An old colleague of my father years ago mentioned fond memories of the Technical University in Bandung (Technische Hogeschool Bandoeng) where he got a degree before the war. And Bandung before the war was considered a very nice place, the Paris of the East.
An altogether civilized city.
After the war the names changed, as did the population. The Dutch who had resided there all moved elsewhere, if they had even returned from the prisoner of war camps (Tjimahi, Tjihapit, et autres), the Nationalists took over, and the very name of the place is now forever associated with a conference of despots associated with the non-aligned movement.
Bandung is also associated with tea plantations, a cooler climate than the pestilential hell-hole Batavia (140 kilometres south-east, on the coast), and a great hotel, the Savoy Homann, famous for its rijsttafel.
A few authors have mentioned Bandung in their writings - Tjalie Robinson (Jan Boon), Johan Wigmore Fabricius, F. Springer (Carel Jan Schneider), Elizabeth ('Beb') Vuyk, et all -- but memories of the food pale, often, in comparison to the camps.
There is an age gap. Those whose fondest memories of Bandung as it was, were too old to survive much into the modern age; those who wrote best experienced the war and the bersiap period. That, necessarily, darkened their memories.
Bandung today has a population of over two and a half million, up from less than twenty thousand before the war. During the Indonesian struggle for independence the southern district of city burned in the fierce battles for control, and much of it was destroyed. Bandung is a different place.
Many of the trees have long since been chopped down.
Modern cities wage war on old growth.
Little hasn't changed much.
The Hotel Homann still exists. The food is as good as it ever was.
They say you can never go back. My father's associate did go back, and enjoyed doing so. But other than the food and the hotel, it was not the same. He left as a native. He returned as a foreigner.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Showing posts with label Rijsttafel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rijsttafel. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Friday, October 07, 2016
FRAGRANCE AND SOFT MURMURING
What San Francisco needs is an Indonesian restaurant that gears itself toward one key demographic: middle-aged Dutchmen. So, none of that fake Indonesian food which is popular among the late night crowd in the Netherlands, or the bland somewhat Chinese-taste stuff cooked by ex-Jakartans that is available locally, but something relatively authentic and relatively spicy. With enough of a selection that intelligent choices can be made for a rijsttafel.
Decor, too. Walls mostly a warm ochre-cream, with Raw Sienna and a dark mahogany-umber detailing. Bamboo slat or matchstick blinds. Fine porcelain, good cutlery, the occasional fern or potted plant, and absolutely none of that painted or carved wood kitsch that every Asian restaurant seems to have all over. Decent non-glaring lighting, neither forensics laboratory bright nor old-troll dark and moody.
The one key dish it MUST have is a damned fine soto ayam. Which is rich chicken soup yellowed with turmeric, with fresh chicken meat, slices of fried potato INSTEAD of lontong, cilantro, Chinese parsley, and fried shallots plus krupuk or emping as garnish.
The broth should be flavoured with fried shallots, coriander, and ginger.
Plus kemiri nuts, lemon grass, galangal, and dried shrimp.
Noodles optional, for a version of Mie Soto.
Nasi goreng (fried rice) or bami goreng (fried noodles) are also kind of essential, but they really aren't that necessary. Excellent saté, preferable both chicken and lamb, plus petjil, and two or three home-made sambal.
Rice, cucumber chunks, chilled squiggle drinks.
Good strong coffee, either iced or hot.
Korma, kalio, gulai, rawon.
And NO music!
The last Indonesian restaurant at which I ate had karaoke videos. Really, popular music is mostly pig-bollocks in every culture, and sappy emotional ballads in Indonesian are probably the ultimate nightmare.
Either that or meaningful gamelan music.
One other thing: most "ethnic" menus abound in clumsy spelling errors. Gentlemen, this does NOT add to the charm of your place, but rather severely detracts from it.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Decor, too. Walls mostly a warm ochre-cream, with Raw Sienna and a dark mahogany-umber detailing. Bamboo slat or matchstick blinds. Fine porcelain, good cutlery, the occasional fern or potted plant, and absolutely none of that painted or carved wood kitsch that every Asian restaurant seems to have all over. Decent non-glaring lighting, neither forensics laboratory bright nor old-troll dark and moody.
The one key dish it MUST have is a damned fine soto ayam. Which is rich chicken soup yellowed with turmeric, with fresh chicken meat, slices of fried potato INSTEAD of lontong, cilantro, Chinese parsley, and fried shallots plus krupuk or emping as garnish.
The broth should be flavoured with fried shallots, coriander, and ginger.
Plus kemiri nuts, lemon grass, galangal, and dried shrimp.
Noodles optional, for a version of Mie Soto.
Nasi goreng (fried rice) or bami goreng (fried noodles) are also kind of essential, but they really aren't that necessary. Excellent saté, preferable both chicken and lamb, plus petjil, and two or three home-made sambal.
Rice, cucumber chunks, chilled squiggle drinks.
Good strong coffee, either iced or hot.
Korma, kalio, gulai, rawon.
And NO music!
The last Indonesian restaurant at which I ate had karaoke videos. Really, popular music is mostly pig-bollocks in every culture, and sappy emotional ballads in Indonesian are probably the ultimate nightmare.
Either that or meaningful gamelan music.
One other thing: most "ethnic" menus abound in clumsy spelling errors. Gentlemen, this does NOT add to the charm of your place, but rather severely detracts from it.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, June 11, 2016
DO YOU WANT RICE WITH THAT?
The tourist season is upon us. San Francisco is presently awash with people speaking foreign languages -- French, Italian, German, and something which pretends to be English but sounds unpleasantly New Yawk or Missipee -- and a large number of them deliberately get on the wrong bus, despite wise words advising them not to do so.
Some of them are breeding couples sporting fine plumage, others represent small tribal units inconveniently blocking sidewalks.
Many are lost.
A few are appalled.
Really, they should have gone elsewhere. Someplace warm.
England or Holland would have been fine.
For a lovely combination of Old-World stuffiness, nice sunny weather, and exotic food, Amsterdam would have been a truly excellent choice. Especially in summer, when there are fewer Dutch around.
And where else will you hear perfect English spoken with a charming mixed accent of Netherlandish, Indonesian, and Chinese pronunciation?
RIJST TAFEL: AN ARRAY OF INDONESIAN FOOD
Yes, it's a colonialistic hangover, but in all honesty without the culinary influence of their former empire in the Far East, the Dutch kitchen would be quite as boring as Danish or Norwegian food. Happily, the Dutch are still as tempted by excess as they were during the late middle-ages.
The rijst tafel (rice table: a meal centered on rice with accompaniments) is, in fact, more traditionally Netherlandish than Indonesian, even if the featured cuisine is not. The great banquets of the past are now usually toned down to fit modern dinner party numbers and norms.
Crotchety social deviants such as myself will often end it with coffee and a cigar, which are both quintessentially Dutch, but the modern American or Englishman might not be so inclined, what with basically being an alcoholic non-smoking yutz.
RIJST TAFEL DISHES
A small sample of what you might find.
ATJAR KETIMUN: chunked cucumber and slivered carrot in a tangy dressing.
ATJAR TJAMPUR: turmeric-hued mixed pickles (including chilies).
AYAM BESENGEK: stewed chicken in a thick yellow coconut curry sauce.
AYAM GORENG: fried chicken.
AYAM PANGGANG: grilled chicken in a rubicund spicy sauce.
AYAM PEDAS: hot chili chicken.
BABAT GORENG ASAM PEDAS: chili and tamarind marinated tripe fried crispy.
BABI KETJAP: pork belly long-cooked in soy sauce.
EMPEK EMPEK: boiled fishcakes from Palembang with a spicy savoury sweet dip.
EMPING: belindjo nut crisps.
GADO GADO: a salad of blanched vegetables with some shrimp chips (krupuk) and often half a hardboiled egg, dressed with a mild peanut sauce.
GULAI SAYUR: curried greens.
GULAI KAMBING: spicy thick lamb curry from Sumatra.
IKAN ASAM: tamarind fish.
IKAN BALI: fish in a spicy sauce, Balinese style.
KLEPON: sweet rice paste balls with palm sugar filing, rolled in grated coconut.
KRUPUK: shrimp chips.
OPOR AYAM: chicken poached in a coconut gravy with lemon grass and djeruk purut.
PETJAK LELE: fried catfish with a spicy sambal.
PERKEDEL: potato mash fritters.
PINDANG IKAN: grilled fish with a spicy tamarind sauce.
PISANG GORENG: banana fritter.
RAWON: beef stew darkened and flavoured with kluwak (pangeum edule).
RENDANG: meat simmered in very spicy coconut milk till the sauce is almost dry.
RUDJAK: raw vegetables with a very hot dip.
SAMBAL BADJAK: a condiment of mashed chilies fried with onion and spices till thick and semi-dark.
SAMBAL DABU DABU: chopped tomatoes, onions, and chilies, with lime juice. Menadonese.
SAMBAL GORENG BUNTJIS: chili-sauced stirfried greenbeans.
SAMBAL GORENG TEMPEH: fried soybean compound often served with a sweet and spicy dark sauce.
SAMBAL GORENG TRASI: chili and fishpaste condiment fried dark, almost black.
SAMBAL GORENG UDANG: prawns stirfried with chili paste.
SAMBAL KETJAP: chopped chilies and tomatoes with soy sauce and lime juice.
SAMBAL TELUR: hardboiled eggs in a mild chili curry.
SAMBAL TERONG: thick chili and eggplant relish.
SAMBAL TJOLO TJOLO: a salsa of peppers, onions, and tomato, from Ambon. Good with grilled fish.
SAMBAL TOMAT: chilies and tomatoes; again, a condiment.
SAMBAL UDANG KERING: fried dry shrimp and chilipaste.
SAMBAL ULEK: mashed red chili paste, used condimentally.
SATE AYAM: small skewers of grilled chicken, spicy peanut sauce.
SATE KAMBING: small skewers of grilled lamb, sweet soy sauce.
SATE LILIT: minced fish grilled on a lemon grass stalk, served with a spicy sauce.
SAYUR LODEH: soft-cooked vegetables in a spicy coconut cream.
SEMUR AYAM: chicken stewed in soy sauce.
SEMUR LAPIS: sliced beef in dark soy gravy.
SERUNDENG: crispy toasted coconut, peanut, and spices. Sprinkled over almost anything for a crunchy coconutty effect.
SINGGANG AYAM: soupy chicken cooked with coconut milk, tamarind, and lemon grass.
SOTO AYAM: a lovely chicken coconut soup flavoured with yellow curry, crispy fried shallots added on top.
SOTO MADURA: beef chunks in a mild coconut soup.
TAUHU GORENG: deepfried tofu served with sliced cucumber and a hot sour spicy peanut sauce.
TELOR BESENGEK: hard boiled eggs in a yellow coconut curry.
RIJST TAFEL RESTAURANTS
Short list of favourites (Amsterdam).
KARTIKA
Overtoom 68.
PURI MAS
Lange Leidse Dwars Straat 37-41.
SAMA SEBO
One of the oldest and deservedly best known places.
Pieter Cornelisz Hooft Straat 27.
SAMPURNA
An ancient classic, with extremely high standards.
Singel 498.
TEMPO DOELOE
Busy, bustling, and some truly splendid food.
Utrechtse Straat 75.
TUJUH MARET
Good, fun.
Utrechtse Straat 73.
Reviews of all of these can be found online, as well as directions.
The natives of Den Haag will often claim that their Indonesian food is better, but Den Haag is much too close to the lower depth that is Rotterdam for comfort, and impossibly stuffy besides. Amsterdam stuffiness is about the limit one can bear.
Remember to end the evening with a stroll, accompanied by a cigar.
Twilight in Amsterdam is glorious.
APPENDIX: ALCHEMY
Much of the marvelous quality of Dutch-Indo cooking derives from the flavourings commonly used. Up until the eighties, these were usually found under their mellifluous Indonesian appellations rather than any Dutch nomenclature, but nowadays they are available at supermarkets in the spice department, labelled with perfectly pedestrian Germanic handles.
If shopping at the toko, however, it is better to know by what names they are really called.
Adas, adas pedas: fennel seeds. Adas manis: anise seeds. Akar manis: licorice root; mostly used medicinally. Asam, air asam: tamarind, tamarind water. Asam gelugur: dried garcinia fruit, used as a souring agent. Bawang hidjau: scallions. Bawang merah, Rambang: shallots.
Bawang putih: garlic. Bidji ketumbar: coriander seed.
Bidji sawi: mustard seed. Bunga lawang: star anise. Note that the term 'lawang' in the Subcontinent means clove, to which it is but a distant relative. Daun ketumbar: cilantro, coriander leaf.
Daun salam: Indonesian laurel (Eugenia polyantha, now called Syzygium polyanthum), almost essential for the authentic taste of many dishes. Often combined with lemon grass and galangal. Djahe: ginger root. Djeruk nipis (limau kasturi): kalamunten; kalamansi lime, squeezed over food or into drinks. Aromatic and very sour. Djeruk purut: kaffir lime.
Djintan, bidji djintan: cumin, cumin seed. Also often used for caraway.
Gula Melaka, Gula Djawa: palm sugar.
Kayu manis, kulit kayu manis: cinnamon. Kelapa: coconut. Kenari: pili nuts, used for pastries and brickle in the Moluccas.
Kemiri: candlenut (Aleurites moluccana), used to thicken sauces.
Ketjap asin: dark soy sauce. Ketjap manis: sweet soy sauce.
Kluwak: pangium edule seeds, which are first boiled, then fermented for six or seven weeks till dark and greasy, which renders them safe. In a fresh state they contain hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid) and are highly poisonous. They are ground smooth after soaking in boiling water, and added to certain stews and sambals. Kunyit, kunir: turmeric, which if the powdered form is used should be less than half the quantity of ground coriander. Lada, Meritja, Sahang: black pepper.
Laos, lengkuas: galangal. Lombok: formerly called 'Spaansche peper', this is similar to Thai peppers as well as Mirasol, Cayenne, and Tabasco.
Pala, buah pala: nutmeg. Petis: not the clear amber fishsauce which Filippinos and Thais use, but rather a thick stroppy goo which is also made from seafood ferments, much used in Javanese cuisine.
Santan: coconut milk, expressed from the meat. Selasi, Tulasi (Tulsi); daun selasi, daun tulsi: basil leaf. Serai, sereh: lemon grass.
Temu kuntji: finger root, Chinese keys (Boesenbergia rotunda), which has a bitter almost medicinal taste; it is used in small quantities.
Tjabe rawit: birdseye chili. Tjengkeh: cloves. Trasi: fermented shrimp paste, an odoriferous flavouring that combines well with pork.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Some of them are breeding couples sporting fine plumage, others represent small tribal units inconveniently blocking sidewalks.
Many are lost.
A few are appalled.
Really, they should have gone elsewhere. Someplace warm.
England or Holland would have been fine.
For a lovely combination of Old-World stuffiness, nice sunny weather, and exotic food, Amsterdam would have been a truly excellent choice. Especially in summer, when there are fewer Dutch around.
And where else will you hear perfect English spoken with a charming mixed accent of Netherlandish, Indonesian, and Chinese pronunciation?
RIJST TAFEL: AN ARRAY OF INDONESIAN FOOD
Yes, it's a colonialistic hangover, but in all honesty without the culinary influence of their former empire in the Far East, the Dutch kitchen would be quite as boring as Danish or Norwegian food. Happily, the Dutch are still as tempted by excess as they were during the late middle-ages.
The rijst tafel (rice table: a meal centered on rice with accompaniments) is, in fact, more traditionally Netherlandish than Indonesian, even if the featured cuisine is not. The great banquets of the past are now usually toned down to fit modern dinner party numbers and norms.
Crotchety social deviants such as myself will often end it with coffee and a cigar, which are both quintessentially Dutch, but the modern American or Englishman might not be so inclined, what with basically being an alcoholic non-smoking yutz.
RIJST TAFEL DISHES
A small sample of what you might find.
ATJAR KETIMUN: chunked cucumber and slivered carrot in a tangy dressing.
