EatingAsia

Gat Luang Diaries V: Crispy Crullers and Deep-Fried Dragons

A well-made cruller is a thing of beauty. Which is why, should you find yourself in Chiang Mai, you should make your way to a lane alongside Don Lam Yai market called Soi Udompon, in the city's old Gat Luang neighborhood, where Ko Ning and his wife Daeng have been frying up some of the city's best for more than a decade. On busy days daughter Kwan helps out behind the fryer.

Everyday from 6am the pair, sometimes with the help of their daughter Kwan, roll and cut dough for bpa tong ko -- crispy and lightly salty double-sided "chromosome" crullers (so-called for their shape, by our English-speaking Chiang Mai friends) -- and sarapao tawt, slightly sweet puffs studded with black sesame seeds. Both make for a brilliant breakfast, taken alongside a glass of cold soy milk (warm soy milk is served in a small bowl), or a bowl of song kryang, warm soy milk with strips of fresh bean curd skin, barley and red beans. For sweet tooths, there's sankayaa, a lurid green pandan-and-coconut milk and egg spread that Malaysians know as kaya.

It's a busy spot, this stretch of pavement fronting weathered timber-doored shop houses next to Chiang Mai's oldest market.

In recent years it's become even busier, as word has spread -- by mouth, newspaper, and local TV -- of Ko Ning's cruller variation: the deep-fried dragon.

The dragon and Ko Ning's other animal shapes are actually themselves variations on his first deep-fried animal.

"Eight years ago I took my son to the zoo. He liked the crocodile so much that when we went home I made one from clay for him," he told us. "Then I wondered if I could do that with dough. My first try wasn't good. It wasn't a crocodile. It was more like a gecko."

Ko Ning's deep-fried crocodiles, dragons and dinosaurs are, predictably, popular with kids. Even big kids.

And they're big sellers. Ko Ning holds a Master's degree in managment and teaches at a vocational college in Nong Khai. That job is "for respect," he says, patting the rectangle of dough on his work table.  "This is the real income!"

Like any born innovator Ko Ning isn't resting on his laurels. When we were last in Chiang Mai he was experimenting with deep-fried dough-swaddled hot dogs.

Early reception for the dough weenies was looking positive, and Ko Ning was posed to add his newest creation to the menu. All he needed a catchy name. Our suggestion: Twisty Dogs.

The man looked doubtful. "I'll have to think about it," he said.

For more images -- some food, some not -- of Don Lamyai Market and the rest of Gat Luang, visit Dave's recently uploaded gallery, here.

Find what is surely one of Chiang Mai's tastiest, least greasy cruller -- and deep-fried animals -- every morning from 6am to about 10am, on the alley alongside Don Lam Yai market.

On Street Food and Those Who Love (and Deride) It, and Where to Eat it in Siem Reap

What is street food?

I found myself mildly debating this question with a chef in Siem Reap, after his recommendation led us to these wonderful skewers of BBQ'd beef on the quiet side of the river. That particular specialty isn't one that he'd call "street food", he said, because the beef (and its accompanying green papaya pickle) are prepped off-site and are cooked off the street at a stationary location, a shop (of sorts). 

For me the definition of street food is less about a dish being prepared and eaten literally in the street (or in an alley or on a sidewalk) than it is about immediacy, proximity and specialization. If it's not prepared or at least plated pretty much to order, in plain view of the diner, it's not street food. And most street foods are served by vendors (not restaurateurs, not cafe operators) who specialize in one, two or a few dishes. (That's why I feel comfortable talking about "street food" in Malaysia even though much of it is no longer served from carts that are literally on the street, but from carts parked inside or just on the edge of kopitiam / coffee shops.) 

It's these elements that make street food so special and, so often, delicious. They're why street food doesn't translate well to a restaurant setting and why, contrary to the assertions of some that Asian street food isn't all that great, it often really and truly is. I don't doubt that you can find char koay teow, asam laksa, banh da and Thai-style grilled pork neck in a restaurant. But I'd bet my last dollar that the restaurant versions won't be half as tasty as the best version prepared and served "on the street", because they would be missing those elements of immediacy, proximity and -- especially -- specialization.

I got to thinking about this after the post I wrote about those Siem Reap beef skewers elicited comments on Twitter to the effect that street food in Cambodia is disgusting. Wow, I thought, that's a pretty broad generalization to make about any food, anywhere. Then it occurred to me that maybe those comments came from folks who define the term "street food" as narrowly as our chef friend. To be sure, Cambodia isn't an easy place to do the street food thing. It's a poor country and hygiene is lax. Often, as I wrote a few years ago, the general environment in Cambodia is just not street food eating-friendly.

