On our most recent trip to Malaysia for a Tourism Perak x Masters of Malaysian Cuisine (MOMC) collaboration, our team had the opportunity to visit a number of coffee-serving establishments. 

This included Niang Republic and Chang Jiang Kopitiam (organised by Roselyn Lim of the Perak Tourist Guide Association) and Cascada by Magical Beans and Kong Fu Kopitiam (organised by Ben Yap of IpohTreats.com).

So what’s the difference between regular Malaysian kopi and Ipoh white coffee? It’s to do with the roast, actually – Ipoh coffee beans are a less dark roast compared to what you would find elsewhere – hence the “white”. 

This makes the coffee taste smoother and less bitter – which, as a non-coffee snob I’ve not paid much attention to in the past, but have now come to notice and appreciate every time I order kopi in Ipoh. 

Also, the beans used in Ipoh are typically a blend of Liberica (Malaysian), Arabica, and Robusta, slow-roasted in palm oil/butter/margarine.

In this demo, Michael Tan, the owner of Cascada by Magical Beans, explains the process of making Ipoh White Coffee – 

It’s clearly a better option to drink Ipoh White Coffee in Ipoh itself, but if you can’t wait, here’s the recipe extracted from Michael Tan’s explanation and re-jigged for a 2-cup serve at home – 

IPOH WHITE COFFEE HOME RECIPE

Adapted from Michael Tan, Cascada by Magical Beans, Ipoh

INGREDIENTS:

70g coarse-ground Ipoh White Coffee Powder

270ml boiling water

190ml evaporated milk

65g condensed milk (iced) or 35g (hot)

METHOD:

1. Bring water to a full rolling boil.
2. Place coffee powder into a coffee sock (or cloth filter bag) set over a heatproof jug.
3. Pour the boiling water over the grounds. Cover and steep for 15 minutes.
4. Lift the sock and let it drain. 
5. For hot coffee, warm it gently before adding milk – don’t reboil. For iced coffee, proceed straight to the next step.
6. Add evaporated milk and condensed milk. Stir well, or pour back and forth between two jugs tarik-style to blend and aerate.
7. For iced coffee – pour over ice. For hot coffee – pour and serve.

Condensed milk quantities are a starting point. Adjust to taste, and if you’re making iced coffee, remember the ice will dilute as it melts – lean slightly sweeter than you think you need.

Next time you visit an Asian grocery store, see if you can track down Malaysian coffee powder to get the best results. Here’s an example, from the factory we visited – they come in different varieties eg. 3-in-1 (coffee plus sugar plus creamer), 2-in-1 (coffee plus sugar), or just straight up coffee (which is what you want if you’re using the recipe above) –

To make kopi O (black coffee, Malaysian style) from the same base: dilute 50/50 with hot water, add sugar to taste, or leave it unsweetened as kopi O kosong.

By the way, at almost every place we visited, we were offered Ipoh White Coffee served with a piece of butter – which looked very cool and added a silky, slightly savoury hint to the coffee. 

I was told this was a throwback to the early years of Chinese migration to Southeast Asia, which has made a comeback in recent years (and nothing to do with the Bulletproof Coffee craze).

Next time you visit Ipoh, here are the places you should absolutely check out, not just for their Ipoh White Coffee but also for their food – 

Cascada by Magical Beans PT8299, Jalan Johan 2/6, Kawasan Perindustrian Pengkalan 2, 31550 Pusing, Perak Tel: +60 13-580 8825 Hours: Daily 9am – 6pm

Chang Jiang White Coffee 7, Jalan Windsor, 30250 Ipoh, Perak Tel: 05-253 8896 Hours: Daily 8am – 6pm

Kong Fu Kopitiam 39, Jalan Panglima, 30000 Ipoh, Perak Tel: +60 17-733 1928 Hours: 9am – 5pm, closed Wednesdays

Niang Republic 14, Jalan Bijeh Timah, 30000 Ipoh, Perak Hours: 11am – 5.30pm, closed Tuesdays

Want more recipes, eating guides and articles? Grab your copy of our latest Truly Malaysian by MOMC digital magazine here – it’s completely free –  (click here to download or view the magazine) – 

The post How to Make Ipoh White Coffee At Home (And Where to Drink It In Ipoh) first appeared on Jackie M..

During my twice-weekly Zoom cooking sessions, my Malaysian Hawker Pro and Skool Malaysian Cooking Club students are always engaging with each other on the latest and greatest kitchen utensils and gadgets – most recently, silicone wok-stirring spatulas.

