A Chelsea Kitchen Challenge

Trying my hand at Malaysian cooking

GFG with chef Lee Chin Soon
 Picture by Malcolm McNally (c)

When you get the chance to cook with a top class chef at one of London’s only fine-dining Malaysian restaurants you don’t say no. Instead you readily done your chef whites and get stuck in. And that’s how I found myself early one morning in Lee Chin Soon’s kitchen at Awana restaurant in Chelsea.

A lesson in the difference between Malaysian and other Asian foods, such as Thai, was first on the menu. Attention to detail, presentation and subtle flavours are all part of what goes into making a great Malaysian dish, Chin Soon explains.

A head chef for five years he has adapted his home country’s cuisine to suit the European palate – and east meets west if you like. And has further developed his style to incorporate not only Malaysian spices, but British herbs, game and cheeses.

Today, we were to prepare a selection of dishes before the lunchtime rush started.



Picture by Malcolm McNally (c)



First up was Lobster Char Kuew Teow – a delicious seafood dish made with flat noodles. We marinated some lobster tail, prawn, scallops, and squid in sambal (chilli-based) sauce, before stir frying some noodles with egg, dark soya sauce, salt and pepper. Next we added the marinated the seafood and cooked for about 5minutes, flipping the food like a pancake in a frying pan to ensure it was cooking evenly. Already the temperature in the kitchen was beginning to rise and we hadn’t even gone close to the satay grill yet!

At the grill the best of Malaysian Street food, particularly that from the island of Penang, is cooked and served in front of customers eating in the restaurant. This is also where the chefs make their selection of roti - made from a traditional family recipe and including everything from plain to filled bread (murtabak) and flamboyant dessert breads.

Having mastered, to a degree, chef Chin Soon’s Lobster dish, he was happy for me to have a go at making some chicken Satay and roti. Using a dough that had been already prepared I set about moulding the roti into a large disk. It’s a process that resembles making a pizza base, only it requires much more skill as the dough needs to be worked into a very thin layer using a complicated air-borne turning technique. Our roti-making session was not my finest culinary moment and so we quickly moved on to the easier task of grilling satay.

All dishes prepared I joined Lee Chin Soon, who specialises in Nyonya cuisine (cooking based on a multicultural cuisine of Malay, Chinese, Indian, Dutch and Portuguese), in the restaurant to sample our creations.



Picture by Malcolm McNally (c)



And it was fair to say I was much more at home in the dining room - which is decorated with teakwood, traditional batik silk and dark red leather - than I had been in the heat of the kitchen.

We tucked into the dishes, chef Chin Soon praising my efforts. Although I’m sure he won’t be calling on me any time soon should he be a man down in the kitchen!

He did, however, reward my efforts with a sample of Awana’s amazing chilli and lemongrass sorbet – which served as the perfect antidote to the fiery heat of the satay grill.

AWANA

85 Sloane Avenue

London SW3 3DX 

Tel: 0207 584 8880

www.awana.co.uk