While I was in South-East Asia I stayed for a while with a Chinese family.
The father had been educated in America, and consequently spoke English with far greater eloquence than I could muster in the local language. He was a very interesting person, combining Ivy-league literacy with the stern heterodox Confucianism once common among Chinese born and raised outside China - old style cultural knowledge, but no strict adherence to any quaint literalities which were in conflict with common sense and pragmatism.
All in all a very flexible man.
His sons and other male relatives were involved in the family business, as were some of the senior women. The only time his daughters showed up at the company warehouse was when they needed to requisition material from the stores. At other times, unmarried females were strictly forbidden from being anywhere near the working men. Too distracting, and quite unseemly.
Whenever I was in that part of the country I would stay over for a while. Not necessarily because of him, however, but because of his youngest daughter. Yes, she was even more fascinating than him - she knew how to cook.
I found her utterly charming.
After eating fruitbat, rancid dried fish, and other oddments, food homecooked by a vivacious young miss is VERY appealing.
Whether it was her food or her vivacity that attracted me I do not know.
JUICY SALTY THINGS 鹹濕物
[Yeah, I know - not quite a fitting choice of words. It's a private joke.]
She once told me that the main problem with Shakespeare was that he never wrote about cooking. So boring, lah!
Well....., one doesn't really expect a mature appreciation of The Bard from a pretty teenager.
Even if she can quote MacBeth with relish.
Neither does one expect Act IV, Scene 1 when observing the young lady in the kitchen. Very disconcerting to have heard about poisoned entrails, toad, sweltered venom, fenny snake, eye of newt, and toe of frog, when you knew that the result would soon be on the dinner table.
The disarming girlish giggle that followed, alas, did not disarm.
"So what the heck am I eating here?!?"
I need not have worried. Her cooking was creative, but not THAT creative. She merely used typical South-East Asian Chinese patent approaches to adding flavour.
Dried shrimp and black mushrooms, gonpui, salt vegetables, dried lilies, chinkang ham, lapcheung, soysauce cured porkbelly, lard, chicken fat, garlic, ginger, soy sauce, rice wine.
Unlike several other Chinese comestibles of the dry or odd variety, the substances above are used in small quantities to make a dish more interesting, rather than as main ingredients.
They round out flavours, and many of them contain glutamic acids, and so function in some ways like monosodium glutamate. Their contribution is savoury rather than salty.
These are the equivalents of the salt pork, smoked fish, and dried apples in mediaeval European cooking, essential only because their absence dulls the finished dish.
Dried shrimp: 蝦米 haa mai - these add flavour, and increase the savouriness of the resultant dish.
Black mushrooms: 香菇 heung gu, or 冬菇 dong gu - shiitake mushrooms, used for taste and a textural element.
For vegetable dishes which are simply cooked, one uses about a tablespoon or two of dried shrimp and an equivalent amount of dried black mushroom. Soak them about an hour or so before use. You can add the soaking water to the cooking pot. Black mushrooms can be left whole after trimming off the hard stem, or sliced; dried shrimp are either left whole or mashed up.
Rehydrated dried shrimp can also be stir-fried with garlic, ginger, scallions, soy sauce, sugar, and chili-paste to make a zesty side dish. If oily, add a squeeze of lime.
Gonpui (conpoy): 乾貝 dried scallop, also called 乾瑤柱 (gon yiu chyu - Dried Jade Supports) and 江瑤柱 (gong yiu chyu - River Jade supports). The name 'gonpui' is more common in the Cantonese-speaking areas - it means dried seashell, dried currency. Dried scallop is added to stewed dishes and soups for flavour and nutrition.
Gonpui needs to be soaked for three or four hours at least, after which it is usually pulled apart.
[瑤 Yiu: 1. Surname Yiu (Yao). 2. Tribe situated along the China-Burma and China-Siam frontiers. 3. Mother of pearl, nacre, jade. Precious. 柱 Chyu: Pillar, supporting post or beam. Support. To lean on.]
Salt vegetables: 鹹菜 haam tsoi. Preserved vegetables, such as 梅菜 mui tsoi - Red-in-Snow cabbage preserved with salt; 天津冬菜 Tien-Jun dong tsoi - Tientsin style finely chopped cabbages with salt and garlic; 榨菜 ja tsoi - Szechuanese mustard stems preserved by semi-drying, salting, pressing (榨) and fermenting.
[Tsoi (菜): as you can guess, this means vegetable. But also, by extension, any cooked dish, or even an entire cuisine. Watch out for restaurants which in their Chinese name have 鬼佬菜 or 西方菜 (kwailo tsoi, seyfong tsoi, respectively). What they serve is NOT Chinese cuisine, it's yours.]
Dried lilies: 金針 kam dzam - Golden Needles; a dried hemerocallidaceous flower which is tonifying, often used in vegetarian dishes and soups.
Chinkang ham: trade name for 金華火腿 (Kam-Hwa foh-doei); cured ham from Chinhua in Chekiang province that rather resembles some Spanish hams.
Lapcheung: 臘腸 Chinese dried pork sausage.
Soysauce cured porkbelly: 臘肉 lap yiuk - thick strips of layered lard and lean pork cured with sugar, soy sauce, nitrates, and dehydration.
Ham, if used, is slivered or chopped - it's presence will be an accent. Same goes for soysauce cured pork belly and lap cheung.
Ginger: 薑 or 姜 keung - fresh ginger is smashed and added to the hot wok before anything else, which will aromatize the oil. Ginger juice may be added to any meats or fish beforehand to denature a strong smell.
[The first character by its phonetic element indicates that ginger originally was not a Chinese product but came from beyond the frontiers. The second character is also the surname Jiang, originally referring to a clan whose women had married into the imperial family during the Shang period. It shows a woman raising aloft a sheep.]
Garlic: 蒜 syun - used in lesser quantity than ginger.
If there is only a minor amount of soaking liquid from dried ingredients, the vegetables can be sizzled with rice wine (酒 jau, or 米酒 mai jau) after gilding in the hot oil. The addition of moisture to the pan releases a burst of steam which further cooks the vegetables.
Both lard and chicken fat are favoured cooking greases - they add flavour and lend a glossy appearance to the dish.
In many cases a little cornstarch water is also added near the end of cooking to make the food look velvety and extend the gravy.
For meat dishes, especially those using pork belly (五花 腩 ng-fa naam: five flower fatty abdomen, also called 五花肉 ng-faa yiuk), which is the favoured cut for most Chinese, the salt vegetables will often come into play. The meat is gilded in the pan, or briefly deep-fried, or even blanched for five minutes in boiling water ere use - this both cleans it and reduces the fat content slightly. Most often it will then be slow-cooked or steamed with a little soy sauce and rice wine, with scallions, ginger, and salt vegetables. Whether or not it is whole while cooking and cut after, or already chunked or sliced before being cooked, is up to you and your recipe. Salt vegetables are rinsed to remove the excess salt and added towards the end, to function as a foil for the rich fatty meat.
Beancurd (豆腐 taufu), beancurd skin (豆皮 taupei - must be soaked before use), or black mushrooms can be added for a most delicious effect, too.
Salt vegetables can also be used in small quantity to add flavour to other dishes. They are very versatile. Even so, whenever I use them I often end up throwing out most of the container, because I don't use them often enough. Ja tsoi, however, keeps nearly forever.
