{"id":780034,"date":"2026-07-05T06:20:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/780034\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T06:20:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T06:20:14","slug":"australias-best-pie-has-a-malaysian-prawn-curry-filling-and-its-bakers-have-even-bolder-flavours-in-mind-australian-food-and-drink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/780034\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s best pie has a Malaysian prawn curry filling \u2013 and its bakers have even bolder flavours in mind | Australian food and drink"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ryan Khun first arrived in Australia from Cambodia<\/a> in 2012, aged 27, he had never tasted a pie.<\/p>\n

That is, until his older brother Chan took him to a servo for a meat pie: flaky pastry on the outside, a molten mince slurry in the middle. His first meal in Australia, unfamiliar tastes in a new land.<\/p>\n

Remembering how he felt after those first few bites, Khun says: \u201cThere is something I don\u2019t really like.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pies were not something he grew up eating in Phnom Penh, but today a metal trophy sits in his office at Country Cob bakery in Springvale in south-east Melbourne<\/a>. It reads \u201c2026 Australian Best Pie Competition Official Overall Winner\u201d, and it\u2019s so big, he could hide behind it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the fifth time in eight years the bakery has taken home the coveted award from the Baking Association of Australia (BAA), and Country Cob\u2019s winning entry this year was a Malaysian-style prawn curry pie, where golden pastry encases a filling of coconut-poached prawns doused with galangal, lemongrass, chilli and ginger.<\/p>\n

Khun\u2019s pies have been tweaked to suit local tastes; the fillings are slightly sweeter and not as spicy. Photograph: Eugene Hyland\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Khun\u2019s journey from pie beginner to prize winner started with a decision to move to Australia for \u201ca better life and a better education for the kids\u201d, he says. Despite studying and working in IT in Cambodia, he couldn\u2019t get local work in that field. Instead, he decided to join Chan at his bakery in Kyneton in Victoria\u2019s Macedon Ranges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never thought I would be baking,\u201d says Khun, who remembers starting work at midnight, rolling out of their home upstairs to the bakery downstairs. For many years the two brothers only baked bread, with the shop\u2019s pies provided by a third-party supplier. They only ever sold a handful every week and they weren\u2019t up to Khun\u2019s standard or taste: \u201cThey were too dry, too salty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khun and his brother Chan have won multiple awards for their pies from the Baking Association of Australia. Photograph: Eugene Hyland\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

After a few years they decided to try making their own pies and cakes, enrolling in a baking trade school while still working baker\u2019s hours.<\/p>\n

While they inherited plenty of traditional pie recipes from the bakery\u2019s previous owner, their first original recipe was a garlic prawn pie that remains on their menu to this day.<\/p>\n

By 2018, they\u2019d moved to another shopfront in Kyneton, and their hard work paid off when they clinched the coveted BAA\u2019s best overall pie award for the first time with a satay fish entry, which one judge described at the time as \u201cunbelievable \u2013 well created with that smooth satay flavour and seafood cooked to perfection\u201d. They would go on to win again in 2019 with a caramelised pork and pepper pie, which riffs on the Cambodian dish of kaw sach chrouk<\/a>, a hearty braise of pork belly, eggs, coconut and fish sauce; their 2023 winner had a fish amok<\/a> filling.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe never thought this was going to work,\u201d says Khun. The bakery\u2019s mostly white customer base was initially apprehensive about the less traditional fillings, but Khun says they\u2019ve been tweaked to suit local tastes \u2013 the fillings are slightly sweeter and not as spicy. There\u2019s a small, multicultural team at Country Cob who sit down together and deliberate on new pie flavour before they go into production: the Malaysian prawn pie took three months to perfect.<\/p>\n

\u2018I love baking,\u2019 says Khun. \u2018I enjoy making pies and making everyone happy when they enjoy the pie.\u2019 Photograph: Eugene Hyland\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Not all flavours have been a hit, according to Khun, listing kung pao chicken, kimchi pork and beef bulgolgi among the failed experiments. Singapore chilli crab and \u201csuper cheese\u201d are on the R&D list.<\/p>\n

And Country Cob has expanded. Alongside their original Kyneton store, there are branches in Boronia and Springvale and a production kitchen in Dandenong South. There, staff bake more than 10,000 pies a week, and the homely aroma of freshly baked pastry drifts over the suburb\u2019s warehouse and factory precinct.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love baking,\u201d says Khun. \u201cI enjoy making pies and making everyone happy when they enjoy the pie.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Absolutely delicious \u2026 it brings a tear to my eye,\u2019 says one customer. Photograph: Eugene Hyland\/The Guardian<\/p>\n

Over at their Springvale store, Malaysian Australian retiree Yvonne Au has travelled with her friend to seek out the award-winning prawn pie. She disagreed it was Malaysian in flavour, but concedes \u201cit\u2019s quite tasty\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the way to a man\u2019s heart,\u201d says Bob Reggio, who drove from Sydney to Melbourne as part of a Mustang driver\u2019s club \u2013 a club member is a local customer. \u201cAbsolutely delicious \u2026 it brings a tear to my eye.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not a boring country\u201d,\u201d says customer Teresa Nguyen. She\u2019s come today for the prawn pie, but is a big fan of Country Cob\u2019s range of adventurous flavours. \u201cWe\u2019re not monoculture.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Ryan Khun first arrived in Australia from Cambodia in 2012, aged 27, he had never tasted a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780035,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-780034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780034"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780034\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}