What triggered the silicone spatula conversation was my experience using a spatula that snapped in half after only a couple of weeks, because it had a wooden handle that was separate to the scoop.

Like this – 

So down the rabbit hole we went, until one of our members came across a Kickstarter project spatula called the Turnula – details here – https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/turnula/turnula-smarter-and-easier-way-to-cook?ref=cmcu5u

I approached the people behind the Kickstarter about doing a review, and they sent me two Turnulas – a right-handed and a left-handed one (Paul is left-handed).

Quick heads-up that I’m not getting paid for this review nor do I get any commission on sales etc. I’m just giving my honest opinion about the Turnula based on my experience of using it for different cooking functions over the last two weeks.

Truthfully, when we first started using the Turnula, I was using it the way I would normally use a traditional wok spatula – sometimes it worked well, other times, I was confused about the point of its side-scoop design.

Meanwhile, Paul was happily using it for his scrambled eggs and pancakes every morning – I even shared a clip of him doing so on social media – only to have the Turnula people contact me to point out he’s actually not using it the way it’s meant to be used. Either way, Paul remains very happy with his left-handed Turnula, so we’ll leave him at it.

What the company clarified with me was that the Turnula is designed for lateral sweeping; for example, when it comes to sautéing, you’re meant to –

(1) Let the head glide along the surface of the pan so it slides fully underneath the ingredients before lifting.
(2) Sweep the ingredients sideways across the pan, allowing them to roll gently off the side of the Turnula.

Based on this previously overlooked functionality, I tested out the Turnula on a number of dishes/pans. Here are my thoughts on where it stood out, and where it struggled –

Everything clicked once I stopped trying to use the Turnula like a typical wok spatula (ie. scooping it forwards).

I started using a combination of the lateral sweep movement it was designed for (as demonstrated in the first clip), and also just turning it with my wrist (in clips 2-4).

Cooking sambal and rempah (spice pastes) in a wok, which requires a long, patient process of frying spice paste until the oil separates, is perfect with the Turnula.

The wrist-driven motion means the effort is noticeably less than with a traditional wok spatula (anyone who’s cooked a long rempah fry-off knows how much that can take out of your arm and shoulder).

The Turnula, by contrast, is so light and fluid and low-effort it feels therapeutic instead of stressful, and the continuous stirring motion suited the task perfectly.

Same story with congee (I tested it on Bubur Lambuk which is basically Malay-style congee). The Turnula handled the low, gentle, rhythmic stirring of the congee beautifully.

If your cooking life involves a lot of wok work, particularly the kind of low-and-slow paste frying that Malaysian cooking demands, this tool is what you need in your kitchen.

Low-walled frying pans are where the Turnula’s design works somewhat against it – scooping sideways didn’t feel like it gave me enough control to prevent my spice pastes from spilling over the sides, and it didn’t get enough leverage to lift up my crepes cleanly – so I still prefer using a regular spatula for these tasks.

The Verdict –

Ultimately I think you need to see the Turnula as a specialist utensil, rather than something that will replace all your cooking spatulas. Its lateral design fits in perfectly with tasks that require long, patient stirring – apart from rempahs, sambals and porridge/congee, think of tasks like roasting sesame seeds and shelled peanuts.

You’ll find that the effort is noticeably less than if you were using a wok spatula, where a lot of elbow and shoulder exertion is required.

Key Features of the Turnula, as listed in the Kickstarter:

• Innovative lateral-sweep design
  Enables smooth rolling motion for more even, efficient cooking.
• Designed for all users
  Available in both right-handed and left-handed versions.
• Precision-Tapered Edge
  0.03mm tip that slides under food without resistance.
• Flexible stainless steel core
  Firm support with enough flexibility to bend to different pan shapes.
• High-wall design:
  Allows quick, controlled scooping of ingredients and sauces in one quick sweep.
• Special Arch
  Creates a built-in safety clearance between hand and heat source to reduce burn risk.
• One-Piece Design
  The seamless finish prevents trapped grease for easy cleaning, and is dishwasher-safe.

Check out the Turnula page for more details (shortened link so it’s easy to remember): JackieM.com.au/Turnula

The post Review: Turnula for Malaysian Cooking first appeared on Jackie M..

I’ve written a bunch of Malaysian recipes for use in these machines, published e-book collections, and run cooking classes on them. 

And of course, I’ve used them for my Malaysian food business.

In between, I’ve been asked to evaluate other competing brands, notably the Thermocook, going as far back as 2016 (you can still find my content online on older versions of the brand). 

