She has named her book A Splash of Soy in honour of soy sauce, a bottle of which can be found in most kitchen cupboards, whose simplicity and usefulness can transform the complexity of flavour, colour and aroma of a meal with just a splash.
"Asian food has it all: a contrast of flavour, temperature and texture, straightforward dishes you can eat straight from the wok in socks and pyjamas, as well as celebratory meals your friends will talk about for months after."
Her recipes are what she cooks for her family every day and what she loves to eat.
"There is no greater joy than watching my son gobble down food dipped in my peanut sauce or gleefully nod his head as he messily slurps the noodles of my pad Thai."
The way she cooked changed most obviously when her son Jonah was born and when time became a precious commodity.
"The way I cook is now different every time I step into the kitchen, depending on work, Jonah, how long I’ve slept and what ingredients I have in my fridge and store cupboard."
The need to feed her family quickly appeals to her calling in life as a chef and food writer.
"I now always consider factors like speed and convenience when creating recipes, always with minimal mess, minimal stress and minimal thinking in mind."
Of Chinese-Indonesian heritage, Lee grew up in Australia eating a diverse array of cooking influenced by east and southeastern Asian communities.
So her cooking reflects that Asian-Australian upbringing.
"My hybrid culture and identity shaped my way of seeing, cooking and eating.
"Adapting traditional Asian dishes and flavours with playful interpretations is commonplace in Australia, where different food cultures have mixed and influenced each other since the nation’s beginnings."
"It is this joyful innovation and adulteration — the endless combinations created by fusion cooking and eating — that has informed my style of recipe writing today."
Each recipe is rooted in a place she has visited, a dish she has learned or had a family connection to or which branches out from relationships with other cooks and chefs.
The savoury recipes take between 10 and 45 minutes to prepare, cook and serve while the sweet dishes are easy on the preparation allowing the cook to sit back and relax.
"I’ve kept the ingredient lists as short as possible without diluting the flavour, using ingredients you find at most supermarkets."
Lee’s book starts off with a section on brunches — "in Australia we really know how to brunch" — and the Saturday wander for coffee and avocado on toast has become a ritual.
The recipes are Asian-Western breakfast hybrids such as kimchi pancakes with sriracha bacon or lemon grass pork burgers with fried egg.
As Lee is a salad person, a chapter on big salads — think gado-gado — was important.
"Do not underestimate a salad, friends.
"In Asia, they’re big. Huge."
The section called Sticky, Grilled and Glazed includes a recipe for lucky beef based on a bavette steak sandwich she and friend Fiona Hannah created, named by The Guardian as one of their best sandwiches.
The book
This is an edited extract from A Splash of Soy by Lara Lee, published by Bloomsbury, RRP $49.99
Sambal prawns with coconut and cashews
In this Indonesian-inspired recipe, you need only a handful of kitchen staples to create a spectacular dish bursting with warmth and salty sweetness. Chillis and garlic form the sambal base, fried in oil until the chilli begins to caramelise and wrinkle. Taking a cue from the Indonesian vegetable dish sambal goreng buncis udang (fried sambal with beans and prawns), the green beans come to life, blistering in the pan and bathing in the rich, intensely flavoured sauce. This dish sits on the crunchier end of the green bean spectrum: they’re cooked to a vibrant green, with just enough crunch to stimulate the appetite. The textures are wonderful, thanks to the flaky coconut and snappy cashews, but it’s the combination of kecap manis and gentle burn of the chilli that has my fork scraping the plate for more. Good-quality frozen prawns are one of the greatest emergency freezer-raid ingredients, bringing their meaty, juicy flavour and distinctive smell of the sea to any dish, which is why I always keep a stash in my freezer.
Serves 4
Prep & cooking time 25 minutes
Ingredients
25g desiccated coconut
Flavourless cooking oil (such as sunflower or grapeseed) or coconut oil
20 medium raw prawns, peeled, tails on, defrosted if frozen
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed, or 2 tsp garlic paste
4 long red chillies, deseeded and finely diced
200g green beans, trimmed and cut into 5cm lengths diagonally
1 Tbsp kecap manis
½ tsp coconut sugar or brown sugar
Large pinch of fine sea salt
60g roasted salted cashews
Method
Toast the coconut in a wok or large frying pan over a medium heat for about 2 minutes, shaking the pan frequently, until golden. Transfer the coconut to a plate.
Wipe out the pan and heat 1 Tbsp oil. Add the prawns in a single layer and cook for 1-2 minutes each side, or until they are just cooked through. Remove and set aside on a plate lined with kitchen paper.
Heat another tablespoon of oil in the wok or pan, still over a medium heat. Add the garlic and chillies and cook, stirring continuously, for 3-4 minutes, until the chillies have softened and are starting to wrinkle.
Add the green beans along with 1 Tbsp water, the kecap manis, sugar and salt. Cook for another 3 minutes or so, stirring regularly, until the green beans are just cooked through with a crunchy bite.
Stir in most of the toasted coconut and cashews, reserving a little of each for garnish, and return the prawns to the pan. Toss everything together. Transfer to a serving plate and sprinkle with the remaining coconut and cashews.
Make it vegan
Omit the prawns and cook the rest of the recipe just as is for a tasty side dish, or swap the prawns for slices of tempeh or marinated firm tofu, patted dry and pan-fried until golden.
