For the thousands of Sarawakians and Sabahans living away from home, Gawai and Kaamatan arrive every year with a particular kind of longing. The celebrations are happening back home, the food is being prepared in kitchens they grew up in, and they are here, in Peninsular, trying to hold on to something that feels increasingly out of reach. Some things, however, travel well. MAGGI® has been in Malaysian kitchens for generations, a constant presence through every festivity, every family gathering, and every first attempt at a dish that mattered. As lives change and families spread across the country, MAGGI® changes with them, adapting to the way Malaysians cook today while holding on to the flavours that have always felt like home.
This year, that means making it a little easier for those celebrating away from home to bring the harvest to their own tables. At the Borneo Native Festival, happening on 22 to 24 May at Central Market in Kuala Lumpur, where Sarawakians and Sabahans come together to reconnect with the culture, music, and food of home, MAGGI® will be there. As well as in kitchens across Peninsula Malaysia, along with the recipes that bring back the taste of Gawai and Kaamatan.
"We know that for a lot of Sabahans and Sarawakians living away from home, this season can feel bittersweet," said Ivy Tan Link Cheh, Business Executive Officer of MAGGI® Malaysia and Singapore. "The celebrations are happening without them, and the food they grew up with isn't always easy to find or to cook. MAGGI® has always been part of how Malaysian families cook, and this year we just want to make it a little easier for them to bring those flavours wherever they are."
Two Voices, One Mission
To make that possible, MAGGI® has partnered with two local heritage cooks who have made preserving their homeland's food heritage their life's work and who understand the diaspora experience first-hand.
With a stepfamily in a remote Iban longhouse near Marudi, Karen R. Yap foraged and cooked alongside her step-grandfather, an upbringing that shaped her deep connection to the land and its culinary heritage. Today, she is Chef-Host of Ethnic Sarawak Night, a series of dining experiences dedicated to bringing Sarawak's diverse ethnic food traditions and unique produce to audiences who have never encountered them. Chef Melvin Gatu, a Ranau-born Kadazan-Dusun chef, left a decade-long international culinary career to come home and champion Sabah's food heritage through social media. Now in his second year as a MAGGI® partner, he is also Chef de Cuisine at Shangri-La Tanjung Aru Resort, Kota Kinabalu, and Committee Member of the Sabah Chef Association. For the East Malaysian diaspora in KL, both are voices they recognise as their own.
"These are the flavours and techniques that I grew up with. They are deep in my memory bank, the way Gawai always was," said Karen R. Yap. “Our ethnic food carries so much more than taste. It is a showcase of ingredients, the environment in which these foods come about. It is a narrative of a way of life, of culture. But we are at the cusp of losing what is not written down. The day you find yourself trying to remember and there is nobody left to call, that is when it is too late. Every time we try, even imperfectly, we are keeping alive something that needs to survive."
Chef Melvin is equally direct. "There is a lot of nervousness around cooking these dishes for the first time. What MAGGI® does is reduce the fear enough to let people try. And trying is everything."
The Recipes That Travel With You
Cooking a festive meal for the first time is one thing. Cooking it for a table of twenty is another. As kitchens modernise and family recipes go unwritten, the dishes that once defined every Gawai and Kaamatan table risk being quietly left behind, not out of indifference, but because the knowledge of how to cook them has never been passed down in a way that makes them feel within reach. Karen and Chef Melvin are each sharing recipes central to their home states, and MAGGI® is what makes them achievable for the generation cooking them for the first time.
Karen brings Ayam Kampung Umbut Pisang, known in Iban as Manok Upa Pisang, a dish she learned from her step-grandfather and chose deliberately, as it is cooked less and less today due to its lengthy preparation. The banana trunk, its tender inner core lending a fresh, sweet crunch alongside kampung chicken, is the kind of ingredient that gets lost the moment cooking moves out of the forest and into a city kitchen. Its companion, Sambal Ikan Masin Gonjeng, puts ikan masin gonjeng to work twice over: once as seasoning, once as protein, dry-fried until crisp and split between the sambal base and the finished plate. For a younger generation navigating these recipes for the first time, MAGGI® CukupRasa and MAGGI® Sambal Tumis make the process much more approachable, bringing the flavours within reach.
Karen's third dish, Tenggiri Terung Dayak, is built around terung dayak, a wild sour fruit native to Borneo so distinct it carries a Protected Geographic Indication as uniquely Sarawakian. Paired with tenggiri, it is a dish that rewards those who know their ingredients. MAGGI® Sambal Tumis and MAGGI® CukupRasa give the home cook the depth and balance.
Chef Melvin's Binuburan Manuk Kampung, Bubur Yilik, named after his grandmother whose recipe is more than a hundred years old, is exactly the kind of dish that disappears when cooking methods change. Born over firewood and built on nothing but salt, cooked with Beras Tadong, wild kodop mushrooms, and tapioca leaves, it carried generations of Sabahan families through every harvest gathering. MAGGI® CukupRasa is what allows that same depth of flavour to survive the move to a rice cooker or pressure cooker, keeping the dish alive in kitchens where the firewood is long gone. Alongside it, Linombur Bubuk Om Tulod-Ulod, a no-cook Kadazan-Dusun side dish of dried shrimps, tulod-tulod, lime juice, and cucumber, is one Melvin is bringing back after years of near-absence from festive tables. MAGGI® Sambal Tumis stirs through for quiet heat, making it as easy to put together as it should always have been.
For dishes rooted in bold, layered flavours built up over generations, MAGGI® brings consistency to the taste, ensuring that whether you are cooking for four or forty, the result holds. It simplifies the steps without stripping the soul from the dish, and elevates the final flavour in a way that feels true to the East Malaysian palate.
All five recipes are available on MAGGI® Malaysia's website throughout the festive season, crafted around MAGGI® 2-Minit Kari, MAGGI® 2-Minit Asam Laksa, MAGGI® CukupRasa, MAGGI® Sambal Tumis, and MAGGI® Oyster Sauce. MAGGI® is also releasing its own collection of festive recipes this season, giving home cooks even more ways to bring the flavours of Gawai and Kaamatan to the table.
MAGGI®'s commitment this season extends beyond the kitchen in East Malaysia. In Sabah, MAGGI® is supporting Hopes Malaysia Welfare Association in its work with rural farming communities, and in Sarawak, it is supporting Helping Hands Penan, an organisation dedicated to the welfare of the Penan community.
For full recipe content from Karen Yap and Chef Melvin Gatu, visit www.maggi.com.my or follow MAGGI® on social media.
This content is provided by MAGGI®
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.
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