roof open air Malay Kampung longhouse on stilts. Bowls of white orchids and gamelan music beckon us inside where we meet Chef Zabidi Ibrahim. His awards for "Hot Cooking" in the Malaysian Culinary Competition 2000 have established The Gulai House as one of the country's top restaurants.
Our menus are elegantly handwritten in silver ink on pillow-sized Mengkudu leaves. Chef Zabidi sends out an appetizer tray, stunning as an Impressionistic painting, arrayed with chicken satay, fish cakes, samosas, and crispy prawns. Whole crabs make their appearance, nestled in a soup of green chilli, ginger, oyster sauce, and lemon grass. Lobster Lemak spills out from a bright red shell, seasoned with lime leaf, coconut cream, turmeric, and red and green chillies. The finale: asparagus with scallops in chillies, and a grilled beef dish complete our Gulai House feast.
We marvel over dessert, an ice bowl filled with rice flour dumplings stuffed with dates and cashew nuts. Retracing our steps through the rainforest, the moon rises over the Andaman Sea like a slice of lemon. Crabs scuttle across the trail, reminding me of the best crab soup, and the most impressive 50 million year old rainforest dinner, I've ever enjoyed.
The next evening, VJ lures us, "Are you ready for amazing Chinese hawker stall food?" At Restoran Makanan Laut Teo, near Langkawi Island's Eagle Square, Chef Teo creates a fanfare of dishes from his tiny open-air kitchen; downstairs from the house he shares with wife Liaw and three children. He works magic with several industrial sized woks, dodging splattering oil and half-a-dozen roaring flames. An eight-armed octopus, Chef Teo masterfully combines fresh ingredients with spices and herbs artfully arranged in tiny white dishes. Fifteen minutes later, our patio table groans with whole steamed grouper (mouth open, fins flying), crispy fried chicken, bean curd with prawns and calamari, black mushrooms, prawns in chilli sauce. "A little different from luxury resort dining, yes?" beams VJ, diving into the fried chicken and steaming rice. Platters empty, we're astonished when our bill is merely $10 per person. Chef Teo proudly bows, then returns to his kitchen.
We fly back to busy KL, sad to leave exotic Langkawi Island and her amazing Chefs. But at The Legend Hotel, Chefs Mohd Ridzuan and Chef Ku Keung share their secrets in an enlightening cooking lesson, then serve us an Indian, Chinese, and Malay feast: chicken and beef satay; Indian lamb soup; deep fried whole grouper; braised broccoli and black mushroom with oyster sauce; prawn masala; stewed chicken with tomato paste; steamed rice. Dessert is fermented sweet glutinous rice with ice cream and papaya. Did we eat every bite? You know the answer.
Questioning Chef Ku about his other favorite Chinese dishes sends him back into his kitchen. In minutes, he creates "Fan Shaped Vegetables," an assortment of button mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, bok choy, asparagus, bamboo, and cooked egg; and Basin of Goodies, a bucket of fresh mushrooms, sea cucumber, prawns, scallops, squid, grouper, bok choy, and chicken, in a seasoning of sesame oil, oyster sauce and white pepper.
I rarely have interviewed two such happy Chefs, each passionate about creating innovative Malay, Indian, and Chinese dishes.
While staying at The Ritz-Carlton in Kuala Lumpur, (where your private butler delivers flowers, chocolates, and bedtime snacks to your room,) we learned about a most unusual Chef, Datin Zabidahtul Ali Piah.
Datin Zabidahtul works for His Royal Highness the Sultan of Perak, creating and cooking special banquets for the Sultan and visiting heads of State. Her title is ‘Toh Pekerma Wati, one of the Chieftains for Perak.’
If you think cooking for your family and friends is challenging, then imagine orchestrating ceremonial banquets for a Sultan. It's all in a day's work for Datin Zabida, as friends call her. Her husband, Raja Dato Mansur Bin Raja Razman, is the former Malaysian Ambassador to Italy and Egypt, and Datin Zabida has won culinary and teaching awards worldwide.
