SINGAPORE — It is common to hear how top chefs were inspired by their mum’s cooking. It’s almost expected, seeing as how, back in the day, she would have ruled the kitchen. Even some of today’s brightest chefs find it hard not to celebrate a mother’s deep-rooted influences.

Sometimes, it is a mother’s craftiness — or in the case of mod-Singapore cuisine exponent Han Li Guang, 30, his grandmother’s — that continues to be a spark of inspiration. The banker-turned-chef described 85-year-old Lim Meng Hwa as a “modern woman of her times” — ever creative and versatile in the kitchen. He added how she still holds the family together through food, inculcating a “foodie culture” at home. “She continues our weekly Saturday dinner, where the family would come together around the table to partake in the weekly family ritual,” Han shared. “Of course, I had to forego that a few years back when I became a chef. My mother was not happy with my absence at the table, however, this love of food that my grandma has instilled in the family helped with my smooth transition from banking to running a restaurant.”

As an example of her creative influences, he pointed out how he had grown up eating a very different version of the chicken rice, one that his Hainanese grandmother concocted when she was landlady and housekeeper to a British family more than 50 years ago. “Besides poaching the chicken in the traditional way, and using the stock to cook the rice and make the chilli sauce, she created a very different sauce to go over the rice and chicken — like a French roux — by mixing flour and butter into the chicken stock, with button mushrooms,” he explained, adding that she had done this “to bridge a gap” as the British family did not take to the original version as well. “The sauce is delicious, and makes the chicken breast even more succulent and moist.”

His ode to this can be found in his latest interpretation of the chicken rice. In line with his playful approach to cooking, his version does not contain chicken meat or rice, yet still manages to deliver an authentic expression of the dish’s flavour in one bite.

“Growing up eating both local and Western food, and often a mix of both from my grandma’s kitchen allowed me to develop a creative mind about food, and open my eyes to the endless possibilities to work with ingredients, flavours and pairings,” Han mused. “When I recently launched the chicken rice on the menu, I naturally turned to her for her traditional recipes for the chilli and ginger sauce. She still makes this sauce on a regular basis at home (with the help of the helper), and during the family dinners on Saturday, she would give a jar to everyone to bring home.”

TRADITION NEVER GETS OLD

For Singapore-based chef Marco Guccio, 31, of contemporary Italian restaurant Zafferano, it was a lesson in the importance of “creating great food simply” that he had gleaned from his time in the kitchen cooking with his grandmother Clelia Artusa, 80, and mother Marina Costanzo, 57, since the age of seven.

He described their style of cooking as elegant in its simplicity, expounding on how they kept their focus on the best ingredients the season had to offer. “When creating a new dish with a new concept, I would think back to what my mum and grandmother would do and how they would cook it,” he said, adding that one of the lessons he learned and that he continues to apply in his cooking is the fact that there are no short cuts to cooking good food. Which is why he continues to make his fettucine and ravioli from scratch, by hand, at the restaurant, where he also serves two of his grandmother’s dishes. There’s a Mediterranean seabass which is prepared with white clams guazzetto and fresh tomatoes; and a dish of poached then pan-seared Sardinian octopus, prepared with salmoriglio (a local condiment made with lemon juice, olive oil, minced garlic, chopped oregano and parsley) and served with seasonal vegetables. “Our family would go to the south of Italy for our yearly summer vacation and (they are some of) my best memories growing up. My mother and grandmother would buy the freshest catch from the fishermen to make these two dishes for the family.”

He is also introducing a new pasta dish this Mother’s Day, made with fileja (screw-shaped, hand-rolled pasta) in a simple calabrese sauce, made with tomatoes, garlic and fresh basil.

“It is a pasta that my family will always prepare together on the first and last dinner of my holiday to Milan. It is a recipe that has been passed down for generations from before my grandmother, and now to me,” Guccio said. Making the pasta, he continued, is a ritual that involves the entire family, where every member has a role to play. Guccio’s grandmother would measure the flour using just the palm of her hands to make the dough, and he would shape the pasta with a dry wheat stick. Grandpa would be in charge of ensuring the correct shape of the pasta, while mama Guccio would make the fresh tomato sauce.

“My grandmother and mother taught me how to cook from the heart,” he proudly declared. “They also taught me the importance of creating great food simply – which is very relevant now, in a time when we have the tendency to complicate things.” DON MENDOZA