Shrimp paste: 鹹蝦醬 haahm haa jeung - a moist odoriferous goo sold in jars. Many White Anglo-Saxon Protestants have an antipathy towards this, I do not know why. You may substitute anchovy paste if you are delicate.
For a more robust flavour, use shrimp-paste instead of both the salt vegetables and the dried ingredients. Fatty pork steamed with shrimp-paste and ginger is utterly delicious, fresh vegetables sautéed with shrimp-paste and chilies are divine.
Your house-mates may disagree. They're probably a bunch of prods.
THE WELL-STOCKED LARDER
I realize that not everyone can have a vivacious Chinese miss in the house, which is a great pity - they add so very much to the quality of life - but most of the other things I have mentioned are easily available, and, like the teenager, it takes a while before they go bad.
So if you do not cook as often as you would like, you should consider acquiring them.
If you ever intend to have a lively young thing in your life, it is probably also a good idea to learn how to cook a more varied selection of dishes than typical bachelor chow. Trust me, grilled cheese sandwiches made with processed yellow slices and pop-tarts may be perfect late at night.... but they are hardly candlelight supper quality.
Even with Branston Pickle and hot sauce.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AN ASPERGERLY 'A-RETENTIVE' AFTERWORD
The characters for dried shrimp (蝦米 haa mai) literally read 'shrimp rice'. But that needs a little elucidation. Rice, you see, is not always rice.
In China and South-East Asia, people make distinctions which are not well-expressed in English.
Rice starts of as 'dou' (稻), which is rice in the field - padi ('paddy') in Malay ('palay' in Tagalog) means both the growing rice and where it is grown, which is a 稻田 (dou tien: rice field) or 水田 (sui tien: water field) to the Chinese.
Once harvested and processed, it is 米 (mai: raw rice), called 'beras' in Malay and 'bigas' in Tamarao and most Philippino languages (Jalan Beras Basa in Singapore is 'wet rice road').
After cooking, it is 飯 (fan: cooked rice), which is the basis of almost all Southern Chinese and South-East Asian meals. Without cooked rice you are eating a mere snack. That's what that foot long hoagie with meats and cheeses really is, just a snack. Your mother may never have believed you when you said that, but over a billion Asians know that you were right. Same goes for the extra large pizza. Snack.
There are two other useful terms which you should also learn: 糯米 (lo mai) glutinous rice, used in a number of wrapped steamed dishes, and 飯桶 (fan tong), meaning a rice bucket - but charmingly also a wastrel, dummy, or dimwit.
NOTE: The rice that Chinese and many others prefer is 籼稻 (sin dou: long grain non-glutinous rice).
Sin ( 籼) is a homophone for sin (秈): common rice, non-glutinous rice.
Long grain rice is also called 籼米 (sin mai).
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
Showing posts with label Stinky fish paste. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stinky fish paste. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
AROMATIC THINGS
Savage Kitten has been one of the most fortunate things to have happened to me; getting that woman crazy enough to actually live with me has been another.
Even though she believes me to be a a weird white man, an utter deviant, and an obsessed sicko, it turns out we are 'simpatico' in a number of ways.
Apparently my weird sick deviance does not disturb her too much.
Well, not any more than is necessary.
My food habits sometimes did surprise her, but were not disturbing at all. She already knew that white people were extremely odd about food. We had fetishes and dislikes. We didn't just eat anything, unlike the Cantonese.
White people were unimaginative eaters - we would order sweet and sour pork over rice every single time.
She and I share the kitchen, more or less, but have divergent ideas about doing so.
If I'm doing the cooking, I can be interrupted at any time for conversation. Multitasking is what whitey does best in a kitchen, though it is debatable that whitey should actually be in the kitchen at all when conversation is necessary - the jury still out.
Conversation is often necessary. I should know that by now.
If she's cooking, however, I must keep my distracting tuchus out of the kitchen as much as possible - whatever is on the stove is a surprise.
Go smoke somewhere, don't bother me; I'm cooking!
Culinarily, my chief function in this relationship is to keep the kitchen stocked with interesting stuff.
She was happy to discover that I kept shrimp paste (Haahm haa jeung 鹹蝦醬) in the refrigerator, along with oyster sauce (ho-yau 蠔油) and various other fragrant condiments.
The 'library' of hot sauces, mostly homemade, was far less thrilling - chilipepper was a fearsome plant, its aficionados possibly psychopaths. Certainly, I was a bad example.
[There was a period several years ago when she kept discovering bags of sugar and jugs of vinegar around the apartment - for a while I had been making and selling my own hot sauce - which convinced her that she was living with a loony. Ferreavensakes, who stores sugar in a bookcase?!? Then some relatives came to town and gibbered about liquor stores and "delicious pastries", ecstatic every time they passed a bakery or place that sold vodka. This convinced Savage Kitten that I was in fact quite 'normal'.]
Homemade peanut sauce, ketjap manis, and stinky Indonesian salad dressings were good, one could use them in many ways.
Coconut milk, olive oil? Sherry instead of rice wine? Cool!
Mayonnaise, mustard, banana ketchup, and chutneys likewise had their uses.
Olives and capers, however, were exceedingly nasty things. Even today she has a hard time thinking of them as edible.
What she really appreciated were the spices.
Cantonese-American girls grow up in an culinary environment that has five-spice powder (ng-heung fun 五香粉), black pepper (Wu-chiew 胡椒), dried orange peel (chanpei 陳皮), and salt (yim 鹽) - Toishanese cooking relies on fresh natural tastes in judicious combinations, plus garlic, and ginger; savoury additions like soy sauce (cheurng-yau 酱油 OR see-yau 豉油), oyster sauce (ho-yau 蠔油); and a number of strongly flavoured dried foods used as lesser ingredients. Hence a multiplicity of spices is virtually unknown.
[Five spice powder is compounded of cloves (ding-heung 丁香), star-anise (baat gok 八角), cinnamon (gwaipei 桂皮), fennel seed (woei-heung 茴香), and Szechuan pepper (faa-chiew 花椒;also called Prickly Ash). These are also found uncombined as whole spices. Star-anise is often used in slow-cooked meats. Additionally, black pepper (胡椒) is used - but the name alone says that it is foreign to the Chinese: 胡椒 ('Wu-chiew') literally means 'Barbarian Pepper'.]
Words that were new to her nearly twenty years ago: Anise, annato, basil (tulsi), bird's eye, black cardamom, black mustard seed (bidji sawi), bukbok kunit (yellow spice mixture), caraway (djinten itam), cayenne, chile de arbol, chiles rocoto, chiltepin, cinnamon (kayu manis), cloves (tjengkei), coriander (katumbar), cumin (djinten), curry leaf, Delhwi garam masala, dried Thai chilies, dry ginger, fenugreek, galangal (langkuwang - dwarf ginger, also called 高良薑), green cardamom, green curry paste, guajillo, Habanero, Jalapeno, kaffir lime (djeruk perut), kala masala, kluwak nuts, lemon grass (sere), mace, nutmeg (buwa pala), oregano, paprika, paura (bukbok ura - red spice mixture), red curry paste, saffron, sambal santaka, Scotch Bonnet, serrano, Sindhi garam masala, sweet Spanish pepper, tamo kuntji ('Chinese keys'), thyme, turmeric (kunit), white pepper, yellow curry paste.