Our last night in Malaysia, she invites us to dine with her, along with Raja Zamilia, and her sister Raja Zuraida. "I've prepared some of the Sultan's favorite dishes for you," Datin Zabida smiles graciously as we arrive at Raja Zuraida’s lovely home. We are treated to a royal feast: Beef and Chicken Rendang (only for VIP guests at the Palace, Datin Zabida murmurs), Chilli prawns with beans, dried bean curd with vermicelli, pumpkin in coconut milk, wild fern shoot salad, fish cutlet. Dessert is sago in brown syrup and the Malaysian papaya we have come to love so much.
Just one week ago, Warren and I arrived in Malaysia hoping for a culinary adventure. Delighting in spicy, intoxicating food at rainforest resorts, hotel restaurants, and hawker stalls, we now understand why Malaysian cuisine is so irresistible. We're happily addicted, and can't wait to return.
TRAVEL INFORMATION
For further information on Malaysia, contact Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board, 818 West Seventh Street, Los Angeles, CA 90017. Tel 213-689-9702. Web: http://www.tourismmalaysia.com Email: mtpb.LA@tourism.gov.my Malaysia Airlines: 800-552-9264.
Two Recipes:
I. Chef Zabidi's Lobster Lemak. The Gulai House Restaurant, The Andaman Datai Bay, Langkawi, Malaysia
Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds raw lobster
4 shallots, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ginger, minced
1 stalk lemon grass, thinly sliced
10 ounces coconut cream
3 lime leaves
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 1/2 teaspoon red chilli
1 1/2 teaspoon green chilli
1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
pinch of salt and sugar
Method:
1. Heat vegetable oil in a deep pot
2. Sauté the garlic, shallots, ginger, and lemon grass about 3-5 minutes on low flame
3. Add the coconut cream, raw lobster, and turmeric powder. Stir on low flame 1 minute
4. Add the tomato and red/green chilli
5. Add salt and sugar to taste. Boil covered for 5 minutes
6. Serve immediately. Serves 2-4
II. Chef Ridzuan Malek's Prawn Masala. The Legend Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Ingredients:
15 tiger prawns, raw
1/8 cup white onion, chopped
1/4 teaspoon ginger paste
1/8 teaspoon garlic paste
1/8 teaspoon coriander leaves
1/8 teaspoon cumin seed
1/4 teaspoon fish curry powder
1/8 teaspoon chilli powder
1/8 teaspoon cumin powder
1/8 teaspoon coriander powder
5 curry leaves
1 teaspoon cream
1 teaspoon ghee
1 tablespoon fresh tomato, chopped
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper, to taste
Method:
1.Heat the ghee. Fry the onion and herbs until light brown. Add ginger, garlic, and tomato Cook for 5 minutes
2. Add all powders, cook for 5 minute until the mixture changes color
3. Add 1/2 cup water and tiger prawns
4. Simmer for 5 minutes. Slowly add cream and fresh coriander. Serve immediately
©2004 Sharon Lloyd Spence
While reading the local papers, Warren and I learn how courage and tenacity are strongholds of Malaysian character.
The New Straits Times publishes an article announcing, "The Petronas 65 member Adventure Team will undertake a 60 day expedition in 20 four wheel drives and five multipurpose motorbikes, to explore seven countries. The journey encompasses deserts, mountains, forests, and extreme weather. This adventure will create new thinking among Malaysians, so they will be bold and courageous in facing challenges."
Another newspaper story from Borneo exclaims, "Lucky Granny escapes from Python!" A 72-year-old Kuala Terengganu grandma has escaped a python entering her house. "Unable to pull Granny down through the bathroom floor hole," the article notes, "not being able to enter in view of its own massive size, the python gave up and loosened its grip on her foot." Granny vs. python, Granny wins.
Being inspired by all these adventurous Malaysians, I'm delighted when VJ arranges a dinner on Langkawi Island in an ancient virgin rainforest. "You might see our flying lemurs and long tailed macaques," he says. "Possibly wild boars or giant water monitor lizards." I'm ready.