ATJAR TJAMPUR: turmeric-hued mixed pickles (including chilies).
AYAM BESENGEK: stewed chicken in a thick yellow coconut curry sauce.
AYAM GORENG: fried chicken.
AYAM PANGGANG: grilled chicken in a rubicund spicy sauce.
AYAM PEDAS: hot chili chicken.
BABAT GORENG ASAM PEDAS: chili and tamarind marinated tripe fried crispy.
BABI KETJAP: pork belly long-cooked in soy sauce.
EMPEK EMPEK: boiled fishcakes from Palembang with a spicy savoury sweet dip.
EMPING: belindjo nut crisps.
GADO GADO: a salad of blanched vegetables with some shrimp chips (krupuk) and often half a hardboiled egg, dressed with a mild peanut sauce.
GULAI SAYUR: curried greens.
GULAI KAMBING: spicy thick lamb curry from Sumatra.
IKAN ASAM: tamarind fish.
IKAN BALI: fish in a spicy sauce, Balinese style.
KLEPON: sweet rice paste balls with palm sugar filing, rolled in grated coconut.
KRUPUK: shrimp chips.
OPOR AYAM: chicken poached in a coconut gravy with lemon grass and djeruk purut.
PETJAK LELE: fried catfish with a spicy sambal.
PERKEDEL: potato mash fritters.
PINDANG IKAN: grilled fish with a spicy tamarind sauce.
PISANG GORENG: banana fritter.
RAWON: beef stew darkened and flavoured with kluwak (pangeum edule).
RENDANG: meat simmered in very spicy coconut milk till the sauce is almost dry.
RUDJAK: raw vegetables with a very hot dip.
SAMBAL BADJAK: a condiment of mashed chilies fried with onion and spices till thick and semi-dark.
SAMBAL DABU DABU: chopped tomatoes, onions, and chilies, with lime juice. Menadonese.
SAMBAL GORENG BUNTJIS: chili-sauced stirfried greenbeans.
SAMBAL GORENG TEMPEH: fried soybean compound often served with a sweet and spicy dark sauce.
SAMBAL GORENG TRASI: chili and fishpaste condiment fried dark, almost black.
SAMBAL GORENG UDANG: prawns stirfried with chili paste.
SAMBAL KETJAP: chopped chilies and tomatoes with soy sauce and lime juice.
SAMBAL TELUR: hardboiled eggs in a mild chili curry.
SAMBAL TERONG: thick chili and eggplant relish.
SAMBAL TJOLO TJOLO: a salsa of peppers, onions, and tomato, from Ambon. Good with grilled fish.
SAMBAL TOMAT: chilies and tomatoes; again, a condiment.
SAMBAL UDANG KERING: fried dry shrimp and chilipaste.
SAMBAL ULEK: mashed red chili paste, used condimentally.
SATE AYAM: small skewers of grilled chicken, spicy peanut sauce.
SATE KAMBING: small skewers of grilled lamb, sweet soy sauce.
SATE LILIT: minced fish grilled on a lemon grass stalk, served with a spicy sauce.
SAYUR LODEH: soft-cooked vegetables in a spicy coconut cream.
SEMUR AYAM: chicken stewed in soy sauce.
SEMUR LAPIS: sliced beef in dark soy gravy.
SERUNDENG: crispy toasted coconut, peanut, and spices. Sprinkled over almost anything for a crunchy coconutty effect.
SINGGANG AYAM: soupy chicken cooked with coconut milk, tamarind, and lemon grass.
SOTO AYAM: a lovely chicken coconut soup flavoured with yellow curry, crispy fried shallots added on top.
SOTO MADURA: beef chunks in a mild coconut soup.
TAUHU GORENG: deepfried tofu served with sliced cucumber and a hot sour spicy peanut sauce.
TELOR BESENGEK: hard boiled eggs in a yellow coconut curry.
RIJST TAFEL RESTAURANTS
Short list of favourites (Amsterdam).
KARTIKA
Overtoom 68.
PURI MAS
Lange Leidse Dwars Straat 37-41.
SAMA SEBO
One of the oldest and deservedly best known places.
Pieter Cornelisz Hooft Straat 27.
SAMPURNA
An ancient classic, with extremely high standards.
Singel 498.
TEMPO DOELOE
Busy, bustling, and some truly splendid food.
Utrechtse Straat 75.
TUJUH MARET
Good, fun.
Utrechtse Straat 73.
Reviews of all of these can be found online, as well as directions.
The natives of Den Haag will often claim that their Indonesian food is better, but Den Haag is much too close to the lower depth that is Rotterdam for comfort, and impossibly stuffy besides. Amsterdam stuffiness is about the limit one can bear.
Remember to end the evening with a stroll, accompanied by a cigar.
Twilight in Amsterdam is glorious.
APPENDIX: ALCHEMY
Much of the marvelous quality of Dutch-Indo cooking derives from the flavourings commonly used. Up until the eighties, these were usually found under their mellifluous Indonesian appellations rather than any Dutch nomenclature, but nowadays they are available at supermarkets in the spice department, labelled with perfectly pedestrian Germanic handles.
If shopping at the toko, however, it is better to know by what names they are really called.
Adas, adas pedas: fennel seeds. Adas manis: anise seeds. Akar manis: licorice root; mostly used medicinally. Asam, air asam: tamarind, tamarind water. Asam gelugur: dried garcinia fruit, used as a souring agent. Bawang hidjau: scallions. Bawang merah, Rambang: shallots.
Bawang putih: garlic. Bidji ketumbar: coriander seed.
Bidji sawi: mustard seed. Bunga lawang: star anise. Note that the term 'lawang' in the Subcontinent means clove, to which it is but a distant relative. Daun ketumbar: cilantro, coriander leaf.
Daun salam: Indonesian laurel (Eugenia polyantha, now called Syzygium polyanthum), almost essential for the authentic taste of many dishes. Often combined with lemon grass and galangal. Djahe: ginger root. Djeruk nipis (limau kasturi): kalamunten; kalamansi lime, squeezed over food or into drinks. Aromatic and very sour. Djeruk purut: kaffir lime.
Djintan, bidji djintan: cumin, cumin seed. Also often used for caraway.
Gula Melaka, Gula Djawa: palm sugar.
Kayu manis, kulit kayu manis: cinnamon. Kelapa: coconut. Kenari: pili nuts, used for pastries and brickle in the Moluccas.
Kemiri: candlenut (Aleurites moluccana), used to thicken sauces.
Ketjap asin: dark soy sauce. Ketjap manis: sweet soy sauce.
Kluwak: pangium edule seeds, which are first boiled, then fermented for six or seven weeks till dark and greasy, which renders them safe. In a fresh state they contain hydrogen cyanide (prussic acid) and are highly poisonous. They are ground smooth after soaking in boiling water, and added to certain stews and sambals. Kunyit, kunir: turmeric, which if the powdered form is used should be less than half the quantity of ground coriander. Lada, Meritja, Sahang: black pepper.
Laos, lengkuas: galangal. Lombok: formerly called 'Spaansche peper', this is similar to Thai peppers as well as Mirasol, Cayenne, and Tabasco.
Pala, buah pala: nutmeg. Petis: not the clear amber fishsauce which Filippinos and Thais use, but rather a thick stroppy goo which is also made from seafood ferments, much used in Javanese cuisine.
Santan: coconut milk, expressed from the meat. Selasi, Tulasi (Tulsi); daun selasi, daun tulsi: basil leaf. Serai, sereh: lemon grass.
Temu kuntji: finger root, Chinese keys (Boesenbergia rotunda), which has a bitter almost medicinal taste; it is used in small quantities.
Tjabe rawit: birdseye chili. Tjengkeh: cloves. Trasi: fermented shrimp paste, an odoriferous flavouring that combines well with pork.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Sunday, June 22, 2014
RIJSTTAFEL -- YOUR INTRODUCTION TO FLAVOUR
Most Indonesians and Americans cannot grasp the concept. Forty or more dishes at one meal? Surely that's horrifically excessive? What IS it with you degenerate cheese-heads?!? Yet the Dutch feast known as a rijsttafel ("rice table") is actually not about excess. It's about moderation and texture. And nowadays, unless you have a whole bunch of people coming over, eight or ten dishes is more than enough.
Rice is essential, so is chilipaste. Gin (genever) or beer are quite optional. Cigars and coffee afterwards are up to you.
LIKELY DISHES:
Asinan timun: Lightly pickled cucumber.
Atjar pedes tjampur: Chilis and other vegetables, pickled.
Babi ketjap: Pork belly in a soy based sauce.
Bami: noodles.
Bami goreng: Fried noodles.
Empek-empek: Fried stuffed fish cakes.
Emping: Pounded gnemon seed crackers.
Gapok (empal): Spicy seethed meat sliced and slow-fried till crisp.
Gudeg: Yokyakarta-style green jackfruit curry.
Gule ayam: Chicken in a mild coconut curry broth.
Ikan bakar: Charcoal grilled fish with a sambal.
Ikan goreng: fried fish.
Ikan tumis: Steamed fish with sliced chili and ginger.
Ketoprak: Vegetable salad with a spicy dressing.
Kolak ubi: Yam chunks cooked in coconut milk and palm sugar.
Korma kambing: Goat (or lamb) cooked in a rich coconut and candlenut sauce with chilies and ground coriander seed.
Krupuk: Shrimp chips.
Laksa: Nyonya style noodle curry soup.
Lemperan: Rice batter crepes with a crunchy vegetable filling.
Lumpia: Springrolls, mostly beansprout and shredded carrot.
Nasi: cooked rice.
Nasi goreng: fried rice dishes.
Onde-onde: Glutinous rice balls with a sweet filling, deepfried.
Opor: Fowl in a rich coconut broth.
Perkedel: Spicy potato croquettes.
Pindang telur; Pindang: hard-boiled eggs in a savoury spicy sauce.
Soto Ayam: chicken soup with fried crunchies and beansprouts.
Rawon: Meat stewed black with keluak nuts to colour.
Rendang: Buffalo chunks seethed in coconut milk with turmeric, galangal, lemon grass, and enough chili to floor a battalion.
Rudjak: Unripe fruits with a sour-spicy-savoury dip.
Sambal goreng ikan: Fish stirfried with chili paste.
Sambal goreng buntjis: Haricots vert stirfried with garlic and chili.
Saté: Small barbecue skewers and peanut sauce.
Sayur asem: Sour tamarind vegetable soup.
Sayur lodeh: Vegetables cooked pulpy with coconut milk.
Sayur tjampur: Mixed vegetables with curry spices.
Semur: Meat braised in dark sauce with onions.
Serundeng: Spicy crunchy toasted coconut shreds.
Singgang: Tamarind and seafood flavoured broth.
Tahu goreng: Fried tofu with a tangy-spicy peanutty sauce.
Tjendol: Groene glibbertjes drank.
En zo veel nog voorts.
Contrary to popular belief, fried battered bananas ('pisang goreng') are absolutely not an important part of this.
The key is coupling variety with restraint. Do not eat until you pop, but just sample a little bit of this and that. Augment your food with a little hot sauce (sambal), and alternate textures.
Kindly ignore any and all sneering comments from Indonesian nationalists and PC American puritans. Why did you invite either of those silly people anyhow? They don't have anything interesting to say, and they disapprove of everything.
The best Dutch Indonesian restaurants are in the Hague, but many fine establishments can also be found in Amsterdam. Ask local people for a recommendation. Yes, most native Dutch are heavy beer drinkers, but a rijst tafel eatery is usually a table cloth kind of place, so they'll behave.
Can't say as much for the visiting English and Germans.
There are no good places to enjoy a rijst tafel in the San Francisco area.
But there is indeed some excellent Indonesian food to be had.
Different audience, with different tastes.
Few Indos, also few Dutch.
It's not Batavia.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Rice is essential, so is chilipaste. Gin (genever) or beer are quite optional. Cigars and coffee afterwards are up to you.
LIKELY DISHES:
Asinan timun: Lightly pickled cucumber.
Atjar pedes tjampur: Chilis and other vegetables, pickled.
Babi ketjap: Pork belly in a soy based sauce.
Bami: noodles.
Bami goreng: Fried noodles.
Empek-empek: Fried stuffed fish cakes.
Emping: Pounded gnemon seed crackers.
Gapok (empal): Spicy seethed meat sliced and slow-fried till crisp.
Gudeg: Yokyakarta-style green jackfruit curry.
Gule ayam: Chicken in a mild coconut curry broth.
Ikan bakar: Charcoal grilled fish with a sambal.
Ikan goreng: fried fish.
Ikan tumis: Steamed fish with sliced chili and ginger.
Ketoprak: Vegetable salad with a spicy dressing.
Kolak ubi: Yam chunks cooked in coconut milk and palm sugar.
Korma kambing: Goat (or lamb) cooked in a rich coconut and candlenut sauce with chilies and ground coriander seed.
Krupuk: Shrimp chips.
Laksa: Nyonya style noodle curry soup.
Lemperan: Rice batter crepes with a crunchy vegetable filling.
Lumpia: Springrolls, mostly beansprout and shredded carrot.
Nasi: cooked rice.
Nasi goreng: fried rice dishes.
Onde-onde: Glutinous rice balls with a sweet filling, deepfried.
Opor: Fowl in a rich coconut broth.
Perkedel: Spicy potato croquettes.
Pindang telur; Pindang: hard-boiled eggs in a savoury spicy sauce.
Soto Ayam: chicken soup with fried crunchies and beansprouts.
Rawon: Meat stewed black with keluak nuts to colour.
Rendang: Buffalo chunks seethed in coconut milk with turmeric, galangal, lemon grass, and enough chili to floor a battalion.
Rudjak: Unripe fruits with a sour-spicy-savoury dip.
Sambal goreng ikan: Fish stirfried with chili paste.
Sambal goreng buntjis: Haricots vert stirfried with garlic and chili.
Saté: Small barbecue skewers and peanut sauce.
Sayur asem: Sour tamarind vegetable soup.
Sayur lodeh: Vegetables cooked pulpy with coconut milk.
Sayur tjampur: Mixed vegetables with curry spices.
Semur: Meat braised in dark sauce with onions.
Serundeng: Spicy crunchy toasted coconut shreds.
Singgang: Tamarind and seafood flavoured broth.
Tahu goreng: Fried tofu with a tangy-spicy peanutty sauce.
Tjendol: Groene glibbertjes drank.
En zo veel nog voorts.
Contrary to popular belief, fried battered bananas ('pisang goreng') are absolutely not an important part of this.
The key is coupling variety with restraint. Do not eat until you pop, but just sample a little bit of this and that. Augment your food with a little hot sauce (sambal), and alternate textures.
Kindly ignore any and all sneering comments from Indonesian nationalists and PC American puritans. Why did you invite either of those silly people anyhow? They don't have anything interesting to say, and they disapprove of everything.
The best Dutch Indonesian restaurants are in the Hague, but many fine establishments can also be found in Amsterdam. Ask local people for a recommendation. Yes, most native Dutch are heavy beer drinkers, but a rijst tafel eatery is usually a table cloth kind of place, so they'll behave.
Can't say as much for the visiting English and Germans.
There are no good places to enjoy a rijst tafel in the San Francisco area.
But there is indeed some excellent Indonesian food to be had.
Different audience, with different tastes.
Few Indos, also few Dutch.
It's not Batavia.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, November 06, 2013
FEELING PLEASANTLY ANTIQUE
One of the last times I saw my friends Henri and Suzanne before I left Valkenswaard for Berkeley was in neither place.
The centre of Valkenswaard ('Grote Markt') did not have the really ancient trees and the genuine Indonesian Restaurant occupying a dominant location as a few other towns, and had started modernizing, meaning that there were more bars than any other form of business.
It was not nearly as appealing for a long quite lunch as some other places.