Yet Bangkok is sometimes touted as a comparative street food paradise by Cambodian street food naysayers -- because in Bangkok street food is everywhere, all the time. In fact a good portion of the food served on Bangkok's streets has declined in quality over the decade that's passed since I lived there. What's served on the city's streets does not generally dazzle, and you really have to pick and choose carefully; I think many Thais and farang familiar with Bangkok's street food scene would agree. And yet Bangkok is often held up as the gold standard (and Cambodia compared unfavorably to it). Just because it's on the street and looks good doesn't mean that it is good.

There is often a sort of tendency among street food enthusiasts to give food a pass just because it is street food, and it's cheap -- along the lines of "Wow, I'm loving this experience of eating on the street, and even cooler is the fact that my amazing bowl of noodles costs less than a dollar! So this is a great bowl of noodles! And street food is great!"

But that's an approach that's as off-the-mark as the reverse-reverse snobbery of the street food naysayers, the ones who imply that writers and travelers who espouse eating street food are living in a La-La Land not occupied by the the majority of Asians, and are willfully ignorant of the way the majority of Asians would really prefer to eat: in an air-conditioned restaurant, not at curbside. (My answer: come to Penang, observe the diners at hawker stalls, and then tell me how many are eating street food because it's the only food they can afford to eat. And the same might be said of Hanoi.)

I am a big fan of street food for a number of reasons, but I'm as particular about my street food as I am about other food. I don't like -- and I won't tout -- a mediocre dish prepared with sub-par ingredients by a cook who doesn't care, whether it costs $100 and is served in a 5-star setting, or whether it costs 50 cents and requires my sitting on a tiny stool inches above the sidewalk to eat it. For me the worthy by-products of eating street food -- mingling with locals, being part of a lively dining scene, seeing facets of unfamiliar cultures you'd never otherwise see and, in some cases, having the opportunity to try a dish that just isn't available elsewhere, off the street -- should be the bonus of a great street snack or meal, not its raison d'etre.

What am I getting at? First, that the definition of "street food" should be broad. Second, that just because it's cheap and on the street doesn't mean it's worth the calories. Third, that street food eaters don't enjoy any kind of superiority over non-street food eaters -- eat street food or don't, I make no judgement either way -- but that they may gain insights that non-street food eaters don't. Street food eaters are privvy to experiences -- and sometimes dishes -- that simply aren't had off the street.

And fourth ... Cambodia's got some great, tasty street food, even if it isn't always served in the most appetizing of settings.

To whit, in Siem Reap: Psar Chas, the old market in the center of town. It's hot, it's untidy, it's a wet wet market. Psar Chas can be uncomfortably crowded. You may not find the odors that waft about its aisles -- a heady combination of dried and fermented fish and fresh meat, wet herbs, sliced lemongrass and pounded garlic and shallots, chopped fresh turmeric and grated coconut -- as appetizing as I do. But, especially in the early mornings and again in the mid-late afternoons it's central food stall area features some excellent eats.

(As an aside, I've always found morning markets to be a great source of good street eats, often better than night markets. As I wrote in this post from Taiwan, night markets are about the scene, while non tourist-oriented morning food markets are about, well, food.)

Like the pork-rice, chicken-rice and congee/noodle stall at one corner -- always packed, usually selling out of pork by 8am or so. Like every other stall in the market it's stationery but make no mistake, this is the definition of street food. Behind the counter pots of thick rice porridge and water for boiling noodles are kept warm over braziers, and the ingredients for each dish are lined up on the counter. Foods are assembled -- and cooked, to varying degrees -- to order. Every step, except the long cooking of the porridge and the roasting of the bird and pig, is done in front of you.

This lady serves a congee fine enough to convert the most diehard anti-rice porridge-ist (you're out there, I know, and I'm betting most of you have never eaten a properly made rice porridge), thick and creamy and meaty tasting. There's bean sprouts in there, and lots of Cambodian black pepper, and before it's served the congee is drizzled with a little oil flavored with scallion greens.There's taucu (fermented bean paste) and prahok, a super odiferous fermented fish condiment, on the counter with which to season your porridge as you wish. Don't forget the fresh pounded chili sauce.

Then there's the pork rice -- sliced pork over rice, essentially -- which on this morning became chicken rice because by the time we arrived the pork was sold out (Dave, who spent many early mornings in Psar Chas and became a pork rice regular here, gives it a thumbs-up). No matter though, because the chicken is moist and flavorful, it's drizzled with that not-overpoweringly garlic-oniony scallion oil and the lot is served witha delicious sweet-sour quick pickle of carrots and cucumber and a sweet-hot-tangy dipping sauce.

Behind this stall is a vendor of sweet treats. Look for a steamer full of pale yellow cakes in banana leaf cups. Made with palmyra palm fruits and coconut milk, they're moist and spongy with a lovely hint of banana-ish tartness.