We fly northwest to Langkawi Island, where dense rainforest fringes intimate beaches, rural villages, thundering waterfalls, caves, and rice paddies. The island is postcard perfect.
At the luxurious Andaman Datai Bay resort, I meet a monitor lizard. As I paddle languidly in the resort's pool undulating through the rainforest, it begins to rain. Gentle at first, then a magnificent downpour. I take refuge underneath a bridge arching over the pool. Sir Monitor and I are eye-to-eye. A beautiful footling creature, his sticky tongue darts out to taste me. We become friends.
At sunset, Warren and I walk the lighted rainforest path along the Andaman Sea. Ghostly white crabs scuttle across the beach. We arrive at The Gulai House, a thatched roof open air Malay Kampung longhouse on stilts. Bowls of white orchids and gamelan music beckon us inside where we meet Chef Zabidi Ibrahim. His awards for "Hot Cooking" in the Malaysian Culinary Competition 2000 have established The Gulai House as one of the country's top restaurants.
Our menus are elegantly handwritten in silver ink on pillow-sized Mengkudu leaves. Chef Zabidi sends out an appetizer tray, stunning as an Impressionistic painting, arrayed with chicken satay, fish cakes, samosas, and crispy prawns. Whole crabs make their appearance, nestled in a soup of green chilli, ginger, oyster sauce, and lemon grass. Lobster Lemak spills out from a bright red shell, seasoned with lime leaf, coconut cream, turmeric, and red and green chillies. The finale: asparagus with scallops in chillies, and a grilled beef dish complete our Gulai House feast.
We marvel over dessert, an ice bowl filled with rice flour dumplings stuffed with dates and cashew nuts. Retracing our steps through the rainforest, the moon rises over the Andaman Sea like a slice of lemon. Crabs scuttle across the trail, reminding me of the best crab soup, and the most impressive 50 million year old rainforest dinner, I've ever enjoyed.
The
next evening, VJ lures us, "Are you ready for amazing Chinese hawker stall food?"
At Restoran Makanan Laut Teo, near Langkawi Island's Eagle Square, Chef Teo
creates a fanfare of dishes from his tiny open-air kitchen; downstairs from
the house he shares with wife Liaw and three children. He works magic with several
industrial sized woks, dodging splattering oil and half-a-dozen roaring flames.
An eight-armed octopus, Chef Teo masterfully combines fresh ingredients with
spices and herbs artfully arranged in tiny white dishes. Fifteen minutes
later, our patio table groans with whole steamed grouper (mouth open, fins flying),
crispy fried chicken, bean curd with prawns and calamari, black mushrooms, prawns
in chilli sauce. "A little different from luxury resort dining, yes?" beams
VJ, diving into the fried chicken and steaming rice. Platters empty, we're astonished
when our bill is merely $10 per person. Chef Teo proudly bows, then returns
to his kitchen.
We fly back to busy KL, sad to leave exotic Langkawi Island and her amazing Chefs. But at The Legend Hotel, Chefs Mohd Ridzuan and Chef Ku Keung share their secrets in an enlightening cooking lesson, then serve us an Indian, Chinese, and Malay feast: chicken and beef satay; Indian lamb soup; deep fried whole grouper; braised broccoli and black mushroom with oyster sauce; prawn masala; stewed chicken with tomato paste; steamed rice. Dessert is fermented sweet glutinous rice with ice cream and papaya. Did we eat every bite? You know the answer.
Questioning Chef Ku about his other favorite Chinese dishes sends him back into his kitchen. In minutes, he creates "Fan Shaped Vegetables," an assortment of button mushrooms, carrots, broccoli, bok choy, asparagus, bamboo, and cooked egg; and Basin of Goodies, a bucket of fresh mushrooms, sea cucumber, prawns, scallops, squid, grouper, bok choy, and chicken, in a seasoning of sesame oil, oyster sauce and white pepper.
