Unity Is Strength

Do you know what the nation’s favourite cuisines or takeaways are? Do you? Eh eh? Oh dear I can tell by the tortured look on your face that you’re worried about giving the wrong answer. OK, I’ll help you out. Let’s have a look at some stats.

Graph and Table: Nation’s favourite takeaway.

So did those stats help? They’re more than likely entirely made up to suit the agenda of whichever evil PR agency commissioned the survey but I don't want that to get in the way of our discussion so let's take them at face value.

Well, as we  now know, the answer I was looking for was Chinese and Indian. But where am I going with this when I previously said I was going to talk about Malaysia? Well China and India have had a massive influence on the food of Malaysia...

As you educated types no doubt know Malaysia is in South East Asia, pretty much equidistant from India and China. What makes it much closer to these two countries in culinary terms rather than geographical terms is a history of migration. I find this interesting but if it's not your bag skip to the bit with the pretty photos!

So the indigenous people of Malaysia are the Malays. They share the same ancestry  as Indonesians and are not, as a Texan lady we met in Malaysia claimed, the product of Indian and Chinese people breeding. The Malays were certainly living in Malaysia a long time before Chinese or Indian immigration!

Next on the scene were the Peranakan or Baba-Nyonya. These guys were Chinese immigrants to the Malaysian pensinsular in the 15th and 16th centuries who, over time, began to adapt some of the customs of the Malay people. There is still a large Chinese community in Malaysia and, especially, their closest neighbour, Singapore. As the decades and centuries passed a unique Chinese-Malay (or Nyonya) cuisine developed as Chinese cooking methods and traditions combined with the spices and ingredients available in Malaysia.

Several hundred years later the British appeared on the scene and in true Imperial style decided that they needed hard working resilient workers for the rubber plantations. The logic of the time dictated that the correct course of action was to ship in workers from elsewhere in the Empire and, lo and behold, a large community of Indian workers was established in Malaysia. Like the Chinese before them, the Indians adapted their style of cooking to the Malaysian environment resulting in new styles of cooking.

If you spend any time in a large Malaysian city now, you will find each town has a distinct Chinatown area and Little India with their own distinctive sights, smells and, most importantly, tastes. If you have any interest in food and are at least a bit of an adventurous eater it is a very good place to be! Phew. So after a rather long winded introduction including some boring history which will be of interest to only a minority of you, I have now got an excuse to share some photos of food in Malaysia.

On our first day in Kuala Lumpur we passed a man in Chinatown selling Tea Eggs. Intrigued we bought some to find out that they are, um, eggs boiled in tea. They were in fact very good and I keep on toying with the idea of making some here. I still haven't but watch this space.

I like eating spicy food any meal or time of the day (I first discovered this in India- thanks Rupesh and family) so I was delighted to discover that Malaysia's unofficial national dish, Nasi Lemak, is a delicious spicy dish traditionally served at breakfast. With its roots in indigenous Malay culture Nasi Lemak is traditionally served on a banana leaf and is composed of a number of delicious elements. Rice is always a part of this dish and is steamed with coconut cream to give it a luxurious texture. This is served with some or all of: fried anchovies, roasted peanunts, boiled eggs, a spicy sambal paste and curried meat such as chicken or beef rendang. Luckily for Claire it was also possible to get this for meals other than breakfast and she is enjoying it in this next photo.

One of the great experiences of eating in many parts of Asia is the food of street hawkers who offer amazing food at unbelievably low prices. Malaysia is no exception and even in Kuala Lumpur where the street food was expensive (by local standards) we had some great dishes. One of the more amusingly named of these was frog porridge.

Oh and we made friends with a crab.

Before eating his mum. Oops. As usual this chilli crab was a messy dish to eat! So good though.

But probably my favourite food out there is Laksa. Delicious. Associated most strongly with Peranakan cuisine laksa is, in essence, a curried noodle soup. There are probably as many laksa recipes out there as there are laksa chefs but it is truly delicious and a versatile dish which can be adapted to all tastes and diets. Laksas range from simple vegetarian or seafood affairs to full blown carnivorous soups complete with congealed pig's blood, as they eat in Penang.

I'm going to write in more detail about laksa in a future post and include my Shepherds Bush version of the recipe, so tune in at a later date if that sounds appealing.


In Singapore, against the advice of a well travelled friend, I ate oyster omelette. It was delicious but is the prime suspect in making me ill so I have mixed memories of this dish. On a brighter note the man I bought it off was an awesome guy who's favourite football chairman of all time is Sir John Hall. I don't know if I even have a favourite football chairman.

But now I am going to talk about a recipe- my first one on this blog and to make things even more exciting it's a request! Ms T of Burnopfield wrote in (OK texted) saying I should include this  Malaysian recipe for spicy sambal aubergine as I cooked it for her last year. It's fairly straightforward and requires making a sambal paste which is a versatile ingredient also used as a condiment by Malaysians.

Iain's Sambal (Chilli Paste) Recipe:

Warning: This can create quite a lot of spicy smoke so may be worth opening a window before you start if you don't have an extractor fan.

There are many different sambal recipes out there. this one is fairly simple and does not include belecan (shrimp paste) since I am using dried shrimp in the recipe which follows. Its simplicity can be a boon as it is versatile enough to be used in loads of dishes or as a spicy condiment.

20 dried chillies (seeds taken out and soaked for a while to soften)
10 fresh red chillies (seeds out and sliced, SE Asian scud chillies perfect)
9 shallots (peeled and chopped, red shallots best but given how much cheaper normal ones are I often use them)
6 cloves garlic (peeled and chopped)
4 tablespoons groundnut oil

Use a mini food processor (coffee grinder) to blend all the ingredients well or if you want to be more traditional use a mortar and pestle to pound all the ingredients into a paste.

Put your oil in the wok on a high heat. As soon as the oil begins to smoke, transfer the paste into the wok and stir-fry continuously for a few minutes or until you smell the heat from the paste and the oil begins to separate from the sambal.

Take it out of the wok and set it aside Once cooled it can be refrigerated for future use and should keep for a good few weeks or even months.

Sambal Eggplant Recipe

Medium sized aubergine (great price at Damas Gate if you live in the Bush)
2 tablespoons dried shrimps (soaked in warm water and then rinsed, buy at Sri Thai on Shepherds Bush road)
1 1/2 – 2 tablespoons sambal paste (if you like spicy, use even more tablespoons)
1/4 teaspoon palm sugar (available in big tubs at Sri Thai)
2 teaspoons fish sauce or to taste
2 tablespoons groundnut oil

Rinse the eggplant with water and cut into small bite size chunks.

Heat up the wok with oil. Once hot add the shrimps and your sambal paste and stir-fry until aromatic. Then add your aubergine chunks.

Continue to stir-fry until the aubergine cooks to a soft texture. Add your fish sauce and sugar to taste, dish out and serve hot.

So you've made it to the end, good work. I'll explain the title. The national motto of Malaysia is 'Bersekutu Bertambah Mutu' and it is a nod towards the mixed ethnicity of their population as it translates as 'Unity is Strength'. I don't think Britain has a national motto, but if we did, what would it be? Answers on a postcard, or even better, on a comment.