Curious Cook: A saucy tale, part 1

Many Asian dishes get their flavours from soy sauce; one of the most iconic is the deeply-coloured and flavoured Hokkien mee. - Filepic

When I was young, many afternoons were spent helping my grandfather out at his little repair shop in Kuala Lumpur, just around the corner from our flat, in a district called Chow Kit. It was fascinating watching his precision using various tools darkened by usage and age to repair lamps, pumps, scales and various other household items long since rendered obsolete by electronics.

In the afternoons, my grandmother would bring his lunch in a tiffin carrier and invariably the meal will have rice with salted fish, sometimes steamed, often fried – to which my grandfather would add his preferred soy sauce before eating. It was one of his favourite dishes – and in case you are wondering, he lived till he was 93.