thank you Minnesota has millions of families each with distinct stories we've invited three Cooks to share their cultural culinary Journeys with us from family recipes to Brand New Creations the cooks will then show off their skills flavors and Ingenuity competing for the crown to be named the winner the food is delicious and there's room for everyone at our table welcome to the great Minnesota recipe tonight on the great Minnesota recipe when I decided to pick Minnesota to move honestly what's the weather I was I know here comes the flavor bomb here the kitchen is my playground I I love playing in the kitchens for me it's it's the best place in the house this is my way to connect to my history my mom memories my grandma it's it's all based on cooking so we're gonna sit down and eat that's kind of the Malaysian thing too it's like you'll never leave an empty stomach you know we will always feed you funding for the great Minnesota recipe is provided in part by Doherty appliance sales and service Goat Hill Marketplace the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund and viewers like you thank you hi I'm Santi munandi daesh I was born and raised in Malaysia currently I'm in Minneapolis Minnesota I work as a consumer appeals advisor by day but cooking is my passion I've been cooking for a long time probably since I was four years old my very first memory was being in the kitchen with my mom she was a stay-at-home mom and she is an amazing amazing chef yeah [Music] welcome Santi hi Santi hi we're so excited to get to know you more and um okay Malaysia I want to know tell me about your childhood and how that influenced your cooking oh my gosh it's Malaysia is an amazing place to grow up as a kid um it's it's essential as a Melting Pot now it started as a spice trade back in the day and so all these it was it's strategically located it's very Central in Southeast Asia so we had I said we had but there are like Merchants you know from India from China from Portuguese and all these Merchants just met in Malaysia and started trading spice so all these influences from all these countries kind of stayed and we became just this food Haven and growing up I was exposed to all these beautiful bold flavors I kind of took it for granted as a kid I guess because it's just spoiled with all these flavors my mom was an amazing cook so is my grandma and that's kind of how my love of food started just I mean how can you not you know you're born and raised in a beautiful country with you know just different flavors from different ethnicities what are we making today and how can we help oh ladies today we're gonna make one of my favorites um this is my mom's recipe it's mama's chicken sambal one of the my favorite dishes growing up also a family favorite so that's what we're gonna do today and for you my Sous chefs you guys get the fun job you guys get to peel the onions the garlic Ginger what do you need first let's get the roasting started so we can do the shallots garlic ginger all right and I'm gonna I'll do the ginger and I cut up this chicken and the chicken together with the potatoes we are going to marinate it now this is something you can do ahead of time with the marination the longer it marinates the better and would it you know do you normally dose with chicken thigh chicken breast I like using chicken thighs personally it just holds the flavor the breasts meat tends to dry out growing up my mom used the whole chicken so that that was no such thing as boneless at our house growing up you know and honestly if if you can that's the best way because the bones really do add a lot of flavor yes and we don't we use every part of the chicken it's like you don't waste and that's one of the Malaysian mentality we use every part of everything so chickens cut up and then what I'm going to do I'm just going to marinate this with turmeric and chili powder now there is going to be chili in our sambal paste component as well so you don't want to go too crazy you don't want to go too crazy like I said you know you can always add flavors you can extract it and then once Shannon wants you peel the potatoes and dice it up we can throw that in here as well okay now I've got this pen heating up there's no oil in it what we're doing for this first part we just want to roast our aromatics just going to roast until it has that nice Char to it and then we're going to make the sambal paste from this oh you're making your tomatoes from scratch awesome yes no cheating here it smells so good the minute you you check out those spices right I'm gonna toss in the shallots are you using all the garlic something let's do about four Ginger I'm gonna toss this around just so it has a Char on each side is there a minimum time you need um that to kind of be marinated to marinate yeah the longer you marinate the better obviously you can do you can even do this overnight just let it sit and let's marinate do you always use red onions or do you switch it up sometimes I like using a combination of both I do like using red onions when it comes to cooking Malaysian dishes yeah do you have people help you in the kitchen Santi no unfortunately you know when my boys were younger they're teenagers now so they think they lost interest but when they were young they were always helping in the kitchen in fact I used to sit them on the counter they watch me you know chop things up and then they would help me you know stir and very first thing I thought them is the word hot right you gotta if you're gonna be in the kitchen you gotta respect the heat respect the Sharp Tools around you you're playing but at the same time no mess around [Music] for the kitchen fairy it's a catering company and um kind of a Whimsical name the kitchen Ferry because you know like I said the kitchen is my playground and I do make magic happen