YOUR BLACK NUTS!

This is not a racist rant. It is about an ingredient used in Javanese and Indo food. Pangium edule, called kluwak in Dutch and Indonesian. They are soaked and mashed, then added to stock or stews. The flavour they contribute is a somewhat fruity muskiness, quite pleasant and not very strong. For a dish for four people, about five or six kluwak are sufficient.

In the Netherlands they can be found at the local toko, where one can also find most other Indonesian and Chinese ingredients required for Dutch cooking. Many Dutch use some Indonesian ingredients, some Dutch use a lot of Indonesian ingredients. Tokos are, consequently, a recognizable feature of Dutch population conglomerata.

Here in the States you will find Indonesian ingredients in the larger Chinatowns - jars of unidentifiable substances or packets of 'what-the-heck-is-that' with Dutch orthography on the labels, imported from 'sGravenhage, Kuala Lumpur, Foochow, or Shanghai. In San Francisco there are stores with Indo products in both Chinatown (Kearny, Grant Avenue, and Stockton Streets between Bush and Vallejo) and New Chinatown (the Clement Street corridor), plus in several other neighborhoods. The New May Wah on Clement Street has a vast selection of products from all over South-East Asia, as well as fresh meats and seafood.

Oh, one other thing that I suppose I should mention about kluwak nuts - they will make the food black. Well, so extremely dark brown as to be nearly black. Makes for an interesting visual contrast on your table with a golden curry and a plate of stir-fried greens.
[Plus white white rice, bright red sambal, and a seafood vegetable tamarind broth soup - life is very good, isn't it?]


Kluwak are described here:
http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Kluwak_nuts

Here's a link to a recipe that uses them:
what-is-that-mess-on-my-plate


Note re ingredients mentioned in the recipe:

Kaffir lime leaf (daun perut) = a leaf that adds a fragrance between tea-rose and citrus. No substitute, but not essential.
Lemongrass (sere, serai, sae) = smells like candied lemon. Keeps bugs away, so worth growing in the backyard.
Galangal (lengkuas, langkwang) = related to ginger, has an old-fashioned almost medicinal smell.
Sambal terasi = Sambal (chili-paste) made with trassi (hard fish paste). Delicious.
Tempeh = A weird soybean leather that only goofy white people eat; it is the food of poverty and the pow camps. I will not touch it, and neither should you. Healthfood freaks love it, and write long poetic disquisitions praising it. It is not the best thing since slice bread.


Obviously kluwak can be added to a lot of dishes. Bear in mind that they go best with slow-cooked foods like braises and stews, especially if not in competition with a lot of other bold flavours. They play very nicely with garlic and chilies.

The next time you make Texas Chili or Son Of a Bitch Stew, freak someone out by adding kluwak. It will taste great.

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So, what am I eating right now? Roast meat, yam, carrot, and sticky white rice. It is very beautiful.