We took the train somewhere else. Not far, but it would have been a two or three hour bicycle trip, and it threatened to rain. Besides, the owner of the restaurant we intended to visit was kin, in a way. Henry and Suzanne had not been born in the old country -- their parents had been forced out in the fifties -- but they and the restaurant man spoke the same language. Not standard Malay, which later became Bahasa Indonesia, but something a little wilder, more eastern. Yes, standard Malay also, because many of the transplantees and their families in the Kempen knew that language. But in the sixties and seventies odd linguistic strata were still evident.
[Transplantees: people who had left Indonesia when that country became independent. Many were Dutch legally if not entirely by descent, others did not have much or any Dutch blood at all. Most were too educated and too associated with the old regime to still be much welcome in the islands of their birth; the nationalists had since the Japanese occupation tried to erase as much of the Netherlandish overlay as possible. During the fifties and the sixties the local societal webbing and woofing got a lot worse. The term for such people in Holland nowadays is Indos, but up until the seventies, calling someone an Indo was considered depreciating. Some did not consider themselves 'Indo' in any way at all. Two of my classmates in high school, for instance, spoke barely a word of 'Indonesian' (Malay), but dreamed in the Hakka tongue of the mining settlements in Borneo. They were very white in that regard.]
Henri was back from college for a week, Suzanne would be at Leiden University after summer, and I was going to return to the United States in August. My exile was ending, and I both dreaded and welcomed the prospect of becoming more of what I was.
So it seemed perfectly appropriate to leave Valkenswaard for the day, and have a long lunch in a restaurant where another world was remembered.
At least one table leg elsewhere, so to speak.
Remarkable for a town far in the south, almost isolated from the modern world, Valkenswaard had much that subconsciously reminded one of Indonesia. After the war a number of people had arrived there, and while local society remained somewhat closed, it did welcome them. The cigar factories still used leaf from Djember and Bondowoso, the coffee everyone drank from dawn till midnight tasted still of the lost empire, and a number of the local people had served in the Preanger during the troubles. Poverty had sent local sons all over Europe and the East, many families had an uncle or cousin who used odd locutions, probably every household had something that recalled the Orient.
Valkenswaard even had some musicians that played Indo Rock.
Boisterous, melodic. Reminiscent of krontjong.
Other villages in the Kempen were similar. Cigar factories. Veterans. Mercantile people. And transplantees.
The "elsewhere" we visited that day had once had a cigar factory too, and a graduate of the Technische Hogeschool Bandoeng (Institut Teknologi Bandung - Technical University of Bandung) had opened a restaurant serving Dutch-Indonesian food there. He was a classmate of Henri and Suzanne's uncle, both men had worked with thousands of others on a railway in Sumatra.
After the war, they returned to their city looking out over the water north of 'returning plank', and discovered that it had changed. More Muslims, more Malays, more Madurese; along with destroyed oil installations and bridges. As engineers, they were perfectly suited to help rebuild it. But the world was a much different place by then.
When Henri's father finally came back from Semarang, all of them decided to leave.
Things were no longer the same.
['Returning Plank': Balik Papan. Semarang: where a P.O.W. camp had been.]
That afternoon there were eight of us at the restaurant named after a famous shopping street in Bandung.
Henri, Suzanne, and myself. The owner, his wife, a waiter, and two people in the kitchen in addition to the wife. She spoke to them in Cantonese, to her husband in Indonesian, and to us in Dutch.
Four people who had lived through the war. Three who had only heard about it secondhand. Two that had been in camps.
But, given that particular time and place, and that all of us had roots elsewhere, the war still seemed a significant factor, more than thirty years after it ended.
Our speech, naturally, was "mixed".
As was the food.
A lovely white-cooked chicken dish -- not the Chinese chicken with ginger shreds and green onion, but a pale and slightly sweet compound of breasts and livers in coconut milk -- a dark almost black beefy offering, and a golden bamboo shoot and dried fish gulai, which was actually a version of ebere without the pork.
Plus crunchy vegetables to dip in hot sauce, and a clear soup with tamarind and lemon grass.
Coffee and tobacco afterwards.
Douwe Egberts coffee with condensed milk. Pungent bolknak cigars from Hofnar.
Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes (or were they Caballero?), and pipe-tobacco from a black and white tin.
"How are your parents?"
[Ei, Apak Amao mo, ma-ano dema? Sarwa bate sametek?]
"Oh, they're fine. They send their regards."
[O, dema bate bate sahadja, mag-ngirim salam pa' kuwang, ya.]
"How's your uncle's gout?"
[Bagemano sakit-yikit nya pamongmo?]
Odd, that after much rich food, gout should come up.
Somehow it just didn't seem right. Natural, yes, but not right.
I also remember wondering at the expression 'sakit-yikit'. It struck me that it was a term I had never heard before, ere I understood that it was merely a borrowing from Dutch.
Jicht (ph: 'yikht').
[This was years before I got to feel gout firsthand; like the war, it was something I only knew from hearing.]
Gout is probably a lot more common in Indonesian circles now than it was several decades ago, as eating habits have changed. What were once foods limited to festivals are now so widely available that middle-class children may at times resemble beach balls, much like in Holland and America at present. And pudginess is considered a virtue.
But before prosperity made us fat, our diets were much healthier.
In Indonesia, the women of Sunda and North-East Borneo were always considered beautiful, with clear glowing skin and bright expressive faces, because they ate so many vegetables.
Crisp greens dipped in fresh chilipaste, vegetable curries coloured with turmeric, ginger and green herbs in soups and stews.
Not very much meat.
Fresh fish.
In the Netherlands at that time, the repatriated veterans and colonial administrators wanted the rich coconut curries, fried dishes, and roasted meats they remembered from their insular East Indies environment, the exiled Indos longed for the water spinach (蕹菜 eng tsae, kangkong), longbeans (豆角 tau kok, 菜豆 tsae tau, atawa katjang manjang), amaranthus leaf (莧菜 hin tsae, daon bayem), fresh chilies (辣椒 loat tseo, tjabe hijo), and basil (九層塔 kau tsang tak, daon tulasi) of home.
Over all this, the fragrances of chilipaste (sambal), dried fish (ika karing, daeng) and shrimp-dew (patis), lime juice (tjeap limo), tamarind (asem djawa, atawa buwa tjaramanggi, tan wae kampal), coconut (kalapa, niyog; but more often the milk - santen - and the raspings - katjurokan kalapa).
Lemongrass (sere), ginger (djae, haleya), galangal (umbe langkuwas, langkwang), cilantro (ijo katumbar), Chinese keyes (kantjor, tamo kuntji, atawa umbe wangi).
Most Indonesian restaurants in North Brabant were actually Chinese, with a menu that offered food that neither the staff nor the kitchen really even understood. A few represented Javanese tastes -- often run by little old aunties and uncles from somewhere near Bogor or Surabaya -- and one or two catered to the ex Ambon military.
All of them had sate, and semur, gule and kare, lumpia, saoto, gado gado, besengek, ayam taliwang, and babi panggang, babi taotjo, babi ketjap, babi tomat.
That's skewers of small grilled meat chunks with peanut sauce, soy and onion braised meat, yellow soup curry and hot brown dry curry, small eggrolls, soup with meat and potato or rice-stick noodle, blanched vegetables with peanut sauce, spicy Javanese chicken stew, fiery Menadonese chicken, roast pork, beanpaste pork, soy pork, and pork with tomatoes and chili.
Pork is not really an Indonesian favourite, at least not in Java and Sumatra, where most of the people live and almost everyone is Muslim.
But Hindus, Christians, Chinese, and Tribals all love it.
As do restaurant owners and Dutch people.
For the best truly authentic food, you went to Den Haag or Amsterdam.
Or places run by retired exiles: the uncles and the aunties.
There were few such in the hinterlands.
But you probably cooked at home, even if all you wanted was bami goreng and gule ayam, or simply ketoprak, rendang, and a bit of rice.
My tastes have expanded since I left Valkenswaard, but I still cook at home. Especially if I want to remember. Things like Suzanne's ready wit, or Henri's smile -- her faint hint of girlish perfume (Joy, by Jean Patou), his subtle odour of cigars -- and above all the light of Northern Europe, strong coffee and amber tea, old camphor wood cabinets, as well as the whisper of sandalwood (keeps away bugs), and diluted lime juice or green tea used to soften the hair of the ladies in Indo households.
These elements are all revived when I have Indonesian dishes.
Which I cook myself. Because no one else does these.
[How do I know what perfume Suzanne wore? Simple. I asked. It was available at a store on the Grote Berg in Eindhoven, as well as a place on the Rechte Straat near the 18 September Plein.
I bought her some for her birthday that last year. Of course I remember.]
MANOK MAPUOG
Coconut milk white chicken
One chicken cut into 6 or 8 pieces.
One onion, minced.
Six kemiri (candlenuts), lightly toasted.
Six cloves garlic, slivered.
A slice or two ginger.
One TBS. ground coriander.
Half Tsp. each: ground cumin, white pepper.
Small piece of cinnamon.
Two stalks lemon grass; bruised, folded, tied.
Whole green chilies.
Three cups coconut milk.
Three cups clear stock.
Pinches of salt and sugar.
Fry onion limp-translucent, add the garlic, ginger, and powdered spices. Gild very lightly. Now add everything except the chicken and whole chilies and simmer for an hour.
After this add the chicken and cook on low heat for about forty five minutes, then add the whole chilies and leave on the flame fifteen minutes more.
Remove the chicken to a dish, take out the whole chilies and piece of cinnamon, and reduce the liquid to a velvety consistency. Pour it over the chicken, and garnish with a few fresh basil leaves.
GULE KAMBING
Curry lamb
One and a half pounds lamb, cut into chunks.
One onion, chopped.
Thumb-length ginger, minced.
Two or three cloves garlic, ditto.
Half TBS. ground coriander.
Half Tsp. each: paprika, turmeric, dry ginger.
Quarter Tsp. each: cayenne, ground pepper, mace.
A stalk of lemon grass.
A stick of cinnamon.
A bay leaf.
Three cups coconut milk.
One and a half cups water.
Quarter cup broken cashews.
Squeeze of lime juice.
Jigger of Louisiana hot sauce.
Grind powdered spices with the cashews to a paste, add the onion, garlic, and ginger, and mix - mash - grind till smooth.
Fry the spice paste till the oil separates, add the meat and stir to coat. Braise a bit, and keep stirring, to prevent burning at the bottom of the pan. Loosen the crusty bits as needed.
Add the remaining flavourings and about a third of the liquids (except the lime juice and hot sauce), cook into the oil comes out, then add the rest. Simmer for about half an hour to forty five minutes.
Stir occasionally to prevent scorching.
Squeeze the lime and jigger the hot sauce over before serving.
MANOK KUNIT
Yellow curry chicken
Half a chicken, in four pieces.
One onion, minced.
One or two cloves garlic, minced.
A little ginger, ditto.
Three kemiri (candlenuts); lightly toasted, ground smooth.
One TBS. sambal ulek.
One Tsp. tamarind paste.
One Tsp. each: ground coriander, turmeric, dry ginger.
Half Tsp. each: sugar, shrimp paste.
Generous pinch ground cumin.
A stalk of lemon grass.
One cup coconut milk.
Dash of amber fish sauce.
Gild the onion, garlic, and ginger. Add the kemiri, sambal, shrimp paste, and spices, stirfry till fragrant. Then add the chicken, lemon grass, and coconut milk. Cook till the chicken is tender and the oil starts coming out, about forty minutes. Add the sugar and fish sauce, and cook a few minutes more.
EBERE
Meat and bamboo shoots in rich sauce
Pound and a half of chunked goat.
Cup and a half of julienned bamboo shoots.
One carrot, also julienned.
A small onion, minced.
Some minced garlic and chili.
One or two TBS. sambal ulek.
One Tsp. ground coriander.
Half Tsp. each turmeric, dry ginger, ground cumin.
Cup and a half coconut milk.
Cup of stock or water.
Dash soy sauce.
Squeeze of lime juice.
Frazzle the onion garlic and ginger with a little of the coconut milk until the oil comes out and the mixture gilds. Add the powdered spices, sambal, and goat, plus a splash more coconut milk. When the oil comes out again, add the remaining coconut milk and the water. Simmer for an hour. Then add the bamboo shoot, carrot, soy sauce, and the squeeze of lime juice, cook half an hour more.
BABUI MAKETJAP
Soy-sauce pork
One pound pork loin, chunked.
One or two stalks scallion, cut into small lengths.
A thumb-length ginger, coarse slivered.
One Tsp. sambal ulek
One or two star anise.
Quarter cup soy sauce.
Two TBS. sugar.
Half cup water.
Jigger sherry.
Salt and pepper the pork lightly. Stirfry the scallion and ginger in oil till fragrant, add the meat and sauté to colour. Add everything else and simmer for half and hour or so. The sauce should be velvety, but not treacly.
PATJOKAN LIMO
Lemon pickle-relish
One cup white vinegar.
Half cup water.
Quarter cup sugar.
Two TBS. salt.
Half Tsp. turmeric.
Pinch paprika (for colour).
Three large lemons.
Three small green chilies.
Blanch lemons and chilies. Remove seeds, and chop.
Mix everything in a large jar.
Age a week, shake regularly.
Use a little for a startling condimental addition.
RUDJAK
Sour and hot dressed salad.
Two TBS. each: lime juice, tamarind liquid, amber fish sauce, smooth peanut butter.
One TBS. each: brown sugar, Louisiana hot sauce, sambal ulek.
Hot water as needed for diluting, and a few drops of oil for smoothness.
Whisk together till smooth.
Serve as a dip, or use as dressing, for raw and blanched vegetables and sour fruits, with shrimp chips, fried tofu squares (tauhu pong), and slices of hard-boiled egg.
SARUNDENG BAWANG
Crispy coconut and onion garnish
One cup grated coconut.
One finely slivered shallot.
Two TBS. lime juice
One TBS. amber fish sauce.
One Tsp. sugar.
A few drops Louisiana hotsauce.
Pinches ground coriander and turmeric.
Mix it all together well. Let stand an hour or two. Spread thinly on an oiled baking tray, and toast it for two hours at slightly below 300 degrees Fahrenheit. If necessary, decant it to a skillet and toast it golden brown afterwards by hand. Keeps for a few weeks.
Use it to add textural excitement on top of curries.
[A version of serundeng with cashews is here: sarundeng kadjo. It can also be made with rehydrated laver (seaweed), at which point you have something that you will eat huge handfuls of in front of the teevee late at night.]
Note that lemon grass can be found in many Asian markets, sambal ulek is plain red chili paste as manufactured by Huy Fong Foods in Irwindale -- as well as other companies, and you can also substitute similar products -- and good amber fish sauce comes from Thailand or Vietnam. Avoid the Filipino versions; they're chemically unstable.
Kemiri nuts (Aleurites moluccana) are often used in Indonesian cuisine. They add a saveur of their own, and help unify emulsive sauces. But you can substitute many other nuts for a similar effect, entirely excepting kluwak (Pangium edule ), which has its own unique function within the Indies kitchen.
Customarily, freshly chopped cucumbers, a clear soup, simple and cooked sambals, and rice are part of the meal. Cucumbers lessen the effect of hot weather as well as gastric distress from too much sambal. Often some blanched or quick stir-fried vegetables will also be served.
Amounts of sambal ulek are suggestions.
Feel free to increase.
AFTER WORD
I remember that afternoon fondly. Suzanne was more sparkling than ever, and her brother Henri seemed pleased and proud that his sister was such a nice young lady. Over the next several hours he had three cigars, I smoked my pipe constantly, and Suzanne manfully put up with our smelly habit.
The uncle and his wife happily listened in on the juveniles, sometimes adding a comment. Perhaps it somehow reminded them of somewhere else, a different time and place. Youth, cleverly mixed languages, witty conversation, and spicy food.
Was it perhaps an echo of a city far away, and the people who had once lived there?
Outside it was raining. Not the hard downpours of winter, but a steady drubbing amid the green green leaves of the tall trees surrounding the square, muffling the sounds of traffic and whatever else.
Lights were on; you need lamps in Holland when it rains to drive away the gloom. And brightness adds cheer.
Later, when the rain lessened, we walked back to the station.
