Top tips from private dining chefs on how to elevate your home cooking

“Elevate your dishes by incorporating ingredients rich in umami flavours. Stock up on pantry staples like soy sauce, oyster sauce, dried mushrooms and scallops, or even fermented black beans to add depth and savoury complexity into your recipes. Then, experiment with layering these umami-packed ingredients to create multidimensional layers of flavours into your dishes, whether you’re stir-frying, braising, grilling, or even boiling a pot of soup.”

—Will Chng, founder of Umami Table

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“For a quick and easy weeknight friendly meal, I normally go for a quick stir-fry that typically comprises some aromatics, a protein, a marinade and an accompanying sauce. And the secret to a quick but great stir fry that still results in a juicy and tender protein is a technique called ‘velveting’. 

When marinating your protein, be it red or white meat that has been cut up into bite-sized pieces, add about 20 g of cornstarch along with one egg white for every 250 g of protein on top of your chosen marinade and chill it for at least 30 minutes. Remove from the chiller and shallow fry in 160 degrees Celsius oil for about 20 seconds. Alternatively, for a healthier option, you can blanch them in boiling water for 20 seconds. Remove and toss them into your stir fry process.

The process of shallow frying or blanching binds the egg whites and cornstarch to form an invisible gel around the meat pieces that shields it from the high heat, helping to retain the natural moisture of the meat. It results in a juicy and tender meat in your weeknight-friendly stir-fry!”

—Vincent Pang, founder of Pun Im Private Dining

“I love a more whimsical playful approach to home dining, because from beginning to end, entertaining at home should be a fun experience. And to do this, I usually start with a theme. Even if the theme is simple such as summer, everything follows through accordingly. The tablescape would have more vibrant colours, from table mats to plates to the choice of glassware. Floral designs could include the use of fruits, paper butterflies, and birds. Even for Peranakan dishes which are my speciality, certain ingredients that are more reminiscent of summer such as creating a cucumber achar can be utilised. To add to a summery garden vibe, more micro herbs and edible flowers are used to garnish the dishes. 

I also like finding ways to present home-style cooking in unexpected ways—for example instead of serving a shepherd’s pie in a casserole dish that is divided up for each guest, I make individual portions in cupcake paper cups and pipe the mashed potato on top so it looks like a cupcake. 

The other trick to elevating home dining is using luxury ingredients. Recently I have been experimenting with a cheese wheel. Asian dishes such as chilli crab, hokkien mee or even Indomee are finished off table-side in the cheese wheel and served with toppings of ikura, uni, sakura ebi. We once had a Southern fried chicken dinner party, but provided a spread of oscietra caviar, crème fraîche, chives, chopped egg, shallots and capers. The crispy fried chicken skin was used as the base for the caviar and toppings instead of blinis and it was finger-licking good. For Chinese New Year, I made a pen cai that included roast goose, roast pork, fish maw, wild ginseng, lobster, foie gras and Hokkaido scallops.  

Finally, I feel that guests remember a memorable meal more when they are involved in the process. Small interactions that are not too complicated for the guests to execute such as that final splash of cognac in a hearty soup, a DIY platter of kueh pie tee, a choice of toppings for dessert.”

—Grace Kee, founder of Good Graces

“My number one kitchen tip is to use a vacuum sealer. It’s been a total game-changer for me, especially since I have a bit of an unconventional approach—I love cooking in the morning and enjoying my creations in the evening. The vacuum sealer works wonders during the meat marination process, locking in all those delicious flavours. It’s truly changed the way I prep in the kitchen. While most Peranakan cooking is traditionally done the day before, I’ve found that my morning cooking routine combined with the vacuum sealer has allowed me to speed up the flavour depth, even when cooking the dishes on the same day they are enjoyed!”

—Sophia Yeow, founder of Butterfly Table

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