Rice: Recipes from Malaysia and Her Neighbours

For so many people, rice is uniquely comforting. Its position at the heart of so many South East Asian meals makes it unique in people’s associations with home and heritage.

Chef Ping Coombes describes rice as the sun around which all other dishes orbit in Malaysian cuisine. For hordes of us around the world, it’s synonymous with bowl food of the most comforting kind and is therefore a staple at the dinner table. It can be its own hero dish, or it can accompany myriad others. It absorbs flavours, is filling and can be savoury or sweet. It’s truly a unique ingredient with huge cultural significance.

Ping opens up a world of rice in this beautiful homage, full of both recipes and insights: to wash or not to wash rice; ways to cook rice; when rice is not rice (rice cakes and rolls!); how to elevate your rice-eating experience. And 100 recipes that will transform the way you cook and eat rice.

Ping Coombes stunned the MasterChef judges with food inspired by her Malaysian heritage when she won the competition in 2014. She took the famous trophy home again, winning BBC MasterChef Champion of Champions in 2022 and becoming the first double MasterChef Champion. She was named as one of Tatler Asia’s Most Influential People in 2022. Growing up in Ipoh, Malaysia surrounded by amazing food, Ping was inspired by her mother’s cooking. Now living in the UK and travelling globally, she draws inspiration from her heritage but delivers her food with modern twists and ingredients found locally. Her Malaysian recipes are frequently featured in titles including delicious, Good Food and Waitrose Weekend, and she has given talks on TED and The World Economic Forum. Ping is regular judge on MasterChef UK and a popular guest on ITV’s This Morning and Sunday Brunch. Her first book MALAYSIA topped the Amazon bestseller list. Ping regularly hosts supper clubs and events across the country, including her hometown of Bath at venues including Bertinet Kitchen, as well as masterclasses at her Ping at Home Kitchen, and Divertimenti Cookery School. She offers a range of chilled ready meals for home delivery or collection locally to her near Bath.