Please Malay have some more?

When I was about 15, my mum's best friend from Malaysia came to stay with us while she completed a nursing course. She was only with us for about a year, but she ended up changing the way that I cooked and saw food. She loved cooking and she loved fresh ingredients and eating freshly prepared food. I simply loved her. The aromas that would fill the kitchen while she busied herself with mounting the spices into a hot pot were electric. Malaysian food to this day is one of my favourite kinds of cuisines as it draws influence from its Tamil, Chinese, Thai and native Malay inhabitants. The result? Flavour on an epic scale.

Here's a recipe I remember my aunt cooking one lazy sunday- Ginger chicken.

Now, the way it was originally prepared was thinly slicing breast pieces of chicken, but something about eating the meat off the bone really awakens my carnivorous side and frankly love those dark pieces of the chicken! Fry up some onions, add as much ginger as you can possibly stand, lashings of oyster sauce and a touch of dark soya sauce and hey presto, you're done!

Get some rice on the boil, crack out a few slices of bread or just plate up with some salad, and you'll soon see what I mean about Malaysian food!