A perfect pantry-friendly template to use up your favourite vegetables and proteins.

A classic dessert eaten during confinement or simply when you crave tong sui.

A perfectly delicious chicken dish for those days when you really don’t have the energy to cook.

This tender, aromatic semi-gravy dish is an excellent centrepiece for beef-eating Tamils during Tamil New Year and Ponggal.

Thinly sliced daun kayu or cassava shoots cooked in tempoyak is a classic Negeri Sembilan dish.

Fermented durian gives this classic Pahang dish a rich taste and heady aroma.

Make your own tempoyak with just durian flesh, salt, and time.

Revive dry, stale okra by deep-frying it until crunchy and supremely snack-able.

Salty and aromatic pantry ingredients marry in this savoury foil for plain starch.

A dry sambal that’s fragrantly delicious, perfect for eating endlessly with rice.

A Dayak chicken curry made with an often-overlooked off-cut: chicken feet.

We’ve been putting fruits in savoury dishes for ages in this part of the world, such as this chicken curry which gets a tangy boost from pineapple.

A Nyonya classic that uses sweet potato and its leaves in one luxurious dish.

Cold smooth tofu topped with crunchy aromatics makes for a quick lunch when you don’t want to turn on the stove.

Make this singgang with extra soup to sip on slowly when you’re under the weather.

A classic party dish of many Malay families, this can be whipped up in more or less the time it takes to boil pasta.

A perfect not-too-sweet snack to add to your array of CNY treats.

A deeply savoury curry found in many South Indian and Ceylonese homes.

An immensely satisfying lunch for hungry folks on a budget.

A light, fluffy cake scented with tea and spices.

Give tofu some extra love with a healthy dose of warm spices and plenty of complementary textures.

How much coriander can you pack into one roti? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

This noodle dish is one of the most versatile to have in your back pocket.

When bambangan season rolls around, this braised fish is a delicious way to use up a glut of the fruit’s harvest.

There isn’t much that tempoyak can’t improve, and cooking it with mushrooms both complement and enhance the overall umami of both ingredients.

Sambals don’t need to be complicated. Just three ingredients can give you a soy sauce sambal so good, you’ll want for no other condiment.

This minimalist Lunbawang staple manages to be satiating and incredibly comforting without being heavy.

Adaptable for many different meals across many different cuisines, this onion-garlic oil is a condiment you’ll keep coming back to.

The onion-garlic oil provides a lightning-fast way to get flavourful vegetables on the table for dinner.

Low-stakes steamed fish to get you accustomed to making this favourite at home.

A Semai-style chicken braise full of flavour, suitable for your daily cooking repertoire.

While sambal goreng can easily feed a crowd during Raya festivities, it can also be made all year round as a clean-out-the-fridge treat.

A mild, gently spiced curry thickened with cashews and fresh coconut.

A nourishing everyday soup doesn’t always need meat bones and long cooking.

Using just a few pantry ingredients—aside from the fish head, of course—this speedy dish is quite simply what it says in its title.

A wholesome one-bowl meal for special occasions or just because, packed with flavourful spices and hefty vegetables.

When you want ayam kunyit but can’t bear the oily cleanup, turn to this braise instead.

Fried pasta makes for a quick weekday lunch in between work calls. Prep a large batch to bring to a party, and watch it disappear like magic.

Wonder why sardine sambal isn’t up your alley? Try this pre-frying technique and let us change your mind.

Zhuzh up your everyday tomato soup with spices and raisins for a flavoursome lunch.

Fiery black pepper meets silky meehoon in this quick meal, perfect for when you want a homemade meal—fast.

A smoky eggplant salad to accompany a variety of meals, from rice to steaks, or as a part of an appetiser platter.

A rice porridge filled with savoury treasures, a centrepiece for any vegetarian feast.

Quick, cheap, and filling, these tapioca chips are a fantastic treat for all ages.

These savoury fritters are crispy, crunchy, and perfect for a late afternoon pick-me-up. Best served with chilli sauce.

This sambal tumis is the perfect hearty breakfast to sustain you the whole morning.

Looking to get into kuih-making? Talam is an excellent beginner recipe to pick up essential kuih-making skills.

This rice dish is beloved all across Nigeria and West Africa, full of tomatoes and heat.

Plenty of coconut milk and freshly steamed fish make for a hearty bowl of fish curry noodles, perfect for a family dinner.