But it’s been a good five years since I owned a Thermocook (there was nothing wrong with them; I just had too many machines in the house so I gave them away), which means I’ve been out of touch with the newer models. 

So when I received an evaluation unit of the Thermocook Pro M 3.0 three weeks ago, I was basically starting from scratch in terms of learning its functionalities and how it compares with the Thermomix (broadly, the TM6 & TM7, since they’re the two most current versions).

Over the course of the last two and a half weeks, these are some of what I’ve used the Thermocook to make –

Beef Rendang –

Malaysian Chicken Curry –

Fish Paste for Yong Tau Foo etc. –

Kaya –

Serunding –

Sambal Udang Kering
Sambal Belacan Tumis
Prawn Stock Paste
————
Last weekend, I ran a Live broadcast covering some of the dishes above, along with my take on the Thermocook’s other functionalities eg. in processing hardy Malaysian ingredients.

Here’s the 45-minute recording – 

I’m not here to tell you whether the Thermocook or the Thermomix is better – it’s for you to decide, based on your needs, but here are eight differences between the two machines that I’ve found, as it pertains to my style of Malaysian cooking – 

1. Bigger bowl – the Thermocook comes with a 3L bowl, nearly 50% bigger than the Thermomix’s, which is 2.2L. I have comfortably cooked 2kg of beef and 2.5kg of chicken ribs in it. The bigger bowl suits me because I cook for my business; if you have a big family or feel that the Thermomix’s bowl size is too small for the kind of meals you prepare, this feature is definitely something to consider.
2. Removable blade plus separate stirrer attachment – the stirrer allows me to cook softer proteins like chicken on the bone without having the meat torn and stabbed by the blades (yes it does stab and tear in the Thermomix even on reverse stir).
3. Wider bowl base – this means that the Thermocook’s bowl is more in the shape of a food processor while the Thermomix’s is more like a blender. The wider base makes a difference in how the food in the bowl moves around – great for cooking and for processing fish paste because of the bigger base surface area, though if you want to blend ingredients like garlic or sugar finely, you would need more of said ingredients or they’ll just get pushed to the sides of the bowl.
4. The Thermocook comes with a grater attachment ie. what’s known as a Cutter in Thermomix-speak. If you want to grate vegetables in a Thermomix you have to buy the Cutter separately (last I checked it was A$199).
5. The Thermocook does not require a subscription for you to access the 1000-odd built-in recipes. The Thermomix comes with tens of thousands of recipes on their proprietary Cookidoo platform and you can even programme your own recipes in it – caveat being that it’s subscription-based at about $89/year.
6. The price – the Thermocook Pro M 3.0 is about $1000 cheaper than the Thermomix TM7.
7. The Thermocook is less locked-down than the Thermomix – eg. two of the Thermomix TM7’s main differences from the previous model, the TM6, are that –
   a) it has a browning mode that can cook at 160C and
   b) it has an open-cooking mode.The problem is that both these modes, which got me really excited when the Thermomix TM7 was first released, are so locked down that they’re useless to me.The browning mode does not allow you to adjust the stirring speed/frequency, so my hopes of cooking rempahs (spice pastes) at 160C were crushed when I realised the stirring was too intermittent and my spice pastes were getting burnt as a result, whereas the open cooking mode only maxes out at 100C and does not stir at all, which means unless you’re boiling water or thin broth in it, it’s more or less useless.Also, the TM7 (unlike prior models) has a lid without a hole in the middle where the cap on older models used to sit, which you could remove when sautéing for the steam to escape – instead it’s got a few small vents that aren’t big enough so the steam gets trapped when cooking rempahs so it takes longer for the oil to separate and doesn’t turn out as “garing” (ie. dry).

   Which, again, you’d think you could work around by using the Open Cooking mode, but remember that setting maxes out at 100C plus it doesn’t stir so your rempah will burn (I’m venting now, aren’t I?).

8. You can cook in the Thermocook without the blades stirring (eg. for sous vide cooking) or you can just remove the blades unlike with the Thermomix, where you need to use a blade cover (which reduces the capacity of the bowl even further) or risk having your sous vide pouches or other soft contents breaking up.

Over the coming weeks and months, I expect to try more dishes in the Thermocook and I will, of course, share them with everyone, though if you want to make sure you don’t miss them, your best bet is to sign up to my email list at jackiem.com.au/email (don’t forget to confirm your subscription and don’t be a jerk and report me for spam down the track – just hit the unsubscribe link if you don’t want to hear from me again).

