Award-winning chef Lilian Hiw bringing the flavours of Asia to Suffolk
Lilian Hiw still recalls the last words she spoke to her beloved grandmother. “Don’t worry Grandma,” she said. “I’ll look after your kitchen for you.”
In the tiny flat the family shared in Singapore the kitchen had always been her grandmother’s domain – and while she was preparing her delicious meals it was strictly out of bounds to children.
Sadly the woman Lilan credits with inspiring her lifelong love of food died soon after being taken to hospital.
“She was a fantastic cook. I think my love of food was sparked by her. After I left school I told my parents I’m not following in my older sister’s footsteps and going to university. I want to go to catering school,” she says.
A few decades later Lilian, now settled in Suffolk, is one of the UK’s most sought-after private chefs.
She also gives lessons, bringing together her passion for the bold and fragrant flavours of her heritage with her determination to demystify Asian cooking and pass on her skills.
“I just love cooking and feeding people,” says Lilian who has been Private Chef of the Year in the London and South East Prestige Awards for the past two years.
She now runs her business, Lilian’s Kitchen, from the home in Culford she shares with her husband Jon Robinson and their 17 year-old son Daniel.
Growing up in Singapore, with its diverse population, opened her eyes at an early age to an exotic international food culture. She also helped her parents who ran a stall that sold noodles - still her favourite food.
In their home the importance of hospitality was instilled by her mother and grandmother.
“They would say if you have a visitor - even if it’s just your neighbour from next door - you offer them something, even if it’s only a glass of water.”
At catering school she learned all aspects of hospitality management including classic cookery from experts from Switzerland.
Her classical training taught her Western-style staples like making roux and proper stock.
In every area there was meticulous attention to detail. The head housekeeper would put on white gloves to check for dust on surfaces ... and also for dirt under the rim of the toilets.
Students were sent out to five star hotels on attachments, and once qualified she taught at the school for three years. “They trained us and then we trained the next people,” she explains.
Then came a job at one of the world’s most iconic hotels - Raffles. She was head hunted to be catering manager of Singapore’s most renowned venue when it was in the process of a major restoration.
“It was so famous but it was getting tired. We put an appeal in the papers to find out if anyone had anything like letters, cards, or pictures about how it used to be, and everything was restored to its former glory.”
Raffles’ long bar is where the celebrated cocktail Singapore Sling was invented around 1915 by barman Ngiam Tong Boon in the days when the country was under British rule.
He created it to allow the English ladies to let their hair down alongside their husbands without appearing to overindulge in alcohol in public.
“He would tell them to order a ‘fruit punch’ instead and it would be a Singapore Sling,” says Lilian.
And the gin-based cocktail truly did pack a punch, with ingredients including Benedictine, Cointreau, cherry brandy, pineapple juice and angostura bitters.
The bar is also renowned for serving monkey nuts and letting customers throw the shells on the floor.
Lilian says in Singapore there was a 1,000 dollar fine for littering, but the food and beverage manager said ‘my hotel, my rules’ and encouraged people to carry on the tradition.
She stayed at Raffles for three years, then met her first husband, came to England and settled in Bury where she got a job at West Suffolk College lecturing in the hospitality department.
When her marriage split up she returned to Singapore, where her skills were soon in demand. She was introduced to an entrepreneur who asked her to help him set up the first fusion restaurant in the country, blending Asian and Western traditions.
“I said I’m just back on holiday. He said even if you only stay one day ... three years later I was still there.”
Lilan became vice president of his restaurant chain, Tung Lok. “They were exciting times growing the group from seven to 20 restaurants,” she says.
Returning to England she changed careers and opened a shop in Bury importing furniture from Asia.
She met her second husband Jon and took a career break after their son was born.
Her first foray back into cooking professionally was designing and making cakes at home, something she still does, with exquisite decorations created from buttercream, Vietnamese rice paper, and silk flowers.
Lilian’s Kitchen began in 2017. “I thought should I go back into retail, or go back to my first love?”
She decided to specialise in Asian food. Her upbringing in multicultural Singapore and extensive travels mean she can cruise effortless through the cuisine of 12 different countries including China, Japan, India, Korea, and Thailand.
