Synopsis

Ever wonder if you can take a peek in the fridge of a celebrated chef? What secrets they hide, what they cook for their loved ones when they are at home?

Fridge and comfort is a book that explores the inner sanctum of some of the most celebrated chefs in and around Malaysia and Singapore.

We will take an extremely candid view on what they buy and store in something seemingly mundane, their fridge. It’s the key into the very core of chefs' personalities and shows what they eat and cook when freed from their chosen profession.

There's nothing better than finding great chefs' stories, recipes from different regions/around the world.

This will be the first of many chapters of chef around the world.

Here are some examples of recipes

Daniel's recipe:
Hainanese Chicken Rice Ball

500gram Broken grain rice
vegetable oil
Chicken stock
1 old ginger
4 garlic cloves
1 shallots, roughly sliced
2-3 pandan leaves

- Pan fry shallots until lightly brown with vegetable oil on a pot.
- Add it with smash garlic and smashed ginger.
- Once you smell the ginger aroma, add the broken rice and lightly fry to coat it with the oil
- Add it to the rice into the rice cooker and top it with chicken stock until a centimeter above the toil.
- Throw in the pandan leaves in a bunch. You want to bruise the leaves a bit.
- Once rice is cook, with an ice cream scoop, shape the rice in to ping pong size balls. Keep the scoop wet to prevent rice from sticking

Samantha's recipe:
Pulut Tekan

500g Glutinous rice
30 Butterfly pea flower (bunga telang)
200ml Water
250ml Coconut milk
1 tsp salt
5 Pandan leaves
Banana leaves

Method
- In a sauce pan, boil butterfly pea flowers and 200ml water. Simmer for a few minutes. When cool down, strain to extract the blue colouring.
- Wash glutinous rice. Soak 1/3 glutinous rice with the blue colouring extract. Soak remaining 2/3 of rice with water. Soak for at least 4 hours or overnight.
- The next day, drain both glutinous rice.
- Line the steaming tray with banana leaf.
- Mix coconut milk with salt. Pour half portion of coconut milk over the blue and white glutinous rice and mix well. Add in the pandan leaves. Steam over high heat for 20 minutes.
- Discard pandan leaves and then fluff the rice with a pair of chopsticks.
- Add the balance of coconut milk, mix well. Return to steamer and steam for another 20 minutes.
- Line 7x7 inch square baking pan with banana leaf and lightly grease with oil. Transfer the cooked glutinous rice to the baking pan, alternating the blue portion with white. Level the surface and press down the rice with a banana leaf and place a heavy object to ensure the rice is well pressed.
- Cool in the fridge for few hours.
- When cooled, unmould and cut into pieces to serve with kaya.

Sales arguments

• We will be profiling some of the top chef in Malaysia and Singapore
• Supporter of this book get to join a community of 650k global food enthusiast where we share recipes, places to eat and meet ups.
• There is a trend of fridge voyeurism of people wanting to learn about what is in other people's fridge with subreddit like Fridge Detective garden around 55K members
• More and more people are learning to eat better, from going to restaurant with great chefs or learning how to cook. There are many youtube channels, site and social media dedicated to this.
• The authors, Samantha and Daniel, both hope with this book, we can elevate the culinary scene in Malaysia and Singapore for more people to learn some of the faces and inspiration behind their favorite restaurants.

Similar titles

• Inside Chefs' Fridges. Europe by Adrian Moore and Carrie Solomon - Publisher: TASCHEN (February 11, 2016)
• Chefs & Company: 75 Top Chefs Share More Than 180 Recipes To Wow Last-Minute Guests by Maria Isabella - Publisher: Page Street Publishing (October 10, 2017)
• Chef's Story by Dorothy Hamilton and Patric Kuh - Publisher HarperCollins Publishers Inc (8 April 2008)

Audience

Food lover who dines out and loves to cook, they are someone who are passionate about food and the chef that cook them