Malaysian Food, Exotic Spicy Healthy Dining

A multi-ethnic country with a multi-ethnic exotic cuisine

Food is not only a popular but an essential topic in Malaysia. Eating out in Malaysia is a gastronomic adventure. There is such a great variety; spicy Malay Food, a seemingly endless variety of Chinese food, exotic cuisine from North and South India, as well as Nyonya and Portuguese Food.

Malaysian Food reflects the multi-racial aspect of the country. The 3 cultural groups, the Malays, the Chinese and the Indian each their own style of cuisine. Malaysian food represents an exotic fusion of culinary delights- a cuisine heavily influenced by people from India, China, Indonesia and Thailand who have all settled there and have melded together tastes, ingredients and cooking methods from each other. The unique Peranakan, also known as Nyonya cuisine is a fusion of Chinese and Malay styles. As a result of all these influences, there is seemingly no limit when it comes to the variety and abundance of food you can get here.

Malaysian cuisine uses fragrant herbs and roots such as lemongrass, ginger, shallots, coriander, fennel, kaffir limes and fresh and lada kering (dried chillies), usually ground into a sambal, or chilli paste. There is usually a sprinkling of mustard seeds, star anise, cardamom and cloves in Malaysian recipes. Some lesser known ingredients include bunga kantan (wild ginger flower buds), turmeric root, galangal and pandan, or screwpine leaf.

A traditional accompaniment to meal is a hot sambal made of ground chilli, otaku dang (prawn paste) and condiments. Desserts in Malaysia tend to make use of generous amounts of coconut milk.

Local food is a mixture of many elements, and no wonder then that the name of one of the most popular dishes, rojak, is also slang for a haphazard mixture of things. Perhaps the closest thing to a national dish is nasi lemak - rice cooked in coconut milk and eaten with a range of side dishes and condiments.

There is also satay, pieces of meat skewered on thin sticks, grilled over a charcoal fire and dipped in a spicy peanuts sauce, which is certainly the most popular dish of Malaysia. Another type of meal that has crossed over from its ethnic origins (South Indian) to become a national favourite is banana leaf rice. It is simply rice that's eaten off a banana leaf with an accompaniment of meats, curries, vegetables, pickles and crispy pappadoms. Popular Malaysian dishes include rendang, roti canai, murtabak, laksa, chicken rice, and fried noodles.

Many states, many variations of the cuisine

Each state in Malaysia has something different to offer in terms of culinary delights. Kuala Lumpur has the most diverse offering of foods from all over the world. You can indulge in a choice of gourmet fusion cuisine created by talented chefs in designer restaurants, or sample an endless amount of goodies found practically bursting out of malls, store fronts and side-street hawker stalls.

Melaka is also home to delicious Baba Nyonya food, much of it served in quaint cafes in historical shophouses.

Penang is hawker stall heaven, where the most delicious food requires you to wait for al fresco tables and costs as little as RM3.50 per dish.

Ipoh receives many day trippers who come only to savour local favourites.

Kelantan is the cradle of Malay culture and serves exotic Malay food rich in flavour and colour.

Individual recipes vary widely from state to state. Basic ingredients may be the same, but the method of cooking and accompanying dishes changes with each state's own tastes and special produce. The perennial Malaysian favourite nasi lemak is completely different in Kedah, for example, than that tasted in Johor or Selangor. One has to savour both to truly appreciate the diversity of preparation.

Penang Laksa is completely different from Singapore Laksa or kari laksa: Imagine a large, steaming bowl of rice noodles with prawns and chicken and bean curd, immersed in a reddish, lemon grass-perfumed coconut curry sauce, as fiery and flavorful as a human hand can produce, topped with a mélange of raw, crunchy vegetables and herbs – bean sprouts, cucumber bits, sliced red chillies, spring onions and Vietnamese mint – served with a side of chilli sambal and lime slices. There are many regional variations of this soupy, Malaysian noodle dish. In Penang, the city’s very own tamarind-soured assam laksa, was Asia’s answer to southern France’s fish soup, a very exotic version, where, instead of the dollop of the garlicky rouille on top, the soup had been showered with a fine julienne of a pink, highly aromatic, wild ginger flower and slivers of fresh, sour pineapple.