Where else for street food in Siem Reap? A row of shops on a side street way down the river; you might need to hire a tuk-tuk or ride a bike to get there (or be willing to walk 15 to 20 minutes from the center of town). All serve various incarnations of the chicken-noodle combo.

Our favorite was the dish in the opening photo, a bowl of cool rice vermicelli topped with chunks of crispy chicken-filled spring rolls and shredded chicken meat. Reminiscent of Vietnamese bun thit nuong, each bowl holds a bit of pickle and fish sauce-y sweetish dressing at the bottom. Add a dab of Cambodia's ubiquitous chili sauce, mix and eat. These places also serve fresh rice paper-wrapped salad rolls, light on meat and heavy on crunchy lettuce and herbs.

No, Cambodia isn't a street food bonanza. It's streets offer a lot of frankly funky stuff. But there's good street eats too. They are there (but not everywhere) -- if you want to look for them.

The pork/chicken rice/congee lady is at the very corner of Psar Chas prepared food section, right in the center of the market. Which corner? I couldn't tell you. But you'll know her when you see her. If you get there past 9am you might not see her at all.

The cool rice vermicelli stalls is on a street perpendicular to the river north of the center of town. I drew it on a map, which you can see here.

 

A Saving Grace in Sri Em

I hate wasting time, money, and especially, a meal. And that's how I felt about our brief sojourn earlier this week in Sri Em, a pretty near nothingball town in northern Cambodia whose claim to fame is its proximity to the mountaintop temple complex of Preah Vihear.

We hired a taxi for the 3-hour drive from Siem Reap and left at 11:30am, figuring that this would give us an afternoon and a morning at Preah Vihear. But by the time we'd checked into our clean but down-and-out guesthouse in Sri Em -- 45 minutes to an hour from the top of the mountain -- it was 3:30 or so. No point heading up now, our driver told us, since the complex closes at 5. So there we were in Sri Em with nothing to do but find a way to pass the time until morning.

So we walked, up the characterless stretch of highway connecting our guesthouse to the crossroads that comprises Sri Em town. There's a huge military presence around and at Preah Vihear, and Sri Em has the feel of a town built to service soldiers. We found karaoke restaurants, questionable "hotels", mobile phone stores. We found a market. As market lovers we do not judge markets harshly, but Sri Em's market was dismal.

We walked in, stepping over squishy mud puddles and past shallow rattan baskets filled with fly-covered lurid pink sausages, past uncovered tubs of prahok and fruit vendors with absolutely nothing of interest to offer. We wandered down one aisle and up another, and ended up in front of a charcoal-fired barbecue tended by a grandmother and her granddaughter, its grill covered with blackening banana leaf parcels.

There was nothing -- not a thing -- in that market to stir the appetite. Quite the opposite, in fact. By the time we smelled the charcoal smoke I felt my stomach on the verge of churning. But whatever was in those banana leaves smelled good, really good. We bought a few and unwrapped them then and there.

They held a typical southeast Asian snack: coconut rice wrapped around a banana. But oh, what a version of this unremarkable snack so easily found all over the region! The rice logs were especially rich with coconut milk. They'd been left on the grill long enough to form a slightly sweet crusty, crispy-chewy exterior. Inside, the rice was still soft, and it enclosed a sweet-tart banana that the heat of the grill had reduced to the silky texture of grilled eggplant. We ate them up, and swooned, and bought more.

The next morning, at fog-shrouded Preah Vihear, we found Sri Em's other saving grace. Our overnight there gave us two hours alone at the site. By the time other visitors began arriving in noisy droves we were heading back down the mountain.

For more photographs from Preah Vihear visit Dave's photography blog, here.

In Sri Em, we stayed at Som Rak guesthouse. The food at the attached restaurant isn't bad, but it isn't particularly good either -- and it's stupid expensive, especially in comparison with the deliciousness served up at this Cambodian restaurant in Siem Reap. If you go, plan to arrive in Sri Em by noon (it's 3-3.5 hours from Siem Reap by taxi) so you can visit Preah Vihear twice (U$5 per person per visit if you go up the mountain by motorbike). Arrange to arrive at PV in the morning before it officially opens (this can be done for a small price -- consult your taxi or moto driver). We were at the ticket office at 7am and if I had it to do over again I would aim for 6:30.

Skewered in Siem Reap

The ultimate skewer of barbecued beef? Perhaps.

    Around five in the afternoon charcoal smoke begins to rise from dozens of grills, scenting the air all over Siem Reap. Cambodians love a barbecue, it seems -- there's an entire street devoted to restaurants serving up charred protein (chicken, beef, offal, seafood), sides and beer. Locals call it "Khmer Pub Street", after Pub Street, an infamous downtown strip of dance clubs and bars in which young foreign travellers pass their evenings.

