Tony Tan, a class of his own

The ease with which Tony moves through his Trentham cooking school kitchen is a dance, one where he’s nimble on his feet and effortlessly switches between partners: woks, saucepans, blenders. At one burner, beef rendang reduces to a sticky maturity. At another, flat noodles spar with garlic and lup cheong, Tony constantly moderating the flame. Eight sets of eager eyes watch as he walks through the best tamarind to buy (and, graciously, the one to avoid), how to oil roti, and why certain recipes – like his mother’s roast chicken – evoke such vivid nostalgia.

His new cookbook, Tony Tan’s Asian Cooking Class, collates 180 recipes such as the Malaysian classic char kway teow into a encloypedic compendium, including ones that outline essential skills (perfecting stock and folding dumplings, say) as well as essential cultural knowledge from across the Asian continent. It’s his hope it will serve as a dedicated cooking companion, eventually becoming covered in sauce splatters, seasoning sprays and the odd ring of red wine. “You know why? Because I know that people are really enjoying cooking from it.”

His passion is infectious, as much in Trentham as it is on the page. For those who can’t get to his school, this cookbook, he says, is a chance for him to become a “friend” in the kitchen, the massive resource containing just an nth of Tony’s breadth and depth of knowledge. “[These recipes] I hope will last the test of time. The ones that are accessible are for people who really want to sort of learn and the ones that are a little bit more challenging (such as these windmill dumplings) just mean that people will have to go out and seek techniques, find ingredients and then build that confidence.”

The book covers the origins of over 74 individual ingredients essential to Asian cooking. Lessons on spices and stir-frying are interspersed with family history, his more than four decades of restaurant experience, and his enduring commitment to making beautiful things. He hopes the cookbook will encourage people “to think outside the box, to bring a different dimension altogether” – to understand tradition and then eschew it entirely.

Back in Trentham, he dishes up Balinese duck alongside vibrant sambal matah and dynamic eggplant balado. These classes and these dishes, he tells me, help students understand the diversity, nuance and flair of Asian cuisine.“So I just go for the jugular and make sure that you learn and you develop the appreciation for that kind of teaching level,” he says. “And that’s me.”