Henri and I let Suzanne use the only umbrella, resisting her demands that we all stay under it. The wetness was minor, and real men do not mind a little moisture.
Despite the long exposure to tobacco smoke, I could still notice the faintest hint of her perfume. How delightful, how feminine.
I wonder what would have happened if I had gone back in the eighties.
At that time it did not seem like such a good idea, and since then I have gotten acclimatized so thoroughly that leaving the Bay Area never even crosses my mind.
But I rather miss the weather, as well as the smells.
And above all, some of the people I knew.
Their fragrance remains strong.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
The centre of Valkenswaard ('Grote Markt') did not have the really ancient trees and the genuine Indonesian Restaurant occupying a dominant location as a few other towns, and had started modernizing, meaning that there were more bars than any other form of business.
It was not nearly as appealing for a long quite lunch as some other places.
We took the train somewhere else. Not far, but it would have been a two or three hour bicycle trip, and it threatened to rain. Besides, the owner of the restaurant we intended to visit was kin, in a way. Henry and Suzanne had not been born in the old country -- their parents had been forced out in the fifties -- but they and the restaurant man spoke the same language. Not standard Malay, which later became Bahasa Indonesia, but something a little wilder, more eastern. Yes, standard Malay also, because many of the transplantees and their families in the Kempen knew that language. But in the sixties and seventies odd linguistic strata were still evident.
[Transplantees: people who had left Indonesia when that country became independent. Many were Dutch legally if not entirely by descent, others did not have much or any Dutch blood at all. Most were too educated and too associated with the old regime to still be much welcome in the islands of their birth; the nationalists had since the Japanese occupation tried to erase as much of the Netherlandish overlay as possible. During the fifties and the sixties the local societal webbing and woofing got a lot worse. The term for such people in Holland nowadays is Indos, but up until the seventies, calling someone an Indo was considered depreciating. Some did not consider themselves 'Indo' in any way at all. Two of my classmates in high school, for instance, spoke barely a word of 'Indonesian' (Malay), but dreamed in the Hakka tongue of the mining settlements in Borneo. They were very white in that regard.]
Henri was back from college for a week, Suzanne would be at Leiden University after summer, and I was going to return to the United States in August. My exile was ending, and I both dreaded and welcomed the prospect of becoming more of what I was.
So it seemed perfectly appropriate to leave Valkenswaard for the day, and have a long lunch in a restaurant where another world was remembered.
At least one table leg elsewhere, so to speak.
Remarkable for a town far in the south, almost isolated from the modern world, Valkenswaard had much that subconsciously reminded one of Indonesia. After the war a number of people had arrived there, and while local society remained somewhat closed, it did welcome them. The cigar factories still used leaf from Djember and Bondowoso, the coffee everyone drank from dawn till midnight tasted still of the lost empire, and a number of the local people had served in the Preanger during the troubles. Poverty had sent local sons all over Europe and the East, many families had an uncle or cousin who used odd locutions, probably every household had something that recalled the Orient.
Valkenswaard even had some musicians that played Indo Rock.
Boisterous, melodic. Reminiscent of krontjong.
Other villages in the Kempen were similar. Cigar factories. Veterans. Mercantile people. And transplantees.
The "elsewhere" we visited that day had once had a cigar factory too, and a graduate of the Technische Hogeschool Bandoeng (Institut Teknologi Bandung - Technical University of Bandung) had opened a restaurant serving Dutch-Indonesian food there. He was a classmate of Henri and Suzanne's uncle, both men had worked with thousands of others on a railway in Sumatra.
After the war, they returned to their city looking out over the water north of 'returning plank', and discovered that it had changed. More Muslims, more Malays, more Madurese; along with destroyed oil installations and bridges. As engineers, they were perfectly suited to help rebuild it. But the world was a much different place by then.
When Henri's father finally came back from Semarang, all of them decided to leave.
Things were no longer the same.
['Returning Plank': Balik Papan. Semarang: where a P.O.W. camp had been.]
That afternoon there were eight of us at the restaurant named after a famous shopping street in Bandung.
Henri, Suzanne, and myself. The owner, his wife, a waiter, and two people in the kitchen in addition to the wife. She spoke to them in Cantonese, to her husband in Indonesian, and to us in Dutch.
Four people who had lived through the war. Three who had only heard about it secondhand. Two that had been in camps.
But, given that particular time and place, and that all of us had roots elsewhere, the war still seemed a significant factor, more than thirty years after it ended.
Our speech, naturally, was "mixed".
As was the food.
A lovely white-cooked chicken dish -- not the Chinese chicken with ginger shreds and green onion, but a pale and slightly sweet compound of breasts and livers in coconut milk -- a dark almost black beefy offering, and a golden bamboo shoot and dried fish gulai, which was actually a version of ebere without the pork.
Plus crunchy vegetables to dip in hot sauce, and a clear soup with tamarind and lemon grass.
Coffee and tobacco afterwards.
Douwe Egberts coffee with condensed milk. Pungent bolknak cigars from Hofnar.
Peter Stuyvesant cigarettes (or were they Caballero?), and pipe-tobacco from a black and white tin.
"How are your parents?"
[Ei, Apak Amao mo, ma-ano dema? Sarwa bate sametek?]
"Oh, they're fine. They send their regards."
[O, dema bate bate sahadja, mag-ngirim salam pa' kuwang, ya.]
"How's your uncle's gout?"
[Bagemano sakit-yikit nya pamongmo?]
Odd, that after much rich food, gout should come up.
Somehow it just didn't seem right. Natural, yes, but not right.
I also remember wondering at the expression 'sakit-yikit'. It struck me that it was a term I had never heard before, ere I understood that it was merely a borrowing from Dutch.
Jicht (ph: 'yikht').
[This was years before I got to feel gout firsthand; like the war, it was something I only knew from hearing.]
Gout is probably a lot more common in Indonesian circles now than it was several decades ago, as eating habits have changed. What were once foods limited to festivals are now so widely available that middle-class children may at times resemble beach balls, much like in Holland and America at present. And pudginess is considered a virtue.
But before prosperity made us fat, our diets were much healthier.
In Indonesia, the women of Sunda and North-East Borneo were always considered beautiful, with clear glowing skin and bright expressive faces, because they ate so many vegetables.
Crisp greens dipped in fresh chilipaste, vegetable curries coloured with turmeric, ginger and green herbs in soups and stews.
Not very much meat.
Fresh fish.
In the Netherlands at that time, the repatriated veterans and colonial administrators wanted the rich coconut curries, fried dishes, and roasted meats they remembered from their insular East Indies environment, the exiled Indos longed for the water spinach (蕹菜 eng tsae, kangkong), longbeans (豆角 tau kok, 菜豆 tsae tau, atawa katjang manjang), amaranthus leaf (莧菜 hin tsae, daon bayem), fresh chilies (辣椒 loat tseo, tjabe hijo), and basil (九層塔 kau tsang tak, daon tulasi) of home.
Over all this, the fragrances of chilipaste (sambal), dried fish (ika karing, daeng) and shrimp-dew (patis), lime juice (tjeap limo), tamarind (asem djawa, atawa buwa tjaramanggi, tan wae kampal), coconut (kalapa, niyog; but more often the milk - santen - and the raspings - katjurokan kalapa).
Lemongrass (sere), ginger (djae, haleya), galangal (umbe langkuwas, langkwang), cilantro (ijo katumbar), Chinese keyes (kantjor, tamo kuntji, atawa umbe wangi).
Most Indonesian restaurants in North Brabant were actually Chinese, with a menu that offered food that neither the staff nor the kitchen really even understood. A few represented Javanese tastes -- often run by little old aunties and uncles from somewhere near Bogor or Surabaya -- and one or two catered to the ex Ambon military.
All of them had sate, and semur, gule and kare, lumpia, saoto, gado gado, besengek, ayam taliwang, and babi panggang, babi taotjo, babi ketjap, babi tomat.
That's skewers of small grilled meat chunks with peanut sauce, soy and onion braised meat, yellow soup curry and hot brown dry curry, small eggrolls, soup with meat and potato or rice-stick noodle, blanched vegetables with peanut sauce, spicy Javanese chicken stew, fiery Menadonese chicken, roast pork, beanpaste pork, soy pork, and pork with tomatoes and chili.
Pork is not really an Indonesian favourite, at least not in Java and Sumatra, where most of the people live and almost everyone is Muslim.
But Hindus, Christians, Chinese, and Tribals all love it.
As do restaurant owners and Dutch people.
For the best truly authentic food, you went to Den Haag or Amsterdam.
Or places run by retired exiles: the uncles and the aunties.
There were few such in the hinterlands.
But you probably cooked at home, even if all you wanted was bami goreng and gule ayam, or simply ketoprak, rendang, and a bit of rice.
My tastes have expanded since I left Valkenswaard, but I still cook at home. Especially if I want to remember. Things like Suzanne's ready wit, or Henri's smile -- her faint hint of girlish perfume (Joy, by Jean Patou), his subtle odour of cigars -- and above all the light of Northern Europe, strong coffee and amber tea, old camphor wood cabinets, as well as the whisper of sandalwood (keeps away bugs), and diluted lime juice or green tea used to soften the hair of the ladies in Indo households.
These elements are all revived when I have Indonesian dishes.
Which I cook myself. Because no one else does these.
[How do I know what perfume Suzanne wore? Simple. I asked. It was available at a store on the Grote Berg in Eindhoven, as well as a place on the Rechte Straat near the 18 September Plein.
I bought her some for her birthday that last year. Of course I remember.]
MANOK MAPUOG
Coconut milk white chicken
One chicken cut into 6 or 8 pieces.
One onion, minced.
Six kemiri (candlenuts), lightly toasted.
Six cloves garlic, slivered.
A slice or two ginger.
One TBS. ground coriander.
Half Tsp. each: ground cumin, white pepper.
Small piece of cinnamon.
Two stalks lemon grass; bruised, folded, tied.
Whole green chilies.
Three cups coconut milk.
Three cups clear stock.
Pinches of salt and sugar.
Fry onion limp-translucent, add the garlic, ginger, and powdered spices. Gild very lightly. Now add everything except the chicken and whole chilies and simmer for an hour.
After this add the chicken and cook on low heat for about forty five minutes, then add the whole chilies and leave on the flame fifteen minutes more.
Remove the chicken to a dish, take out the whole chilies and piece of cinnamon, and reduce the liquid to a velvety consistency. Pour it over the chicken, and garnish with a few fresh basil leaves.
GULE KAMBING
Curry lamb
One and a half pounds lamb, cut into chunks.
One onion, chopped.
Thumb-length ginger, minced.
Two or three cloves garlic, ditto.
Half TBS. ground coriander.
Half Tsp. each: paprika, turmeric, dry ginger.
Quarter Tsp. each: cayenne, ground pepper, mace.
A stalk of lemon grass.
A stick of cinnamon.
A bay leaf.
Three cups coconut milk.
One and a half cups water.
Quarter cup broken cashews.
Squeeze of lime juice.
Jigger of Louisiana hot sauce.
Grind powdered spices with the cashews to a paste, add the onion, garlic, and ginger, and mix - mash - grind till smooth.
Fry the spice paste till the oil separates, add the meat and stir to coat. Braise a bit, and keep stirring, to prevent burning at the bottom of the pan. Loosen the crusty bits as needed.
Add the remaining flavourings and about a third of the liquids (except the lime juice and hot sauce), cook into the oil comes out, then add the rest. Simmer for about half an hour to forty five minutes.
Stir occasionally to prevent scorching.
Squeeze the lime and jigger the hot sauce over before serving.
MANOK KUNIT
Yellow curry chicken
Half a chicken, in four pieces.
One onion, minced.
One or two cloves garlic, minced.
A little ginger, ditto.
Three kemiri (candlenuts); lightly toasted, ground smooth.
One TBS. sambal ulek.
One Tsp. tamarind paste.
One Tsp. each: ground coriander, turmeric, dry ginger.
Half Tsp. each: sugar, shrimp paste.
Generous pinch ground cumin.
A stalk of lemon grass.
One cup coconut milk.
Dash of amber fish sauce.
Gild the onion, garlic, and ginger. Add the kemiri, sambal, shrimp paste, and spices, stirfry till fragrant. Then add the chicken, lemon grass, and coconut milk. Cook till the chicken is tender and the oil starts coming out, about forty minutes. Add the sugar and fish sauce, and cook a few minutes more.
EBERE
Meat and bamboo shoots in rich sauce
Pound and a half of chunked goat.
Cup and a half of julienned bamboo shoots.
One carrot, also julienned.
A small onion, minced.
Some minced garlic and chili.
One or two TBS. sambal ulek.
One Tsp. ground coriander.
Half Tsp. each turmeric, dry ginger, ground cumin.
Cup and a half coconut milk.
Cup of stock or water.
Dash soy sauce.
Squeeze of lime juice.
Frazzle the onion garlic and ginger with a little of the coconut milk until the oil comes out and the mixture gilds. Add the powdered spices, sambal, and goat, plus a splash more coconut milk. When the oil comes out again, add the remaining coconut milk and the water. Simmer for an hour. Then add the bamboo shoot, carrot, soy sauce, and the squeeze of lime juice, cook half an hour more.
BABUI MAKETJAP
Soy-sauce pork
One pound pork loin, chunked.
One or two stalks scallion, cut into small lengths.
A thumb-length ginger, coarse slivered.
One Tsp. sambal ulek
One or two star anise.
Quarter cup soy sauce.
Two TBS. sugar.
Half cup water.
Jigger sherry.
Salt and pepper the pork lightly. Stirfry the scallion and ginger in oil till fragrant, add the meat and sauté to colour. Add everything else and simmer for half and hour or so. The sauce should be velvety, but not treacly.
PATJOKAN LIMO
Lemon pickle-relish
One cup white vinegar.
Half cup water.
Quarter cup sugar.
Two TBS. salt.
Half Tsp. turmeric.
Pinch paprika (for colour).
Three large lemons.
Three small green chilies.
Blanch lemons and chilies. Remove seeds, and chop.
Mix everything in a large jar.
Age a week, shake regularly.
Use a little for a startling condimental addition.
RUDJAK
Sour and hot dressed salad.
Two TBS. each: lime juice, tamarind liquid, amber fish sauce, smooth peanut butter.
One TBS. each: brown sugar, Louisiana hot sauce, sambal ulek.
Hot water as needed for diluting, and a few drops of oil for smoothness.
Whisk together till smooth.
Serve as a dip, or use as dressing, for raw and blanched vegetables and sour fruits, with shrimp chips, fried tofu squares (tauhu pong), and slices of hard-boiled egg.
SARUNDENG BAWANG
Crispy coconut and onion garnish
One cup grated coconut.
One finely slivered shallot.
Two TBS. lime juice
One TBS. amber fish sauce.
One Tsp. sugar.
A few drops Louisiana hotsauce.
Pinches ground coriander and turmeric.
Mix it all together well. Let stand an hour or two. Spread thinly on an oiled baking tray, and toast it for two hours at slightly below 300 degrees Fahrenheit. If necessary, decant it to a skillet and toast it golden brown afterwards by hand. Keeps for a few weeks.
Use it to add textural excitement on top of curries.
[A version of serundeng with cashews is here: sarundeng kadjo. It can also be made with rehydrated laver (seaweed), at which point you have something that you will eat huge handfuls of in front of the teevee late at night.]
Note that lemon grass can be found in many Asian markets, sambal ulek is plain red chili paste as manufactured by Huy Fong Foods in Irwindale -- as well as other companies, and you can also substitute similar products -- and good amber fish sauce comes from Thailand or Vietnam. Avoid the Filipino versions; they're chemically unstable.
Kemiri nuts (Aleurites moluccana) are often used in Indonesian cuisine. They add a saveur of their own, and help unify emulsive sauces. But you can substitute many other nuts for a similar effect, entirely excepting kluwak (Pangium edule ), which has its own unique function within the Indies kitchen.
