Homemade rote canai from Restoran Malaysia.
Yotam Ottolenghi's cookbooks have always had the rare power that great cookbooks have: to make their beholders giddy with new ideas and anticipation. I bought a British copy of the chef's first effort, called Ottolenghi, in 2008 before it was published in North America and instantly fell in love with it. One salad was composed almost entirely of fine herbs that you tossed with lemon and sautéed almonds and the still-sizzling butter the almonds had been sautéed in. Another of the recipes combined couscous, mograbiah, labneh and muscovado sugar into a dish so strange (at least to me) and exquisite-sounding that I all but sprinted home to make it after buying the book.
This was only the beginning of the Israeli and Middle Eastern cooking revolution that the London-based chef has since inspired. Plenty, which followed, is a masterpiece of vegetable-focused cooking and kitchen philosophy – vegetarian didn't have to be drab and earnest or to taste like long-simmered pleather. And Ottolenghi's best book, 2012's Jerusalem (it was co-authored with his business partner and frequent writing collaborator, the chef Sami Tamimi), is a comestible love letter to the world's most contested and perhaps delicious city.
It remains one of the more indispensable – and influential – cookbooks of this century so far.
And so of course I came at Nopi, which publishes this week, with expectations. The book, named after Ottolenghi's high-end restaurant in London's Islington neighbourhood and co-authored with Ramael Scully, its Malaysian-born chef, pulls the flavours of Southeast Asia into the Ottolenghi quiver.
"Pandan leaves meet pomegranate seeds, star anise meets sumac, and miso meets molasses," the jacket copy promises. It had me at "pandan."
Malaysian cooking is a blend of big-flavoured influences: Chinese, Indian, Portuguese, Dutch, Thai, Arab and Malay, among others. It's punchy from spice and curry leaves, funky from fermented fish, bright with the flavours of tamarind, mango, pineapple and other tropical fruits, and creamy from coconut and condensed milk. The cuisine is vastly underexposed through Europe and North America, a reality the Ottolenghi touch could surely fix.
Nopi has recipes for the pickled Malaysian salad called achar, made with long beans, roasted peanuts and a pantry's worth of spices, as well as for a sweet, tropical congee of sorts made from nutty-flavoured black rice, mangoes and coconut cream. There's a killer poached chicken recipe – it's a take on Hainanese chicken rice but way more flavourful (sorry!) – cooked with star anise, ginger and dried mandarin orange peel.
Because this is an Ottolenghi book, the salads are also insanely tasty. To wit: the one made with oranges, pomelo fruit and bitter greens, and dressed with a salsa of toasted almonds, candied ginger, sherry vinegar and coriander seeds. The deep-fried soft-shell crabs are another knockout, served with cinnamon pickled cucumber and an extraordinarily complex miso and peppercorn sauce.
But these are highlights from a cookbook that's otherwise woefully short of them. For all its new-Malaysian promise, Nopi is remarkable more for the amount of filler it contains. The world didn't need another recipe for potato and celery root gratin or for baby carrots tossed in truffle oil vinaigrette. It didn't need a sweet potato pancakes rendition that looks exciting but comes out depressingly flat-tasting on the plate.
A lot of Nopi's Malaysian touches are only that – minor touches. Adding star anise to the sugar on French toast doesn't make the French toast Malaysian somehow, and in any case how's that different from what fusion pioneer Jean-Georges Vongerichten began doing in the 1980s?
Where Ottolenghi's signature until now has been big, beautiful, in-your-face flavours, Nopi reads too often as a sanitized and tentative take on Malaysian food. It's a botched opportunity and uncharacteristically safe. That's the last thing a good cookbook should be.
Intro to Malaysian cuisine
Tucked between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, Malaysia sits at the heart of Southeast Asia. As such, the food is richly hybrid-ethnic, with each dish telling its history of hundreds of years of religious passage, migration and trade.
Today's Malaysian food has noticeable influences from India, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and China; sprinklings of Arab, Portuguese and Dutch traditions can be also tasted in the country's flavourful spectrum. One of the world's most complex cuisines, Malaysian food is all about the dance of heat and flavours over an astonishing variety of textures. These four Toronto-area restaurants offer delicious introductions to the cuisine.
Gourmet Malaysia – Curry Laksa ($9.25)
The fiery cousin to pho and ramen, laksa is a soup for which rice noodles are cooked in a fish broth with tamarind paste and coconut milk. This is one of the best bowls of laksa in the city, generously lathered with curry paste, chilis and belacan (shrimp paste) plus chunks of tofu, bean sprouts, and shrimp or chicken. 4466 Sheppard Ave. E #101, Toronto, 647-764-1188, gourmetmalaysia.ca
One2 Snacks – Char Kway Teow ($6.30)
This mom-and-pop shop in Scarborough specializes in Malaysian street food and desserts. Their take on the national noodle dish is a heaping mixture of ho fun and yellow noodles tossed with bean sprouts, spicy shrimp, green onions, and fish cake. Ask for it spicy. Also try the laksa – punching with heat and complexity, it's a good ambassador for the flavour layering that's a signature of Malaysian food. One2 Snacks, 8 Glen Watford Dr., Toronto, #26, 647-340-7099
Restoran Malaysia – Homemade Roti Canai ($9)
Very similar to Indian roti prata (or paratha), roti canai is like a dense croissant, crunchy on the outside, warm and tender on the inside. The dough is mixed with ghee, milk, sugar and margarine before being aggressively kneaded and rolled into a rope-like shape. It's then cooked on a greased skillet, where it develops a buttery crust. The best version here comes with curry beef, a creamy curry that punches with layers of heat, absorbed by tender chunks of beef and potato. Break off strands of roti and use them to scoop up meat and sauce. There's also a dessert version served with condensed milk. Restoran Malaysia, 815 Major Mackenzie Drive E., Richmond Hill, Ont., 905-508-1432, restoranmalaysia.com
Soos – Beef Rendang Ribs ($25)
The entire menu is notable at this two-year-old downtown spot, but the beef rendang ribs are sublime. Chef Tricia Soo's take on the popular Nyonya dish is a mountainous plate with thick slabs of bone-in meat rubbed with a house mix of spices then slow-cooked. It's served with two sides for scooping up sauce and meat, roti canai and a dome of coconut rice. Soos, 94 Ossington Ave., Toronto, 416-901-7667, soostoronto.com
Suresh Doss