MELAKA – Street Food Journeys: Malaysia Episode 1

Melaka is one of my favourite places in Malaysia and I’m so glad that we were able to start our Tourism Malaysia Australia partnership series with this historical destination and feature its unique food:

Melaka is well-known among Malaysians and Singaporeans as a foodie destination, and it’s the neighbouring state to my homestate of Negeri Sembilan. Despite having studied it in school as the birthplace of Malaysia, however, I never had the opportunity to visit until about twenty years ago (after I’d moved to Australia); I loved it so much I extended our stay from three nights to nearly a week.

Melaka is where Malaysian Nyonya food was born – a type of hybrid Chinese-Malay cuisine which emerged from the migration of Chinese merchants and intermarriage with locals hundreds of years ago. Melaka Nyonya cuisine is notable for its use of rich coconut-based sauces and sweet notes, whereas Penang Nyonya tends towards more sour and tangy flavours. Our Masters of Malaysian Cuisine chef, Debbie Teoh, is unique even among Nyonya experts in that she specialises in both Melaka and Penang Nyonya cuisine, thanks to her Penang-Nyonya father and Melaka-Nyonya mother.

Debbie shows us how to make Satay Celup, while I do a simplified Coconut Shake – I emphasize “simplified” because the point of the recipes in this series is to make them accessible for our viewers to attempt at home using locally available ingredients – we want to give you a “sampler” of the flavours of each of our destinations, as you plan your next overseas trip to Malaysia, when you can visit Melaka and try the real thing on the ground.

As much as we’ve tried to cram this Melaka episode with content, there’s a ton more we weren’t able to fit into the 26-minute episode (it was meant to be 20 minutes long). We are going to create a new Street Food Journeys Membership Area (completely free) for this series and we will be posting the recipes and all the additional footage (including more food and travel clips) there. Make sure you sign up at MalaysianChefs.com/StreetFoodJourneys and we will email you with instructions on how to access the content once it’s set up.

I’d like to thank all our special guests and contributors in this episode –

Shaukani Abbas (award-winning Melaka tour guide)

Jennifer Tan (Donald & Lily restaurant) for the beautiful photos in the episode, and for the interview

Peck Choo for more videos from Donald & Lily restaurant (which you will be able to view by signing up above)

The JetLag Warriors 

The Baba Nyonya Heritage Museum (more video clips will be uploaded in the members’ area)

MOMC Chefs Debbie Teoh and Bob Adnin

Doug Shaffer (creative direction)

Paul Gray (my MOMC co-founder and partner-in-crime)

Finally, we are still compiling content for our upcoming episodes, so if you have anything you think would be useful, make sure you get in touch with me directly, right away!

Jackie M.

 

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