Customarily, freshly chopped cucumbers, a clear soup, simple and cooked sambals, and rice are part of the meal. Cucumbers lessen the effect of hot weather as well as gastric distress from too much sambal. Often some blanched or quick stir-fried vegetables will also be served.
Amounts of sambal ulek are suggestions.
Feel free to increase.
AFTER WORD
I remember that afternoon fondly. Suzanne was more sparkling than ever, and her brother Henri seemed pleased and proud that his sister was such a nice young lady. Over the next several hours he had three cigars, I smoked my pipe constantly, and Suzanne manfully put up with our smelly habit.
The uncle and his wife happily listened in on the juveniles, sometimes adding a comment. Perhaps it somehow reminded them of somewhere else, a different time and place. Youth, cleverly mixed languages, witty conversation, and spicy food.
Was it perhaps an echo of a city far away, and the people who had once lived there?
Outside it was raining. Not the hard downpours of winter, but a steady drubbing amid the green green leaves of the tall trees surrounding the square, muffling the sounds of traffic and whatever else.
Lights were on; you need lamps in Holland when it rains to drive away the gloom. And brightness adds cheer.
Later, when the rain lessened, we walked back to the station.
Henri and I let Suzanne use the only umbrella, resisting her demands that we all stay under it. The wetness was minor, and real men do not mind a little moisture.
Despite the long exposure to tobacco smoke, I could still notice the faintest hint of her perfume. How delightful, how feminine.
I wonder what would have happened if I had gone back in the eighties.
At that time it did not seem like such a good idea, and since then I have gotten acclimatized so thoroughly that leaving the Bay Area never even crosses my mind.
But I rather miss the weather, as well as the smells.
And above all, some of the people I knew.
Their fragrance remains strong.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Wednesday, May 09, 2012
FROM BARBECUE TO SAND DADDY; A SAUCE POST
The other day I was discussing food with a gentleman from Louisiana who had spent some time in South East Asia. He mentioned a sauce his mother used, which she could no longer find.
I think I know roughly what it was. But really, it could be almost anything.
Sauce, in the South-East Asian context, means the entire spectrum from freshly made and soupy liquids to dark foul-smelling pastes that must be tempered and made palatable by diluting and cooking.
Sometimes they're concentrates, sometimes fermentation products.
And sometimes surprisingly familiar. Albeit cleverly disguised.
Here are two examples, both multinational.
燒烤醬 SIU HAAU JEUNG
Chinese barbecue sauce, as used in many restaurants, is one of the earliest examples of fusion cuisine.
From most to least, the ingredients are ketchup, apple cider vinegar, orange juice, and finely minced onion. Plus a little mustard powder, black pepper, chili oil, chili paste, and salt, as considered appropriate by the cook.
Generally three times as much ketchup as vinegar, four times as much vinegar as orange juice, and four times as much orange juice as honey. The quantity of the other ingredients ranges from minor to minute.
Usually it will be reduced to a thick gloop for storage, but it is also often compounded as needed and dumped over the raw meat to marinate.
Some cooks also add red miso (紅味噌 'hong mei chang') to the recipe.
Well-marbled fatty pork, whether 三層肉 ('saam chang yiuk': three layer meat), 梅花豬肉 ('mui faa chü yiuk': plum blossom pork), 五花腩 or 五花肉 ('ng faa naam', 'ng faa yiuk': five flower pork brisket), sauced and rubbed with the cooked-down version, then roasted in the oven or braised on the stove top, is quite scrumptious.
I know you've had it. Just think of all those delicious riblets!
It is also a stellar marinade for chicken wings, by the way. If you make it at home, adhere to the general proportions of ketchup, vinegar, juice, and honey as outlined above, then add the remaining ingredients to taste, before simmering down. It will keep for a while in the refrigerator.
沙茶醬, 沙爹醬 SATE SAUCE
The old-style Chinese sate sauce must be differentiated from the newer version. Both ultimately derive from a South-East Asian model brought back by Fujianese (Hokkienese) returning to China, but the version that has dried shrimp and fish-paste as a significant percentage is more of a longtime Chinese settlement in Java taste, and must be used sparingly as just one ingredient among many, whereas the modern Chinese version will contain more peanuts and the customary East-Indian spices.
Both 沙茶醬 and 沙爹醬 are pronounced 'sa-te cheo' in Hokkien, and mean the same thing. But 沙茶醬 (Cantonese: 'sa cha jeung') has the dried shrimpy flavour, 沙爹醬 (Cantonese: 'sa de jeung') is peanutty.
Either may be used as a component in other sauces, or condimentally when grilling or hot potting.
Note that the standard Hokkien term for sauce is 汁 (Hokkien pronunciation: chiap; Cantonese: 'jap'), from whence the second syllable in the English word 'ketchup' (茄汁) and the Malay-Javanese term 'ketjap' for soy-sauce. The difference between the concepts 醬 ('jeung') and 汁 ('jap') is one of compounding, processing, or fermentation, versus moisture and juice. Soy sauce (豉油 'si yau') belongs in the 醬 category, fish sauce (魚露 'yü lou') is clearly more 汁 than anything else.
KETCHUP
Speculatively, the path whereby the term 茄汁 ("keh-chap": tomato sauce) became the Javanese, Malay, and Indo-Dutch term for soy sauce may be explained by the habit of pickling fresh ingredients in a soy-sauce base, such as likely happened with tomatoes. If the resultant product is simmered down considerably till it approximates the same volume as the amount of soy sauce which was added, the salt content will be similar to that of soy sauce, hence it can be stored, and the taste will have been intensified.
Modern-day Indonesian soy sauce is often sweetened, which likewise provides a combination and layering of flavours. Once tomatoes became more common in the region, their addition would have been seen as an unnecessary complication; why pickle them when you can use them fresh?
Similar processes are still used to prepare strong condiments and non-perishable sauces by both Chinese and South-East Asians today. Mushroom soy sauce (草菰老抽 'tsou-gu lou-jau') is an example of one such. Look for either Pearl River Bridge brand (珠江橋牌) or Amoy (淘化大同, 淘大牌).
The Dutch version of sate sauce often consists of fried onion, peanut butter, palm sugar, tamarind or vinegar, chili sauce, and fish paste. Some versions are shockingly bad, some similar to the mediocre sweet versions preferred by Thais and Singaporeans.
Indonesians make the best. They invented it. It's a signature of their cuisine, and they add it to any number of meat and vegetable dishes.
But unlike the Dutch, they do not use it on French Fries.
About the title of this post?
沙爹醬 'sa de jeung': sand daddy sauce. The older name (沙茶醬) makes just as little sense, as it means 'sand tea sauce'.
Both are phonetic borrowings of the Javanese and Malay term 'saté', referring to grilled skewered meat.
Satay should not be confused with 'panggang', which is more like Southern-style barbecue, in that a large cut or the entire animal is slow-roasted and basted for several hours.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
I think I know roughly what it was. But really, it could be almost anything.
Sauce, in the South-East Asian context, means the entire spectrum from freshly made and soupy liquids to dark foul-smelling pastes that must be tempered and made palatable by diluting and cooking.
Sometimes they're concentrates, sometimes fermentation products.
And sometimes surprisingly familiar. Albeit cleverly disguised.
Here are two examples, both multinational.
燒烤醬 SIU HAAU JEUNG
Chinese barbecue sauce, as used in many restaurants, is one of the earliest examples of fusion cuisine.
From most to least, the ingredients are ketchup, apple cider vinegar, orange juice, and finely minced onion. Plus a little mustard powder, black pepper, chili oil, chili paste, and salt, as considered appropriate by the cook.
Generally three times as much ketchup as vinegar, four times as much vinegar as orange juice, and four times as much orange juice as honey. The quantity of the other ingredients ranges from minor to minute.
Usually it will be reduced to a thick gloop for storage, but it is also often compounded as needed and dumped over the raw meat to marinate.
Some cooks also add red miso (紅味噌 'hong mei chang') to the recipe.
Well-marbled fatty pork, whether 三層肉 ('saam chang yiuk': three layer meat), 梅花豬肉 ('mui faa chü yiuk': plum blossom pork), 五花腩 or 五花肉 ('ng faa naam', 'ng faa yiuk': five flower pork brisket), sauced and rubbed with the cooked-down version, then roasted in the oven or braised on the stove top, is quite scrumptious.
I know you've had it. Just think of all those delicious riblets!
It is also a stellar marinade for chicken wings, by the way. If you make it at home, adhere to the general proportions of ketchup, vinegar, juice, and honey as outlined above, then add the remaining ingredients to taste, before simmering down. It will keep for a while in the refrigerator.
沙茶醬, 沙爹醬 SATE SAUCE
The old-style Chinese sate sauce must be differentiated from the newer version. Both ultimately derive from a South-East Asian model brought back by Fujianese (Hokkienese) returning to China, but the version that has dried shrimp and fish-paste as a significant percentage is more of a longtime Chinese settlement in Java taste, and must be used sparingly as just one ingredient among many, whereas the modern Chinese version will contain more peanuts and the customary East-Indian spices.
Both 沙茶醬 and 沙爹醬 are pronounced 'sa-te cheo' in Hokkien, and mean the same thing. But 沙茶醬 (Cantonese: 'sa cha jeung') has the dried shrimpy flavour, 沙爹醬 (Cantonese: 'sa de jeung') is peanutty.
Either may be used as a component in other sauces, or condimentally when grilling or hot potting.
Note that the standard Hokkien term for sauce is 汁 (Hokkien pronunciation: chiap; Cantonese: 'jap'), from whence the second syllable in the English word 'ketchup' (茄汁) and the Malay-Javanese term 'ketjap' for soy-sauce. The difference between the concepts 醬 ('jeung') and 汁 ('jap') is one of compounding, processing, or fermentation, versus moisture and juice. Soy sauce (豉油 'si yau') belongs in the 醬 category, fish sauce (魚露 'yü lou') is clearly more 汁 than anything else.
KETCHUP
Speculatively, the path whereby the term 茄汁 ("keh-chap": tomato sauce) became the Javanese, Malay, and Indo-Dutch term for soy sauce may be explained by the habit of pickling fresh ingredients in a soy-sauce base, such as likely happened with tomatoes. If the resultant product is simmered down considerably till it approximates the same volume as the amount of soy sauce which was added, the salt content will be similar to that of soy sauce, hence it can be stored, and the taste will have been intensified.
Modern-day Indonesian soy sauce is often sweetened, which likewise provides a combination and layering of flavours. Once tomatoes became more common in the region, their addition would have been seen as an unnecessary complication; why pickle them when you can use them fresh?
Similar processes are still used to prepare strong condiments and non-perishable sauces by both Chinese and South-East Asians today. Mushroom soy sauce (草菰老抽 'tsou-gu lou-jau') is an example of one such. Look for either Pearl River Bridge brand (珠江橋牌) or Amoy (淘化大同, 淘大牌).
The Dutch version of sate sauce often consists of fried onion, peanut butter, palm sugar, tamarind or vinegar, chili sauce, and fish paste. Some versions are shockingly bad, some similar to the mediocre sweet versions preferred by Thais and Singaporeans.
Indonesians make the best. They invented it. It's a signature of their cuisine, and they add it to any number of meat and vegetable dishes.
But unlike the Dutch, they do not use it on French Fries.
About the title of this post?
沙爹醬 'sa de jeung': sand daddy sauce. The older name (沙茶醬) makes just as little sense, as it means 'sand tea sauce'.
Both are phonetic borrowings of the Javanese and Malay term 'saté', referring to grilled skewered meat.
Satay should not be confused with 'panggang', which is more like Southern-style barbecue, in that a large cut or the entire animal is slow-roasted and basted for several hours.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Saturday, March 24, 2012
LOVE AND ENTERTAINMENT ON A RAINY DAY
This may be the last rain of the season. And, given that it isn't a summer rain - which we never have in San Francisco, indeed, we shall not skip through the fragrant grass in our pretty summer frocks while warm droplets bejewel our dewy visage - the best course of action early in the morning seemed to roll over and go back to sleep. Half an hour later I went into the kitchen to fix myself a hot cup tea with milk and sugar, then went back to bed.
An hour later I woke up refreshed, ready for the day. Which meant another cup of tea, and back to bed with a book chosen at semi-random from the shelves.
The 'Complete Yes Minister', detailing the events of a fictitious government minister heading the Department of Administrative Affairs in England, the Permanent Secretary, and the minister's Principal Private Secretary.
The television series was very witty. My father and his wife introduced it to me when I visited them in the last year of my father's life. They had taped the episodes for re-watching.
The book is, if anything, a darker more intense experience.
It is the perfect handbook for anyone trying to deal with modern life. Everything bureaucratese is made plain and cynically thrown into perspective. In a word, it is a vademecum for the office worker and the junior technocrat alike.
It is also very witty.
SEVERAL CUPS OF TEA LATER
Feeling somewhat esurient by mid-afternoon, I got dressed and headed out into the damp. On the bus over the hill towards snackipoos, I was seated behind two young women.
My ears perked up when one of them said "sex is a pain in the ass!"
Nope, no idea what lead into that remark. Hadn't been paying attention till then.
Lost in my own 'Sir Humphrey Appleby-like' thoughts.
First thing that came to mind was 'my dear, if it's a pain in the ass, you're doing it all wrong!'
"SEX IS A PAIN IN THE ASS"
Seriously. Sex should NOT be a pain in the ass. It should be a warm comfy smiling experience, perhaps messy, sweaty even, followed by a happy glow, a nap, and several cups of tea. It should be fun. Go out together for something to eat later. Maybe some nice Thai food, or an Indonesian ryst tafel.
Or have plenty tea and hot buttery scones while still en deshabille.
With or without sex preceding or following.
Just cuddling is okay.
If sex is a 'pain' in any part of your anatomy, there may be more going on than meets the eye, and far less to your relationship than you would wish.
Perhaps not enough tea?
Either learn to communicate better, or consider an alternative mode of physical pleasure.
Try gourmandise, or touch football.
Both of those work for certain people, of either gender.
Or simply collect expensive designer handbags, and watch the ball game on teevee.
Both of those also work for certain people, of either gender.
Sex is roughly five percent technique, and ninety plus percent inspiration. Without the latter, you are spinning your wheels.
Well, something. But there has to be a motivated personal involvement.
When I got off the bus I was still deep in thought. Ended up not having snackipoos, but a full meal instead.
Plus several cups of milk tea.
In a short while I shall be going to the Occidental to smoke my pipe and daydream.
There are no cups of tea there. And consequently I will not think of sex.
RYST TAFEL
Literally 'rice table', and considered the quintessential Indonesian meal. Which it isn't.
The term names a long late lunch or early dinner in the Dutch East Indies among the planter class, when many people would get together to socialize and eat. A multitude of dishes, with appropriate condiments, and rice. Yes, it was based on the local food - primarily the village feasts - but as the attendees came from different regional backgrounds, and the host no matter his or her origin held to the concept that there should be enough for everybody, and a variety sufficient to satisfy everyone, these meals became gigantic affairs with dishes from all over the archipelago, with sides and condiments that also reflected that diversity.
In the final years of the colonial period many hotels and fancy restaurants turned the ryst tafel into ponderous spectacular affairs. It was, after all, an opportunity for colonials out in the hinterlands to spend some time in town, put on the dog, and get away from the dreariness of their isolation.
In the Netherlands the ryst tafel has become a sampling of many dishes shared among a group of diners at an Indonesian restaurant. For people who do not know much about the cuisine it is the perfect way to discover new tastes, and the restaurant staff will happily recommend set menus and explain what the foods are.
But always, rice. Plain white rice. It is the basis of a meal.
A wet coconut curry (gulai), a dry curry (kerrie), a thick-sauced meat dish (opor, korma, kalio, or rendang), plus various vegetable dishes with sauces based on coconut milk, or peanut-sauce, or tamarind.
