But not supper club host Ranie Saidi, who has had to piece together his beloved grandmother’s dishes from memory.

“My late grandmother’s recipe book was stolen after her passing,” says Saidi, who was largely raised by his grandmother and grandfather in the north of Malaysia, after his parents married young and had him while still at medical school. His grandmother was a renowned wedding caterer, and “what is upsetting is that only people who know where she kept [her cookbook], might have stolen or taken it”.

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Saidi began puzzling over her food and trying to recreate it when struggling with his mental health. “I wasn’t grieving my grandmother properly,” he says. “I started cooking as a way of me grieving her and remembering her in good times, because when I cook, I have things to follow. There are things I can focus my mind on, rather than focusing on other things that are not necessarily going to be happy memories.”

Cooking, he says, “helped me understand what’s missing in my life” and so, he went on a “pilgrimage, searching for myself” and his grandmother’s flavours. The result is his debut cookbook, The Malay Cook, a vibrant collection of recipes that read like collaborations between Saidi and his grandmother, preserving them, for good this time.

“Now I’ve gone through this process, I’ve realised I sympathise with the person who took her recipe book, because they wanted a piece of her, and they thought they would find it there, but actually it is more layered and nuanced than that,” says Saidi, with a sad smile. “This book is me reclaiming it, but also part of me wanted to share it and make it available. You don’t have to take it. You don’t have to steal it. It’s out there.”

Frustratingly, your taste buds can’t always give you the full DNA of a dish you last ate a decade or so ago. Towards the end of his grandmother’s life, she could only remember half the recipe for her blackened beef, and although he filled in the gaps he could, Saidi says: “When I make it, it’s delicious. I love it. I’m like, ‘This is good,’ but it’s as good as it could get. It can never be the same. And I wish I could just spend another five minutes with her and she could tell me what’s missing.”

Saidi moved to the UK in 2013 and now lives in south London. Although he followed his grandmother round the kitchen throughout his childhood, tasting everything she gave him, he hadn’t really cooked until he came to Britain. “Even now, my parents haven’t tasted my food because they’re in Malaysia and every time I go back to Malaysia, I just want to eat out,” he says with a laugh.

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When he first relocated though, he wanted to eat British food, was deep into Delia Smith’s cookbooks and eating crumble non-stop. “I found it a very fascinating thing, because eating crumble everywhere I go, they all tasted so different, and that’s how Malaysian food is,” says Saidi. “You have the foundation, but every household does it differently.”

Then he was racially abused. “It was not until someone said to me, ‘Go back to your country,’ that that made me think, ‘Where do I belong? What is home for me?’ Now, looking back, if I see that person again, I would thank that person, like, ‘Thank you very much. Look at me. I’ve got a book now,’” says Saidi. “Although it was painful, it became a catalyst for me to really understand what’s missing. I’m in a position now where I’m content. I have my Malaysian roots, but I’m also proud British, and I have the best of both worlds. I’m living the best memories of both.”

Which is partly why tomato ketchup pops up in a book filled with jewel-like rice dishes, perfectly balanced sweet-sour-savoury salads and aromatic sauces. His recipe testers were, understandably, surprised. “But if you go to Malaysia, we are still cooking with this ingredient, because during colonisation [by the British], all these ingredients were being brought into the culture with no instruction, so the locals just adapted and used them,” says Saidi, adding that: “Malay food has always been about pluralism.” Like the ‘Roti John’, an omelette stuffed brioche roll from the Sixties inspired by a British officer who wanted a sandwich, which is now a street food staple in Malaysia.

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Saidi hopes his story will encourage others to note down and share their family recipes. “I really hope they will keep favourite dishes cooked by their mum or their grandparents, by their partner, by whoever they love, because they can be erased; lost so easily,” says Saidi. “Memories are what we have.”

“Food brings people together, but it also connects you to those who already left,” he adds. “Sometimes when people leave abruptly, there’s this void, and you just need to find peace. Food and memories are the way, for me at least, to find that peace.”

And although he struggled for a “very long time” and still misses his grandmother acutely, Saidi says, “I’m grateful I found a happy medium. Her energy is around me. She’s looking after me.” And so is her beautiful, delicious food.