    A couple evenings ago we dipped our toe into the local BBQ scene at a corner joint on the non-Pub Street side of the river. Picture it: a middle-aged woman seated on a stool behind a long low grill crowded with skewers of red meat. A packed house every single night, from five-thirty onward. An intoxicating scent -- smoky, sweet, meaty -- that begins to tickle your nose when you're still half a block away.

    The meat on those skewers is local beef and beef liver, marinated in beef stock and perhaps Cambodian palm sugar. The strips of beef are alternated with bits of pork fat to keep the meat moist, and both it and the liver are skewered in such a way that they form waves along the wooden stick rather than lying flat. The result, for the beef at least (we passed on the liver) is that while some parts of the meat become black and charred and crispy-crusty, others cook no further than medium or medium-rare. Each piece of beef is a bit like a bite of a thick char-grilled steak, a mix of textures and donenesses. It's brilliant.

    That's not all. After the skewers come off the grill they're annointed with a mixture of (I'm guessing here) soy sauce and with palm sugar -- a little salt, a little sweet (and I do mean "a little" -- palm sugar isn't as sweet as cane sugar), a little extra smoky caramel flavor to further play up the sweet smokiness the grill gives the meat.

For liver lovers only

    All well and delicious, but what truly qualifies this barbecued beef as The Bomb is its accompaniment: a sweet-sour pickle-salad of thick cucumber slices, finely shredded green papaya and ginger. There's all kinds of ways to eat the two together, but we like to mix a spoonful of fresh red chili sauce in with our salad-pickle and alternate mouthfuls: smoky-meaty, tangy-sweet-spicy. Another option: snag a mini baguette hot off the grill -- be sure to wave off the smear of rank margarine -- and stuff it with meat and pickle for the ultimate grilled beef sandwich.

    This isn't the only BBQ beef skewer place in town, but it's certainly one of the busiest. Already heaving at five, it was still doing the business on our first visit around 7:30. Go early; unlike the full-service barbecue restaurants these places tend to close up shop by 9 or so.

Beef (and beef liver) skewers, a ten-minute walk from Psar Chas / Old Market: cross the bridge in front of the market and veer right (south) at the circle, past the Hip Hop Club. It's on your left, a corner place directly opposite the sign for the Golden Banana Guest House and Boutique Resort (which, by the way, is a great place to stay). To see the place on a google map go here. Order skewers in multiples of 5. On our first visit 15 skewers (beef), 5 or 6 plates of pickle-salad and two orders of bread cost us less than U$5. On our next visit 2 pickles and 5 skewers (no bread) cost 5,000 riel.

In Siem Reap, a Spot as Worthy of Your Attention as Angkor's Temples

    I'm almost ashamed that this is the first proper Cambodian meal we've had since arriving in Siem Reap almost a week ago.

    We can't help but view time in this tourist town as an opportunity to partake of food and drink we don't get much of at home in Penang: reasonably priced, creative and really delicious cocktails in cool bars (Miss Wong), decent pizza accompanied by a good barbera d'Asti that doesn't break the bank (Il Forno), contemporary French bistro fare in a sleek setting (Abacus), wonderful homestyle Korean dishes highlighting spices we're new to (like crushed perilla seeds, in gamjatang; Happy Restaurant), good cheese and ice cream and mangoes at a ridiculously low price per kilo. Plus we've been working, and doing vacation-y things (what a concept!) like staying out late and sleeping in

    So Cambodian food hasn't been high on the agenda. Oh sure, we've managed a bit of street food -- fresh rice rolls, noodles and grilled pork rice and, of course, iced coffee -- but we haven't burrowed into the local food scene with nearly as much gusto as we usually do.

    That changes today. After a wonderful meal at a little place we would never have looked twice at were it not for the recommendation of a local chef, we're eager for more.  The restaurant is called Chanrea Dom Makara, and it's a gem. The staff is friendly, the vibe relaxed and the food -- for us Cambodian cuisine neophytes anyway -- remarkably delicious. After our first lunch there (there have been two in as many days) we floated out the door, high on whatever chemicals the brain releases into the blood stream after an especially fine feast. I expect we'll further mine the menu over several visits before we depart Siem Reap next week.

    It's your typical local joint -- long and narrow, no aircon, tables covered in patterned plastic cloth, a kitten or two scurrying from table to table and a tiny kitchen where most everything is prepared to order. On weekdays the place is packed out at lunchtime -- it's best to arrive before noon lest you be turned away for lack of seats. Don't sit at the two tables just inside across from the kitchen and the pass-through window unless you want to leave smelling like fried fish paste.

