, Malaysia

Salted egg serenade

A spirit of adventure

By Kenny Mah

You sing to me when you tell me you’re cooking.

It’s not that I’m loath to cook. Far from it. I certainly dish up my fair share of our meals: from my patented miso soup rice to any number of pasta creations. But there’s nothing like when you volunteer, more often than not in the spirit of experimentation.

You’re a risk taker; you like your challenges. At least in the kitchen.

One dish that seems impossible to deliver and have it served just right is that daichow favourite: salted egg yolk chicken. Something is lost in the half hour or so it takes to travel from the wok to our home.

The crunchiness of the lightly battered chicken, the wok hei, the deep aroma of flash-fried curry leaves; even the richness of the ham dan — the addictive salted egg yolk — feels as though it has lessened somewhat in transit.

Fortunately, as with many foods, it’s easier to prepare it at home than most realise. The main ingredients — salted egg yolk, chicken, bird’s eye chillies, butter and curry leaves are easy enough to obtain.

If there’s anything the recent lockdown has taught us, it’s that with enough time on our hands and a spirit of adventure, we can experiment in our kitchens. We can make do and make magic with what we uncover in our pantries.

And through some cheerful trial and error, we can also dish up our own salted egg yolk chicken, crunchy and rich, deeply aromatic, and full of wok hei. Well, you’re doing the dishing up, at least.

I help to plate and bring our dinner to table, and them we eat it together, happy together.