How A Pro-Chef Designed A Kitchen Perfect For Malaysian Home-Cooking

foreign we were so lucky to be able to redesign this beaten up kitchen I was really lucky to be able to collaborate with a really close friend of mine Natasha Houston who's also an interior designer and I guess we were first designing a kitchen thinking about prep I was going to be doing and as it was just before opening Mambo and it was going to be our initial testing site and I was also doing catering events on the side so the central island was definitely the first thing to go in the steel countertops as well for it being like heat resistant also staying proof for all the chili and turmeric cooking that I do and so much paste cooking off that I do as well I guess it's also about being able to design like the flow of your stations you know not exactly like in a professional kitchen but I could go from baking to this is where I prep all my paste my blenders are here all my spice racks are in there to then just this being my sort of frying off boiling and braising section basically and I guess just trying to find ways to be as sustainable as we are at the restaurant you know whether it's choosing materials from sort of like leftover wood chip you know this what it's made of and some resin I'm gonna get X-Play items or you know secondhand items and going for basically like vintage lighting just from like Italian vintage store and just continuing on this vintage theme throughout the rest of the house try to go for like lighter blue on the out sort of outset so just to make the illusion of like a bigger space and then darker much darker blue for the middle section we went for exposed shelves made by some like Carpenter friends it's just much easy access to my recipe books chili sauces flavored oils soy sauces you know black vinegars um it's just much much quicker process of cooking for my cooking process there's just a lot of ingredients that go into Malaysian cooking so I think what's quite key are some of these metal bowls that I got from Indian shops like near like Wembley or you can get them online and they're so good for just weighing everything out before you start cooking a recipe and so you can just throw everything in in one go then we also have my spice grinder this is key for blending all my nuts seeds and spices this which actually is a hot pot Ladle but it just turned out to be a perfect sort of height for skimming broths heat resistant spatula as well good for getting all the last bits of everything any dish you need to do that and my Wok spatula it's just great for you know spreading around like stir fries frying paste before any curries it's just the best tool you can have one tip I would give is to pick the one pan that's perfect for cooking so something like this which is perfect for like two to four people um great for tossing pasta great for stir frying great for searing meat um you can even you know braise your curries in it you know with the lid on it's just perfect size and not choosing you know something so big that you can't fit into your sink so hard to like clean up you know this is so easy to clean up another tip that's great for enhancing your dishes um would be just great like condiment Pantry selection whether it's a good chili oil or I have a really good sort of Malaysian crispy shrimp chili paste that just goes so good on any Dish and also the any like preserved vegetables that you can find in like Korean supermarkets they're just so good as a topping um you can also get you know ready-made like fried garlic fried shallots and also oh seasoned seaweed that's also a very good um you know rice topping or Salad Topping as well So today we're going to make a steamed okra dish that's going to be topped with our signature sambal and some dried shrimp and some crispy shallots the first step will always be to make your paste start of any sambals so we've got lemongrass red chili dried chili turmeric red onion and I've got our shrimp paste so you can just roughly chop everything because it's going to go in a blender anyway so it doesn't really matter and don't bother de-seeding them either long red chillies from Holland it's quite mild because you've got your dry chilies here anyway to provide some heat and these are kashmiri chilies that you should soak in hot or warm water for you know 15-20 minutes and then for your lemongrass prep I'll probably only use up to here so halfway and then you can save these for flavoring rice or making tea or just flavoring your water and just remove the tough out a bit it's in there I'm gonna crumble my shrimp paste in there as well that was pretty full so now we can add the dried chilies and now you add some turmeric I wouldn't advise blending it with the paste so just add it after just give it a nice stir cool and now we're ready to fry I will get your steamer on so ready to throw in your okra your pan heat it up get it nice and preheated before adding the sambal it's a good sizzle you can see the oils initially all absorbed so you'll know later on when it's done when the oil's separated seasonings that you need for sambals are always salt sugar and tamarind top the dish you would have to soak some dried shrimp for like 10 minutes or so and then I would basically blend this up in a food processor until it's like a flossy texture and then just sort of fry in a pan slowly until it's like caramelized like this some fried shallots and some lime Steamers ready steam some okra so that will take it'll take eight minutes so don't rush your sambal I would be patient with it you need that slow frying time to dry out the sambal and just get all the flavor adding in your Tamarind sugar so I'm just gonna spoon some sambal over this is my steamed okra with spicy sambal dried shrimp and crispy shallots this is just such a comforting dish to have at home whether you just want to try and eat more vegetables a good way is probably just to add some really delicious sambal on top this just reminds me of home just coming home from school and my auntie will be having that ready with some rice and some like braised Meats very home-cooked dish something that just will go along with lots of other family meals the modern house selling thoughtfully designed homes across the UK

Channel: The Modern House

Views: 222,113

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Id: uw473hUfK0M

Length: 9min 55sec (595 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 03 2023