    Here's what floated our boat on the first visit:

    Prahok ktih, a dip of prahok (a fermented fish condiment similar to Thai bplaa raa) cooked with minced pork and coconut milk, flavored with a pounded paste that includes turmeric, lemongrass and galangal. The prahok's assertive pungency is tamed by the pork fat and the tiny pea eggplants give occasional bursts of bitterness, shaking up taste buds that might otherwise be lulled into a stupor by rich coconut cream. The raw vegetable plate served alongside included thin slices of sour green tomato -- a nice touch.

 

    This cloudy sour fish soup -- listed on the English menu as "Vietnamese sour soup"  -- was just as puckery as we like it, lightly fishy, bright and intensely herbal from the inclusion of paddy herb and Vietnamese mint. A perfect palate cleanser between mouthfuls of other dishes.

    If non-Cambodians know amok it's often as a kind-of fish custard steamed in a banana leaf similar to Thai hawmok or Penang-style otak-otak. This version is deconstructed: slices of fish and noni leaf (noh in Khmer) in a lovely Indian mango-orange coconut curry. This dish was our favorite for the noh leaf most of all. Meaty and with the heft and texture of collard greens, it has a pleasant ever so light bitter edge that beautifully complements coconut milk anything. I'd happily eat this dish sans fish, all noh.

    A quick google search turns up plenty of links for Cambodian green mango salad with dried shrimp but hardly any for this green mango dish made with dried beef. When I saw it on the menu I immediately thought of the dried beef-green papaya salads we used to eat in Saigon, but this one is different: dominated by the flavor of fresh herbs, less sweet, less wet, not really spicy, the beef less salty than Vietnamese died beef and in the form of the thinnest shavings rather than thickish matchsticks. This dish was difficult to share; it's light and refreshing and I could eat it by the bucketful, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

    Fried salt fish and watermelon, a dish of two ingredients served on separate plates, didn't quite work. I was expecting a buzzy salty-sweet/protein-fruit marriage-in-the-mouth along the lines of watermelon and Turkish feta-like beyaz peynir, but it wasn't there. Of course it wasn't -- fried salt fish doesn't coat the tongue as milk-rich feta cheese does so unlike watermelon and cheese, watermelon and fish just don't conjugate. But, but ... the salt fish is truly fine, the tastiest I've ever eaten -- not very salty, "young" enough that the fish's flesh separates into moist shreds rather than breaking into dry sticks. It's dusted with a bit of chili and has hardly a hint of grease. I'd order it again on its own and might even consider packing a bag or two away, to snack on later with beer or cocktails.

Update: After a second visit, we can also recommend the spicy sour soup, a folden, not-very-spicy coconut milk-enriched puckery broth with fish and water spinach/kangkong; and the deep-fried Tonle Sap fish with quick pickle-ish sour green mango and green tomato relish. The fish are about 9 inches long, not very bony (the spine lifts out easily) and fried to a perfect crisp, really lovely eaten with the mango.

Chanrea Dom Makara, Sivatha Road a block or so north of the former Hotel de la Paix (as you're heading in the direction of Highway 6), on your left. Look for a green-and-white awning with a couple outdoor tables beneath. Tel. 012-925-530. The kitchen is just to your right as you enter, with a wall of dish photos and names in English. Our lunch for three cost U$12.

DIY: Dried Salt Fish

If you've been to an Asian wet market you know them -- dried and flattened whole fish that could pass for cardboard cut-outs, slabs of salted fish fillets so hard and stiff they could be used as a weapon. There's a reason westerners often wrinkle their nose at the mention of salt fish: too often the stuff available to the average consumer is, well, too salty, too dry and so leached of fish flavor that there's nothing left but the stink.

But small-batch, homemade dried salted fish is another food entirely. Umami rich, lightly salty and with -- yes -- the taste of real fish, it's a great addition to stir-fries (a personal favorite: stir-fried bean sprouts with salt fish), pasta dishes and southeast Asian-style salads. If the fish you salt are small, try deep-frying them whole and eating like potato chips, crackly crispy bones and all, on their own or with a dip (like guacamole! or this northern Thai "red-eye" dip) or crumbled over a refreshing somtam. Imagine frying small dried fish like smelt Lao-style, with chili peppers and lime leaves and garlic, for a fantastic beer snack along the lines of these addictive dried mushrooms we ate in Luang Prabang. Think of any dish to which you might add salted anchovies, or anchovies preserved in oil, or fish sauce or oyster sauce and contemplate using salt fish instead.

Summer is a great time to make your own dried salt fish. (You can do it in cold weather too, as long as you have good strong sun.) If you live in a dry climate so much the better, but we made our own (that's them, in the photo above!) this week here in Penang, where humidity levels regularly hover above seventy per cent. Our guide in this endeavor was our long-time Thai helper Wan (that's Wan of the Kuala Lumpur ant egg harvest). The process is so simple that she snickered when we asked for directions.