Breakfast is a major meal of the day, not a neglected snack.

Street stalls, part of the eating culture

Excellent and inexpensive food can be obtained virtually anywhere in Malaysia, largely because of the strength and ubiquity of food stalls. Whether it be in villages, small towns, or big cities, visitors can find stalls offering mouth-watering treats. Dining at a cart or streetside stand may sound plain and piecemeal, but in Malaysia eating food at the roadside stalls is a much-loved practice. The best stalls are as popular and as crowded as any permanent restaurant - VWs and BMWs are equally likely to be parked close by, and their owners rubbing shoulders in the long line. Some stalls are open from morning to evening, while others are open from evening to dawn. Others are open around the clock, seven days a week.

A great variety of ingredients, a great variety of dishes

Malay food derives its flavours from the use of spices and local ingredients. Some of those ingredients used by the Malays in the Malay cuisine are:

• Bawang Besar (Onions)
• Bawang Putih (Garlic)
• Halia (Ginger)
• Asam Jawa (Tamarind)

• Kunyit Kering (Saffron)
• Lengkuas (Galangal)
• Kunyit (Turmeric)
• Jintan Putih (Cumin)

Another ingredient commonly found in Malaysian food is santan which is coconut milk. The milk is squeezed from the flesh of the grated coconut. As a sign of modern times, santan can be found in powder form, sold in supermarkets. It's much used by actually in the Malay cuisine.

As with other cuisines, Malay food is prepared and enjoyed by all races. A staple breakfast favourite is nasi lemak. It is a simple but very satisfying meal. The rice is cooked in coconut milk with fragrant pandan leaves. Side dishes can be sambal ikan bilis (anchovies with chili), omelets or hard boiled eggs, peanuts, sliced cucumber, prawns and fried fish.

Another classic example of ever popular Malay food is satay. There is no pasar malam (night market) without satay. It usually consists of chunks of chicken marinated with a variety of spices.

Ikan bakar is grilled or barbecue fish which you will be able to find almost everywhere. A popular local fish is the Ikan Kembong.

Rendang is a meat dish (chicken or beef) prepared with coconut milk, lada (chillies), onion, and other ingredients. Around Pangkor and Lumut the most famous kind of rendang is rendang tok. It contains beef, coconut milk, onion, garlic, chilies, coriander powder, cumin, black pepper, fennel, turmeric root, lemon grass and other ingredients. If you visit a Malay wedding you will most likely have some rendang as it is usually used for special occasions.

The Indian influence on Malaysian food

Malaysian food from the Indian population is quite different from the Malay or Chinese cuisine. The Indians favour hot and spicy flavours. Their staple diet usually consists of either rice or bread (charpatti, tosai (thosai), parrata, puri). They eat this with various curries. As in accordance with their Hindu beliefs, they do not eat beef.

The Malaysian food of the Indian population in the North-West part of Malaysia can be categorized as Southern-Indian, Northern Indian and Indian Muslim (mamak). Along with the rest of the local cuisine, it has evolved and assimilated according to society's preferences. Sometimes what is considered Indian food here, did not even originated from India.

Usually Indian Malaysian food is sold at the various local stalls and often ordered with a glass of teh tarik. Teh Tarik literally means "pulled tea". The tea is thick and frothy. The preparation involves passing the tea and milk from one big metal mug to the other with a "pour and pull" action.

Where there is roti canai, there is bound to be murtabak. This is basically roti canai with stuffing of sardines or chicken as the Indian Hindus do not eat beef. Murtabak with beef however can be obtained from stalls owned by Muslims.

Nobody really knows how roti canai came about to become one of the most popular of Malaysian food. However, Penang can certainly lay claim to Indian mee (mee goreng or kelinga mee). From Penang, these dishes spread out further over Malaysia.

