The Malaysian Cookbook

Sambal Shiok

Shortlisted for the Fortnum &amp; Mason Food and Drink Awards (2022)Guild of Food Writer&rsquo;s Awards, Highly Commended in &lsquo;First Book&rsquo; category (2022)Andr&eacute; Simon Awards shortlisted (2022)"Beautiful, inspiring, but above all authoritative. Mandy Yin holds all the secrets to exquisite Malaysian cooking... It is a rare treat that she&#39;s chosen to share them." &ndash; Grace Dent, restaurant critic for the GuardianA soulful tribute to Malaysian cuisine, from snacks, soups and salads, to rice and noodle dishes, curries and sweet things.Sambal Shiok is a brilliant collection of over 90 accessible recipes that were handed down from Mandy Yin&rsquo;s mother as well as those that she has developed for her critically acclaimed, award-winning London restaurant. The recipes &ndash; such as her signature curry laksa, Penang assam laksa, Malaysian fried chicken, prawn fritters, spiral curry puffs, flaky roti canai, beef rendang, KL golden fragrant clams, sambal mapo tofu, and the perfect steamed rice &ndash; can be made for a weekday family meal, a dinner party or celebration. Malaysian 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 chilli heat and a hint of bitter. With Mandy&rsquo;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.

The food of Malaysia &ndash; with its combination of Indian spices and Chinese techniques &ndash; deserves to be better known. Mandy Yin shows just how exciting it can be, from spicy bowls of laksa soup to the peanut-rich comforts of satay. Yin grew up in Kuala Lumpur and runs a restaurant in Highbury called Sambal Shiok. This, her first book, is a charming mixture of recipes (try the gado gado salad) and memories of Malaysian street food.

18 Best Food Books 2021, Bee Wilson, The Times

Subtitled The Malaysian Cookbook, this authoritative collection really earns the definite article. There are the recipes, from a fabulously blended cuisine and via Yin&#39;s own family that formed the backbone of her incredibly successful London restaurant. Outstanding photography from Louise Hagger.

There&#39;s roti canai, a flaky flatbread served with soupy curry, brought by southern Indians and now synonymous with comfort across Malaysia, and a glorious roast chicken with lemongrass, chilli and coconut milk. Malaysian food isn&#39;t as well known here as Thai and Vietnamese; we&#39;re missing out.

20 Best Cookbooks Autumn 2021, Diana Henry, The Telegraph

Recipes are accordingly both instructive and adaptable: learning to cook through Yin&rsquo;s clear, encouraging guidance on sambals, rice, and rempah... It&rsquo;s this effortless folding of the personal into the cultural that makes Sambal Shiok such a wonderful book from which to read, as much to cook.

I&rsquo;d buy her Sambal Shiok alone for the Penang Assam Laksa recipe, a fruity, sour soup perfumed with lemon grass, tamarind, galangal and fresh mackerel. Prepare to line up an alarming number of ingredients for this one, but it will make your senses sparkle. Other recipes include curries, stir-fries and street food snacks. But the book is also a good read: Yin&rsquo;s personal, lawyer-to-laksa story is intriguing.

Mandy&#39;s food is real, wonderful, exciting, classic and contemporary all at the same time. To know and understand the secrets of great Malaysian food as cooked and orchestrated by Mandy would be a revelation for anyone from budding amateur to the most experienced cooks.

Vibrant, face-slapping laksa... powerful, satisfying, the very stuff of memories.

Jay Rayner, restaurant critic for the Observer

Sambal Shiok is a place of joy and great cooking. A beautiful thing to have in London and a wonder to have at my own back door.

Giles Coren, restaurant critic for The Times

Sambal Shiok's signature laksa has queues waiting around the block. Not bad for a tiny joint in N7... It's Holloway's hottest ticket!

Susannah Butler, Life & Style Evening Standard

Her delve into Malaysian food&rsquo;s history, coupled with personal memories, make this a book to pore over.

It&rsquo;s a tome you&rsquo;ll want to bring out and splatter with sauce again and again.

It takes something rather special to drag me up to the Holloway Road on a chill Wednesday night. At Sambal Shiok, the laksas are magnificent: murky with profoundly fish depth and a base chilli grunt.

Tom Parker Bowles, restaurant critic for the Mail on Sunday

Mandy Yin is Malaysian-born Chinese of Peranakan Nyonya heritage. She moved from Kuala Lumpur to London at 11 and later studied and practised corporate law. She gave this up for a career in food. Mandy watched her mother cook all the family dishes they’d eaten for years and meticulously wrote down every step. She combined this knowledge of the fundamentals of Malaysian cuisine – its mind-boggling array of snacks, sharing dishes, slow-cooked curries and stews, strong spices and deep flavours, famous spicy laksa noodle soup and the nation’s beloved sambal chilli sauce – with her memories of boisterous, hot hawker centres in Kuala Lumpur. Now, she owns and runs cult restaurant Sambal Shiok Laksa Bar in London and is regularly featured in the national press and on BBC's Saturday Kitchen.

Mandy Yin

Everyday Dishes to Cook at Home

"Time-squeezed home cooks owe a debt of gratitude to Mandy Yin, for in this, her new book, she takes such care to give us recipes for Malaysian and Malaysian-inspired food that are accessible, vibrant and richly rewarding." - Nigella Lawson 
 
"Many cookbooks promise simple, accessible recipes for busy households, but not many deliver like Simply Malaysian. Full of menu suggestions, pleasing textural combinations, vegetarian one-pot meals and more, the pages work hard so you don't have to." - Mark Diacono, Delicious Magazine 
 
"Original, accessible and filled with recipes you actually want to cook. Thoroughly modern Malaysian magic." - Tom Barker-Bowles 
 
"A joyful book filled with highly achievable food. Simply Malaysian is simply brilliant and I can't wait to get cooking from it." - Meera Sodha 
 
"This is a cookbook for anyone who wants a little taste of Malaysia in their kitchen.” - Rachel Khoo 
 
"Mandy's recipes are easy, delicious and full of flavour. A must have book." - Ching He Huang 
 
Following the success of Sambal Shiok, Mandy Yin is back and in her second book, she shares the secrets to making mouthwatering Malaysian recipes with minimal fuss. 
 
Inspired by how Malaysians eat at home and ‘economy rice’ eateries, where you can help yourself to a generous plate of delicious food at any time of day, as well as favourites from her family kitchen, Mandy Yin presents a collection of over 80 everyday recipes that are quick and easy to make. 
 
Simply Malaysian is a collection of classic and modern dishes that can be whipped up in no time, with minimal ingredients. Whether it’s One Pot Chicken Rice, Sambal Aubergines, Black Pepper Beef or Spicy Tomato Prawns, these resourceful recipes are designed for every night of the week.

Mandy Yin

Books by Mandy Yin

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