Finally, if you are in the market for a Thermocook, you can buy it from my affiliate link here – jackiem.com.au/thermocookbuy – you will get the following bonuses if you do (UPDATED 5 June 2026)- 

1. A complimentary glider board valued at $98 (IMPORTANT – select WITH SLIDING BOARD and on checkout, use code – JackieM to have the cost deducted from your total) 
2. Once the order has been processed, forward your receipt to jackie@jackiem.com.au I’ll give you access to my online Malaysian Cooking Club for 12 months (value USD$69) where you get to join us on Zoom for private cooking sessions and get your hands on my recipes and eCookbooks. Details here – jackiem.com.au/skool

Finally, finally, because I’ve been asked – the Thermocook is not currently available for sale to the USA because of the different voltage used there – I’ll let you know if that changes down the track.

It IS available for shipping to some other places eg. Malaysia & Singapore, though you’ll obviously have to pay for postage, and since they don’t currently have authorised serviced centres there, you’ll have to source your own, though the company WILL supply free spare parts. Hit me up if you need details and I’ll find out for you.

The post Thermocook vs Thermomix – 8 Differences for Malaysian Cooking first appeared on Jackie M..

1. Do you have a restaurant somewhere?
2. Do you do other markets?

If you’re one of those people who’ve asked me these questions and thought you caught a glimpse of an eyeroll from me in response, I want to reassure you that you’re not paranoid. I have been known, in my hubris, to assume everyone’s followed my lifestory intently over the past two decades.

Anyhow I’ve gradually come to the realisation that thirteen years is a long enough time that I should probably revisit this so that I can, if nothing else, just point to this blog post next time someone brings this up (and save him/her from copping one of my unwarranted eyerolls).

So, here we go –

Question 1 – Do I have a restaurant?

I used to – on Majors Bay Road, Concord. It was one of just two restaurants on that strip that were included in the Sydney Morning Herald Good Food Under $30 Guide back in its day.

I closed it to look after Noah – who was born with Down Syndrome, duodenal atresia, AVSD, and hydrops fetalis – and who spent the first 217 days of his life in hospital, in both the NICU and the PICU. Three times in seven months, I got called in the middle of the night from the hospital to prepare for the worst.

I was told Noah’s condition was not survivable; I was encouraged/coerced to withhold treatment by the medical staff on the basis that –

• even if he did survive surgery he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life,
• I would have to give up everything to look after him, and
• he was never going to be a productive member of society anyway

Nobody believes me when I tell them this, or they brush it off as a non-systemic issue despite my evidence to the contrary.

Anyway, I chose to give up my restaurant to look after him full-time, though ironically, his need for ongoing therapy and medical follow-ups aside, all the doom and gloom from the so-called experts never came to fruition.

Miraculously one day after I posted publicly about my struggle as a single parent of a severely-disabled child, two guys, oblivious to my life drama, walked into my restaurant and asked if I wanted to sell it (the lease, not the business).

I played it cool, picked a figure off the top of my head, they negotiated it down but not by much, and thirteen years later they’re still going strong, operating as a cafe, and I couldn’t be more happy for them.

Question 2 – Do I do other markets?

Short answer, currently no, I only do Concord Hospital Market, and that’s only once a month, 11 months a year.

Long answer – my market life actually preceded my restaurant – and when I quit the latter, I confidently figured I’d just go back to doing a couple of markets a week instead of being tied down to a restaurant around the clock, and I could just bring Noah along with me in a portable cot.

Then the drama started – first, some anonymous campaigner at Orange Grove Farmers’ Market decided to go around collecting signatures for a petition to prevent me from bringing Noah along.

Rather than regurgitate the details, here’s a previous blog post I published – Why I’m Quitting 

That left me with one weekly market ie. Concord Hospital – and the drama carried on over there as well –

Not once –  Déjà Vu All Over Again (yes, it’s a deliberate tautology – eyeroll – I did French at uni)

But twice – Enough Is Enough

Just when you thought it was all sorted, Covid lockdowns hit, which meant I had ZERO markets for 3 years (being a hospital, they were extra careful to shut down everything even before the official mandates, and they didn’t reopen until way after the lockdowns were removed).

When Concord Hospital Market resumed, the organisers said they would start off with monthly events and gradually ease back into weekly ones.

It’s been three years and the markets are still running only once a month, and in fact when I checked a couple of  months ago, the new staff members had no idea there were any plans to go back to weekly markets.

Question 3 (Bonus Round) – Would I consider doing other markets?