“In Singapore we are so blessed. We come from so many different Asian countries. Our neighbours could be from Malaysia, or India.
“All the children were running around and playing together, eating each other’s food and learning the languages.”
Whether cooking a private dinner in a client’s home, or teaching in her own kitchen, she brings alive the traditions behind each dish. “I tell their stories. Every dish that comes out I talk about it.”
Dumplings are popular in most Asian countries - delicate little parcels with tasty fillings a world away from the British version.
But why is one kind of dumpling that dates from the ancient Chinese Han Dynasty shaped like an ear?
“A lot of people used to get frostbitten ears because they were so poor, and it was so cold, so this doctor thought they should have something to bring up the heat of the body,” Lilian says.
“They would also use things that looked like the part of the body they were supposed to help - that’s why he created them to resemble ears.”
It was at a networking breakfast held at Bury cricket club that she first got the idea for her cookery classes.
“I went into the kitchen to bring something out, and they had a little island, and I thought if I can rent this I can have people around it and have classes.”
When they moved to their bungalow in Culford the sessions transferred there from the cricket club and clients now learn the art of Asian cookery clustered around the central island in Lilian’s own kitchen.
Drawers, cupboards, fridge and freezer are packed with a huge variety of spices, herbs, and everything needed to produce the unique flavours of each country.
“Here we are much more relaxed and what I love is when the customers think of something and I have the ingredient in the house I can show them,” she says.
But you will not need to spend hours tracking down the different elements. “You can get the ingredients for everything I do in the major supermarkets.
“The philosophy of Lillian’s Kitchen classes is that everyone should be able to produce authentic food without having a headache.”
She also explodes a few myths. When it comes to flavour most of us would assume that fresh is best, even if it has travelled a few thousand miles.
But it isn’t always the case. Kaffir lime leaves, for instance, hold onto their intense citrus fragrance much better when frozen.
“It’s the same with imported fruit that are picked green to ripen in the fruit bowl. You don’t get the same flavour,” she says.
And she would only bother to mix her own curry paste from scratch for an Indian dish. For other types, like Thai, off-the-shelf products are fine.
“My signature Tom Yum curry is my own creation. A lot of Thai curries are very sweet. I don’t like things that are too sweet, but I love the flavour of kaffir lime leaves and lemon grass - sour and spicy.”
Her classes always start with a welcome drink - maybe a cocktail or mocktail - the lessons of her mum and grandma on hospitality still echoing down the years.
“That’s like an ice breaker, then we all work together the Asian way rather than cooking individually. We cook together, eat together and bonding together.”
Also on offer at her home are an extensive range of teas, fragrant and subtle, brewed in glass teapots.
Most spectacular is the blossom tea. A tightly packed bundle of leaves is dropped into the pot and covered with hot water, then slowly unfurls to reveal a flower - in this case a bright yellow chrysanthemum – at its heart.
As she talks she prepares open top dumplings filled with a pork mixture. Traditionally the meat would have a higher proportion of fat than is usually available here, so she adds cornflour to get the same mouth feel.
She buys the dumpling pastry ready made. “It’s the same as with filo, no-one makes their own. For a gluten-free alternative you can use rice paper.”
Cooking the perennial favourite prawn toasts she stresses it is very important to spread the filling right to the edge to stop them curling up, and to have the oil really hot.
Desserts are not so much associated with Asian cookery, but she is proud of her own panna cotta recipe.
“I make it with soya milk, and it gives it just the right sexy wobble and a silken texture,” she says.
When she goes into people’s homes as a private chef she has a team of regular helpers to call on.
She always takes along her own portable stove which is especially useful if facing a kitchen equipped only with an Aga - it is difficult
to keep the oil hot enough for
deep frying.
Last year Lilian took part in the Bury food and drink festival for the first time. “I decided to share the tandoori salmon. It’s so easy. Just fish, yogurt, and tandoori spice. I serve it with a taco.”
She is also just starting to write a cookbook which will enable anyone to create some of her favourite recipes at home.
Her own family eats a mixture of Asian and European food, and there is another budding chef among them because son Daniel loves to cook.
For more information go online to lilianskitchen.co.uk