instead of fairy dust I have uh spice dust throw it in my food sprinkle here so go there and also love um it kind of came about um when my when I lost both my parents I lost my dad first which I couldn't um I couldn't make it home for his to see him to say goodbye I was I almost made it I was you know waiting for my Transit flights and then I got the call it's like the worst the worst thing to do you know to be at a place in the airport with nobody and then you get the call you know that dad passed away it was hard um but at the same time I got to spend time with Mom and cook with her you know um but who knew that was going to be the last time because I lost mom five months later and it's kind of an irony because my first memory of her was you know being in the kitchen cooking with her right and then my last memory of her was being in the kitchen cooking with her as well um and and still learning um and so that was so that was hard at one point I kind of just didn't want to cook I kind of almost gave up you know because it was hard because every time I'm in that kitchen the memories come you know and and I I hated it I hated crying all the time I hated um cooking but then one day I thought no this is not what Mom and Dad want I'm like you know what no I want to turn this into something positive and and that's kind of how I started the kitchen fairy you know I love cooking I love sharing my meals with everyone and I wanted other people I want other people to cook and feel that same way you know because cooking is therapy for me this part the samba part the secret weapon is blachen now would you like to smell this fabulous Aroma we've been warned it's very pungent if you're not used to if you don't if you're not used to grow with those smell flavors growing up yeah definite fit yeah no it's it's it has flavor yes it's packed it's Umami a little goes a long way all you need is like half an inch um usually when I'm making sambal I'm doing this outside um you know my neighbor smells something funky I'm like hey I don't know what are you talking about what are you talking about like sharing the love yeah exactly but if you can't find selacha and you don't really want to experiment with it you can always replace it with the next best thing fish sauce right so I'm actually going to do fish sauce but I've also made my homemade sambal that I use black chat with so we can use a little bit of both here today so after you're done roasting I'm gonna do about a teaspoon of fish sauce that that should do the trick so to this we're going to add dried pepper about one and a half my mom would do probably 10 of those fresh wow chili all right all this goodness goes in here okay so you have the shallots the peppers the ginger okay and then the Tomatoes Tomatoes Latin or fish sauce it's pretty isn't it a beautiful color yeah oh my gosh all that yeah smells delicious this is done we're gonna just start frying our chicken this is probably the most time consuming part okay and you want to make sure to do it in small batches so you don't overcrowd the pan and you're frying chicken so would you say this was a childhood Staple in your house it is my mom would usually this is a weekend Saturday afternoon lunch because it takes a while to make it as different components to it so it's usually a very special like lunch Saturday afternoon lunch to look forward to this is my pantry this is my Malaysian Pantry all my Malaysian spices I've got cardamom in here and then I've got my star anise in here this is turmeric I always have turmeric never run out of that this is chili powder Indian chili powder which is hot and your regular chili powder got tamarind here is this I label this mom's rosin powder this is her homemade Rasam powder that she made the last time I saw her and so this is uh this is very special um so I'm I'm clearly I'm probably gonna keep this for a long long time and use it you know very sparingly so she's she's here with me this is my way to connect to my history my mom and where's my grandma it's it's all based on cooking because my grandma and I we had a language barrier my grandma spoke Tamil which I was really awful at she would speak some Malay so our main communication was through okay sure all right so this is nice and brown so as you can see the turmeric gives it that nice yeah this is where you would come running and snow the frying and the yeah exactly and I love I love the stirring part like that was my job mum cut and I'd be the one stirring stirring the pot and then our next I like how you're really explaining how to not do it all all at once right the batches to really take care of the chicken cooked very easily yes did you crop the pot then what happens is you're steaming the chicken so you're not gonna get that crunch that would be tempting to put it all in the pan one time it didn't seem like a lot when you were preparing it right this is where patients come in hand me this is where you Channel Bob Ross and be calm like don't rush can't rush perfection so you grew up in Malaysia but you're here in Minnesota now can you talk about that Journey as from both your personal journey and your um culinary Journey when I decided to pick Minnesota to move it was honestly it was the weather I was so tired of the hot human tropical weather all year round in Malaysia I wanted snow I wanted Four Seasons I want to experience it so when I was doing my electives we had a sister School connecting with Saint Cloud State and so I thought oh and I did my research I'm like oh Minnesota they have winter how awesome so my you know my parents said okay I'm gonna go to Minnesota and that's what I did packed my bags didn't know anybody here 21 years old okay you know I was young I wanted to explore the world I never left Malaysia up to that point moved to January 21st 2000. it was amazing it