If you know a good event that takes place on weekdays that can allow me to make it back to Kogarah before 4.00pm, let me know – reason being, among other things, that I got rid of my van during the lockdowns and I now have to hire a vehicle each market day, and it needs to be returned before 5pm.

So, what do I do now? Well, two main things – 

Handcrafted Dry Curry Pastes
I now produce small-batch dry curry paste kits — the same recipes I used in my restaurant — that ship worldwide. They let people cook real Malaysian food at home without the need for perishable fresh pastes or specialist ingredients.

Get yours here – Shop.JackieM.com.au

Malaysian Hawker Pro
I also run an online training programme called Malaysian Hawker Pro, designed to teach Malaysians and Singaporeans abroad how to recreate proper hawker dishes that are good enough to sell — not watered-down versions you find on TikTok and in lifestyle magazines.

Details here – MalaysianHawkerPro.com

Oh yeah, and I published an award-winning cookbook called The Durian Cookbook, and founded a group called Masters of Malaysian Cuisine where we partner with Tourism Malaysia and the Malaysian Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, and I ran a culinary tour to Malaysia blah-blah-blah.

The post What Happened to Jackie M’s Restaurant? first appeared on Jackie M..

Watch here>> https://youtu.be/C1fXy6bl4UI

So it came as quite a shock to me when I was alerted to Zoe Williams’s March 2019 piece in The Guardian UK: “Five years ago, jackfruit was just a spectacularly ugly, smelly, unfarmed, unharvested pest-plant native to India. Some people ate it, but only if they had nothing better to eat.” 

Rather than a failed attempt at humour, it made me realise for the first time, that most Westerners only know jackfruit in its young, unripened form. My suspicions were further confirmed by this line in a Yahoo, UK article (okay, maybe it’s just the Brits) on how to use jackfruit: “Jackfruits have a slightly sweet but mostly neutral flavor”. Erm, no.

I’ve also come across multiple occasions where Westerners have mistakenly identified jackfruit as durian (<cough> Paul Gray <cough>). 

The fact is, the dominant iteration of jackfruit to hundreds of millions of people in Southeast Asia (not to mention South Asia), is not the flavourless, fibrous, basically colourless “pest plant” aka young jackfruit that vegans use as a meat substitute. 

For sure, we have Malaysian recipes that call for young jackfruit (I even have a recipe for young jackfruit curry on my website) – but that’s not the default idea of jackfruit most Malaysians are familiar with.  

We eat our jackfruit mostly in its ripened form (by the way, you can now find chilled ripe Malaysian jackfruit here in Australia – and if you’re anything like me, you’ll never eat the canned variety again once you’ve tried fresh Malaysian jackfruit).

Apart from eating it straight, we sometimes we make sweet snacks with it – its flavour and texture lends itself to many uses, from simmering it in a sauce, to dipping it in batter and frying it, to stuffing it with sticky rice, to baking it in a cake. I’ve used it to make kaya (replacing pandan with pureed jackfruit) and diced it into small pieces and added it to my pancake batter.

If you’d like to get your hands on my full tipsheet on ways to use Malaysian jackfruit, just sign up to my email list at MalaysianChefs.com/Recipes – and it’ll hit your inbox soon.

The post Malaysian Jackfruit – 8 Suggestions On How To Use It first appeared on Jackie M..

Johor is highly-regarded among Malaysians and Singaporeans as a foodie destination, so much so that Singaporeans regularly travel across the border into Malaysia just to eat a meal in this, the southernmost state of the peninsular of Malaysia. In this episode of Street Food Journeys: Malaysia, we explore Johor through the lens of its food.

Click here to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eB2JJz7sZE 

Tourism Malaysia Culinary Ambassador and Masters of Malaysian Cuisine At Heart chef, Dato’ Ismail Ahmad, showed us how to make Laksa Johor. Laksa Johor is unique in part because it uses spaghetti (incidentally it was the subject of the recent “Laksa Wars” on Malaysia’s social media where netizens debated the merits of the different versions of laksa in Malaysia).

My experience of Mee Rebus (literally, boiled noodles) from my years growing up in Seremban, is quite different to what is known as Mee Rebus in Johor. The version I knew was mindblowingly spicy and completely savoury (unlike the Johor version which is noticeably sweet). It also came with a light yellow (not orange) sauce, and it was vegetarian.

I had to look up the Johor recipe before attempting it in my cooking segment – interestingly my research yielded a number of markedly different versions, so I picked elements from a couple of different recipes to produce mine. I was grateful to have Masters of Malaysian Cuisine’s Michelin-trained chef Rene Juefri on hand to discuss these variations afterwards.