One could say the apart from nasi lemak, roti canai is probably the second national Malaysian food.

Indian mee was first created by Indian sailors and port workers. It is a combination of Chinese fried noodles with prawn fritters, potato, squid, taukua (bean curd, bean sprouts and lettuce). For more filling, an egg is usually scrambled into the mix. Mention North Indian food and what comes to mind is tandoori and naan bread. Both are cooked in clay oven called tandoori. Northern Indian food is found in air-conditioned restaurants, richly decorated to reflect the Indian culture and Hindu tradition.

The Chinese influence on Malaysian food

Since most of Malaysia's Chinese are from the south, particularly from Hainan and Hakka it is quite easy to find food from this region. Throughout Malaysia one of the most widespread economical meals is the Hainanese Chicken Rice. It's another of the local favourite Malaysian foods. The Hainanese also produced steamboat, sort of Oriental variation of the Swiss Fondue, where you have a boiling stockpot in the middle of the table into which you deep pieces of meat, seafood and vegetable.

The Hokkiens have provided us the Hokkien fried Mee (thick egg noodles cook with meat, seafood and vegetable and a rich kicap (soya sauce).If you go to North Malaysia, Hokkien Mee means prawn soup noodles. Hokkien spring rolls (popiah) are also delicious.

Teochew food from the area around Swatow in China is another style noted for its delicacy and natural favourite. Teochew food is famous for its seafood and another economical dish - Char Kwey Teow (fried flattened noodles) with clams, beansprout and prawns.

Hakka dish is also easily found in food centres. The best known hakka dish is the Yong Tau Foo (stuffed seafood bean curd) with soup or thick dark gravy.

When Westerners speak of Chinese food, they usually mean Cantonese food. It is the best known and most popular variety of Chinese food. Cantonese food is noted for the variety and the freshness of its ingredients. The food is usually stir-fried with just a touch of oil. The result is crisp and fresh. All those best known 'western Chinese' dishes fit into this category - sweet and sour dishes, won ton, chow mein, spring rolls.

With Cantonese food the more people you can muster for the meal the better, because dishes are traditionally shared so everyone will manage to sample the greatest variety. A corollary of this is that Cantonese food should be balanced: traditionally, all foods are said to be either Yin (cooling) - like vegetables, most fruits and clear soup; or Yang (heaty) - like starchy foods and meat. A cooling food should be balanced with a heaty food and too much of one would not be good for you.

Malaysians enjoy eating out to savour a variety of items at different times of the day. Enjoying a dish in the street is a big part of Malaysian culture. Malaysia offers Asia’s best variety of cuisine given the wide array of cooking styles and traditions.

The Fascinating History of Malaysian Food

Malaysia is the home of multiple ethnicities which found its roots during the colonial times where hundreds and thousands of immigrants arrived here to find an honest living in this prosperous land. The migrants’ mostly Chinese working in the tin mines and the Indians placed along the rubber estates brought along with them their cultures not forgetting rich culinary heritages. The cultures go along fine with their cooking where unusual traditional gathering usual accompanied by exotic mouth watering cuisine, that make up the Malaysian food recipes.

As time goes by these cooking somehow assimilated with the Malaysian local customs thus giving birth to a much more diverse and uniquely types of cooking not found anywhere else in the world, such as the famous ‘roti canai’, a kind of bread unlike any other bread is not made of yeast and has a uniquely oily textures, thanks to the acrobatic ways the dough is being flung around while in the process of making it. Other types of Malaysian foods which have its origin in India are the tasty ‘mee Mamak’ and ‘rojak Mamak’. The word mamak means uncle in Tamil, so the Indian muslim community locally are referred to as mamak. The ‘mee Mamak’ is different from other noodles it has thick spicy flavour that’ll leave you feeling hot in a slurp, while the ‘rojak Mamak’ a form of salad with the gravy made of finely pounded chilies surely will satisfied most vegetarian. The curries served in ‘mamak’ restaurants are definitely Indian but yet different then those found in India. To top it all these delectable dishes are eaten with ‘the tarik’ tea with milk that’s hard to make, literally we need to pour the tea between two big glasses or mugs and increasing the heights by pulling the pouring glass or mug higher and higher to achieve that distinctive foamy rich flavour and also to cool it. All these Malaysian Indian cooking are not found in India itself simply because the original recipes have been Malaysianize, improvised using locally available ingredients which is much cheaper and tastier.

