My Mother’s Roast Chicken by Tony Tan

from Tony Tan’s Asian Cooking Class

Asking a writer and cook to choose a recipe can sometimes feel like asking them to name a favourite song, book or film. There’s an initial agonising over which one will be best, of what the choice will say to others about them, and a thought of which one speaks to what they are trying to say with their work. No such deliberation with Tony Tan, who in our recent interview, immediately went to this recipe. I think you can see why.

My Mother’s Roast Chicken

There’s a story behind this family favourite. Until we had our own restaurant, my mum worked as a cook for the British during the colonial period in Malaysia. She learnt to cook many things, including trifle, bread-and-butter pudding, cakes and this not-so-English roast chicken. I don’t know when she added soy sauce to this dish, but I think it gives it a distinctive Chinese flair. In fact, there’s a whole genre of this style of cooking. If you’re ever in Kuala Lumpur, Hainanese cooks still offer cross-cultural dishes at the Coliseum Café. In Hong Kong, it’s called see yauh sai chan, meaning ‘soy sauce Western’. I guess the process of cooks experimenting with flavours just never stops. Please try it. I know very well how delicious and comforting it is.