Rene spent a large amount of time during his childhood in Johor, so he was well-positioned to speak about the cuisine. The Mee Rebus Johor I made turned out very flavoursome and it reminded me somewhat of Mee Rojak which is a version of Indian Rojak (salad with a spicy sweet potato sauce) that’s served with egg noodles.

YouTube and TikTok star Mark O’Dea made his first appearance in Street Food Journeys (you’ll be seeing more of him in future episodes), and he discussed his experience of Johor with MOMC’s Vegan Chef Dave, who was born and raised in the state.

We also interviewed Kelab Alami co-founder Serina Rahman about the Sea Warriors Market which was founded to help local fishermen to make more money for their catch. Other regulars in this episode were The JetLag Warriors, Malaysian tour guide Shaukani Abbas, and MOMC Chef, Bob Adnin.

Don’t forget to sign up at https://MalaysianChefs.com/StreetFoodJourneys if you want the recipes from our cooking sessions, along with the bonus content we couldn’t fit into the episode.

The post Johor: Laksa Johor, Mee Rebus, Places To Visit & Things To Do first appeared on Jackie M..

Today was the day I was going to take a bunch of food, cooking equipment and tech gear to Alkira Terrace on the rooftop of the The Grace Hotel in the city.

It was the first of 4 Days | 5 Countries | 8 Live Cooking Demonstrations to be done onsite while livestreamed by the chefs in my Masters of Malaysian Cuisine group in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industries of Malaysia (MAFI).

(More info about the campaign can be found here >> https://malaysianchefs.com/mafi-partners-with-the-masters-of-malaysian-cuisine-to-promote-malaysian-ingredients-to-the-world/)

As the Malaysian Heritage Cuisine project lead, my event was the first one out of the gate.

I was scheduled to do my cooking demonstration of Seremban Beef Noodles (Ngau Lam Fun) in front of some 35 Australian media/bloggers/influencers along with food and fruit (Malaysian Musang King Durian/Jackfruit/Pineapple/Nangchem) sampling.

The session would be concurrently broadcast to multiple online platforms and channels on Facebook, YouTube and Twitch, after which I would head down to the Grace Hotel Brasserie on Level Two to cook Char Kway Teow for 100 guests.

Well, it was meant to be just Char Kway Teow, except there was a late request for vegetarian options for one of the reporters who wanted to come – and since I’d already spent the entire catering budget and finalised the menu with our two caterers, I had to produce the additional vegetarian dish myself – and cook enough of it to feed 100 guests.

 So, I picked up 5-6kg of eggplant and 4kg of tomatoes (negotiated a discount with my supplier – I’m Chinese after all) along with all the other ingredients I would need to pull together a simple vegetarian sambal – onion, garlic, chilli, mushroom seasoning, salt, sugar and tamarind extract. I was going to slice the eggplant and grill it at the hotel, but now I’d lost my volunteers. 

After trying to rope in other helpers with no success, I posted in our Tang family WhatsApp group as a last resort (I’m usually too proud to ask for help), offering a free feed in exchange for anyone who was willing to give me a hand.

My sister Jessica answered the call but requested a free parking spot which required more manouvering of my resources – though on the plus side, she managed to coerce my stepmom to come along.

In the meantime I still had to sort out Noah while waiting for his support worker to arrive, and also load up everything in my vehicle – most of which could only be done right before I headed out and not the day before, since they consisted of perishable ingredients.

I didn’t want to get my “camera-friendly” clothes dirty, so I picked the cheapest, baggiest, old clothes I could dig out of  my closet, and threw my keys in my pants only to have them fall right through because of a big hole in my backpocket. Somehow it made perfect sense in the rush of the morning, for me to grab a needle and thread and sew it up, instead of changing into my camera-ready pants – it was that kind of day.

We arrived, got set up, and an hour before go time, I realised I couldn’t connect to the hotel’s fast internet because there’s no ethernet port on my laptop. The very helpful function manager pulled out all the stops and finally got ahold of another laptop I could use, but it meant I had to set it up and re-download all the content I would need for the live broadcast, while prepping the food and my cooking demonstration.

Both caterers called close to start time; one couldn’t find the place and I never knew why the second one did because the line kept dropping out. Then when it was time to get changed, I couldn’t find my “camera-friendly” clothes – apparently I’d left them at home.

It was go-time and thankfully there were no audio issues (always a bonus). Our guest of honour, the Acting High Commissioner of Malaysia, Mr. Fareed, gave a welcome speech to the group, which we livestreamed online. 