The same thing can be said with the Malaysian Chinese cuisine like the ‘Yong taufu’ and ‘Su’un, the Chinese immigrants can’t find the ingredients for their original recipes from China so they decided to replace it with cheaper alternative sources commonly found in Malaysia like the ‘buah keluak’ and ‘kayu manis’. Other Malaysian local pride cooking which originated from abroad is the like of the popular ‘laksa’ which can be found almost everywhere in Malaysia and even has its own sub version in ‘laksa Johor’, ‘laksa Kedah’ and ‘laksa Penang’. ‘Laksa’ is thick rice noodles. ‘Laksa’ is served with tangy fish soup/gravy which is made from mackerel or sardine and lots of herbs and not fish at all because of the aroma of the herbs. It’s a favourite with the tourists for it is not too hot and spicy flavour.

Other Malaysian gourmets particularly the rice based which is the Malaysian staple diet can be traced to our neighbouring countries such in Indonesia and Thailand like the ‘soto’ and ‘nasi kerabu’ of Johor and Kelantan respectively. These cooking are being cook up with the influence of border communities centuries ago like in Golok when the people started to interact and barter together especially goods at the border town marketplaces.

The arrival of these Chinese and Indian migrants certainly spice up the Malaysian culinary scenes without them Malaysian cooking and Malaysian food recipes will not be as colourful and wonderful as they’re today. Nowadays Malaysian foods are a bigger attraction to the tourists just like the KLCC and the KL Tower. When they say Malaysia boasts of its rich cultural melting pot, the tourists must have meant plenty of Malaysian foods in the pots for the picking. Once the foreigners colonized our country now we managed to get back at them and colonize them at least their taste buds with our hot and spicy Malaysianize cooking which they fall deadly in love.

About Food In Malaysia

Malay & Nyonya Food

Variety is the spice in Malay food. The traditional culinary style has been greatly influenced by the long-ago traders from neighboring countries, such as Indonesia, India, the Middle East, and China. Malay food is often described as spicy and flavorful as it utilizes a melting pot of spices and herbs.

Malay cooking incorporates ingredients such as lemon grass, pandan (screwpine) leaves, and kaffir lime leaves. Fresh herbs, such as daun kemangi (a type of basil), daun kesum (polygonum or laksa leaf), nutmeg, kunyit (turmeric) and bunga kantan (wild ginger buds) are often used. Traditional spices such as cumin and coriander are used in conjunction with Indian and Chinese spices such as pepper, cardamom, star anise and fenugreek. Seasonings play an important role in Malay cooking as they often enhance the food taste and flavors. Many of the seasonings are not dried spices but are fresh ingredients such as fresh turmeric, galangal, fresh chili paste, onions, and garlic. A combination of fresh seasonings and dried spices are normally pounded together to make a fine paste and cooked in oil. Fresh coconut milk is often added.

Rice is the staple diet in any Malay meal. It is often served for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and supper too. Most meals are eaten by using your fingers, and eating utensils are kept to a minimum. All dishes are served at the same time, accompanied by a refreshing drink. Fish is popular in Malay cooking, as with other seafood such as shrimps and cuttlefish. Beef and mutton are very popular choices but never pork as it is against their religious beliefs to eat pork. The other popular white meat is chicken.

One of the most unique Malay dishes is the "roti jala" (lacy pancakes), which sometimes replaces the staple rice. Roti jala is an ideal accompaniment to any dish with lots of rich gravy and is often served during special occasions. It is made from a mixture of plain flour and eggs, with a pinch of turmeric powder and butter. Desserts are a must for any Malay meal. Easily available at most local restaurants and roadside stalls, Malay desserts are invariably very sweet and include ingredients such as coconut milk, palm sugar, and flour.