She can recognize most of these things by sight now. Which means she no longer has to call me in and ask "what is this?". That alone has made cooking more fun for her - she can happily putter about and experiment without needing me to enter the kitchen at all, and her ever increasing familiarity with my spice shelf has made the results extraordinary.
The role of a Dutchman is to keep her supplied with exotic spices.
Now keep quiet and go smoke somewhere!
A secondary role is to remember exactly where each spice is, from the other side of the firmly closed kitchen door.
No, don't come in, just tell me where I put it!
Naturally, I remember spices - I am a Dutchman.
Even though she believes me to be a a weird white man, an utter deviant, and an obsessed sicko, it turns out we are 'simpatico' in a number of ways.
Apparently my weird sick deviance does not disturb her too much.
Well, not any more than is necessary.
My food habits sometimes did surprise her, but were not disturbing at all. She already knew that white people were extremely odd about food. We had fetishes and dislikes. We didn't just eat anything, unlike the Cantonese.
White people were unimaginative eaters - we would order sweet and sour pork over rice every single time.
She and I share the kitchen, more or less, but have divergent ideas about doing so.
If I'm doing the cooking, I can be interrupted at any time for conversation. Multitasking is what whitey does best in a kitchen, though it is debatable that whitey should actually be in the kitchen at all when conversation is necessary - the jury still out.
Conversation is often necessary. I should know that by now.
If she's cooking, however, I must keep my distracting tuchus out of the kitchen as much as possible - whatever is on the stove is a surprise.
Go smoke somewhere, don't bother me; I'm cooking!
Culinarily, my chief function in this relationship is to keep the kitchen stocked with interesting stuff.
She was happy to discover that I kept shrimp paste (Haahm haa jeung 鹹蝦醬) in the refrigerator, along with oyster sauce (ho-yau 蠔油) and various other fragrant condiments.
The 'library' of hot sauces, mostly homemade, was far less thrilling - chilipepper was a fearsome plant, its aficionados possibly psychopaths. Certainly, I was a bad example.
[There was a period several years ago when she kept discovering bags of sugar and jugs of vinegar around the apartment - for a while I had been making and selling my own hot sauce - which convinced her that she was living with a loony. Ferreavensakes, who stores sugar in a bookcase?!? Then some relatives came to town and gibbered about liquor stores and "delicious pastries", ecstatic every time they passed a bakery or place that sold vodka. This convinced Savage Kitten that I was in fact quite 'normal'.]
Homemade peanut sauce, ketjap manis, and stinky Indonesian salad dressings were good, one could use them in many ways.
Coconut milk, olive oil? Sherry instead of rice wine? Cool!
Mayonnaise, mustard, banana ketchup, and chutneys likewise had their uses.
Olives and capers, however, were exceedingly nasty things. Even today she has a hard time thinking of them as edible.
What she really appreciated were the spices.
Cantonese-American girls grow up in an culinary environment that has five-spice powder (ng-heung fun 五香粉), black pepper (Wu-chiew 胡椒), dried orange peel (chanpei 陳皮), and salt (yim 鹽) - Toishanese cooking relies on fresh natural tastes in judicious combinations, plus garlic, and ginger; savoury additions like soy sauce (cheurng-yau 酱油 OR see-yau 豉油), oyster sauce (ho-yau 蠔油); and a number of strongly flavoured dried foods used as lesser ingredients. Hence a multiplicity of spices is virtually unknown.
[Five spice powder is compounded of cloves (ding-heung 丁香), star-anise (baat gok 八角), cinnamon (gwaipei 桂皮), fennel seed (woei-heung 茴香), and Szechuan pepper (faa-chiew 花椒;also called Prickly Ash). These are also found uncombined as whole spices. Star-anise is often used in slow-cooked meats. Additionally, black pepper (胡椒) is used - but the name alone says that it is foreign to the Chinese: 胡椒 ('Wu-chiew') literally means 'Barbarian Pepper'.]
Words that were new to her nearly twenty years ago: Anise, annato, basil (tulsi), bird's eye, black cardamom, black mustard seed (bidji sawi), bukbok kunit (yellow spice mixture), caraway (djinten itam), cayenne, chile de arbol, chiles rocoto, chiltepin, cinnamon (kayu manis), cloves (tjengkei), coriander (katumbar), cumin (djinten), curry leaf, Delhwi garam masala, dried Thai chilies, dry ginger, fenugreek, galangal (langkuwang - dwarf ginger, also called 高良薑), green cardamom, green curry paste, guajillo, Habanero, Jalapeno, kaffir lime (djeruk perut), kala masala, kluwak nuts, lemon grass (sere), mace, nutmeg (buwa pala), oregano, paprika, paura (bukbok ura - red spice mixture), red curry paste, saffron, sambal santaka, Scotch Bonnet, serrano, Sindhi garam masala, sweet Spanish pepper, tamo kuntji ('Chinese keys'), thyme, turmeric (kunit), white pepper, yellow curry paste.
She can recognize most of these things by sight now. Which means she no longer has to call me in and ask "what is this?". That alone has made cooking more fun for her - she can happily putter about and experiment without needing me to enter the kitchen at all, and her ever increasing familiarity with my spice shelf has made the results extraordinary.
The role of a Dutchman is to keep her supplied with exotic spices.
Now keep quiet and go smoke somewhere!
A secondary role is to remember exactly where each spice is, from the other side of the firmly closed kitchen door.
No, don't come in, just tell me where I put it!
Naturally, I remember spices - I am a Dutchman.
Friday, May 28, 2010
ABBAS: NO NEGOTIATIONS
Fellow blogger Death By Noodles alerts me to an article in Arutz Sheva that makes for interesting reading.
Abbas: Agree on Borders First, then Hold Direct Talks
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137734
QUOTE:
"Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas revealed Thursday that he does not intend to hold direct negotiations with Israeli leaders until Israel and the PA have reached a United States-mediated final agreement regarding the borders of a future PA state. Those borders must include Jerusalem as the capital, he added."
End quote.
SOURCE: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137734
As Death By Noodles writes:
"This means that unless Israel gives up her capitol city - the focus of Jewish yearning for all the long years of exile and for several centuries overwhelmingly Jewish - the PLO will not even consider coming to terms with reality and the existence of the state which predates their own violent nationalism."
That is an accurate assessment.
It wasn't until Yassir Arafat started referring to his own group as "Palestinians" that anyone had even heard of them. Till that time, the term had been applied to Jews who populated the area - who had declared their nationhood a generation earlier, with the approval of the United Nations.
The Arabs who stayed in the land became citizens; the Arabs who left after being encouraged to do so by the defeated Egyptians, Syrians, and other English client-states, became discriminated prisoners in camps, useful as pawns, but by no means fellow citizens of their host-countries.
Death By Noodles continues:
It must of course be remembered that until 1967, the people who now call themselves Palestinians considered themselves Jordanian, Syrian, and Egyptian. In point of fact, one could argue that there was no sense of differentiation from the Arab Umma before Hussein of Jordan wrested control of his kingdom back and expelled the PLO during Black September.
End quote.
A very good point.
Read more here:
http://deathbynoodles.blogspot.com/2010/05/abbas-rejects-peace.html
POSTSCRIPTUM
At the end of her post she also flings some gratuitous bile at the Malays and the Pakistanis - gratuitous, but thoroughly deserved.
