When I first moved to Melbourne, I missed home food terribly. In Malaysia, food is cheap and available at all hours. Here I was in Australia, living on my own for the first time, and I realised that I had never really learnt to cook Asian food because Grandma always did the cooking at home!

I’d been living on my own and eating frozen meat pies for a whole year – I’d given up on cooking at all because nothing tasted like home and after all the hassle of cooking, there was cleaning up! Why bother at all? So meat pies for every meal it was. I didn’t like them, but at least it was easy. I had tried cooking stuff like Hainanese Chicken Rice or Sweet Sour Pork before, but it never had that Malaysian-homestyle taste or feel.

Then I stumbled on your pictures for Dark Soy Pork Spare Ribs, looked at the recipe and there was only six ingredients (not counting the water) and three steps! How hard could it be right? I added all the ingredients to the wok and watched carefully, trying not to get my hopes up.

There’s something magical about those few simple ingredients coming together to form an oozy, thick, sweet sauce. I made that dish for the next three days – and every week after that. I slowly added dishes to my repertoire – just one or two a week and I have never looked back. Now I live to cook, rather than cook to live!

I have never eaten a meat pie since, not even at the footy. Today, the thought of meat pies alone makes me nauseous. Thanks for making good food simple to cook, even for total noobs like me.