Nyonya food, also referred to as Straits Chinese food or Lauk Embok Embok, is an interesting amalgamation of Chinese and Malay dishes thought to have originated from the Peranakan (Straits Chinese) of Malaka over 400 years ago. This was the result of inter-marriages between Chinese immigrants and local Malays, which produced a unique culture. Here, the ladies are called nyonyas and the men babas.

Nyonya food is also native to Penang and Singapore. However, over the years, distinct differences have evolved in nyonya cooking found in Penang and Singapore than that in Malaka. The proximity of Malaka and Singapore to Indonesia resulted in an Indonesian influence on nyonya food. Malaka Nyonyas prepare food that is generally sweeter, richer in coconut milk, and with the addition of more Malay spices like coriander and cumin. Meanwhile, the Penang Nyonyas drew inspiration from Thai cooking styles, including a preference for sour food, hot chilies, fragrant herbs, and pungent black prawn paste (belacan).

Influences aside, nyonya recipes are complicated affairs, often requiring hours upon hours of preparation. Nyonya housewives of the past would spend the better part of their lives in the kitchen, but they were fiercely proud of their unique cuisine, preferring nyonya food to any other type of food.

It has been said that in the old days, a Nyonya lady seeking a prospective bride for her son would listen to the pounding of spices by the maiden concerned as it denoted the amount of attention she would give to her cooking!

Nyonya cooking is also about the blending of spices, employing pungent roots like galangal, turmeric and ginger; aromatic leaves like pandan leaf, fragrant lime leaf and laksa leaf, together with other ingredients like candlenuts, shallots, shrimp paste and chilies. Lemon, tamarind, belimbing (carambola) or green mangoes are used to add a tangy taste to many dishes.

For dessert, fruits are seldom served and are instead replaced by cakes. Nyonya cakes are rich and varied, made from ingredients like sweet potato, glutinous rice, palm sugar, and coconut milk.

Chinese Food

When people in the west speak of Chinese food, they probably mean Cantonese food. It's the best known and most popular variety of Chinese food. Cantonese food is noted for the variety and the freshness of it's ingredients. The food are usually stir-fried with just a touch of oil to ensure that the result is crisp and fresh. All those best known 'western Chinese' dishes fit into this category - sweet and sour dishes, won ton, chow mein, spring rolls.

With Cantonese food the more people you can muster for the meal the better, because dishes are traditionally shared so everyone will manage to sample the greatest variety. A corollary of this is that Cantonese food should be balance: traditionally, all foods are said to be either Yin (cooling) - like vegetables, most fruits and clear soup; or Yang (heaty) - like starchy foods and meat. A cooling food should be balance with a heaty food and too much of one it would not be good for you.

Another Cantonese specialty is Dim Sum or 'little heart'. Dim sum is usually consumed during lunch or as a Sunday brunch. Dim sum restaurant are usually large, noisy affair and the dim sum, little snacks that come in small bowls, are whisked around the tables on individual trolleys or carts. As they come by , you simply ask for a plate of this or a bowl of that. At the end the meal you are billed is the amount of empty containers on your table.

Cantonese cuisine can also offer real extremes - shark's fin soup or bird's nest soup, expensive delicacies from one end of the scale to mee (noodles) and congee (rice porridge) on the other end.

Far less familiar than the food from Canton are the cuisines from the north and the west of China - Szechuan, Shanghai and Peking. Szechuan food is the fiery food of China, where pepper and chili really get into the act. Where as to food from Canton are delicate and understated, in Szechuan food the flavors are strong and dramatic - garlic and chilies play their part in dishes like diced chicken and hot and sour soup.

Beijing (Peking) food is, of course best known for the famous 'Peking Duck'. Beijing food are less subtle than Cantonese food. Beijing food is usually eaten with hot steamed bun or with noodles, because rice is not grown in cold region of the north. But in Malaysia, it is more likely to come with rice.