Malays, as is well known, still maintain an apartheid society in which Chinese Malaysians, no matter how many generations they have been there (in many cases since the early eighteen hundreds - some even since the sixteen hundreds), are discriminated against in favour of recent Javanese and Sumatran carpet baggers.
Jadi Islam, the verb for converting to the Muslim faith, also means Jadi Melayu: becoming Malay. Still not equal, but far more so than Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus could ever possibly be in Malay society.
Malaysia is a pestilential place.
How much more so Pakistan.
Abbas: Agree on Borders First, then Hold Direct Talks
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137734
QUOTE:
"Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas revealed Thursday that he does not intend to hold direct negotiations with Israeli leaders until Israel and the PA have reached a United States-mediated final agreement regarding the borders of a future PA state. Those borders must include Jerusalem as the capital, he added."
End quote.
SOURCE: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137734
As Death By Noodles writes:
"This means that unless Israel gives up her capitol city - the focus of Jewish yearning for all the long years of exile and for several centuries overwhelmingly Jewish - the PLO will not even consider coming to terms with reality and the existence of the state which predates their own violent nationalism."
That is an accurate assessment.
It wasn't until Yassir Arafat started referring to his own group as "Palestinians" that anyone had even heard of them. Till that time, the term had been applied to Jews who populated the area - who had declared their nationhood a generation earlier, with the approval of the United Nations.
The Arabs who stayed in the land became citizens; the Arabs who left after being encouraged to do so by the defeated Egyptians, Syrians, and other English client-states, became discriminated prisoners in camps, useful as pawns, but by no means fellow citizens of their host-countries.
Death By Noodles continues:
It must of course be remembered that until 1967, the people who now call themselves Palestinians considered themselves Jordanian, Syrian, and Egyptian. In point of fact, one could argue that there was no sense of differentiation from the Arab Umma before Hussein of Jordan wrested control of his kingdom back and expelled the PLO during Black September.
End quote.
A very good point.
Read more here:
http://deathbynoodles.blogspot.com/2010/05/abbas-rejects-peace.html
POSTSCRIPTUM
At the end of her post she also flings some gratuitous bile at the Malays and the Pakistanis - gratuitous, but thoroughly deserved.
Malays, as is well known, still maintain an apartheid society in which Chinese Malaysians, no matter how many generations they have been there (in many cases since the early eighteen hundreds - some even since the sixteen hundreds), are discriminated against in favour of recent Javanese and Sumatran carpet baggers.
Jadi Islam, the verb for converting to the Muslim faith, also means Jadi Melayu: becoming Malay. Still not equal, but far more so than Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus could ever possibly be in Malay society.
Malaysia is a pestilential place.
How much more so Pakistan.
Friday, October 16, 2009
THIS PLACE SMELLS!
Everyone seems to be bellyaching about the humidity. These San Franciscans, they are uncomfortable when the air is moist. Warm and moist.
And yet they claim that the air here is more humid than many other places.
They're not fully in tune with reality. This place is normally dry as a mummy. California is a desert. Even San Francisco.
The Netherlands is quite otherwise. So is South East Asia. Things smell different there.
For the past three days I have been remembering odours.
Landing at Manila Airport (wet and rotten), the room where I slept in the house in Makati (faint hint of incense - Auntie H. burned sandalwood there everyday to mask the horrid pong of white person) and also the hallway from the dining room to the back of the house (camphor, green soap, and mildew).
The kitchen too, of course - it smelled very Chinesey.
The intersection in Binondo where we wrecked the jeep (machine oil, fear, and something very rotten), Ongpin Street (El Presidente Restaurant - clams in blackbean sauce, eels braised in rice wine, kangkong with bago'ong and garlic), the bakery along the estero near Benavidez (spilled tea, hot butter, and something fishy).
Isaw na babui grilling near the bridge - sweet and meaty!
Also copra on the boat from Balinguan, rain outside the stilt village, the inside of the warehouse in Cagayan (smoke, tar, rubber), and mr. Dee's house in Mambajao.
Durian, of course, and dried fish (daing). Salty ferments. Stale sweetness. Spilled condiments and strange fires.
At night, smouldering katol.
I shall not mention the burning canefields, or the grass square outside of the school buildings where the PC interrogated captured NPA.
EDIBLE - OF COURSE!
Mostly, the smell-memories are tropic, and induce hunger. And perhaps part of that has to do with what I cooked for dinner last Sunday: Chicken Adobo (chicken chunks in a soy and vinegar gravy with garlic and peppercorns), steamed fatty pork with shredded ginger and fish paste on bruised lemon grass, braised long beans with mild yellow curry and red chilies. Plus various vegetable accompaniments. There was a touch of stinky fish-product in everything. The kitchen smelled like a Philippino flop-house afterwards.
I wish there were a place around here where I could get tapsilog for lunch. Not too hep on Jollibee, though. It lacks that auntie touch.
==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================
And yet they claim that the air here is more humid than many other places.
They're not fully in tune with reality. This place is normally dry as a mummy. California is a desert. Even San Francisco.
The Netherlands is quite otherwise. So is South East Asia. Things smell different there.
For the past three days I have been remembering odours.
Landing at Manila Airport (wet and rotten), the room where I slept in the house in Makati (faint hint of incense - Auntie H. burned sandalwood there everyday to mask the horrid pong of white person) and also the hallway from the dining room to the back of the house (camphor, green soap, and mildew).
The kitchen too, of course - it smelled very Chinesey.
The intersection in Binondo where we wrecked the jeep (machine oil, fear, and something very rotten), Ongpin Street (El Presidente Restaurant - clams in blackbean sauce, eels braised in rice wine, kangkong with bago'ong and garlic), the bakery along the estero near Benavidez (spilled tea, hot butter, and something fishy).
Isaw na babui grilling near the bridge - sweet and meaty!
Also copra on the boat from Balinguan, rain outside the stilt village, the inside of the warehouse in Cagayan (smoke, tar, rubber), and mr. Dee's house in Mambajao.
Durian, of course, and dried fish (daing). Salty ferments. Stale sweetness. Spilled condiments and strange fires.
At night, smouldering katol.
I shall not mention the burning canefields, or the grass square outside of the school buildings where the PC interrogated captured NPA.
EDIBLE - OF COURSE!
Mostly, the smell-memories are tropic, and induce hunger. And perhaps part of that has to do with what I cooked for dinner last Sunday: Chicken Adobo (chicken chunks in a soy and vinegar gravy with garlic and peppercorns), steamed fatty pork with shredded ginger and fish paste on bruised lemon grass, braised long beans with mild yellow curry and red chilies. Plus various vegetable accompaniments. There was a touch of stinky fish-product in everything. The kitchen smelled like a Philippino flop-house afterwards.
I wish there were a place around here where I could get tapsilog for lunch. Not too hep on Jollibee, though. It lacks that auntie touch.
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Monday, September 28, 2009
PROMOTING CRUSTACEAN ABUSE
Normally I do not speak much of food on Mondays. Not because I do not eat, but because after a busy weekend it is not the first thing that pops into mind to blog about.
But today, I wish to speak of shrimp.
Apparently eating shrimp is an unbearably mean thing to do. Totally vicious and inhuman. It causes multiple suffering and bad karma from many lives snuffed out.