Something from the ocean, blanched vegetables with chilies and shrimp-paste, a green cooked soft in a rich sauce (sayur lodeh), mixed dishes stirfried with chili paste and other things (sambal goreng), plus small condimental sides such as atjar (spicy pickles), asinan (wet dressed chopped salad), petjil (spicy salad with shrimp-paste and crumbled peanuts), patjeri (a sweet spicy dish that resembles a cooked pickle of sorts, often with coconut milk in the sauce), kroepoek (kropek; shrimp chips and similar items), seroendeng (serunding; mild-spiced toasted shredded coconut or other things with often peanuts added).
And, of course, that most typical of Dutch desserts, pisang goreng (fried banana).
For a party of four or five people, three or four dishes plus rice and soup is plenty. Your tastebuds won't get overwhelmed, and with two or three sambals (chili preparations) along with something crisp-spicy-crunchy, it's still a feast.
Avoid the pisang goreng afterwards.
Follow dinner with a shot of espresso or cardamom coffee, and a cigar.
Perfect rainy day food.
In case you were wondering.
If it's still around, Restaurant Poentjak Pas on the Nassau Kade near the Second Helmer Street in Amsterdam is an excellent place for a ryst tafel. There's also a place around the corner on the Overtoom (Restaurant Kartika), which does good Indonesian food. And not too far away, on the Spui, is a business that does the antique ambiance very well - Kantjil en de Tijger.
But the best Indo food is in Den Haag.
Kota Radja.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
An hour later I woke up refreshed, ready for the day. Which meant another cup of tea, and back to bed with a book chosen at semi-random from the shelves.
The 'Complete Yes Minister', detailing the events of a fictitious government minister heading the Department of Administrative Affairs in England, the Permanent Secretary, and the minister's Principal Private Secretary.
The television series was very witty. My father and his wife introduced it to me when I visited them in the last year of my father's life. They had taped the episodes for re-watching.
The book is, if anything, a darker more intense experience.
It is the perfect handbook for anyone trying to deal with modern life. Everything bureaucratese is made plain and cynically thrown into perspective. In a word, it is a vademecum for the office worker and the junior technocrat alike.
It is also very witty.
SEVERAL CUPS OF TEA LATER
Feeling somewhat esurient by mid-afternoon, I got dressed and headed out into the damp. On the bus over the hill towards snackipoos, I was seated behind two young women.
My ears perked up when one of them said "sex is a pain in the ass!"
Nope, no idea what lead into that remark. Hadn't been paying attention till then.
Lost in my own 'Sir Humphrey Appleby-like' thoughts.
First thing that came to mind was 'my dear, if it's a pain in the ass, you're doing it all wrong!'
"SEX IS A PAIN IN THE ASS"
Seriously. Sex should NOT be a pain in the ass. It should be a warm comfy smiling experience, perhaps messy, sweaty even, followed by a happy glow, a nap, and several cups of tea. It should be fun. Go out together for something to eat later. Maybe some nice Thai food, or an Indonesian ryst tafel.
Or have plenty tea and hot buttery scones while still en deshabille.
With or without sex preceding or following.
Just cuddling is okay.
If sex is a 'pain' in any part of your anatomy, there may be more going on than meets the eye, and far less to your relationship than you would wish.
Perhaps not enough tea?
Either learn to communicate better, or consider an alternative mode of physical pleasure.
Try gourmandise, or touch football.
Both of those work for certain people, of either gender.
Or simply collect expensive designer handbags, and watch the ball game on teevee.
Both of those also work for certain people, of either gender.
Sex is roughly five percent technique, and ninety plus percent inspiration. Without the latter, you are spinning your wheels.
Well, something. But there has to be a motivated personal involvement.
When I got off the bus I was still deep in thought. Ended up not having snackipoos, but a full meal instead.
Plus several cups of milk tea.
In a short while I shall be going to the Occidental to smoke my pipe and daydream.
There are no cups of tea there. And consequently I will not think of sex.
RYST TAFEL
Literally 'rice table', and considered the quintessential Indonesian meal. Which it isn't.
The term names a long late lunch or early dinner in the Dutch East Indies among the planter class, when many people would get together to socialize and eat. A multitude of dishes, with appropriate condiments, and rice. Yes, it was based on the local food - primarily the village feasts - but as the attendees came from different regional backgrounds, and the host no matter his or her origin held to the concept that there should be enough for everybody, and a variety sufficient to satisfy everyone, these meals became gigantic affairs with dishes from all over the archipelago, with sides and condiments that also reflected that diversity.
In the final years of the colonial period many hotels and fancy restaurants turned the ryst tafel into ponderous spectacular affairs. It was, after all, an opportunity for colonials out in the hinterlands to spend some time in town, put on the dog, and get away from the dreariness of their isolation.
In the Netherlands the ryst tafel has become a sampling of many dishes shared among a group of diners at an Indonesian restaurant. For people who do not know much about the cuisine it is the perfect way to discover new tastes, and the restaurant staff will happily recommend set menus and explain what the foods are.
But always, rice. Plain white rice. It is the basis of a meal.
A wet coconut curry (gulai), a dry curry (kerrie), a thick-sauced meat dish (opor, korma, kalio, or rendang), plus various vegetable dishes with sauces based on coconut milk, or peanut-sauce, or tamarind.
Something from the ocean, blanched vegetables with chilies and shrimp-paste, a green cooked soft in a rich sauce (sayur lodeh), mixed dishes stirfried with chili paste and other things (sambal goreng), plus small condimental sides such as atjar (spicy pickles), asinan (wet dressed chopped salad), petjil (spicy salad with shrimp-paste and crumbled peanuts), patjeri (a sweet spicy dish that resembles a cooked pickle of sorts, often with coconut milk in the sauce), kroepoek (kropek; shrimp chips and similar items), seroendeng (serunding; mild-spiced toasted shredded coconut or other things with often peanuts added).
And, of course, that most typical of Dutch desserts, pisang goreng (fried banana).
For a party of four or five people, three or four dishes plus rice and soup is plenty. Your tastebuds won't get overwhelmed, and with two or three sambals (chili preparations) along with something crisp-spicy-crunchy, it's still a feast.
Avoid the pisang goreng afterwards.
Follow dinner with a shot of espresso or cardamom coffee, and a cigar.
Perfect rainy day food.
In case you were wondering.
If it's still around, Restaurant Poentjak Pas on the Nassau Kade near the Second Helmer Street in Amsterdam is an excellent place for a ryst tafel. There's also a place around the corner on the Overtoom (Restaurant Kartika), which does good Indonesian food. And not too far away, on the Spui, is a business that does the antique ambiance very well - Kantjil en de Tijger.
But the best Indo food is in Den Haag.
Kota Radja.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Monday, October 03, 2011
PUNCAK
It's odd that the restaurant should be named after a mountain resort where Dutch civil servants went to escape the heat and eat their own food. Especially when it's one of the few places in that country where 'poffertjes' are known.
Poffertjes are perhaps the quintessential Dutch fair food. Tiny puff-batter pancakes cooked in a special pan with indentations, buttery hot and dusted with powdered sugar. Quite unsuited to the tropics. Other Dutch delicacies commonly available at hotels and restaurants there are pannekoeken (crepes) and kroketten. As well as Dutch cakes and confections.
The frikadel, which did not become well-known till the sixties, is of course unknown.
To say nothing of the bamibal or the nasischijf.
The restaurant in Amsterdam, however, serves none of those things.
But the food is very good indeed.
RESTAURANT POENTJAK PAS
Nassau Kade 366
Amsterdam
Telephone: 020-6180906
Unlike the steep slopes near the peaks of Gunung Gede and Pangrango in western Java, in the Bogor Regency, Puncak Pass restaurant in Amsterdam is in one of the flattest areas you will know. Holland does not have mountains, and the great city on the Amstel river is, essentially, a glorious mud flat. The restaurant is barely two blocks away from the Overtoom, relatively near the Van Gogh Museum and the Vondel Park.
The food, of course, is Indonesian.
In the days when the Dutch were still in Java, they sometimes times felt homesick for cool weather and Dutch food. Those who returned to Holland after the war still had the air of the Indies in their nostrils, and were homesick instead for distant emerald islands and the familiar tastes of their younger years.
The Puncak ('peak') pass area was a place additionally that many veterans were familiar with, because of heightened nationalist activity in Western Java during the Indonesian independence struggle. Western Java (Sunda) had been the heartland of the Dutch colonial world, where the empire maintained longer than anywhere else. Consequently it was also the area that many would miss the most when they departed - some of them had family histories in Sunda dating back several generations.
What you will eat at the Poentjak Pas Restaurant is some of the best Indonesian food in the Netherlands.
The proprietress, if she is still alive - it has been over ten years since I was last there - is a gracious elderly lady, whose Indonesian speech still has the antique flavour of the pre-war period.
I remember her as a warm hostess, both intensely interested in her guests as well as diplomatically discrete. The food, every single time, was stellar.
Sundanese food is not as sweet as dishes in Central Java, and has a lighter touch with strong flavours, relying instead on freshness and fragrance. With a vast array of vegetable dishes, or vegetable and meat or fish combinations, plus salads of raw and blanched ingredients, and tangy relishes, it is reputed to be good for the skin, accounting for the lovely complexions of the women in Western Java.
My uncle Jan may dream of the old days on the Puncak Pass in Indonesia.
I remember evenings at the Poentjak Pas in Amsterdam.
My memories are no less golden.
A very warm place.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Poffertjes are perhaps the quintessential Dutch fair food. Tiny puff-batter pancakes cooked in a special pan with indentations, buttery hot and dusted with powdered sugar. Quite unsuited to the tropics. Other Dutch delicacies commonly available at hotels and restaurants there are pannekoeken (crepes) and kroketten. As well as Dutch cakes and confections.
The frikadel, which did not become well-known till the sixties, is of course unknown.
To say nothing of the bamibal or the nasischijf.
The restaurant in Amsterdam, however, serves none of those things.
But the food is very good indeed.
RESTAURANT POENTJAK PAS
Nassau Kade 366
Amsterdam
Telephone: 020-6180906
Unlike the steep slopes near the peaks of Gunung Gede and Pangrango in western Java, in the Bogor Regency, Puncak Pass restaurant in Amsterdam is in one of the flattest areas you will know. Holland does not have mountains, and the great city on the Amstel river is, essentially, a glorious mud flat. The restaurant is barely two blocks away from the Overtoom, relatively near the Van Gogh Museum and the Vondel Park.
The food, of course, is Indonesian.
In the days when the Dutch were still in Java, they sometimes times felt homesick for cool weather and Dutch food. Those who returned to Holland after the war still had the air of the Indies in their nostrils, and were homesick instead for distant emerald islands and the familiar tastes of their younger years.
The Puncak ('peak') pass area was a place additionally that many veterans were familiar with, because of heightened nationalist activity in Western Java during the Indonesian independence struggle. Western Java (Sunda) had been the heartland of the Dutch colonial world, where the empire maintained longer than anywhere else. Consequently it was also the area that many would miss the most when they departed - some of them had family histories in Sunda dating back several generations.
What you will eat at the Poentjak Pas Restaurant is some of the best Indonesian food in the Netherlands.
The proprietress, if she is still alive - it has been over ten years since I was last there - is a gracious elderly lady, whose Indonesian speech still has the antique flavour of the pre-war period.
I remember her as a warm hostess, both intensely interested in her guests as well as diplomatically discrete. The food, every single time, was stellar.
Sundanese food is not as sweet as dishes in Central Java, and has a lighter touch with strong flavours, relying instead on freshness and fragrance. With a vast array of vegetable dishes, or vegetable and meat or fish combinations, plus salads of raw and blanched ingredients, and tangy relishes, it is reputed to be good for the skin, accounting for the lovely complexions of the women in Western Java.
My uncle Jan may dream of the old days on the Puncak Pass in Indonesia.
I remember evenings at the Poentjak Pas in Amsterdam.
My memories are no less golden.
A very warm place.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Thursday, October 01, 2009
RENDANG
An incomplete list of Padang food, followed by a recipe for the most well-known Padang dish.
The names are in Indonesian, not Minangkabau. This blogger is familiar with Indonesian and a few other languages in the East Indies, but not the Minangkabau tongue.
Ayam panggang = chicken simmered in coconut milk, then grilled.
Dendeng balado = grilled beef strips with lots of red chilies.
Gulai ayam = coconut milk curry chicken with hardboiled eggs.
Gulai cumi cumi = coconut milk squid curry.
Gulai daun paku = fern tips curry.
Gulai hati = coconut milk curry beef heart.
Gulai ikan = coconut milk curry fish.
Gulai itik = curried duck.
Gulai kacang panjang = long bean curry.
Gulai kambing = goat curry.
Gulai otak = curried calf's brain.
Gulai rabung = bamboo shoot curry.
Gulai tahu telur = tofu and hardboiled egg curry.
Ikan goreng = fried fish.
Kripik kentang balado = crispy fried potato with chilies.
Kurma = spicy meat curry.
Lemang = pressed glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk.
Nasi goreng = fried rice with green chilies, shallots, fish.
Rendang = meat stewed in coconut milk with ginger, turmeric, and chilies.
Sambal balado = very hot Padang-style chili paste.
RENDANG
3 lbs beef, large cubes.
3 onions, chopped.
3 - 5 cloves of garlic, chopped.
Equal measure minced galangal, ginger.
One cup of Sambal Ulek - or less, if you glow in the dark.
6 stems of lemongrass.
1 Tbs coriander.
1½ tsp turmeric.
1 tsp ground cumin.
3 lime leaves (djeruk perut).
3 cups of coconut milk.
1 tsp of tamarind mooshed in a quarter cup of hot water.
Salt.
In your food processor whir onion, garlic, galangal, ginger, sambal, and spices till smooth. Use a little of the coconut milk or some water to facilitate.
Coat the meat with this and let stand a while before cooking.
To cook, dump meat and gloop into the cooking pot, add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Turn heat low and simmer till the liquid has been entirely taken up by the meat - about an hour and a half. Remove the lemon grass. Then raise heat and gild the chunks in the oily paste - not too much, don't burn anything.
This recipe is sufficient for a family, and there will be leftovers.
Suggested accompaniments: rice, chopped cucumber, chicken broth with a squeeze of lime, various raw and cooked vegetables, plus sambals and toasted dry condiments.
Grilled chicken and steamed fish additionally will make it a feast.
Please note: Rendang is best made with either water buffalo or super-annuated moo-cow. Your butcher may be unfamiliar with either. The meat has to have a certain density.
You would typically make it after a village sacrifice, that being also when those who have left return and feasts are held.
The names are in Indonesian, not Minangkabau. This blogger is familiar with Indonesian and a few other languages in the East Indies, but not the Minangkabau tongue.
Ayam panggang = chicken simmered in coconut milk, then grilled.
Dendeng balado = grilled beef strips with lots of red chilies.
Gulai ayam = coconut milk curry chicken with hardboiled eggs.
Gulai cumi cumi = coconut milk squid curry.
Gulai daun paku = fern tips curry.
Gulai hati = coconut milk curry beef heart.
Gulai ikan = coconut milk curry fish.
Gulai itik = curried duck.
Gulai kacang panjang = long bean curry.
Gulai kambing = goat curry.
Gulai otak = curried calf's brain.
Gulai rabung = bamboo shoot curry.
Gulai tahu telur = tofu and hardboiled egg curry.
Ikan goreng = fried fish.
Kripik kentang balado = crispy fried potato with chilies.
Kurma = spicy meat curry.
Lemang = pressed glutinous rice cooked in coconut milk.
Nasi goreng = fried rice with green chilies, shallots, fish.
Rendang = meat stewed in coconut milk with ginger, turmeric, and chilies.
Sambal balado = very hot Padang-style chili paste.
RENDANG
3 lbs beef, large cubes.
3 onions, chopped.
3 - 5 cloves of garlic, chopped.
Equal measure minced galangal, ginger.
One cup of Sambal Ulek - or less, if you glow in the dark.
6 stems of lemongrass.
1 Tbs coriander.
1½ tsp turmeric.
1 tsp ground cumin.
3 lime leaves (djeruk perut).
3 cups of coconut milk.
1 tsp of tamarind mooshed in a quarter cup of hot water.
Salt.