Shanghai food are not easily found in Malaysia. Since most of Malaysia's Chinese are from the south, particularly from Hainan and Hakka it is quite easy to find food from this region. Throughout Malaysia one of the most widespread economical meal is the Hainanese Chicken Rice which cost around the figure of RM3.00. The Hainanese also produced steamboat, sort of Oriental variation of the Swiss Fondue, where you have a boiling stockpot in the middle of the table into which you deep pieces of meat, seafood and vegetable.

Although Hokkien's food is rated way down the Chinese gastronomic scale, it has provided the Hokkien fried Mee (thick egg noodles cook with meat, seafood and vegetable and a rich soya sauce. Hokkien spring rolls (popiah) are also delicious.

Teochew food from the area around Swatow in China is another style noted for it's delicacy and natural favorite. Teochew food is famous for it's seafood and another economical dish - Char Kwey Teow (fried flattened noodles) with clams, beansprout and prawns.

Hakka dish is also easily found in food centers. The best know hakka dish is the Yong Tau Foo (stuffed seafood beancurd) with soup or thick dark gravy.

Indian Food

Indian influence in Malaysian cuisine started in the 19th century when large arrivals of Indian migrants were brought into the country as contract laborers to work in rubber estates and on the railways. Some did take the opportunity to set up trade in the textile and food industry. Indian cuisine can be divided into two mainstreams, Northern and Southern Indian cuisine.

North Indian cuisine boasts of a diet rich in meat and uses spices and ingredients such as yogurt and ghee in dishes that are elaborate without being overly spicy. Here, bread and chapati (wheat-flour pancakes) replaces rice, which is the center of most South Indian meals. Coconut milk, mustard seeds, and chilies are also widely used in the Southern province.

Spices are the heart and soul of Indian cooking. But the quantity and proportions vary with the geographical boundaries. Curry powder is almost never used. Spices are freshly grounded and added in many different combinations. Spices commonly used are coriander, turmeric, cumin, chilies, fennel, and fenugreek. Other fragrant spices added are cardamom, clove, cinnamon and star aniseed.

In Malaysia, there is an abundant of Indian restaurants and food stalls to wet your appetite. They are traditionally served on a thali, a circular metal tray on which a number of small bowls called katori, also made from metal, are placed. Eaten with fingers, rice or bread are placed directly on the thali while curries and other dishes are served in the bowls. For South Indian cuisine, banana leaves are often used as plates where rice is served in the center, followed by various curries and accompaniments around it. These include dried fish, pappadams (lentil wafers), fresh chutneys made from herbs, coconut, and acid fruits among others.

Local Indian hawkers have created unique versions of local dishes, which are not found in India. For example, "mee goreng" is a combination of fresh Chinese yellow noodles, tofu, bean-sprouts, and dried shrimp paste. Malaysia also abounds with shops offering "Nasi Kandar", which is basically a combination of Malay and Indian cuisine - hence very Malaysian - although the taste is more robust. This concept came about when "nasi" (rice) hawkers would previously "kandar" (balance a pole on the shoulder with two huge containers on both ends) their wares.

Bread is the main item in most meals in North Indian cuisine. Therefore, a wide variety of bread is offered at these restaurants. Nann (leavened bread with poppy seeds) is a popular choice. The bread dough is rolled out and then slapped on the inside of the tandoori, near the top where it cooks very quickly in the fierce heat. It is then flavored with onion or garlic. Paratha or it's localized version of Roti Canai, meanwhile, is rich, flaky, and flavored with ghee. It can be eaten as an accompaniment or by itself, filled with potatoes and peas. Chapati is another leavened bread. It resembles flat discs and has a delightful flavor and chewy texture. Murtabak is stuffed Paratha based dough, which has a Meat, vegetables and egg in it.

Tandoori dishes are the most popular main courses in North Indian restaurants. Tandoori chicken is always a favorite, where a whole baby chicken or chicken quarters are roasted in the clay oven for several hours in advance and then finished off on the barbecue.