"You're eating shrimp!!!!! How cruel!!!!!"
The young person who squealed those words at her friend was aghast.
She explained that the consumption of shrimp showed a heartless disregard for the pain of so many small crustaceans, not just one individual animal. A vast assembly of suffering shrimp. Because in order to get even one pound of shrimp to market, several pounds of murdered shrimp are sacrificed - not presentable, missing limbs, too small, ugly......
Her friend continued eating with gusto. Apparently the collective agony (and bad karma) of shrimp did not move her in the slightest. Adding insult to injury, she audibly smacked her lips and dashed on some more hot sauce. And a squeeze of lime juice. Tasty!
"AND it ROBS other animals that DEPEND upon shrimp for food, so it has reverberations like you could not image!!!!!!""""
The harvesting of shrimp is an industrial affair, in which untold millions of small crustacean lives are snuffed out in unbearable agony.........
Huge piles, thousands of poor poor shrimp, gasping and convulsing on the cold cold deck of a large factory ship.......
HUMANE-NINNITY
Of course, the logical conclusion here is that it is far more merciful to eat large quadrupeds that have been quickly killed, skinned, and butchered. Just one death, with speed, rather than thousands dying, slowly.
Bullet through the brain - whamm! Now clean the carcass and pack it in plastic.
Or ship it in a refrigerated truck to Chinatown.
Often, after a night on the town, I would return home along the quiet thoroughfares of C'Town in early morning, and observe the white-smocked butchers shlepping huge oink carcasses into their shops.
Ah, pale dawn, fresh pink flesh, and a lifeless trotter hanging down!
It's poetry!
The Chinese do fabulous things with pork. It is, from their perspective, a miraculous beast.
One of the very best dishes is chunks of fatty pork steamed with ginger and .... shrimp paste.
But today, I wish to speak of shrimp.
Apparently eating shrimp is an unbearably mean thing to do. Totally vicious and inhuman. It causes multiple suffering and bad karma from many lives snuffed out.
"You're eating shrimp!!!!! How cruel!!!!!"
The young person who squealed those words at her friend was aghast.
She explained that the consumption of shrimp showed a heartless disregard for the pain of so many small crustaceans, not just one individual animal. A vast assembly of suffering shrimp. Because in order to get even one pound of shrimp to market, several pounds of murdered shrimp are sacrificed - not presentable, missing limbs, too small, ugly......
Her friend continued eating with gusto. Apparently the collective agony (and bad karma) of shrimp did not move her in the slightest. Adding insult to injury, she audibly smacked her lips and dashed on some more hot sauce. And a squeeze of lime juice. Tasty!
"AND it ROBS other animals that DEPEND upon shrimp for food, so it has reverberations like you could not image!!!!!!""""
The harvesting of shrimp is an industrial affair, in which untold millions of small crustacean lives are snuffed out in unbearable agony.........
Huge piles, thousands of poor poor shrimp, gasping and convulsing on the cold cold deck of a large factory ship.......
HUMANE-NINNITY
Of course, the logical conclusion here is that it is far more merciful to eat large quadrupeds that have been quickly killed, skinned, and butchered. Just one death, with speed, rather than thousands dying, slowly.
Bullet through the brain - whamm! Now clean the carcass and pack it in plastic.
Or ship it in a refrigerated truck to Chinatown.
Often, after a night on the town, I would return home along the quiet thoroughfares of C'Town in early morning, and observe the white-smocked butchers shlepping huge oink carcasses into their shops.
Ah, pale dawn, fresh pink flesh, and a lifeless trotter hanging down!
It's poetry!
The Chinese do fabulous things with pork. It is, from their perspective, a miraculous beast.
One of the very best dishes is chunks of fatty pork steamed with ginger and .... shrimp paste.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
TROPIC OF SPINACH
Outkitchens, in insular South-East Asia, are the places where most of the cooking takes place.
A simple clay stove, or bricked fire range, on which both iron pans and clay pots are equally at home, with a brazier for roasting. Plus a table for preparing food, a vat for water, and basins for washing vegetables and rice. Stone tile flooring. Cover it all with a corrugated roof, and leave at least one of the sides open so that smoke can clear.
The advantage is that one does not risk burning down the house if the fire gets out of control. But the real advantage is ventilation and the relative ease of clean-up.
Many people now have two kitchens. There's the expensive Western Kitchen, with electric appliances and the fancy imported range, as well as running water, refrigeration, and air-con. But most of the cooking is not done there. It serves to show off how modern the family is, and is also used to store the tinned and bottled foods (often still kept in a cupboard with woven slat or wire-gauze doors to keep out the pests). The real kitchen is outdoors.
Fresh ingredients are still bought daily, still washed out back, still cooked plainly in clay pots on the brick range. Real food does not require electric devices and complicated gadgets. People still cook what they have always been accustomed to eating. Food is not complicated.
Simplicity of cooking, however, by no means implies boring food. One can eat very well without ever using a blender. A soupy dish, a mild wet curry (mostly vegetables), a spicy dry-fry of vegs or meat, and a steamed fish, plus rice and blanched vegetables with a funky dip. And a chili-paste (sambal) on the side.
Easy, tasty, scant fuss.
The following spinach dish can also be cooked indoors, if one lacks access to a climate that averages nearly a hundred degrees Fahrenheit year-round. It will be just as good.
GULE BAYEM
One pound spinach, rinsed and chopped.
Three cups coconut milk.
One stem lemongras, trimmed and bruised.
Two or three Romas, peeled seeded and chopped.
Two or three green Jalapenos, left whole.
Some slivered ginger.
Squeeze of lime.
One Tsp ground coriander.
Half Tsp turmeric.
Half Tsp ground cumin.
Dash of Tabasco.
Pinch salt.
Put everything except the spinach and lime juice in a large saucepan and simmer uncovered until slightly thickened, 8 to 10 minutes.
Add spinach, simmer until tender. Squeeze the lime over, and garnish with a little parsley and cilantro.
Serve with other dishes and rice.
Note I: It is best to fire-roast the Roma tomatoes to blister the skin before peeling.
Note II: Leave the Jalapenos whole so that their fragrance will be imparted to the dish, but not their heat. If you wish you can eat them separately yourself.
Note III: It is authentic to include either dried smoked fish or dried shrimp in the coconut milk. Authentic, but not necessary. Same goes for stinky fish-paste. It is up to you.
Bayem is actually Amaranthus leaf, rather than spinach. But you are more likely to encounter spinach at the market, and any type of greens will do. You could also use mustard greens, chard, or even chili leaves (called daon tjabe in Tamarao). All of these leafy things, collectively, count as bayem in modern parlance.
Gule ('goo-leh') means a wet coconut milk (santen) based mild curry.
The quantities given above would be suitable for four people. If it is just the two of you, adjust accordingly.
A simple clay stove, or bricked fire range, on which both iron pans and clay pots are equally at home, with a brazier for roasting. Plus a table for preparing food, a vat for water, and basins for washing vegetables and rice. Stone tile flooring. Cover it all with a corrugated roof, and leave at least one of the sides open so that smoke can clear.
The advantage is that one does not risk burning down the house if the fire gets out of control. But the real advantage is ventilation and the relative ease of clean-up.