was snowing [Laughter] and then maybe three days later I'm like okay I'm done all right when's the next season coming and yeah six months later what 20 something years later here I am was it hard to find ingredients that you were used to cooking with actually that's kind of what got me going into cooking when I was in Malaysia it was really cheap you know you had street food Hawker food stalls and you know really you didn't really need to cook when I moved to Minnesota it was the opposite because there was nothing at insane Cloud you had maybe an Asian store that's when I started really being creative you know I'd call my mom that wasn't you know smartphone at that point I had to use a phone card so you dialed my mom and then she would kind of walk me through okay this is how you make your Curry and you need all the you know [ -_-_ ] lists like all this ingredient it Mustard Seed in it cinnamon stick you know currently living like Ma I don't have all that that was at point one point where when I went home to visit I my suitcase would be filled with spices you know I would bring all my spices from home to Minnesota as I moved to Minneapolis and Through the Years you know I actually you can find a lot of ingredients now these days so that that help it's good to know that just a little bit of that long john really makes the flavor makes a big difference doesn't it yes it's worth the snow all right here comes the flavor bomb here it smells so incredible and then so from here we're going to add the chicken potatoes so now everything goes in and all of that flavor yes at this point you just want to put it just get all the ingredients all nicely coated with that sambal and this is where you have the option you can just let it cook for about 25-30 minutes and leave it dry or you add water and just let it simmer the longer it simmers the better my kids they like burgers sliders you know a little bit more American food that way but most of the time at home it's Malaysian food and the reason why I cook more Malaysian at home is because it teaches them that side of their culture you know where I grew up it teaches food is like a tool to teach them about the Malaysian culture right so if they if they're eating you know like a Fritter I would say oh you know your grandma used to make this and sell it at the market you know because and it's it's kind of like things that they don't think about like what you know like Grandma used to sell us at the market what um so it's it's fun it's food food is like a big deal at home so we've got water coconut milk turmeric to the flower and just a pinch of salt to taste and then we are going to whisk this in blend it all together and the consistency of this crepe we want it slightly more liquid than a pancake batter okay okay I'm going to add a little bit more turmeric to this just there you go I want it nice and yellow this batter is gonna go into our Roti Jala dispenser I use a cast iron pan but any flat pan works if you're using a regular pan just kind of spray some oil so it doesn't stick and then once this pan is hot you're going to just go in a circle once it Cooks you just wanna fold it so this is supposed to imitate a fishing net going back to the history of Malaysia because we're surrounded by see we had fishing villages the women would get inspired by their husbands fishermen why don't we make a crepe that looks like a fishing net so hence you get the Roti Jala I grew up kind of like an only child because my brothers were older than me so I love having family and then that's that my husband does too you know my husband grew up in a big family he had like seven siblings so it's for me that's the whole purpose of having a home you know just having people over sharing meals eating together I mean just just filling the home with laughter and you know being loud I mean I love that so that's why we always have family over that's kind of the Malaysian thing too it's like um people just show up anytime that's kind of how my parents were you'll never leave an empty stomach you know we will always feed you even if you don't want to nope you still feed you well thanks for coming you guys wow Santi thank you for sharing this like family dish yes yes beautiful put some chicken some ball here all right ladies here comes the best part taste testing time I'm very excited I am too I do want to try to eat it with my hands but do you have any recommendations just use the crepe and scoop it up okay okay it's beautiful there's heat saute but it's not uncomfortable well on the background oh yeah oh it's coming through though it's really good though it's really savory I wanted to taste the chicken before I tasted the whole thing together just to see how that marinade tastes and yeah it's there the Roti is lighter than I thought it's very fluffy but you know when we pan fried it I thought it would be like crispy do some people make it really crispy at times or is it is it meant to be more fluffy meant to be a little bit more fluffy okay yeah it is it feels like a soft um like eggs almost right like scrambled eggs in that that consistency yeah thank you so much this is absolutely delicious pleasure thank you next time on the great Minnesota recipe growing up I have a great family on my dad's side we're Lebanese and Native and on my mom's side we're German I've been on a kind of a mission to reclaim our culture and relearn our ways so this is a very uh culturally thought out dish so that's what it's all about you know bringing more knowledge education to our communities so they can better nourish themselves and be healthy live happy and good lives funding for the great Minnesota recipe is provided in part by Doherty applying Sales and Service Goat Hill Marketplace the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund and viewers like you thank you [Music]