I started my Seremban Beef Noodles presentation and apologised for looking like a homeless person, but our guests were just the best group of people I could want at an event like this, and I don’t think they particularly minded or noticed.

The Malaysian Agriculture Counsellor Office of Sydney had set up a “durian station” at the far end of the terrace, and Mr. Mukhlis of Zeal Trading, the durian supplier, was on hand to cut the fruit open for tasting. I’d also prepared durian and nangchem kaya, durian fritters and durian cream to showcase the flavours and versatility of these Malaysian fruits. 

The Seremban Beef Noodles turned out to be more popular than I had anticipated, and every last scrap was cleared out by the end of the tasting session.  Then it was down to the Grace Hotel Brasserie for Round Two.

I was met with a huge array of food delivered by the caterers, including some I didn’t actually order (one of them decided to gift us some curry puffs). 

I was there to cook my Char Kway Teow – something I hadn’t done commercially in one whole year thanks to Covid-19 shutting down my one remaining weekly pop-up – and also to prepare the vegetarian eggplant sambal.

Ideally I would have liked the eggplant sliced and grilled and served topped with the sambal I’d made earlier, but because of time constraints we went with cutting them into chunks and deep-frying them. We then tossed the sambal through, which had the effect of turning it into something that resembled grey porridge. 

I hoped it would get lost amongst the dozen other sweet and savoury dishes on offer and we could just throw it out at the end of the evening.

At some point, one of the hotel buffet staff told me that someone had complimented the eggplant sambal – I figured I either heard wrongly or  the person was a vegetarian and they didn’t get to try the other food for comparison. There were a few more mentions of it over the course of the evening, but I remained in denial – in fact, when asked which of the dishes I cooked, I would only own up to the Char Kway Teow.

Days after the event, people continued to talk about that eggplant sambal online, and our blogger guests, Kurt and Sarah of The Where To, even wrote about it (I never tasted, let alone ate it). And, for the record, the vegetarian journo ended up being a no-show, which would have irked me but for the fact that the dish turned out to be an unexpected hit.

(ps. I didn’t take any photos of the eggplant; except for the poster at the top, these pics are courtesy of Jax Fong, whose works you can find at jaxphotoworks.com. I’m still chasing photos from our other volunteer photographer for the day but at the time of publication I’ve yet to hear back.)

The Malaysian Heritage Cuisine campaign was a partnership between the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industries of Malaysia (through the Agriculture Counsellor Office, Sydney) and my Masters of Malaysian Cuisine group. I’d like to thank every person who was involved, including the volunteers who gave of their time so freely to help us pull this together. Now if I’d only had time to sample more of the beautiful fruit from the day!

The post Malaysian Heritage Cuisine and THAT Eggplant Sambal first appeared on Jackie M..

15 March 2021

MAFI Partners with Masters of Malaysian Cuisine to Promote Malaysian Ingredients to the World

The Ministry of Agriculture and Food Industries of Malaysia (MAFI) will partner with the Masters of Malaysian Cuisine group to promote Malaysian ingredients through a series of global live cooking demonstrations and food tasting sessions.

These exclusive events will be held in 5 locations, namely Kuala Lumpur, Sydney, Dubai, the UK and South Africa, with a total of 8 live cooking demonstrations taking place across 4 days from 27-30 March.

The core aim of the collaboration with MOMC is to raise awareness of the wide and varied range of Malaysian ingredients available globally.

Featuring some of the top Malaysian cuisine experts around the world – Johari Edrus, Zaleha Olpin, Jackie M, Dave Murugaya, Bob Adnin, Rene Juefri, Debbie Teoh and guest chef Liam Ghani – these events will be a unique combination of both physical and virtual demonstrations, which will be simulcast across all MOMC channels including their website (MalaysianChefs.com), Facebook, YouTube and Twitch, and on MAFI’s social media.

In response to COVID-19, a limited audience will be invited to join our chefs during the Kuala Lumpur, Sydney and Dubai events at COVID-secure venues to experience these demonstrations first-hand.

The theme “Malaysian Heritage Cuisine” has been selected to highlight the diversity and quality of Malaysian products available to a worldwide market. To this end, MOMC will be presenting and demonstrating an array of Malaysian heritage dishes to show  the accessibility of recreating authentic Malaysian cuisine aboard.

ENDS

For more information or interviews with Jackie M and the Masters of Malaysian Cuisine chefs contact: Jackie M| M: +61 (0) 425 797 718 | E: jackie@jackiem.com.au

The post MAFI Partners with Masters of Malaysian Cuisine to Promote Malaysian Ingredients to the World first appeared on Jackie M..

