Since Covid travel restrictions ended in 2022, Paul, Noah, and I have visited Malaysia five times. During some of these trips, we teamed up with our Masters of Malaysian Cuisine (MOMC) chefs and YouTube content creators like the Dodo Explorers and the Jetlag Warriors. Other times, it was just the three of us. We even…
There’s a story behind this dish. The Malays use fermented durian (tempoyak) in a number of dishes including in a prawn sambal (it’s called Sambal Tempoyak Udang). Back when I had my restaurant here in Sydney, my Malay staff (Iza and Tawfik) taught me how to cook this dish but because we didn’t have any…
When I first came to Australia in 1984 I watched an Australian TV chef misconvey how to handle a basic Asian ingredient (rice vermicelli) on breakfast television. It made me so angry I swore off watching cooking shows, and the passage of time hasn’t really repaired my cynicism about TV chefs (I’ve never even watched…
I’d always assumed high-powered gas stoves were my only option if I wanted to – 1) use my round-bottom traditional Chinese woks 2) generate good “wok hei”. That was before I met Kenneth Lim, the owner of Omnomnom Food Truck in Perth. Kenneth convinced old-school (behind-the-times?) me that chefs in China have long ago adopted…
So, last week, one of my online students threw me a curveball — could I demonstrate how to use a Thermomix to cook non-Thermomix-specific recipes? Now, I have some 400 recipes on my website (the one and only jackiem.com.au) but most of them weren’t written for a Thermomix audience. I figured, why go back to the drawing…
Curious about whether I still do markets post-Covid lockdowns? The short answer is, yes I do. But before I get into what markets you can find me at, and what I now sell, here’s a bit of an update since I last published about my in-person (IRL) activities back in early 2020 (check it out…
MEDIA RELEASE 26 August 2022 Street Food Journeys Returns With Series 4 & 5 Filmed In Malaysia Tourism Malaysia’s Street Food Journeys is back with two new series, Laksas of Malaysia and Malaysia: Melting Pot of Asia, to once again showcase Malaysia’s culinary diversity through the lens of Sydney-based former restaurateur Jackie M. and her…
Penang Island is synonymous with street food, and it was appropriately our first stop during our Masters of Malaysian Cuisine (MOMC) road trip throughout the Malaysian peninsula in July 2022. What did we eat and where did we stay in Penang Island? As mentioned in my introduction last week, this is by no means a…
What do you eat and where do you stay when you’re travelling in Malaysia? I get asked that question a lot (and similarly, I’m always looking for recommendations before I visit places in Malaysia I’m not familiar with). In July 2022, I had the opportunity to go on a road trip covering most of the…
The topic of pork came up in a comment thread on Reddit in response to the question – what is something about your race (ethnicity) that other races may not be aware of? A Chinese redditor responded that pork permeates a lot of Chinese food, even in dishes that aren’t pork-based. As a fellow Chinese,…