Since Penang is known for being a top street food destination in Asia, we decided to learn more about Malaysian cuisine by booking a local cooking class called Cooking with Chef Samuel.
At 760MYR (~$250cad) for the 2 of us, it was a lot more expensive than any cooking class that we'd done in the past, but Jen saw that we could learn how to make Roti Canai (a Malaysian bread that she's always wanted to learn) and it was a private class (due to covid restrictions), so we decided to go for it.
Before the course, we had to choose which dishes we wanted to learn, but other than Roti Canai, we hadn't tried very many Malaysian dishes before. After chatting back and forth with Chef Samuel on WhatsApp, we decided to make: Roti Canai (Malaysian bread), Laksa Lemak (Soup), Chicken Rendang, and Chili Pan Mee (Noodle dish).
On the day of our class, Samuel picked us up from our hotel at noon and drove us to a local market to buy ingredients and sample some local snacks.
He introduced us to some delicious dishes that were new to us, including:
- Pasembur - a Malaysian salad with a sweet, spicy, nutty sauce
- Otak Otak - spicy Asian fish cake steamed in banana leaves
- Chai Kuih - steamed vegetable rice dumplings
- Freshly squeezed sugar cane juice with lime
When we arrived at Samuel’s place, we were treated to a really nice view of Georgetown, Penang.
..then it was time to start cooking 😀.
We went to our stations and started by prepping the dough for the noodles and roti because the dough needed to rest for a while before being used.
Samuel then listed the key spices that we would be using in the recipes and explained what flavours each spice brought to the dish and how those flavours balanced each other out. With Samuel's help, we worked together on the Chili Pan Mee curry paste and meat sauce, then we rolled/cut the noodles and assembled and ate the Pan Mee dish.
Next, we worked on the curry paste for the Laksa Lemak and made the Chicken Rendang. While rinsing the dry chillies, Dom learned that your hands can also burn from the heat of chillies.. not just your mouth 🌶️✋.
After we finished the main dishes, it was finally time to learn the special technique for stretching the Roti Canai. We first practised the hand position and motion with a small towel, then Samuel demonstrated the technique with the real dough... then it was our turn!
Even though we weren't super familiar with the dishes that we would be making, we were really happy with the choices because all of the dishes ended up being super delicious! We will definitely try making the recipes again at home... but maybe a tad less spicy 🥵.