Clear an afternoon to make a stack of these snacks for a party, kept as an emergency stash, or given to the neighbours.

Ferment your fishing trip catch with this method, and enjoy a uniquely Kadazandusun flavour while you’re at it.

For those familiar with fermenting their own fish, try this Kadazandusun twist and add pangi or keluak to the mix.

Chicken and coconut milk come together in a simple preparation of gulai kuning or masak lemak, perfect for a quick yet satisfying meal.

A base Eurasian sambal for many dishes such as prawn or ikan sambal, and sambal petai.

A versatile minced meat sauce that can be paired with your carb of choice for a complete meal or even a quick snack.

This dish is a common staple on Diana’s family dining table, as her mom would buy terung Dayak whenever they were in season.

Rather than raw, this kerabu includes cooked elements that result in something like a masak lemak.

Stale pieces of Gardenia to use up? Whip up this quick, customisable snack and enjoy with a cup of tea.

Unlike many other chutneys popular in the Malaysian-Indian repertoire, this one veers sweet and makes for a great snack on its own.

A wonderfully savoury salad for a crowd, perfect for potlucks, parties, and picnics.

Soft and tender chunks of meat without hours on the stove is not possible, but getting those spicy rendang flavours definitely is.

This version of Malaysian-Indian chicken curry uses store-bought curry powder such as Baba’s, but is taken up a notch with extra spices.

Pulut kacau or wajik can be made at home as a gift for the neighbourhood.

This Nyonya-style fish pickle ticks all the tasty flavour boxes: tangy, fatty, savoury, sweet.

No meat, no problem. This carbonara substitutes bacon fat with rich ghee, making it just as indulgent.

If you’re going to give yourself a sweet treat, go all out and bring some canned fruits to the party for a drink you can eat.

Daging kunyit without the daging? Ayam masak merah without the ayam? Yes, it can be done, and done deliciously. 

When joy is scarce, we find every reason to celebrate. Make this yee sang any time of the year.

A subtly spiced and hearty side dish, unfussy enough for a weeknight. 

This recipe is based on Glenn’s favourite stall that he claims serves “the best version of tomato mee” that he has come across so far.

For these cookies, recipe developer Yi Jun combines miso and brown sugar to create soft, chewy morsels studded with sesame seeds.

When fried like this, the cream crackers maintain their crunch while also absorbing the oil from the spice mix. Necessity really is the (grand)mother of invention.

Umbut sawit is the young shoot or heart of the oil palm tree. Plentiful in Borneo from the plantations, resourceful locals have found that it makes for a terrific ingredient.

This butter cake recipe comes from Dinesh Rao who founded Tray Cafe, which churns out some of the best butter cakes outside of a kopitiam.

The Temuan way to cook this fish is over the embers of an outdoor stove. We highly encourage you to go for it if you have a grill.

This is a traditional recipe originating from Jerantut, Pahang, and has since spread to neighbouring areas in the state.

One ardent Milo fan sets out to recreate the classic Milo truck drink at home. Contrary to Sports Day rules, second helpings are very much encouraged.

This dish, inherited from Banyen’s late grandmother, makes an appearance at least twice a week on their dinner table at home.

Made with fresh rice of the first harvest at the end of the winter solstice, this is offered to gods & goddesses before family & friends.

Leela’s late mother was the family’s ‘culinary comforter’, and taught her how to make this vegetable dish. Complex in flavour, this recipe takes no shortcuts.

This recipe is adapted from Indonesian semur, which itself is an influence on smore, a common Eurasian dish in Malaysia and Singapore.

A dessert containing eggs, milk and Horlicks means it’s okay to eat for breakfast, right?

Many kampung folks catch freshwater fish as a cheap source of protein, and pekasam is a way of fermenting a glut of a catch.

The slow braise of ingredients in this pong teh coax out every bit of flavour—it’s worth splurging on good chicken and soy sauces.

Between the char of the crispy shallots, the umami of the soy sauce, and the sweetness of the prawns, one really doesn’t need anything else.

This is quite possibly the best version of kangkung belacan we’ve tried—spicy, briny and still-crunchy.

Hinava is a traditional native dish of the Kadazandusun people in the state of Sabah, which is a method of cooking saltwater or freshwater fish using lime juice.

The star of this dish is fenugreek, along with the freshest fish possible.