To make salt fish it's best to have, or construct, some sort of hanging apparatus outside where it catches sunlight. (You can also lay your fish on a rattan mat or other material, but the more of the fish that's exposed to air and sun all at once, the more evenly they'll dry and the quicker the whole process will go.) We stuck a broomstick in a hole in the wall that surrounds our property and suspended our skewered salted fish from it with plastic twine.

Preferably you will time this project to start the fish drying early in the morning. Note that they need to wallow in salt in the fridge overnight or up to 24 hours before you hang them outside to dry.

Here's the process:

1. Procure some fish. Any fish will do, really. Oily fish like sardines, anchovies, mackerel, smelt, ocean trout and salmon will result in the strongest flavor. If you're a salt fish newbie you might want to give it a go with a milder fish: trout, sea bass, john dory, flounder, halibut, cod etc.
2. Clean your fish well. If the fish are small (the ones in the photo above were about 6 inches long) you can leave them whole -- just cut off the head and, if you like, fins and tail. If you're using fillets slice them into manageable pieces. A slab of salmon, for instance, I might slice into 6 by 2-inch strips. Remove as many bones as you can, but if you plan to deep-fry the little buggers the bones will become crispy enough to eat.
3. Dry the fish, and then rub them with plenty of good quality salt -- sea salt, kosher salt, whatever. I'm convinced that the problem with alot of commercial dry salt fish is the salt that's used by the maker -- nasty heavily iodized salt makes for nasty salt fish. Put the fish in a bowl or a ceramic baking dish, cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge -- or a very cool, dark place) overnight or for up to 24 hours.
4. Remove the fish and rinse them well to get rid of the salt, and pat them dry. Skewer the fish in a way that exposes as much surface area as possible to air and sun. For instance, if you're drying whole fish, pull the sides of the fish apart so that the gut area opens up (see photo).
5. Hang the fish in the sun. If you're concerned about flies and other insects (strangely, despite Penang's humid heat not a single insect bothered our fish when they were hanging outside) drape your fish with cheesecloth. You may want to adjust the position of the fish throughout the day, turning them front to back or whatnot, to get even sun exposure.
6. Bring the fish inside at the end of the day and give it a gentle squeeze. You're not looking for cardboard, but the fish should be relatively dry. If any moisture comes to your fingers they're not done -- place them, covered, back in the fridge overnight (or in a very cool, dark place) and repeat the drying process the next day. Two days should do it.
7. Use the fish right away, or store in the fridge.

Think about variations that bring dried seasonings into play -- you might rub your fish with aleppo pepper before hanging it out to dry, or with lemon zest or zatar.

Of course, dried salt fish are not just an Asian thing.

At a friend's home in Van, eastern Turkey, we ate whole dried salt fish -- pulled from Lake Van -- in a saucy preparation served with a lovely eggplant bulgur pilav. The fish themselves were just awful, so incredibly salty that they left my tongue burning. The sauce, however, was gorgeous. My next project: recreating that Van dish with our own delicious, not-too-salty salt fish.

Update 28 August 2012: See comments below for links to photos taken by Lynn Cook, an EA reader in Australia, who tried our recipe with excellent results!

Why the Silence? This.

It's certainly not for lack of material. We still have lots to share from our June sojourn in eastern Turkey ... and our winter trip before that and our fall travels before that. And from Kelantan and Penang and Chiang Mai and, and ...

But Dave's been preoccupied this last week with the likes of that gorgeous specimen above. He's shooting a food story in Mexico City (which you may know from some drool-inducing photos we've recently added to this blog's Facebook page).

I know from experience that he's the kind of photographer who never takes a break -- out before dawn and not back to his hotel till well after dark. So when he says he's too tired and busy to process even a few photos for a post, I believe him.

Hard as it sometimes even for me to accept .... shooting food really is work.

I did cajole him into sending one last image. "Blue corn tortilla, fresh squash blossoms and a bright tomato and red chili salsa at a stall off Reforma Avenue," is how he described it.

Regularly scheduled programming resumes later this week, after Dave returns from Tortilla Heaven.

Hot Milk with *t***u**'s (Or, Sometimes You Just Gotta Be a Tourist)

In a recent post on how to get the most out of stanbul I recommended getting into tea drinking. I certainly do when I'm in Turkey, so much so that after a few days on the ground I experience cravings for a glass or two mid-morning, mid-afternoon, early evening, and so on. Lunch or dinner without a glass of tea to follow? Unimagineable!

But there is one time of the day when tea, even strong Turkish tea uncut with water, won't do the job: immediately after I wake. I am a card-carrying caffeine addict and for me that initial, life-giving A.M. jolt comes in one and only one form -- coffee. (Actually, that is not quite accurate -- if given the opportunity I always preface my first sip of morning coffee with a few slugs of Diet Coke. It's not pretty, I know. But it's the truth.)