In your food processor whir onion, garlic, galangal, ginger, sambal, and spices till smooth. Use a little of the coconut milk or some water to facilitate.
Coat the meat with this and let stand a while before cooking.
To cook, dump meat and gloop into the cooking pot, add the remaining ingredients and bring to a boil. Turn heat low and simmer till the liquid has been entirely taken up by the meat - about an hour and a half. Remove the lemon grass. Then raise heat and gild the chunks in the oily paste - not too much, don't burn anything.
This recipe is sufficient for a family, and there will be leftovers.
Suggested accompaniments: rice, chopped cucumber, chicken broth with a squeeze of lime, various raw and cooked vegetables, plus sambals and toasted dry condiments.
Grilled chicken and steamed fish additionally will make it a feast.
Please note: Rendang is best made with either water buffalo or super-annuated moo-cow. Your butcher may be unfamiliar with either. The meat has to have a certain density.
You would typically make it after a village sacrifice, that being also when those who have left return and feasts are held.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
TREIF IN FOUR PLATES: PALAKPAK, PANGGARAP, KUI TJEAP KARE, SU-ONG BA
As I write this, I am gnawing on bones. Specifically, the bones from some sweet little lamb chops that I got for lunch from Julie's Kitchen on Montgomery Street. Delicious. I sheerly love little bits of baa.
Mmmmm, lamb chops!
Had it with plakrijst, creamed spinach, and caviolini di Bruxelles.
[Julie's Kitchen, 250 Montgomery Street (at the intersection of Montgomery and Pine), San Francisco, CA 94104. 415-956-0785.]
If there are words in the text above that you do not understand, don't worry. This post is not about them. It is about four home-cooked dishes. Dishes which will appeal to the Indo-Dutch and Chinese among you, but are probably not appealing to Jews, Muslims, vegetarians, or people from the Midwest.
Treif, shrimp paste, spices.
If that does not scare you, read on.
PALAKPAK
Mixed vegetables cooked soupy with shrimp-paste.
Two Asian eggplants, two large green bell peppers; chopped coarsely.
Three to five roma tomatoes - peeled, seeded, and chopped.
Quarter to half pound chunked fatty pork.
Garlic, ginger, and Jalapeno, chopped.
1½ TBS shrimp paste.
1½ Tsp chili paste.
One Tsp each: paprika, sugar.
Half Tsp each: dry ginger, ground pepper.
Dashes dark vinegar and Louisiana hotsauce.
A squeeze of lime.
Half a cup rice wine or sherry.
Half a cup water or stock.
Layer in a claypot. Meat and eggplants first, then the bell peppers, with the tomato on top. Mix all other ingredients, pour over. Raise to boil, turn low and simmer half an hour with the lid on. Let sit briefly ere serving.
PANGGARAP
Mixed vegetables cooked soupy and tangy.
Half a bunch of leaf greens, one long Asian eggplant, half a bunch of long beans; all chopped.
One stalk celery, one shallot, thumblength ginger; slivered.
One Tsp each: shrimp paste, tamarind pulp, dark vinegar, Louisiana hotsauce, chili paste.
Two or three strips bacon, chopped.
One Tsp ground coriander, half Tsp turmeric.
Jigger of sherry or rice wine, pinch of sugar.
Two cups water or stock.
Put everything in a pot; raise to boil, turn low and simmer for half an hour. Wilt chopped fresh green herbs on top, then serve.
MANOK TJEAP KARE / KUI TJEAP KARE
Scant-sauced curried chicken chunks.
Four chicken parts (about one to 1½ pound).
Two chopped shallots.
Garlic and ginger, minced.
One TBS ground coriander.
One Tsp each: ground cumin, turmeric, cayenne, sugar.
Pinches cinnamon powder, dry ginger, ground pepper.
TBS each: chili paste, Louisiana hotsauce, amber fish sauce.
Four or five Kamiri nuts, ground up.
One cup water or stock.
Jigger sherry.
Gild chicken, shallots, garlic, ginger. Add spices, stir till the fragrance rises, seethe with the sherry. Add the chili paste, hotsauce, and fish sauce; stir over low heat till it starts sticking. Now add the water or stock, stir the crusty bits to loosen, and simmer for ten to fifteen minutes more. Finish with some minced scallion and a squeeze of lime juice.
SU-ONG BA
Simmered fatty pork with mushrooms and tomato.
One pound ng-fa naam (五花 腩 five flower fatty pork stomach), chunked.
A dozen black mushrooms (冬菇), soaked.
Three large tomatoes - peeled, seeded, chopped.
Coarsely chopped ginger and scallion.
Lemon grass stalk, cut in three lengths and bruised.
One cup water.
Heavy jigger sherry.
Dash soy sauce.
Generous pinch sugar.
A little black vinegar.
Brown the pork, decant the excess grease. Add everything else and simmer for an hour on low heat.
NOTES
Palakpak: Handclap. Also soft-cooked vegetables with fish sauce. [01/22/09 reader A. Tamreng reminded me that 'palakpak' is also slang for what Lesbians do to each other. That, too, is derived from the original meaning.] Jalapeno: Mild Mexican chili often used green for a crisp and peppy taste. Shrimp paste: Haahm haa jeung (鹹蝦醬), a wet odoriferous glop available in jars on Stockton Street. Not the same as Malaysian Belacan, which is also an excellent product, or Philippino Bago'ong, which is chemically unstable and may explode in your larder. Chili paste: generically, a sambal. You could use the jar-sambal available from Huy Fong (who are famous for their SiriRacha hotsauce), such as their Vietnamese chili and garlic sauce, sambal oelek, or sambal badjak. Dutch brands of sambal are also available. But it is best to make your own by pounding ripe chilies to a pulp. Use Thai chilies or lantaka, and add a little liquid to facilitate grinding. Panggarap: Usually greens, eggplant, and long beans simmered with shrimp paste, pork fat, ginger, and vinegar. Tomato and turmeric can be added, or a fish cooked on top (ika panggarap). The term derives from 'garap'= shrunk by cooking, exuding moisture. Not to be confused with a similar sounding word, 'panggarak', which means the mob of angry Muslims erupting from the local mosque after the Friday sermon, whipped into a righteous homicidal rage by the local imam. Leaf greens: collard, chard, spinach, etcetera. Tamarind pulp: Available in Chinese and Indonesian food stores - look for asam, asem. Manok: Tamarao term for chicken, which is called 'ayam' in Indonesian. Tjeap: sauced, prepared with sauce. Kare: hot and dry spices, as used in South Indian, Ceylonese, and Indonesian dishes. Kui: Lumps, such as the butchered parts of food animals. Kamiri: Kemiri nuts, candlenuts. Aleurites moluccanus, called kukui in Hawaii. They are used to add body to sauces. If unavailable, a tablespoon of peanut butter or mashed walnut makes an admirable replacement. Su-ong: tangy stewed meat. Ba: Hokkien term for meat in general, but usually pork in particular. Probably a distant cognate of 'babui' (pig). Ng-fa naam: 五花 腩 - five flower fatty abdominal meat, also called ng-faa yiuk (五花肉). A cut consisting of alternating white fat and pink lean meat. Available on Stockton Street. Black mushrooms: Shiitake, Lentinula edodes:冬菇 winter mushroom, also called 香菇 fragrant mushroom. Usually available dried, they need to be soaked in warm water to soften. Discard the stem after soaking. Lemon grass: Cymbopogon citratus, also called Sere or Sae - a stalkgras with a pleasing lemon-like aroma used in South-East Asian cooking.
AFTER WORD
These dishes represent a triple transplantation: from Borneo before the war to Java after the pow camps, then with the repatriation of the loyalists to the Netherlands.
I ate these dishes there, and brought them with me when I returned to the US. They are Indonesian, but not really Indonesian. Think of them as food from a world slipped into shadow.
I have posted recipes of the same provenance before.
Rawon and Gangkiyap: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-is-that-mess-on-my-plate-rawon-and.html (Javanese black soup and Tamarao potato and bamboo shoot curry);
Randangan Babui: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/10/heart-attack-on-plate.html (seethed fat pork - an artery clogger that your doctor will not want to hear about);
Bulelitja: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/10/head-hunting-chicken.html (headhunting chicken).
Sanak mantep - eet smakelijk - bon gusto.
Mmmmm, lamb chops!
Had it with plakrijst, creamed spinach, and caviolini di Bruxelles.
[Julie's Kitchen, 250 Montgomery Street (at the intersection of Montgomery and Pine), San Francisco, CA 94104. 415-956-0785.]
If there are words in the text above that you do not understand, don't worry. This post is not about them. It is about four home-cooked dishes. Dishes which will appeal to the Indo-Dutch and Chinese among you, but are probably not appealing to Jews, Muslims, vegetarians, or people from the Midwest.
Treif, shrimp paste, spices.
If that does not scare you, read on.
PALAKPAK
Mixed vegetables cooked soupy with shrimp-paste.
Two Asian eggplants, two large green bell peppers; chopped coarsely.
Three to five roma tomatoes - peeled, seeded, and chopped.
Quarter to half pound chunked fatty pork.
Garlic, ginger, and Jalapeno, chopped.
1½ TBS shrimp paste.
1½ Tsp chili paste.
One Tsp each: paprika, sugar.
Half Tsp each: dry ginger, ground pepper.
Dashes dark vinegar and Louisiana hotsauce.
A squeeze of lime.
Half a cup rice wine or sherry.
Half a cup water or stock.
Layer in a claypot. Meat and eggplants first, then the bell peppers, with the tomato on top. Mix all other ingredients, pour over. Raise to boil, turn low and simmer half an hour with the lid on. Let sit briefly ere serving.
PANGGARAP
Mixed vegetables cooked soupy and tangy.
Half a bunch of leaf greens, one long Asian eggplant, half a bunch of long beans; all chopped.
One stalk celery, one shallot, thumblength ginger; slivered.
One Tsp each: shrimp paste, tamarind pulp, dark vinegar, Louisiana hotsauce, chili paste.
Two or three strips bacon, chopped.
One Tsp ground coriander, half Tsp turmeric.
Jigger of sherry or rice wine, pinch of sugar.
Two cups water or stock.
Put everything in a pot; raise to boil, turn low and simmer for half an hour. Wilt chopped fresh green herbs on top, then serve.
MANOK TJEAP KARE / KUI TJEAP KARE
Scant-sauced curried chicken chunks.
Four chicken parts (about one to 1½ pound).
Two chopped shallots.
Garlic and ginger, minced.
One TBS ground coriander.
One Tsp each: ground cumin, turmeric, cayenne, sugar.
Pinches cinnamon powder, dry ginger, ground pepper.
TBS each: chili paste, Louisiana hotsauce, amber fish sauce.
Four or five Kamiri nuts, ground up.
One cup water or stock.
Jigger sherry.
Gild chicken, shallots, garlic, ginger. Add spices, stir till the fragrance rises, seethe with the sherry. Add the chili paste, hotsauce, and fish sauce; stir over low heat till it starts sticking. Now add the water or stock, stir the crusty bits to loosen, and simmer for ten to fifteen minutes more. Finish with some minced scallion and a squeeze of lime juice.
SU-ONG BA
Simmered fatty pork with mushrooms and tomato.
One pound ng-fa naam (五花 腩 five flower fatty pork stomach), chunked.
A dozen black mushrooms (冬菇), soaked.
Three large tomatoes - peeled, seeded, chopped.
Coarsely chopped ginger and scallion.
Lemon grass stalk, cut in three lengths and bruised.
One cup water.
Heavy jigger sherry.
Dash soy sauce.
Generous pinch sugar.
A little black vinegar.
Brown the pork, decant the excess grease. Add everything else and simmer for an hour on low heat.
NOTES
Palakpak: Handclap. Also soft-cooked vegetables with fish sauce. [01/22/09 reader A. Tamreng reminded me that 'palakpak' is also slang for what Lesbians do to each other. That, too, is derived from the original meaning.] Jalapeno: Mild Mexican chili often used green for a crisp and peppy taste. Shrimp paste: Haahm haa jeung (鹹蝦醬), a wet odoriferous glop available in jars on Stockton Street. Not the same as Malaysian Belacan, which is also an excellent product, or Philippino Bago'ong, which is chemically unstable and may explode in your larder. Chili paste: generically, a sambal. You could use the jar-sambal available from Huy Fong (who are famous for their SiriRacha hotsauce), such as their Vietnamese chili and garlic sauce, sambal oelek, or sambal badjak. Dutch brands of sambal are also available. But it is best to make your own by pounding ripe chilies to a pulp. Use Thai chilies or lantaka, and add a little liquid to facilitate grinding. Panggarap: Usually greens, eggplant, and long beans simmered with shrimp paste, pork fat, ginger, and vinegar. Tomato and turmeric can be added, or a fish cooked on top (ika panggarap). The term derives from 'garap'= shrunk by cooking, exuding moisture. Not to be confused with a similar sounding word, 'panggarak', which means the mob of angry Muslims erupting from the local mosque after the Friday sermon, whipped into a righteous homicidal rage by the local imam. Leaf greens: collard, chard, spinach, etcetera. Tamarind pulp: Available in Chinese and Indonesian food stores - look for asam, asem. Manok: Tamarao term for chicken, which is called 'ayam' in Indonesian. Tjeap: sauced, prepared with sauce. Kare: hot and dry spices, as used in South Indian, Ceylonese, and Indonesian dishes. Kui: Lumps, such as the butchered parts of food animals. Kamiri: Kemiri nuts, candlenuts. Aleurites moluccanus, called kukui in Hawaii. They are used to add body to sauces. If unavailable, a tablespoon of peanut butter or mashed walnut makes an admirable replacement. Su-ong: tangy stewed meat. Ba: Hokkien term for meat in general, but usually pork in particular. Probably a distant cognate of 'babui' (pig). Ng-fa naam: 五花 腩 - five flower fatty abdominal meat, also called ng-faa yiuk (五花肉). A cut consisting of alternating white fat and pink lean meat. Available on Stockton Street. Black mushrooms: Shiitake, Lentinula edodes:冬菇 winter mushroom, also called 香菇 fragrant mushroom. Usually available dried, they need to be soaked in warm water to soften. Discard the stem after soaking. Lemon grass: Cymbopogon citratus, also called Sere or Sae - a stalkgras with a pleasing lemon-like aroma used in South-East Asian cooking.
AFTER WORD
These dishes represent a triple transplantation: from Borneo before the war to Java after the pow camps, then with the repatriation of the loyalists to the Netherlands.
I ate these dishes there, and brought them with me when I returned to the US. They are Indonesian, but not really Indonesian. Think of them as food from a world slipped into shadow.
I have posted recipes of the same provenance before.
Rawon and Gangkiyap: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/10/what-is-that-mess-on-my-plate-rawon-and.html (Javanese black soup and Tamarao potato and bamboo shoot curry);
Randangan Babui: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/10/heart-attack-on-plate.html (seethed fat pork - an artery clogger that your doctor will not want to hear about);
Bulelitja: http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/2008/10/head-hunting-chicken.html (headhunting chicken).
Sanak mantep - eet smakelijk - bon gusto.
Friday, October 03, 2008
WHAT IS THAT MESS ON MY PLATE? RAWON AND GANGKIYAP - HOMECOOKING
Sometimes you just have to eat the funky stuff. Because it tastes like home, that's why.
And it's almost a guarantee that unless you are a tofu-white Midwesterner, nothing where you are now really tastes like home unless you make it yourself.
Here are two recipes that taste like home to me, though my mother would have been shocked and horrified had she known that I ate stuff like this (or even brought it into the house).
The first one is an almost black meat soup-stew from Java, made with kluwak nuts (the seed of the Kulape tree (Kepayang; Pangium Edule). Kluwak which are available in the west are thoroughly processed and have been dried - they must be made soft by steeping in a little hot water for about ten or fifteen minutes, whereupon they may be mashed to a smooth paste with ease. They add a nice 'rusty' fragrance to dishes, and change the colour to brown-black. Very delicious.
RAWON
[Javanese black soup-stew]
One pound stew beef or lamb chunks.
