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 eventually 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 critically acclaimed Sambal Shiok in London and is
regularly featured in the national press.
Mandy's life goal is to showcase the exciting variety of Malaysian
food. She hopes that this book will inspire many to cook Malaysian
dishes, to seek out and eat Malaysian food wherever the reader is
in the world and, finally, to travel to Malaysia to fully
understand and experience the richness of its cuisine and
culture. For fellow Malaysians, she hopes that you will find
great comfort in these pages, as she did recreating nostalgic
tastes whilst writing this book during the COVID-19 pandemic
lockdowns.
The food of Malaysia – with its combination of Indian spices and
Chinese techniques – 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's own family that formed the
backbone of her incredibly successful London restaurant.
Outstanding photography from Louise Hagger.
*Tim Hayward, Financial Times*
There'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't as well known here as Thai and
Vietnamese; we're missing out.
*20 Best Cookbooks Autumn 2021, Diana Henry, The Telegraph*
Recipes are accordingly both instructive and adaptable: learning to
cook through Yin’s clear, encouraging guidance on sambals, rice,
and rempah... It’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.
*17 Best Cookbooks of Fall 2021, Eater*
I’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’s personal, lawyer-to-laksa
story is intriguing.
*Rose Prince, The Spectator*
Mandy'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.
*John Torode*
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’s history, coupled with personal
memories, make this a book to pore over.
*Delicious*
It’s a tome you’ll want to bring out and splatter with sauce again
and again.
*Evening Standard*
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*
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