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 Malaysian-born chef Zaleha Kadir Olpin cooked nasi lemak, a
beloved traditional Malaysian dish, served with chicken rendang
in the quarter-final of the BBC show "MasterChef UK", in which
contestants were asked to prepare a meal that was important to
them.
Judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace turned down the chicken
accompaniment saying the skin wasn't crispy, stirring fury on
social media and a viral debate in Malaysia, Indonesia,
Singapore and Brunei where the spicy dish is widely loved.
"Chicken rendang should be made authentic. And it is just stupid
for it to be crispy," said KF Seetoh, founder of Makansutra and
an Asian street food expert based in Singapore.
"Saying chicken rendang should be crispy is like saying that
hamburgers should be boiled."
Rendang is traditionally made with chicken or beef that is slow
cooked with Asian herbs and coconut milk.
Haikal Johari, 41, executive chef of Michelin-star restaurant
Alma by Juan Amador in Singapore, said he had never heard of
chicken rendang being crispy.
"Chicken rendang is a dish that many of us grew up with. And to
have a angmoh (Caucasian) tell us how the dish should be like is
a smack on our face," said Haikal.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak waded into the debate on
Tuesday saying no one eats crispy chicken rendang - and veteran
leader Mahathir Mohamad for once agreed with his arch rival.
A hashtag "gastrodiplomacy" was soon trending along with "rendanggate".
Corporates were not to be left out.
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In a cheeky Instagram post with a bucket of their classic fried
chicken, KFC said: "The only thing that should be crispy is our
fried chicken."
Regional ehailing service Grab offered promotions, asking users to
tweet #RendangIsNeverCrispy.
However, the jury is still out on which country owns the dish with
neighboring Indonesia already claiming it. Some suggest the first
version of rendang was in Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia, some 600
years ago.
Torode riled Malaysians by suggesting on Twitter that chicken
rendang was from Indonesia, and ending his tweet with "namaste", an
Indian greeting.
"I don't know what's wrong with these Malaysians keep saying Rendang
theirs, it's like the Koreans claiming Japanese ramen," said one
post on Twitter. Many other Indonesians were quick to agree.
Haikal from Alma said there were different versions of the dish.
"In the region and the Malay archipelago, it (rendang) is made by
different people including Singaporeans, Malaysians, Indonesians,
and even in Thailand, there is a dish called massaman, which
actually tastes really similar to the chicken rendang too," he said.
(Reporting by Fergus Jensen in JAKARTA, John Geddie and Dewey Sim in
SINGAPORE, writing by Praveen Menon, editing by Nick Macfie)
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