Adam Liaw Instagram – Yesterday I posted a picture of rendang, but I think it’s important to give those kinds of dishes context. I almost never make rendang on its own. It’s usually a celebratory food so there are plenty of other dishes that go around it like this plate of nasi kandar (or banana leaf). To make a meal like that takes a bit of balancing. Rendang the way I make it is rich, heavy, a little spicy (though not overly so) and kind of bittersweet in its taste profile. It would be overwhelming to have a meal of just that, so balance that I will always make something sweet and sour, in this case pickled Xinjiang chillies. There’s also a sour wild barramundi and okra curry. A mild dish of cabbage fried with turmeric and mustard seeds, a strongly savoury and fragrant kangkung belacan and there was also some fried chicken wings, and deep fried slices of bitter gourd and eggplant for both the texture and bitterness (not pictured). Each of these dishes brings something to the overall meal that combines for something much greater than each individual part. 
 It doesn’t get the same lens passed over it, but I think preparing a meal like this is as sophisticated an intricate as Japanese kaiseki or formal Chinese banqueting. In kaiseki the “rules” combine ingredients from the mountains, seas and forests cooked in different styles from steamed to fried to grilled. Chinese banqueting will follow mild dishes with stronger ones, steamed with fried etc. in the pursuit of balance. It’s all the same process of balancing that goes into preparing a good meal. I really think I should write a book about it because it’s something prevalent in almost all Asian cuisines, but not often discussed when those cuisines make it to the West.