Many people now have two kitchens. There's the expensive Western Kitchen, with electric appliances and the fancy imported range, as well as running water, refrigeration, and air-con. But most of the cooking is not done there. It serves to show off how modern the family is, and is also used to store the tinned and bottled foods (often still kept in a cupboard with woven slat or wire-gauze doors to keep out the pests). The real kitchen is outdoors.
Fresh ingredients are still bought daily, still washed out back, still cooked plainly in clay pots on the brick range. Real food does not require electric devices and complicated gadgets. People still cook what they have always been accustomed to eating. Food is not complicated.
Simplicity of cooking, however, by no means implies boring food. One can eat very well without ever using a blender. A soupy dish, a mild wet curry (mostly vegetables), a spicy dry-fry of vegs or meat, and a steamed fish, plus rice and blanched vegetables with a funky dip. And a chili-paste (sambal) on the side.
Easy, tasty, scant fuss.
The following spinach dish can also be cooked indoors, if one lacks access to a climate that averages nearly a hundred degrees Fahrenheit year-round. It will be just as good.
GULE BAYEM
One pound spinach, rinsed and chopped.
Three cups coconut milk.
One stem lemongras, trimmed and bruised.
Two or three Romas, peeled seeded and chopped.
Two or three green Jalapenos, left whole.
Some slivered ginger.
Squeeze of lime.
One Tsp ground coriander.
Half Tsp turmeric.
Half Tsp ground cumin.
Dash of Tabasco.
Pinch salt.
Put everything except the spinach and lime juice in a large saucepan and simmer uncovered until slightly thickened, 8 to 10 minutes.
Add spinach, simmer until tender. Squeeze the lime over, and garnish with a little parsley and cilantro.
Serve with other dishes and rice.
Note I: It is best to fire-roast the Roma tomatoes to blister the skin before peeling.
Note II: Leave the Jalapenos whole so that their fragrance will be imparted to the dish, but not their heat. If you wish you can eat them separately yourself.
Note III: It is authentic to include either dried smoked fish or dried shrimp in the coconut milk. Authentic, but not necessary. Same goes for stinky fish-paste. It is up to you.
Bayem is actually Amaranthus leaf, rather than spinach. But you are more likely to encounter spinach at the market, and any type of greens will do. You could also use mustard greens, chard, or even chili leaves (called daon tjabe in Tamarao). All of these leafy things, collectively, count as bayem in modern parlance.
Gule ('goo-leh') means a wet coconut milk (santen) based mild curry.
The quantities given above would be suitable for four people. If it is just the two of you, adjust accordingly.
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.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
HEAD-HUNTING CHICKEN
A whole chicken, pale-cooked for presentation; a ritual dish. The coconut broth is barely tinged with turmeric, to the faintest of yellow; necessary, because it would otherwise have a slight greyish hue. Traditional.
A dish to calm the spirits of heads taken in war.
BULELITJA
One whole chicken.
Two to three each: bruised stalks of lemongras, whole shallots, whole green chilies, thick slices of ginger.
One Tsp each: salt, sugar.
Half Tsp each: white peppercorns, coriander seeds.
Quarter to half Tsp turmeric.
Generous pinches tamo kuntji, langkwang.
Two whole cloves, a bay leaf, and a piece of dried orange peel.
Eight cups water.
Four cups coconut milk.
Quarter cup white liquor (either Dutch gin, or Vodka).
A jigger of vinegar.
Bring all save chicken to a boil, simmer for five to ten minutes. Inundate the bird and bring the pot back to boil. Turn off heat. Weigh the bird down - a large ceramic bowl partially filled with water will do so nicely. Do not use a metal object as it will affect taste and appearance. Let the pot sit for an hour. Then remove the chicken to a broad basin.
With a slotted spoon remove all solids from the broth. Bring the broth back to a roiling boil and pour slowly over the chicken, making sure all of it is touched by the hot liquid. Drain chicken, reserve broth to a pot and bring back to boiling, then simmer for ten minutes.
Serve the chicken and broth separately; chicken cool, broth hot.
Eat with compressed rice, chili and fishpaste strifried longbeans, and ripped vegetables.
[Lemongrass: Sere or Sae - a stalkgras with a pleasing lemon-like aroma used in South-East Asian cooking. Tamo kuntji: Kaempferia Pandurata (Boesenbergia Rotunda) - a root related to ginger and galangal, with minor antibacterial and anticancerous qualities. It has a perfumy bitter taste. In the west it can be found in Thai, Indonesian, and some Chinese stores - temo kunci (Indonesian), krachai (Thai), fingerroot, Chinese Keys (Singaporean English), 凹脣姜 (Cantonese: au-suen-keung). Langkwang: galangal (Kampferia Galanga, Alpinia Galanga), also called red ginger or dwarf ginger. Called Kha in Thai, Laos in Malay. Dried orange peel: dry your own, or purchase chan-pei (陳皮) in Chinatown, even though it comes from a different citrus (Citrus Aurantium). Dutch gin: not the same as the aftershave lotion favoured in the English speaking world, this is more like kummel - except it is flavoured with juniper berries, not caraway. The Oude Genever is a pot still product, and will take your legs out from under you if drunk to excess. The Jonge Genever is made in a patent still, and is much smoother, though still likely to commit treason on your judgment. Oude Genever is the favoured style of import-plonk in areas up from the coast. Longbeans: also called yard long beans, these are much preferred over haricots.]
NOTE: The chili paste and fish paste are on the stir-fried vegetables, because they are NOT in the broth or on the chicken. The chicken is mild flavoured, to correlate to a head taken after downing the victim. Arabs are cowards and barbarians because they take prisoners, then behead their captives alive. Such a head concentrates fear and is useless. Gut-stab to kill, then cut to harvest the head; such is the only proper way.
A dish to calm the spirits of heads taken in war.
BULELITJA
One whole chicken.
Two to three each: bruised stalks of lemongras, whole shallots, whole green chilies, thick slices of ginger.
One Tsp each: salt, sugar.
Half Tsp each: white peppercorns, coriander seeds.
Quarter to half Tsp turmeric.
Generous pinches tamo kuntji, langkwang.
Two whole cloves, a bay leaf, and a piece of dried orange peel.
Eight cups water.
Four cups coconut milk.
Quarter cup white liquor (either Dutch gin, or Vodka).
A jigger of vinegar.
Bring all save chicken to a boil, simmer for five to ten minutes. Inundate the bird and bring the pot back to boil. Turn off heat. Weigh the bird down - a large ceramic bowl partially filled with water will do so nicely. Do not use a metal object as it will affect taste and appearance. Let the pot sit for an hour. Then remove the chicken to a broad basin.
With a slotted spoon remove all solids from the broth. Bring the broth back to a roiling boil and pour slowly over the chicken, making sure all of it is touched by the hot liquid. Drain chicken, reserve broth to a pot and bring back to boiling, then simmer for ten minutes.
Serve the chicken and broth separately; chicken cool, broth hot.
Eat with compressed rice, chili and fishpaste strifried longbeans, and ripped vegetables.