One onion, chopped.
One stalk sere (lemongrass), bruised.
Three to five cloves garlic, mashed, and an equivalent amount of ginger, ditto.
One teaspoon ground coriander.
Half a teaspoon each: turmeric, cayenne, cumin, langkwang powder.
Half a dozen soaked kluwak nuts, mashed up in a little hot water.
A few daon parot (kaffir lime leaves).
Pinches salt, pepper, sugar.
Scallion and cilantro to garnish.
Gild onion in oil, add the garlic and ginger, stir briefly, add the spices, then the meat. Cook, stirring, till the meat is no longer pink and the fragrance rises. Seethe with a little water and add the mashed kluwak, stirring to dissolve. Add everything else, plus water to cover generously. Simmer for about an hour. Garnish with scallion and cilantro.
GANGKIYAP
[Tamarao potato and bamboo shoot curry]
Three cups match-stick cut potato.
One cup bamboo shoot, ditto.
Two or three shallots, minced.
Three to five cloves garlic, mashed, and an equivalent amount of ginger, ditto.
Three to five Roma tomatoes; peeled, seeded, chopped.
One and a half teaspoons each: cayenne, ground coriander.
Half a teaspoon each: ground cumin, turmeric.
Half a tablespoon shrimp paste, OR a suitable pinch of salt.
Generous pinch of sugar.
Half a cup each: ricewine or sherry, coconut milk, meat broth.
Cilantro and sliced green chilies to garnish.
Gild shallots in oil, add the garlic and ginger, stir briefly, add the spices, stir till fragrant, and seethe with a little water. Add the potato, cook for about five minutes till the liquid is gone. Add everything else, including the liquids, and cook for another ten or fifteen minutes (depends on how thick your matchstick cut potatoes are). Garnish and serve.
Taken together, these two dishes, with a bowl of clear broth, a plate of plain boiled rice, some sambal (hot chili paste), plus a few raw or blanched vegetables to dip in the sambal, will make a very satisfying meal. Have lime wedges on the side, both for squeezing over the dishes as well as acidulating the broth - especially if it is a fish broth.
As regards sambal, Dutch people usually serve it directly from the store-bought jar and glop it onto the plate (sometimes right onto the food!), Indos and well-bred Javanese have a bowl of sambal freshly made on the table, from which each diner will transfer some to a small condiment saucer. This may be tailored to personal taste with a dash of patis (amber liquid fish sauce), ketjap manis (sweet dark soy sauce), lime juice, or black vinegar. In the Indonesian countryside it is often served in the mortar in which it was mashed, and the diners will scoop some onto their plate as needed.
One eats these foods using spoons and forks off of porcelain (spoon to eat, fork as a pushing device). The table setting includes a plate for each diner, as well as condiment saucers, soup bowls, and a bone bowl (for refuse and inedible bits). Almost no-one eats off of banana leaves anymore, and dulang (centre-footed round wooden presentation and serving trays) are also seldom used, though prized as cultural objects and heirlooms.
-------------------------------------------
Note regarding ingredients mentioned in the recipes:
Sere: Lemongrass (sere, serai, sae). A tropical stalk-grass that smells like candied lemon. Available in S.E. Asian markets. Keeps away bugs, so worth growing in your backyard.
Langkwang: Galangal (lengkuas, laos); related to ginger, has an old-fashioned almost medicinal smell. Do not use the dried LengKeung available in Chinatown, though - while it is a close relative, it is more suited for cooking bushmeats (!) as tonic than regular meats as dinner table food. The proportions used are also different.
Daon Parot: Kaffir lime leaf; a leaf that adds a fragrance between tea-rose and citrus. No substitute, but not absolutely essential. It can be purchased in markets catering to a Thai and Indonesian clientele.
Bamboo shoot: Edible young bamboo (called 'rabong' in Indonesian languages). Can be purchased in Chinatown in cans already blanched and sliced matchstickwise - simply rinse and drain before use.
If using fresh bamboo shoot, peel them, and trim away the root and any overly fibrous parts. Cut to the shape desired, and boil in a large pan of water for about twenty minutes. Do not cover the pan. This process removes the bitterness that makes raw shoots appealing only to pandas. Taste a little afterwards. If there is still some remaining bitterness, change the water and boil for another five minutes or so. Drain and rinse. Don't worry, they'll still be crunchy after cooking. Bamboo shoots are very low in calories, but a great source of fibre (hah, what a surprise!). They are reputed to be good for the heart, and both anti-viral and anti-cancerous in their effect on the body. Plus they taste good. That last bit is the most important reason to eat them. Really the only reason.
Shrimp paste: Trasi is the Indonesian version, being a dried dark brown smelly substance reminiscent of a bouillion cube..... A salty fishy rotten bouillion cube.
The Philippinos have various similar preparations, generically called bago'ong, which represent various stages of fragrance and chemical instability - not recommended.
Nowadays I use the Cantonese version (鹹蝦醬 - haam haa jeung), which is a pungent purple-grey goop in a jar that keeps forever. It is high in salt, but also other minerals. Not very nutritious, but when cooked it is oh so tasty. Dipping green mango into a little of this is pure heaven. It should be in every kitchen, right next to the jar of sambal and the bottle of black vinegar.
And it's almost a guarantee that unless you are a tofu-white Midwesterner, nothing where you are now really tastes like home unless you make it yourself.
Here are two recipes that taste like home to me, though my mother would have been shocked and horrified had she known that I ate stuff like this (or even brought it into the house).
The first one is an almost black meat soup-stew from Java, made with kluwak nuts (the seed of the Kulape tree (Kepayang; Pangium Edule). Kluwak which are available in the west are thoroughly processed and have been dried - they must be made soft by steeping in a little hot water for about ten or fifteen minutes, whereupon they may be mashed to a smooth paste with ease. They add a nice 'rusty' fragrance to dishes, and change the colour to brown-black. Very delicious.
RAWON
[Javanese black soup-stew]
One pound stew beef or lamb chunks.
One onion, chopped.
One stalk sere (lemongrass), bruised.
Three to five cloves garlic, mashed, and an equivalent amount of ginger, ditto.
One teaspoon ground coriander.
Half a teaspoon each: turmeric, cayenne, cumin, langkwang powder.
Half a dozen soaked kluwak nuts, mashed up in a little hot water.
A few daon parot (kaffir lime leaves).
Pinches salt, pepper, sugar.
Scallion and cilantro to garnish.
Gild onion in oil, add the garlic and ginger, stir briefly, add the spices, then the meat. Cook, stirring, till the meat is no longer pink and the fragrance rises. Seethe with a little water and add the mashed kluwak, stirring to dissolve. Add everything else, plus water to cover generously. Simmer for about an hour. Garnish with scallion and cilantro.
GANGKIYAP
[Tamarao potato and bamboo shoot curry]
Three cups match-stick cut potato.
One cup bamboo shoot, ditto.
Two or three shallots, minced.
Three to five cloves garlic, mashed, and an equivalent amount of ginger, ditto.
Three to five Roma tomatoes; peeled, seeded, chopped.
One and a half teaspoons each: cayenne, ground coriander.
Half a teaspoon each: ground cumin, turmeric.
Half a tablespoon shrimp paste, OR a suitable pinch of salt.
Generous pinch of sugar.
Half a cup each: ricewine or sherry, coconut milk, meat broth.
Cilantro and sliced green chilies to garnish.
Gild shallots in oil, add the garlic and ginger, stir briefly, add the spices, stir till fragrant, and seethe with a little water. Add the potato, cook for about five minutes till the liquid is gone. Add everything else, including the liquids, and cook for another ten or fifteen minutes (depends on how thick your matchstick cut potatoes are). Garnish and serve.
Taken together, these two dishes, with a bowl of clear broth, a plate of plain boiled rice, some sambal (hot chili paste), plus a few raw or blanched vegetables to dip in the sambal, will make a very satisfying meal. Have lime wedges on the side, both for squeezing over the dishes as well as acidulating the broth - especially if it is a fish broth.
As regards sambal, Dutch people usually serve it directly from the store-bought jar and glop it onto the plate (sometimes right onto the food!), Indos and well-bred Javanese have a bowl of sambal freshly made on the table, from which each diner will transfer some to a small condiment saucer. This may be tailored to personal taste with a dash of patis (amber liquid fish sauce), ketjap manis (sweet dark soy sauce), lime juice, or black vinegar. In the Indonesian countryside it is often served in the mortar in which it was mashed, and the diners will scoop some onto their plate as needed.
One eats these foods using spoons and forks off of porcelain (spoon to eat, fork as a pushing device). The table setting includes a plate for each diner, as well as condiment saucers, soup bowls, and a bone bowl (for refuse and inedible bits). Almost no-one eats off of banana leaves anymore, and dulang (centre-footed round wooden presentation and serving trays) are also seldom used, though prized as cultural objects and heirlooms.
-------------------------------------------
Note regarding ingredients mentioned in the recipes:
Sere: Lemongrass (sere, serai, sae). A tropical stalk-grass that smells like candied lemon. Available in S.E. Asian markets. Keeps away bugs, so worth growing in your backyard.
Langkwang: Galangal (lengkuas, laos); related to ginger, has an old-fashioned almost medicinal smell. Do not use the dried LengKeung available in Chinatown, though - while it is a close relative, it is more suited for cooking bushmeats (!) as tonic than regular meats as dinner table food. The proportions used are also different.
Daon Parot: Kaffir lime leaf; a leaf that adds a fragrance between tea-rose and citrus. No substitute, but not absolutely essential. It can be purchased in markets catering to a Thai and Indonesian clientele.
Bamboo shoot: Edible young bamboo (called 'rabong' in Indonesian languages). Can be purchased in Chinatown in cans already blanched and sliced matchstickwise - simply rinse and drain before use.
If using fresh bamboo shoot, peel them, and trim away the root and any overly fibrous parts. Cut to the shape desired, and boil in a large pan of water for about twenty minutes. Do not cover the pan. This process removes the bitterness that makes raw shoots appealing only to pandas. Taste a little afterwards. If there is still some remaining bitterness, change the water and boil for another five minutes or so. Drain and rinse. Don't worry, they'll still be crunchy after cooking. Bamboo shoots are very low in calories, but a great source of fibre (hah, what a surprise!). They are reputed to be good for the heart, and both anti-viral and anti-cancerous in their effect on the body. Plus they taste good. That last bit is the most important reason to eat them. Really the only reason.
Shrimp paste: Trasi is the Indonesian version, being a dried dark brown smelly substance reminiscent of a bouillion cube..... A salty fishy rotten bouillion cube.
The Philippinos have various similar preparations, generically called bago'ong, which represent various stages of fragrance and chemical instability - not recommended.
Nowadays I use the Cantonese version (鹹蝦醬 - haam haa jeung), which is a pungent purple-grey goop in a jar that keeps forever. It is high in salt, but also other minerals. Not very nutritious, but when cooked it is oh so tasty. Dipping green mango into a little of this is pure heaven. It should be in every kitchen, right next to the jar of sambal and the bottle of black vinegar.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
HOT AND STICKY GOODNESS
That year Ramadan was from the end of May through the third week of June. Halfway through the month the weather changed. The mid-afternoon rainstorms decreased, the winds brought more heat. But there were only a few days with no rain at all, and just as few that were entirely too hot. Still, it is a humid climate, and considerably warmer than California. Even the locals went limp from heat and hunger.
One did not necessarily want to eat during the day, but that it was not possible was a burden. Right around teatime one would get up, sponge off, and regretfully realize that there was no cardamom coffee, no ginger tea, no horrid sweet softdrink with electric green or red fake colour, and entirely no food at all to be had. One would grumble in concert with one's stomach.
At sundown one walked toward the mosque, hoping that the vendors would have set up shop before magrib prayers ended, drifts of fragrance from their fires tempting the faithful in the courtyard. Tungkoludi was not a particularly exciting place, and food was one of it's sparse charms.
During Ramadan, that charm was only evident at night.
Sop Manok Mi = Chicken and noodle soup with fried tuber-chunks, mildly curry flavoured, with oily red chili sambal and huge wedges of cucumber. Lime wedge on the side.
Krawan = Goat meat and liver marinated in lime juice with garlic, ginger, and turmeric, flame-broiled, served with sweet-soy sauce and lime wedges.
Kurok Magureng = Frog marinated in vinegar and lime juice, deep-fried and served with a sambal of chilies, soy sauce, and sugar.
These and other quick dishes (sate kambing, krupok urang, tjao kangkong, luomi, pitjil batawi) were all quite delicious.
One would've hoped to have had a chance to enjoy them before dying of starvation.
Not in Tungkoludi.
The one thing that was both perfect for the time of day and the place was katupat. The hot packets fresh off the coals and smelling of scorched banana leaf, that one pulled apart with burnt fingertips, revealing a gooey sweet mass inside, were the very best way to start the night.
A quick snack, scarfed down greedily, which raised the blood-sugar level back to normal and kept one from killing the innocent natives.
Step back, bitch, these are mine!
KATUPAT
3 cups glutinous rice.
1 - 1½ cups golden cane sugar.
Either two bananas, peeled and chunked.
OR
Strips of meat from two young coconuts.
Banana leaves for wrapping
Soak rice in water for two hours. Drain, and grind to a smooth doughy consistency. Mix the sugar and the banana or coconut into the rice dough.
Wipe banana leaves clean, and pass over the fire. Cut into squares about the size of a plate.
Spread the rice mixture thinly over half of each piece of banana leaf, then roll into a sausage shape. Grill over coals till the inside is hot and goopy and the outside somewhat singed.
Serve warm.
Makes about two dozen pieces.
Have them with cardamom coffee.
Ramadan ends today.
Eid mubarak, y'all.
One did not necessarily want to eat during the day, but that it was not possible was a burden. Right around teatime one would get up, sponge off, and regretfully realize that there was no cardamom coffee, no ginger tea, no horrid sweet softdrink with electric green or red fake colour, and entirely no food at all to be had. One would grumble in concert with one's stomach.
At sundown one walked toward the mosque, hoping that the vendors would have set up shop before magrib prayers ended, drifts of fragrance from their fires tempting the faithful in the courtyard. Tungkoludi was not a particularly exciting place, and food was one of it's sparse charms.
During Ramadan, that charm was only evident at night.
Sop Manok Mi = Chicken and noodle soup with fried tuber-chunks, mildly curry flavoured, with oily red chili sambal and huge wedges of cucumber. Lime wedge on the side.
Krawan = Goat meat and liver marinated in lime juice with garlic, ginger, and turmeric, flame-broiled, served with sweet-soy sauce and lime wedges.
Kurok Magureng = Frog marinated in vinegar and lime juice, deep-fried and served with a sambal of chilies, soy sauce, and sugar.
These and other quick dishes (sate kambing, krupok urang, tjao kangkong, luomi, pitjil batawi) were all quite delicious.
One would've hoped to have had a chance to enjoy them before dying of starvation.
Not in Tungkoludi.
The one thing that was both perfect for the time of day and the place was katupat. The hot packets fresh off the coals and smelling of scorched banana leaf, that one pulled apart with burnt fingertips, revealing a gooey sweet mass inside, were the very best way to start the night.
A quick snack, scarfed down greedily, which raised the blood-sugar level back to normal and kept one from killing the innocent natives.
Step back, bitch, these are mine!
KATUPAT
3 cups glutinous rice.
1 - 1½ cups golden cane sugar.
Either two bananas, peeled and chunked.
OR
Strips of meat from two young coconuts.
Banana leaves for wrapping
Soak rice in water for two hours. Drain, and grind to a smooth doughy consistency. Mix the sugar and the banana or coconut into the rice dough.
Wipe banana leaves clean, and pass over the fire. Cut into squares about the size of a plate.
Spread the rice mixture thinly over half of each piece of banana leaf, then roll into a sausage shape. Grill over coals till the inside is hot and goopy and the outside somewhat singed.
Serve warm.
Makes about two dozen pieces.
Have them with cardamom coffee.
Ramadan ends today.
Eid mubarak, y'all.
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