The Culinary Division of Vista Productions (1976/1990)
[FROM BOOKLADY COOKS] This lovely cookbook is quite rare and special, compiled by local cooks for local cooks and visiting tourists to be able to recreate the traditional foods of Malaysia.
We cooked Nasi Lemak for our Better Breakfast Month.
This breakfast was an umami flavor explosion! As I’ve started traveling the world with breakfast, I have loved every single one. I’m not stranger to salty fishy breakfasts, I adore lox and other smoked fishies. So I saw no reason not to give this one a try and I was not sorry. It might not be for everyone, but I so enjoyed savoring a breakfast that was outside my normal rotation.
Nasi Lemak is a coconut rice flavored with pandan. I wasn’t able to find pandan leaves, but I did find an extract with pandan “flavoring.” Pandan is a little bit vanilla, a little bit sweet, a little bit grassy - such a lovely contrast to the fermented shrimp sambal and fried dried anchovies. The fresh cucumbers were also a nice contrast and I’ll add an egg to just about anything!
[FROM THE PUBLISHERS] The Malaysian Cookbook contains a wealth of delightful recipes, varied and yet familiar to all Malaysians. It is perhaps the best produced book in this region, conceived and planned suitably for ""the woman in the house"".
And to the tourists who arrive here in hundreds of thousands year in and year out, this book is indeed something to be taken home, after having tasted some of the niceties of Malaysian cooking.
Precisely what is Malaysian cooking? It would be easier to define what is not Malaysian cooking, simply because Malaysian food is so pleasantly rich in its variety, well inherited from quite a few countries noted for their cuisine. Of course basically there is Malay food, Chinese food and Indian food, but more than this there is a fine blending in the ways of preparation bringing about a typical Malaysian quality in all its entirety. To the discerning Malaysian, he knows too well the subtle differences between Penang food and say, Kuala Lumpur food. Thus Malaysian cooking is to each place a specialty of its own, a unique experience, yet not only this but much more- that indefinable quality which makes Malaysian food one of the best in the world.
All of the recipes have been contributed by experienced housewives as well as professional chefs in cases where elaborate preparations are needed. These recipes have also been tested and tried by the Culinary Division of Vista Productions Ltd, a publisher of fine works of art and culture. Furthermore, the text has been carefully written and edited so that the various steps in cooking can be easily followed.
The difficulty in compiling this volume lies in what to exclude rather than what to include because of the infinite variety of dishes. However, the objectives of the book remain clear; that it has been planned on (a) what is usually cooked in the Malaysian home (b) what may be occasionally cooked by the more ambitious and (c) what the Malaysian would love to eat Outside, at the street-stalls, in the restaurants or coffeehouses. This book is then a many splendored thing; be it the joy of cooking for some or the pleasure of eating for many.
Lastly, let's not forget that what is good to eat must firstly be good to look at, and all too often it should smell good too. This is why the book has been fully illustrated with lovely color photos, one for every recipe.
Just one last word. Because this is an ideal gift book, the publishers have had it casebound to withstand constant use and to look good on your book-shelf, or as we hope, on your kitchen shelf.
'SELAMAT MAKAN
VINTAGE HARDCOVER - VERY GOOD CONDITION