[Lemongrass: Sere or Sae - a stalkgras with a pleasing lemon-like aroma used in South-East Asian cooking. Tamo kuntji: Kaempferia Pandurata (Boesenbergia Rotunda) - a root related to ginger and galangal, with minor antibacterial and anticancerous qualities. It has a perfumy bitter taste. In the west it can be found in Thai, Indonesian, and some Chinese stores - temo kunci (Indonesian), krachai (Thai), fingerroot, Chinese Keys (Singaporean English), 凹脣姜 (Cantonese: au-suen-keung). Langkwang: galangal (Kampferia Galanga, Alpinia Galanga), also called red ginger or dwarf ginger. Called Kha in Thai, Laos in Malay. Dried orange peel: dry your own, or purchase chan-pei (陳皮) in Chinatown, even though it comes from a different citrus (Citrus Aurantium). Dutch gin: not the same as the aftershave lotion favoured in the English speaking world, this is more like kummel - except it is flavoured with juniper berries, not caraway. The Oude Genever is a pot still product, and will take your legs out from under you if drunk to excess. The Jonge Genever is made in a patent still, and is much smoother, though still likely to commit treason on your judgment. Oude Genever is the favoured style of import-plonk in areas up from the coast. Longbeans: also called yard long beans, these are much preferred over haricots.]
NOTE: The chili paste and fish paste are on the stir-fried vegetables, because they are NOT in the broth or on the chicken. The chicken is mild flavoured, to correlate to a head taken after downing the victim. Arabs are cowards and barbarians because they take prisoners, then behead their captives alive. Such a head concentrates fear and is useless. Gut-stab to kill, then cut to harvest the head; such is the only proper way.
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, March 28, 2007
SMELLING LIKE A SOUTH EAST ASIAN SLUM: PETIS, TRASI, BULATJONG
I just realized that hardly any part of my life is compatible with kosher for Peysach.
I mean, I would have to get rid of almost my entire pantry.
A Dutch-American who cooks Asian food has nearly nothing which is not either chametz OR kitnios.
Soy sauce? Rice-wine? The weird Japanese pancake mix which Savage Kitten likes? Her huge bin of Texas double A, or my bin of Thai jasmine longrain? The regular glutinous, or the expensive pudding rice? Basmati?
Nix on all that.
My collection of hot sauces? Well, they weren't made with apple or grape vinegar..... and some of them wouldn't even be kosher le rest-of-the-year, let alone kosher le-Peysach. Reason being that they contain petis, trasi, or bulatjong.
If you have never even heard of petis, trasi, or bulatjong, trust me - there is no way that commercial versions can be considered kosher. Ever. No one has invented a vegetarian version either. There is no substitute.
GO FISH
But YOU could make them at home, using only fish that have snaper ve kaskeses.
[And by kaskeses are not meant kaskeses which are embedded like those of reptiles or small buggy things, but clearly visible kaskeses which can be easily scroped off with a knife, the test being that one can be pulled off without ripping or damaging the skin. This per both the Rambam and the Rema.]
[Note: If your fish vendor has skinned the fish, there is no way to ascertain that it was kosher. Just one more reason you shouldn't buy those factory processed fish-like products. Even if the sales person tells you what it was before it was rendered generic, is there a chezkas kashrus? Would someone who is not shomer mitzvos actually be knowledgeable enough, or vested enough, to be an accurate source of information in this matter? Fish nomenclature and fishwives are both notoriously haphazard. Salmon, however, has a unique appearance to the flesh, which according to some poskim is a siman muvhak, and hence a heter. ]
PETIS
Use only the very freshest of fish, and move to a warm climate. Use no more than three times the amount of fish by weight as sea salt, no less than twice the amount of fish to salt. In a clean vessel (a barrel or earthenware tun) strew salt, layer cleaned and gutted fish, strew more salt, and repeat till all the fish and salt is used up. Place a flat bamboo basket (a winnowing tray is perfect) or a pickle-board on top, and weigh this down with rocks like you would sauerkraut. This prevents the fish from floating when the liquid has been released by the salt. Cover with a cloth to keep out the flying shrotzim.
After the first week or two, uncover the container and expose to direct sunlight for several hours. This furthers the fermentation process, and will eventually yield a fish-sauce which is a lovely reddish amber, clear, and fragrant. It will take at least a year to produce a superior fish-sauce, but for best results, figure on nearly two years. Strain and bottle.
The sludgy refuse can be diluted with salt water for second round of fermenting, the result of which can be sold as inferior fish sauce.
Decent fish-sauce will keep for a very long time. About six kilos of fish will give one litre of superior fish-sauce. Really excellent fish-sauce will look like single malt, Irish, or bourbon, and have a depth of flavour, whereas mediocre fish sauce wil be dark, salty, fishy, and Philippino.
[Many commercial fish sauces are mixtures of long fermented top level superior sauces and various shorter ferments and second-round ferments. With or without the further addition of extenders, odd grain products, and salt. ]
In addition to having moved to a warm climate, it will be helpful if you do not have picky neighbors living too close by.
I believe that most of New York and New Jersey do not qualify on either score.
TRASI
Use tiny fish, or mince larger fish to a uniform granular texture. Mix in one and a half cups of sea salt to each kilo of fish. Press this into a jar overnight. The next day, spread the fish thinly on a bamboo mat and dry in strong sunlight. Take it in at night and store it in the jar. Spread it out again the next day. Repeat the spreading and storing until the result is dense and purply and the fish material has broken down, which takes about five days or so, or keep repeating untill it has become stiff and clay-like. After the first three days or so, you may grind the fish for uniformity. This also speeds up the drying process, and will yield a superior paste. A well made stiff paste will be a deep brown, and be easily pressed into a brick shape. If dried until it is crumbly, it will keep a very long time. Indonesians call it trasi, Malaysians call it belachan. A wetter version is available in Philippino stores, know as bago'ong.
BULATJONG
This is made by mixing vegetable matter and fishy stuff together with enough salt to promote pickling. It is closely related to both petis and trasi, and also to a somewhat explosive mixture made by Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese. Think of it as a table-condiment. You can also simply use regular fish or shrimp paste as the basis, much like South-East Asian Portugese do - about two thirds fish paste, with tomatoes, fresh ginger, chilies, garlic, and vinegar added. For each cup of non-fish paste substances add a generous tablespoonfull of salt, and let it stand a few days before use.
Note that for all of the products described above, shrimp are considered the best fundament. And shrimp are not kosher. But I have been told that small firm fish that are not too high in fat can very well be used instead. I firmly encourage your experimentation.
Some of the cheaper commercial versions use flour and wheat products in addition to fish-ferments. And related thereto, please be aware that most soy sauces contain wheat (and are therefore also posul for Sfardim during Peysach, in addition to being off-limits to kitniophobics).
Petis is used condimentally as a table sauce, trasi is used for cooking (indispensable in South-East Asian and Southern Chinese food) or cooked into condiment mixtures, and bulatjong is eaten much like a table pickle or relish. You can also purchase pre-roasted trasi which can be ground into curry-pastes or crumbled into stews, if you do not wish your kitchen to reek like a low class flop house just off Mabini or Del Pilar.
All these products should be used sparingly. A tablespoon or two of petis with an equivalent amount of fresh lime juice or vinegar, with some sliced chili and garlic, makes a lovely dip.
---------------------------------------
Related hereto, a meise shehoyo:
Before he moved to Telegraph Hill, the bookseller and I would walk part-way home together late at night after leaving Mike's or Candy's. One night in 1993 I boasted about finding a bottle of chinchaloc (fish pickle). One thing lead to another, and we decided to open that bottle. Sniff and sample. Consider it the spirit of discovery if you will.