Lemongrass pork burgers with fried egg and sriracha
Pungent fish sauce and fragrant lemongrass bring just the right amount of flavour funk to these incredible lemongrass pork burgers. Don’t be deterred if you’re not a fan of fish sauce: it mellows and brings forth a pleasurable umami note that sings as the patties caramelise in the pan. Fresh tender herbs and a quick pickle complete the burger, and if you add a fried egg on top, you head into sublime territory. When I first served these burgers to my family, the first bite resulted in awe-struck looks from the surrounding faces, such was its deliciousness. You can also turn the patties into earth-shatteringly good meatballs by cooking 35g balls for 5–6 minutes on a high heat.
Makes 4 patties
Prep & cooking time 45 minutes
Pork patties
500g pork mince
1 lemongrass stalk, woody outer layers removed, finely chopped, or 1 tbsp lemongrass paste
4 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed, or 4 tsp garlic paste
Pinch of fine sea salt
1 Tbsp dark soy sauce
½ small onion or 1 medium shallot (60g), peeled and finely chopped
1 egg, beaten
10g fresh ginger, peeled and grated, or 2 tsp ginger paste
2½ tsp fish sauce
2½ tsp caster sugar
¼ tsp ground white pepper
½ long red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
2 Tbsp flavourless oil (such as sunflower or grapeseed) or coconut oil
To serve
1 × quick cucumber, garlic and chilli pickle recipe (page 203 of book)
4 brioche buns or hamburger buns, halved
2 eggs
Sriracha, to taste
tender lettuce leaves, such as cos or baby gem
1 tomato, thinly sliced
½ long red chilli, thinly sliced, deseeded if you prefer less heat (optional)
Crispy fried shallots (optional; shop-bought are fine)
Handful of tender herbs, such as coriander leaves, Thai basil leaves or mint leaves
4 Tbsp Kewpie or ordinary mayonnaise
Bamboo skewers or cocktail sticks
Make the quick cucumber, garlic and chilli pickle and set aside. Combine the ingredients for the pork patties, except the oil, in a large bowl and mix well with your hands for 1-2 minutes, or until the liquid has been fully absorbed. Dampen your hands and divide the mince into 4 patties, about 2-3cm thick; they should be the same size as the burger buns.
Toast the burger buns, cut-side down, in a large non-stick frying pan on a medium heat for 1-2 minutes until golden, then set aside.
Heat the oil in the pan on a medium heat. Add the patties, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook for about 7 minutes on each side, or until browned, caramelised and cooked through. Remove from the heat and set aside. Fry the eggs to your liking.
Drain the pickle, then assemble the burgers. Squeeze a generous amount of sriracha on the bottom of each bun. Lay the lettuce on top, then a burger, tomato, fried egg, some pickle, chilli, fried shallots (if using) and herbs.
Spread 1 Tbsp mayonnaise on the top half of each bun and place on top. Pierce each burger through the centre with a skewer (trimmed if necessary) or cocktail stick to hold it together. Serve immediately, with any remaining pickle on the side.
Miso and gochujang butter roast chicken
Miso and gochujang bring all the sweet-spicy-umami richness you need to this buttery roasted chicken dish, their distinctive flavour profiles contributing an underlying funk to this (in my opinion) perfect marinade. The beauty of this recipe is it requires no marinating time, owing to the deep intensity of flavour that comes from the gochujang, a crimson, fermented Korean chilli paste made from glutinous rice, fermented soybeans, salt and chilli flakes. Miso adds a salty, tangy, savoury depth. It’s the leftover pan juices at the end of cooking that I love most. Mixed with a little extra gochujang and honey to serve, the pan juices are a blissful blend of rendered chicken fat and the buttery richness of the spicy-sweet marinade, becoming an irresistible gravy I like to drizzle over the chicken and toss with steamed rice. The unmarinated chicken skin begins to crisp up during the first half of cooking, so don’t brush the butter on the skin until the halfway point, or the sugars in the honey and gochujang will likely burn. Halfway through, once lacquered with the buttery glaze, the chicken caramelises beautifully. Serve with steamed white rice.
Serves 4
Prep & cooking time 45 minutes
Ingredients
60g unsalted butter, softened
80g white miso paste
2 Tbsp gochujang paste
1 garlic clove, peeled and crushed, or 1 tsp garlic paste
1 tsp chilli flakes
1 Tbsp rice wine vinegar or cider vinegar
1 Tbsp honey, plus ½ tsp for the gravy
Fine sea salt, to taste
8 chicken thighs or 4 whole chicken legs, skin on and bone in
2 lemons, cut into wedges
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.
Make the marinade by mixing the softened butter, miso, 1 Tbsp of the gochujang, garlic, chilli flakes, vinegar and 1 Tbsp honey together in a bowl with a pinch of salt.
Line a large baking tray with foil. Place the chicken pieces on the tray skin-side down, then season with salt.
Rub half the marinade into the flesh side only (not the skin), ensuring all of the flesh is well covered.
Turn the chicken pieces over, skin-side up, and season generously with salt.
Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and brush the remaining marinade on to the skin.
Return to the oven and bake for a further 15–20 minutes, or until the skin is browned and the chicken is cooked through (if using a thermometer, the thickest part of the chicken will have an internal temperature of at least 75°C).
If the skin is starting to char (check it from time to time), cover the chicken with foil until cooked through.
To finish, change the oven setting to grill on the highest heat. Grill the chicken, uncovered, under the grill for 2-3 minutes, or until the skin has browned.
Transfer the chicken to a serving platter. Pour the pan juices into a bowl and mix with 1 Tbsp gochujang and ½ tsp honey. Transfer the sauce to a gravy jug.
Drizzle some of the gravy over the chicken, then squeeze with lemon juice and serve with extra lemon wedges and the sauce on the side.
