Auria's Malaysian Kitchen

Auria Abraham grew up in Seremban, Malaysia, learned to cook in her mother's kitchen, and started Auria's Malaysian Kitchen with a single hot chili sambal before adding kayas and more sambals.

About Auria's Malaysian Kitchen

Based in
Brooklyn, New York
Known for
Malaysian sambals and kaya coconut jams

Auria Abraham was born and raised in Seremban, Malaysia, where she learned to cook in her mother's kitchen, with its Malay, Chinese and Indian influences. She came to the United States in the early 1990s to continue her music studies at Berklee College of Music, and in 2011 she began hosting an underground supper club in her Brooklyn home.

She launched Auria's Malaysian Kitchen with one product, Hot Chilli Sambal, and more sambals and kayas followed.

Kaya is a coconut jam: spread it on toast. Sambal goes on rice, eggs, noodles and grilled meat.

Auria's Malaysian Kitchen questions

What is kaya?

Kaya is a rich, creamy coconut jam and a staple of breakfasts in Malaysian kopitiam, or coffee shops. Auria's Pandan Kaya is made with coconut milk, eggs and cane sugar and flavored with pandan leaves; she also makes a salted caramel kaya. Spread it on buttered toast.

What is sambal?

Sambal is a sauce, paste or relish made from chili peppers with other ingredients such as garlic, shallot, ginger or shrimp paste, and it is eaten as a condiment (a sauce added to food at the table) in Indonesia and Malaysia. One review of Indonesian cookbooks identified 110 kinds, and more than 80 percent of them are made by crushing and cooking the ingredients. Auria's Hot Chilli Sambal combines fresh and dried chillies with garlic and fermented shrimp paste, known as belacan. Add a spoonful to rice, noodles, stir-fries or soups.

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