I had barely touched the bottle opener to the crown when the top blew off, and a geyser of putrid muck sprayed the kitchen counter, the window, and both of us.
Our spirit of discovery was satisfied, and neither of us even tasted the fish pickle. I have never bought another bottle.
Months later I was still finding little dried shrimp eyeballs stuck in the weirdest places.
I never found the top of the bottle - I think it went straight out the open window into the airwell, shot like a bottle rocket by the pressure that had built up.
Long warehoused chinchaloc is more unstable than even cheap Philippino fish-sauce. Those bottles are potential bombs. If you've ever wondered at the rich aroma in South-East Asian Chinese stores, wonder no more.
If you plan to make your own, get the bottles and crowns at a home-brew supply house.
I mean, I would have to get rid of almost my entire pantry.
A Dutch-American who cooks Asian food has nearly nothing which is not either chametz OR kitnios.
Soy sauce? Rice-wine? The weird Japanese pancake mix which Savage Kitten likes? Her huge bin of Texas double A, or my bin of Thai jasmine longrain? The regular glutinous, or the expensive pudding rice? Basmati?
Nix on all that.
My collection of hot sauces? Well, they weren't made with apple or grape vinegar..... and some of them wouldn't even be kosher le rest-of-the-year, let alone kosher le-Peysach. Reason being that they contain petis, trasi, or bulatjong.
If you have never even heard of petis, trasi, or bulatjong, trust me - there is no way that commercial versions can be considered kosher. Ever. No one has invented a vegetarian version either. There is no substitute.
GO FISH
But YOU could make them at home, using only fish that have snaper ve kaskeses.
[And by kaskeses are not meant kaskeses which are embedded like those of reptiles or small buggy things, but clearly visible kaskeses which can be easily scroped off with a knife, the test being that one can be pulled off without ripping or damaging the skin. This per both the Rambam and the Rema.]
[Note: If your fish vendor has skinned the fish, there is no way to ascertain that it was kosher. Just one more reason you shouldn't buy those factory processed fish-like products. Even if the sales person tells you what it was before it was rendered generic, is there a chezkas kashrus? Would someone who is not shomer mitzvos actually be knowledgeable enough, or vested enough, to be an accurate source of information in this matter? Fish nomenclature and fishwives are both notoriously haphazard. Salmon, however, has a unique appearance to the flesh, which according to some poskim is a siman muvhak, and hence a heter. ]
PETIS
Use only the very freshest of fish, and move to a warm climate. Use no more than three times the amount of fish by weight as sea salt, no less than twice the amount of fish to salt. In a clean vessel (a barrel or earthenware tun) strew salt, layer cleaned and gutted fish, strew more salt, and repeat till all the fish and salt is used up. Place a flat bamboo basket (a winnowing tray is perfect) or a pickle-board on top, and weigh this down with rocks like you would sauerkraut. This prevents the fish from floating when the liquid has been released by the salt. Cover with a cloth to keep out the flying shrotzim.
After the first week or two, uncover the container and expose to direct sunlight for several hours. This furthers the fermentation process, and will eventually yield a fish-sauce which is a lovely reddish amber, clear, and fragrant. It will take at least a year to produce a superior fish-sauce, but for best results, figure on nearly two years. Strain and bottle.
The sludgy refuse can be diluted with salt water for second round of fermenting, the result of which can be sold as inferior fish sauce.
Decent fish-sauce will keep for a very long time. About six kilos of fish will give one litre of superior fish-sauce. Really excellent fish-sauce will look like single malt, Irish, or bourbon, and have a depth of flavour, whereas mediocre fish sauce wil be dark, salty, fishy, and Philippino.
[Many commercial fish sauces are mixtures of long fermented top level superior sauces and various shorter ferments and second-round ferments. With or without the further addition of extenders, odd grain products, and salt. ]
In addition to having moved to a warm climate, it will be helpful if you do not have picky neighbors living too close by.
I believe that most of New York and New Jersey do not qualify on either score.
TRASI
Use tiny fish, or mince larger fish to a uniform granular texture. Mix in one and a half cups of sea salt to each kilo of fish. Press this into a jar overnight. The next day, spread the fish thinly on a bamboo mat and dry in strong sunlight. Take it in at night and store it in the jar. Spread it out again the next day. Repeat the spreading and storing until the result is dense and purply and the fish material has broken down, which takes about five days or so, or keep repeating untill it has become stiff and clay-like. After the first three days or so, you may grind the fish for uniformity. This also speeds up the drying process, and will yield a superior paste. A well made stiff paste will be a deep brown, and be easily pressed into a brick shape. If dried until it is crumbly, it will keep a very long time. Indonesians call it trasi, Malaysians call it belachan. A wetter version is available in Philippino stores, know as bago'ong.
BULATJONG
This is made by mixing vegetable matter and fishy stuff together with enough salt to promote pickling. It is closely related to both petis and trasi, and also to a somewhat explosive mixture made by Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese. Think of it as a table-condiment. You can also simply use regular fish or shrimp paste as the basis, much like South-East Asian Portugese do - about two thirds fish paste, with tomatoes, fresh ginger, chilies, garlic, and vinegar added. For each cup of non-fish paste substances add a generous tablespoonfull of salt, and let it stand a few days before use.
Note that for all of the products described above, shrimp are considered the best fundament. And shrimp are not kosher. But I have been told that small firm fish that are not too high in fat can very well be used instead. I firmly encourage your experimentation.
Some of the cheaper commercial versions use flour and wheat products in addition to fish-ferments. And related thereto, please be aware that most soy sauces contain wheat (and are therefore also posul for Sfardim during Peysach, in addition to being off-limits to kitniophobics).
Petis is used condimentally as a table sauce, trasi is used for cooking (indispensable in South-East Asian and Southern Chinese food) or cooked into condiment mixtures, and bulatjong is eaten much like a table pickle or relish. You can also purchase pre-roasted trasi which can be ground into curry-pastes or crumbled into stews, if you do not wish your kitchen to reek like a low class flop house just off Mabini or Del Pilar.
All these products should be used sparingly. A tablespoon or two of petis with an equivalent amount of fresh lime juice or vinegar, with some sliced chili and garlic, makes a lovely dip.
---------------------------------------
Related hereto, a meise shehoyo:
Before he moved to Telegraph Hill, the bookseller and I would walk part-way home together late at night after leaving Mike's or Candy's. One night in 1993 I boasted about finding a bottle of chinchaloc (fish pickle). One thing lead to another, and we decided to open that bottle. Sniff and sample. Consider it the spirit of discovery if you will.
I had barely touched the bottle opener to the crown when the top blew off, and a geyser of putrid muck sprayed the kitchen counter, the window, and both of us.
Our spirit of discovery was satisfied, and neither of us even tasted the fish pickle. I have never bought another bottle.
Months later I was still finding little dried shrimp eyeballs stuck in the weirdest places.
I never found the top of the bottle - I think it went straight out the open window into the airwell, shot like a bottle rocket by the pressure that had built up.
Long warehoused chinchaloc is more unstable than even cheap Philippino fish-sauce. Those bottles are potential bombs. If you've ever wondered at the rich aroma in South-East Asian Chinese stores, wonder no more.
If you plan to make your own, get the bottles and crowns at a home-brew supply house.
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