These days a decent cup is readily (if expensively) available in Istanbul and, I'm guessing, maybe elsewhere on the country's well-touristed western and Mediterranean coasts. Not so much from middle Anatolia east, which is where we've been spending the majority of our Turkey time these last two years. Nescafe is sold just about everywhere (even some tea shops advertise it). I've been known to drink it like medicine, holding nose between thumb and forefinger, when necessary. But now, thanks to a certain Evil Empire-like American coffee chain, Nescafe is a beverage of my past.

I should be ashamed to admit it but these days when we pack our bags for Turkey there's always a ziploc bag or two of single-serving instant coffee from said coffee chain tucked between the jeans and t-shirts. The best part? It actually tastes like coffee (instead of medicine). Pretty good coffee, in fact.

The next best part is that Turkey is an instant coffee-friendly country, for two reasons: (1) even the most down-and-out lodgingscome with in-house breakfast, and (2) Turkey's tea preparation modus operandi guarantees a ready supply of plain hot water for breakfasters. It is the rare Turkish breakfast table that does not include either a traditional caydanlik -- a double boiler consisting of two stacked kettles, the lower containing hot water only, while the upper holds tea -- or an electric samovar-like contraption with one spout dispensing hot water on demand.

At first I felt a measure of embarassment whipping out *t***u**'s instant coffee packets at the hotel/guest house buffet. Some of my fellow diners looked askance (most Turks are much too polite to openly snicker), especially when. like a beer drinker with her whiskey chaser, I accompanied each cup of coffee (2 is my Magic Number) with a full glass of dark, undiluted tea.

But soon I got over the shame and was brandishing my coffee packets with ease. "Yes, I'm a boorish American who cannot adapt -- nay, who refuses to adapt -- to local caffeine customs," those foil cylinders announced.

But the rewards for my crudeness were a fog-free head and a spring in my step, even at 7 A.M..

What else would you expect to see at a fresh milk-serving tea house in what is possiblyTurkey's dustiest town? A patron dressed in white, head to toe,of course.

Then in Van Dave and I spied a cay evi advertising fresh hot milk. Warmed milk just hours from the cow is something that must be tasted to be believed; we'd been drinking it before bed in village homes further north in Kars.

How uttery mind-blowing, I wondered, would our *t***u**'s instant coffee taste stirred into that liquid white gold?

Back in our hotel room we debated. Would it be rude to defile the cay evi's otherworldly hot fresh milk with our instant coffee? Would other patrons be shocked when we pulled out our packets and shook the contents into our glasses?

Then it occurred to me: while hot fresh milk may be something extraordinary to us, to Vanlilar -- or at least to the male Vanlilar who frequent this particular tea shop -- Hot Fresh Milk ain't no big thang. Add to that the fact that, as yabancilar (foreigners), in the eyes of the tea shop proprietor and his customers we're pretty much alien beings who engage in all sorts of bizarre behavior anyway. Suddenly our so-called dilemma was a no-brainer.

We went. We ordered glasses of taze süt. We added our *t***u**'s instant and stirred. And then we drank -- I kid you not -- the BEST frigging coffee of our lives.

The instant coffee -- you know where to get it. The tea house is opposite the blue mosque by the peynir carsisi, or cheese market, Van.

The Cheese Makers' Breakfast

This afternoon, deep in a jet-lagged comatose slumber, I dreamt of cows feasting in a flower-filled spring meadow, and of cheese made from their milk.

In actuality this wasn't so much dream as memory. A little over two weeks ago Dave and I were in Bogatepe, a village set on a high plateau in Kars, northeastern Turkey. Kars is known for two cheeses: gravyer and kaşar. Bogatepe is one of the province's two main gravyer-producing villages. We'd driven some 70 kilometers from the provincial capital to learn about the cheese and its history, and to see how it's made.

Forget everything you think you know about Turkish cheese. Gravyer isn't white or soft or feta-like. It isn't fresh and it isn't aged in a hide. Gravyer would be at home on a northern European table -- not a coincidence, because it was introduced to Kars over a hundred years ago from Switzerland via Russia. Though its name suggests gruyere, gravyer cheese is actually closer to emmental in appearance, texture and flavor: palest yellow with large irregular holes, medium soft, savory, not too salty and mildly nutty.

