Ikoyi: A Journey Through Bold Heat with Recipes

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In a separate pan, heat the oil to 280°C (536°F) and then carefully pour it over the paste, stirring quickly.

Blitz the broth in a blender for 5 minutes until very smooth, adding some filtered water if necessary, then pass through a chinois. As chef and cofounder of the two-Michelin-starred London restaurant Ikoyi, Chan is certainly familiar with resisting easy labels. I think of it as a book of stories on creativity and inspiration—and it’s very autobiographical, very much in my voice.Heat a nonstick frying pan over high heat, then add the beef fat, along with 70 g of rice per person and the wok hei. He insisted we stick with jollof, espousing the open-minded belief that there was no one true authority on the dish. If he claims to be cooking Cantonese cuisine, then yeah, there might be an issue because he’s claiming something he’s never experienced and doesn’t know anything about.

The book includes narratives throughout illustrating Ikoyi’s inspiration and inception, as influenced by Chan’s experiences living, cooking, and traveling in Hong Kong, Canada, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe.

My mom is Chinese American, also Cantonese, and I was thinking about how I might feel if, say, a white chef did that with Cantonese ingredients—use them regardless of their contexts. I’ve been mesmerized with the sounds, aromas, and process of this dipping sauce ever since and knew its fragrance would add its own dimension of smokiness to our jollof. For some reason, most of the cooks at Ikoyi think the rice section is the easiest, but it actually requires a surprising amount of attention to detail to execute an exceptional bowl of rice.

As the rice cooks, we simultaneously warm the crab custard, which acts as a glaze, added at the last moment, before we smoke the entire dish.

In this book, you feel the creative struggle that one must go through to do something truly special. With “IKOYI”, Chef/Author Jeremy Chan illuminates the journey to creating, sustaining, and evolving the two-Michelin starred IKOYI in London.