#masterchef uk

That Rendang Lady May 13 at 8:47 AM

It's here!!! I finally get to hold a copy of "My Rendang Isnt Crispy". The book will be out on 1st of July in Asia and on 16th of September in the UK.

I cannot tell you how excited I am feeling right now! From months of hard work to finally being able to hold it in my hands I just hope you will enjoy and appreciate it.

To my UK followers please check link in my bio to pre order your copy!

To my Asia followers check out my story highlight to order yours online from Marshall Cavendish Singapore. I will update more details soon!!

I thought that this was just another one of those riled up moments that will blow over but the fact that not only did John Torode completely disregard a part of Malaysian culture by calling it an ‘adaptation’ and try to change the subject by saying “maybe it’s Indonesian’ but signing off with Namaste?

First of all, Namaste is South Asian, not Southeast Asian you expired jar of mayonnaise. Rendang is a stew. It’s not crispy, it doesn’t have sauce on the side, and it’s not supposed to fall off the bone. Your national dish is chicken tikka masala and the last time I checked there’s ‘sauce’ all over it and it isn’t crispy either.

The utter disrespect that this man has is appalling. We’re not getting excited. We aren’t a bunch of children trying to get daddy to listen to us. Saying it’s Indonesian, knowing fully well that it’s a subject that we’ve fought over only shows that you are yet another white man trying to divide southeast Asians and we are not going to fall for that shit because the one thing we poc know is to not let a piece of wonder bread come between us.

What makes me genuinely angry is that John Torode has an entire series on Malaysian cooking. I’m sick and tired of white people coming to a country and taking a part of our culture for your own gain. It’s not cultural appreciation to change and re-imagine our culture. We’re not here to be inspring and fascinating.

Malaysian-born Zaleha Kadir Olpin served the spicy chicken alongside her nasi lemak, a traditional Malaysian dish, in the quarter-final of the BBC’s MasterChef UK.

But judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace turned down the chicken accompaniment, saying the skin was not crispy, stirring fury on social media and a heated debate in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei.

“Saying chicken rendang should be crispy is like saying that hamburgers should be boiled,” KF Seetoh, founder of Makansutra and an Asian street food expert based in Singapore, said.

Torode and Wallace defended their comments, saying “crispy” was the wrong word for the dish, which is traditionally made with chicken or beef that is slow cooked with Asian herbs and coconut milk, but that they had reached the right verdict.

“What I meant was it wasn’t cooked. It simply wasn’t cooked. It was white and flabby,” Wallace told Good Morning Britain.

“She (Zaleha Kadir Olpin) didn’t go out because her (chicken) skin wasn’t crispy. She went out because the other cooks were better.”

Haikal Johari, 41, executive chef of Michelin-star restaurant Alma by Juan Amador in Singapore, said he had never heard of chicken rendang being crispy, echoing comments by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and veteran politician Mahathir Mohamad, who for once agreed with his arch rival.

While hashtags “gastrodiplomacy” and “rendanggate” cropped up online, Wallace and Torode defended their judgement.

“I did a whole series on Malaysia. Malaysian food is fantastic,” Australian-born Torode said. “But I said to her, it wasn’t cooked enough.”

However, Torode riled Malaysians by suggesting on Twitter that chicken rendang was from Indonesia. He later deleted the tweet, which ended with “namaste”, an Indian greeting.

However, the jury is still out on which country owns the dish, with neighboring Indonesia already claiming it. Some suggest the first version of rendang was cooked in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, some 600 years ago.

Haikal from Alma said there were different versions.

Translation: Who eats ‘crispy’ chicken rendang? #MalaysianFood

When the national airlines jumps in....