9 NOVEMBER 2020

MOMC Chefs Share The Queen’s Recipes With The World

Masters of Malaysian Cuisine (MOMC) will collaborate to cook dishes from the cookbooks published by Malaysia’s Queen, Raja Permaisuri Agong Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah, throughout the month of December 2020:

Air Tangan Tengku Puan Pahang — Masakan Tradisional Pahang (traditional dishes of Pahang) and

Air Tangan Tengku Puan Pahang — Manisan Tradisional Pahang (traditional sweets of Pahang)

MOMC’s online cooking demonstrations are broadcast Live on Mondays and they feature some of the top Malaysian cuisine experts around the world who first came together during the Covid-19 lockdown to share their cooking knowledge with a global audience. 

MOMC’s live demonstrations are concurrently streamed across multiple online channels, including on their website, MalaysianChefs.com. Apart from showcasing Malaysia’s diverse cuisine, the chefs engage with the audience by answering any cooking questions during the broadcasts.

Her Majesty Tunku Azizah’s two cookbooks are compilations of vintage recipes from her homestate of Pahang which were in danger of being lost to future generations. They represent the diversity of Malaysia, with contributions from various communities including the Malays, the Chinese, the Indians and even the natives, or the Orang Asli, deep in the jungles of Pahang.

The entire production of the books was funded by the legacy left by Her Majesty’s late father, Sultan Iskandar of Johor, and all proceeds from their sales go to TUNKU AZIZAH FERTILITY FOUNDATION, a Foundation she set up over 15 years ago, which funds IVF treatment for couples.

Tunku Azizah’s interest in cooking pairs with her interest in traditional craft, in particular Tenun Pahang (Pahang Weave). 

The plates of food in her book are all placed on Tenun Pahang DiRaja, a handwoven textile that was a dying art in Pahang until Tunku Azizah travelled throughout the state to preserve it. She gathered the remaining handful of old weavers, documented all the techniques into a curriculum, and set up a Training  Institute in Pahang to train a new generation of weavers in this craft. 

Her Majesty also designs, teaches and produces pieces of Royal Pahang Tenun for her enterprise named Che Minah Sayang.

MOMC founder Jackie M says, “Our chefs are honoured and thrilled to be entrusted with the recipes from Her Majesty’s collection. We can’t wait to share them with the rest of the world on this scale for the first time ever.” 

Co-founder, Chef Norman Musa, adds, “ We hope that through our cooking demos, we can do our part to put a global spotlight on Malaysia’s rich culinary and craft traditions.”

MOMC Series 7 showcasing recipes from Tunku Azizah’s cookbooks runs on Mondays through the month of December, starting on Monday the 7th. 

A special New Year’s Eve session will air at 7pm KL time on Thursday 31 December, to wrap up the series.

To get notified when the chefs go Live, sign up at MalaysianChefs.com/JoinToday

Ends

For more information or interviews with Jackie M and the Masters of Malaysian Cuisine chefs contact:

Jackie M| M: +61 (0) 425 797 718 | E: jackie@jackiem.com.au

The post MOMC Chefs Share The Queen’s Recipes With The World first appeared on Jackie M..

I’ve now been advised that the Thermocook Pro M is going to be available again by the end of this month (August 2020 as I write this), so I have scheduled for the draw to tie in with another event I have coming up this weekend on 29 August.

This is my Malaysian Street Food Academy (MSFA) Launch Masterclass where I will be running a free Live session covering my favourite food topic and area of specialty, ie. Malaysian street (ie. hawker) food. If you’re interested in joining the masterclass here are the details >>

Sign up for the masterclass >> https://www.wokaroundasia.com/masterclass 

When: 9.30pm Sydney time (GMT+10) on Saturday 29 August

Where: Jackie M’s Malaysian Street Food Kitchen Facebook Group

Importantly the Thermocook Pro M will only be available for shipping to Australia & New Zealand, so the winner will need to be based in either country.

Also, importantly, apart from the educational component of the MSFA Masterclass, I will be relaunching MSFA (after several months of running it in beta mode) with a very different, new offer. So if you’re interested in mastering Malaysian cooking by learning from me in my online coaching community, make sure you sign up to attend the masterclass, because I will have an exclusive offer that will only be available to those who signed up.

Looking forward to seeing you this Saturday evening Sydney time

Jackie M.

The post Thermocook Pro M Giveaway & MSFA Launch Masterclass first appeared on Jackie M..