We spent a long evening and a morning at Koculu Gravyer Zavotu ("zavotu" is derived from the Russian for factory) which, like Bogatepe's other mandira (cheese workshops) -- there are seven in all, and the majority produce not gravyer but kaşar -- uses milk from cows in Bogatepe and a couple of nearby villages. During the three-month cheese-making season Koculu, which dates back to the early 19th century, produces on average three truck wheel-sized rounds of cheese a day, usually two at night and one in the morning. The entire cheese making process takes over five hours, from the time the peynir mayasi ("cheese yeast", or rennet) is poured into huge copper cauldrons of milk taken from the animals just hours before, to the initial pressing of the cheese wheels under a stone-weighted wooden beam.

After 24 hours the peynir ustasi (cheese "master") and his helpers remove the press and peel the rough fabric "clothing" from the new gravyer wheels. Before sending the cheeses off to the depo where they will bob in a salt brine, sweat in a hot room and ripen in a cool room for months, they smooth the surface of each by scraping with the side of a spoon and trim its edges with a sharp knife.

Nothing goes to waste in a mandira. Leftover whey, thick and milky, is turned into food for livestock and given to the village's dogs. The oil that seeps from the cheeses during their weighting and while they sweat in the hot room is collected and distributed to villagers; the women, we were told, apply it as a cream to their faces and hands. ("That's why women in Bogatepe look younger than those in other villages," our host Ilhan Koculu told us.)

And after a long night (the usta and his staff were still working on their second wheel when we left the mandira at 1:30am) followed by an early rise to make yet more cheese the cheese makers take a breakfast that includes those super-young gravyer scrapings and trimmings, all fried in a shocking amount of fresh village butter.

Beyond giving nourishment and energy (and to us gravyer nugget newbies,unspeakable pleasure), those cheese crisps help the cheese maker to predict the quality of his product. After frying up a batch Ilhan demonstrated a test by pulling one apart. He was pleased. Its crackly, deeply browned exterior and long, unbroken string predicted a sufficiently oily cheese of just-right softness.

"This will be a delicious gravyer," he said, pleased.

And then it was time for breakfast -- not just butter-browned cheese, but ethereally rich and thick kaymak, pekmez (grape molasses), helva, bread, olives and -- of course -- tea.

Cheese makers' breakfast: crispy cheese nuggets and kaymak with bread and pekmez

As the cheese makers sat down to eat scrapings from one of the season's earliest cheese, cows gorged on early wildflowers in a pasture just across the road. That evening, their milk would make another wheel of Bogatepe gravyer.

From Dave and I, many thanks to Ilhan Koculu and Cat Jaffee.

Süt Cenneti (Milk Heaven)

In Kars, made from milk: kaymakli koymak on the left, çeçil peyniri up top

Since arriving in Kars we've been swimming in milk.

This province, sidled up to Armenia in northeastern Turkey, is a cow-raising, milk-producing behemoth. In this part of Turkey, where the deep snow of long, hard winters gives way to impossibly lush, electric green pasturelands, hayvanlar (which means "animals" in Turkish -- but here in the northeast is more likely to mean "cows) are a source of barest sustenance and vast wealth. They give the meat that is eaten by some and the milk that is consumed in all forms, by everyone.

Cruising the streets of the capital city, which is also called Kars, we pass peynirci (cheese shops) after peynirci, their windows displaying mammoth wheels of emmenthal-like gravyer and stubby rounds of creamy yellow kaşar, a softer cheese with a mild cheddar-like butteriness.

Outside the city it's all dairy all the time, or so it has seemed to us -- heart-stopping, mind-blowingly rich and delicious foods made with the white stuff from the cow.

In villages, where most every household owns at least one cow and some own forty or fifty head, we never eat beef. Instead, there are slices of kaşar and loose piles of çeçil -- string cheese that's milky and springy when fresh and dry, salty and deliciously pungent when left to age and blue in an animal hide -- plus creamy-salty white village cheese. There is milk just hours from the cow, strained and warmed on wood fired stoves and, a milk a day from the cow, cultured into yogurt. There is fresh unsalted butter and kaymak, an impossibly unctuous, partially solidified cream whose taste often bears an intriguing bit of tang, to spread on bread. That kaymak in turn enriches many of the sweet and savory breads that accompany our cheeses. Sometimes there are wild greens plucked from spring meadows and brined in the whey left over from making cheese.

After a week swimming in milk, eating deep in a food culture dependent on the fat of the cow, we thought we'd reached the apex several times over. Then, in a village not far from the deserted Armenian city of Ani, we ate köymak. 

The recipe for köymak is simple: take the richest product of the cow -- kaymak -- and make it richer by placing it over a hot fire, bringing it to a boil and reducing it by half. Add flour, stir continuously until the flour browns and then add some water, bit by bit. Stir and stir and stir until the kaymak releases all of its oil -- which, of course, is essentially butter.

Serve your reduced dairy fat in a pool of its own butter in a bowl. Sprinkle with sugar. Spoon onto bread.

Enter the gates of süt cenneti.