I rarely have interviewed two such happy Chefs, each passionate about creating innovative Malay, Indian, and Chinese dishes.
While staying at The Ritz-Carlton in Kuala Lumpur, (where your private butler delivers flowers, chocolates, and bedtime snacks to your room,) we learned about a most unusual Chef, Datin Zabidahtul Ali Piah.
Datin Zabidahtul works for His Royal Highness the Sultan of Perak, creating and cooking special banquets for the Sultan and visiting heads of State. Her title is ‘Toh Pekerma Wati, one of the Chieftains for Perak.’
If you think cooking for your family and friends is challenging, then imagine orchestrating ceremonial banquets for a Sultan. It's all in a day's work for Datin Zabida, as friends call her. Her husband, Raja Dato Mansur Bin Raja Razman, is the former Malaysian Ambassador to Italy and Egypt, and Datin Zabida has won culinary and teaching awards worldwide.
Our last night in Malaysia, she invites us to dine with her, along with Raja Zamilia, and her sister Raja Zuraida. "I've prepared some of the Sultan's favorite dishes for you," Datin Zabida smiles graciously as we arrive at Raja Zuraida’s lovely home. We are treated to a royal feast: Beef and Chicken Rendang (only for VIP guests at the Palace, Datin Zabida murmurs), Chilli prawns with beans, dried bean curd with vermicelli, pumpkin in coconut milk, wild fern shoot salad, fish cutlet. Dessert is sago in brown syrup and the Malaysian papaya we have come to love so much.
Just one week ago, Warren and I arrived in Malaysia hoping for a culinary adventure. Delighting in spicy, intoxicating food at rainforest resorts, hotel restaurants, and hawker stalls, we now understand why Malaysian cuisine is so irresistible. We're happily addicted, and can't wait to return.
TRAVEL INFORMATION
For further information on Malaysia, contact Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board, 818 West Seventh Street, Los Angeles, CA 90017. Tel 213-689-9702. Web: http://www.tourismmalaysia.com Email: mtpb.LA@tourism.gov.my Malaysia Airlines: 800-552-9264.
Two Recipes:
I. Chef Zabidi's Lobster Lemak. The Gulai House Restaurant, The Andaman Datai Bay, Langkawi, Malaysia
Ingredients:
1 1/2 pounds raw lobster
4 shallots, finely
chopped
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ginger,
minced
1 stalk lemon grass,
thinly sliced
10 ounces coconut
cream
3 lime leaves
1 medium tomato, chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable
oil
1 1/2 teaspoon red
chilli
1 1/2 teaspoon green
chilli
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
powder
pinch of salt and
sugar
Method:
1. Heat vegetable oil in a deep pot2. Sauté the garlic, shallots, ginger, and lemon grass about 3-5 minutes on low flame
3. Add the coconut cream, raw lobster, and turmeric powder. Stir on low flame 1 minute
4. Add the tomato and red/green chilli
5. Add salt and sugar to taste. Boil covered for 5 minutes
6. Serve immediately. Serves 2-4
II. Chef Ridzuan Malek's Prawn Masala. The Legend Hotel, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Ingredients:
15 tiger prawns, raw
1/8 cup white onion,
chopped
1/4 teaspoon ginger
paste
1/8 teaspoon garlic
paste
1/8 teaspoon coriander
leaves
1/8 teaspoon cumin
seed
1/4 teaspoon fish
curry powder
1/8 teaspoon chilli
powder
1/8 teaspoon cumin
powder
1/8 teaspoon coriander
powder
5 curry leaves
1 teaspoon cream
1 teaspoon ghee
1 tablespoon fresh
tomato, chopped
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper, to
taste
Method:
1.Heat the ghee. Fry the
onion and herbs until light brown. Add ginger, garlic, and tomato Cook for 5
minutes
2. Add all powders,
cook for 5 minute until the mixture changes color
3. Add 1/2 cup water
and tiger prawns
4. Simmer for 5 minutes.
Slowly add cream and fresh coriander. Serve immediately
©2004 Sharon Lloyd Spence