My Chicken Rendang Nasi Lemak - not crispy

Good morning everybody! It's Wednesday and I have loads of recipe posts in the backlog just waiting to make their way out into the world... but they're on hold for the moment because I couldn't not talk about Crispy Rendang.

Two Masterchef UK judges almost caused an international incident when they criticised a Malaysian-born contestant's chicken rendang for not being "crispy".

So: last week, Masterchef UK contestant Zaleha Kadir Olpin was eliminated from the competition after the judges, John Torode and Gregg Wallace, deemed her chicken rendang not up to scratch. Some of their comments were reasonable. John, who has travelled extensively throughout Malaysia and his filmed cookery programs there, stated: "It hasn't had enough time to cook down and become lovely and soft and fall apart. Instead the chicken itself is just tough and it's not really flavoursome." Harsh but fair.

However, it was Gregg's clanger of a comment that caught the collective ire of my people: "the chicken skin isn't crispy, it can't be eaten".

I'm sorry... WHUT?!

Zaleha's expression is EVERYTHING (Source: YouTube)

For those who don't know, rendang is an incredibly flavourful slow-cooked dry curry, beloved throughout Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei. (I believe it originated in West Sumatra ages ago, and has since become a national dish in all four countries). It ain't ever going to be crispy. If your chicken is crispy, then what you have is not a rendang.

Malaysians tend to be pretty chilled as a people, but when it comes to food, we do not mess around. We literally have no chill. Twitter and Facebook basically blew up with extremely impassioned comments from Malaysians. We love our food, we know our food, we are proud of our food. Gregg Wallace, who is supposedly knowledgable enough to be a judge on an international cooking program, demonstrated a lack of understanding of our cuisine and this would not stand! People definitely interpreted the exchange as an example of whitesplaining or having neo-colonialist undertones. The main thing that got me was that I hated the idea that a Malaysian contestant worked so hard to present a dish that was meaningful to her (and meaningful to us), only to have a judge with far less knowledge criticise it for a completely erroneous reason. (You can watch the full video here).

There have been lots of hilarious tweets and memes floating around, but this one in particular really tickled me.

Source: @Cookiemonstaly

Gregg seems to have remained silent on Twitter. But John, bless him, doubled down with this culturally insensitive tweet.

Oh John... Source: @JohnTorode1

My response on twitter basically said all I have to say about this.

Source: @SarahCooks

I am not super active on Twitter (unless you count my constant re-tweeting Simpsons Quote of the Day), but this little tweet of mine went nuts. People really cared about Crispy Rendang. And it wasn't just Malaysians! Indonesians, Bruneians, Singaporeans too - basically, all the major rendang countries, uniting!

Even Prime Minister Najib and ex-Prime Minister Mahathir got in on it. See? I told you food is important to us! I don't think Mahathir or Najib agree on much, but Crispy Rendang is something we can all get behind.

Ooh, feel the crispy burn Source: @chedetofficial

"Where do people eat "crispy" chicken rendang?" Source: @NajibRazak

Well done to Victoria Treadell, British High Commissioner to Malaysia, for keeping her cool and explaining the sitch. Also shout-out for the extensive use of #hashtags.

Source: @VickiTreadell

My chicken rendang