Sarah Tiong - Sweet, Savory, Spicy

SARAH TIONG

MasterChef Australia finalist and owner
of Pork Party, a pop-up market stall

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Copyright 2020 Sarah Tiong

First published in 2020 by

Page Street Publishing Co.

27 Congress Street, Suite 105

Salem, MA 01970

www.pagestreetpublishing.com

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eISBN 978-1-64567-047-6

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2019951532

Cover and book design by Meg Baskis for Page Street Publishing Co.

Photography by Ben Cole

For my mother, brother and Aunty Annie, whose love and support have carried me so far. Thank you for teaching me resilience and gratitude and for sharing your love of food and family.

For Emilie and Jasmine, whose appetites for life and deliciousness have brought me undeniable happiness.
Thank you for showing me true friendship.

Sarah Tiong, you had me at Sweet, let alone Savory and Spicy!

This is the holy trinity of so many of the worlds greatest dishesdishes that have always inspired me to travel down seldom-trod roads, hunting for culinary unicorns. In the pages that follow, youll find those culinary unicorns.

Street food always gets my attention, for its my belief that the soul of a countrys cuisine resides on the streets and in the stalls of ramshackle markets rather than in the starched linen of that countrys fine-dining restaurants. There is nobility and ample tradition in these humble dishes.

On the street, flavors must roar and bellow to be heard above the honking of horns and the squeal of breaks. Everything is broader, prouder and a whole heap less fussy when you are perched on a tiny blue plastic chair in a Hanoi gutter, fighting the crowds for a rickety table in a sweating Bangkok night market or eating soy-sticky mee as dark as the night while the sweat-glazed faces of your dining companions jump in and out of shadows with the flaring of the woks.

Reading this book, youll immediately know that these are the places where Sarahs heart must have roamed, whether as a child or as a hardworking corporate lawyer. Through hard work and a passion to explore flavor, she now finds herself thereliving in these pages among the food she grew up with and the recipes she loves.

And its here, at these stalls, carts and holes-in-the-wall across Asia, that every day at lunch and dinner (and all the hours in between), the locals vote with their wallets and their mouths on who makes what best. For us, however, Sarah has taken that heavy responsibility out of our hands and placed it firmly on to her shoulders, whether shes offering you her take on .

Shes also there, standing at your shoulder as you drool over her .

And when you cook these dishes, youll hear her voice in the helpful advice laced through these recipes. Sarah guides you to create your own versions of many of the best street food dishes of Asia, whether you are re-creating a previous culinary adventure of your own or discovering for the first time the joys of these street food classics from Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and beyond.

Sarah is the perfect guide to these clogged and hungry streets, alleys and bustling market aisles, for she is a woman who loves to eat as much as she loves to cook. And boy, can she cook. When the inevitable question of, Whos the best cook never to win MasterChef Australia? comes up in interviews, my mind immediately flies to that tea plantation in the shadow of Mt. Fuji, where Sarah put her unique spin on the Singaporean classic of bah kut teh that brought tears to my eyes. I didnt well up because the dish was so darned delicious but because I felt that Sarah had liberated the spirit of this famous hawker pork rib broth and sent it wheeling and soaring to new heights. Only very special dishes from very special cooks do that.

Enough! Ive got to go, because Ive got a hot date with the . I hope it will send my soul soaring to similar heights!

MATT PRESTON , author of More and six other bestselling cookbooks and former cohost and judge on MasterChef Australia

My mother always described me as a good eater, unfussy and fearless in the face of all things weird and delicious. It wasnt a very difficult title to hold growing up in a large, passionate family who loved to cook and eat. My mother migrated from a tiny village in Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia, to the big city of Sydney, Australia, in the 1970s at the tender age of seventeen with nothing but a shabby suitcase, a skinny fianc and a perfect perm. She had no cooking experience. Relying only on her memory, yearning for Malaysian street food and the simple home cooking of her childhood, Mum endeavored to re-create the flavors of Malaysia as best as she could. Those are the flavors she passed down to me.

Authentic Southeast Asian food is street food. The street carts, hawker centers and open-air food courts in Southeast Asia are where you find real people cooking real food. Theyve been cooking the same food for generations, perfecting techniques and mastering flavors. Street food is powerfulit connects people, creates identity and impacts generations to come. I inherited Mums vivaciousness and appetite for the delicious, unique food that she experienced growing up around hawker centers, kopitiams (coffee shops) and street carts. I am extremely lucky to have grown up in a family that finds passion and joy in the pursuit of exquisite food.

Family vacations and visits to Southeast Asia were how my love of street food was nurtured. The night markets were a culinary wonderland and my favorite part of the holidays. The most nostalgic, powerful, reactive memories I have are triggered by the smell of charcoal barbecues,