EatingAsia

Green Papaya Fritter of (Tennis) Champions

This morning I shared a late breakfast of noodles, pork chop, and roti babi at Yut Kee with a friend visiting from Manila. It was a reminder of how long it's been since our last trip to the Philippines (a year and a half, in fact) -- and how, when we embarked on this 24/7 photography-writing thing we thought that we'd have all the time in the world in between assignments and work at home to travel for our own interest.

Not so. As it turns out I've barely got time to finish the work that sits on on corner of my desk, taunting me. And I'm so behind in posts - there's still much of Taiwan, Penang, where we've spent a lot of time over the last couple months, and even Chiang Mai yet to write about, Dave's got a bit more of India to share, I haven't blogged anything about Kuala Lumpur in months, and tomorrow we leave for Sulawesi, where we'll no doubt find many more culinary traditions to photograph and write about.

And now here I am revisiting material from Christmas 2007, which we spent in Arayat, Pampanga, on assignment. Can it really have been over 18 months ago? We returned from that trip with so much great material in the form of over 2,000 photos and three well-marked thick notebooks. By necessity there's much that didn't make it into our article, including a couple recipes.

Here's a taste.

Much of the action that week took place in Medina kitchen, a beautiful 100+-year-old grass-roofed, wood-beamed room with a wood-burning stove at its center. Saturday December 22nd was no different - that morning family cook Lucia (above, right) and her coterie of helpers (including daughter Maricris, left) were putting the finishing touches on the feast that would cap off the annual Medina Christmas tennis tournament, open to anyone in Arayat who cares to show up.

The kitchen's capiz shell-paned windows overlook the tennis court on one side and the side yard, where two whole spit-speared pigs were being turned slowly over a bed of coals, on the other. By late morning, as the tourney finals wore down and the pigs' skins cracked and began to drip fat, most of the stove-top dishes (chicken and pork adobo; balo-balo, pungent fish fermented with rice to eat with mustard leaves; menudo - pork and parts with carrots, potatoes, and red pepper) were already finished. All that remained to be cooked were the beruya (known outside Pampanga as okoy), or shrimp and green papaya fritters.

Beruya are one of Maricris' specialties (which doesn't preclude Lucia from peering over her shoulder to make sure she's preparing them correctly, as you can see above). She starts by cleaning (but not peeling) small shrimp and slicing red onion and camote (sweet potato). After grating green papaya halves she squeezes the shreds to remove as much water as possible,

and then adds in chopped onion and Chinese celery.

Beruya use a rice batter made from soaked ground rice rather than rice flour, and also incorporates egg, salt, and achuete (annatto seeds), the latter for color.

The fritters are assembled in a large shallow ladle: first a pool of batter and then on top of that a layer of papaya, a single shrimp, a piece of onion, and a slice of potato.

Then, enough batter is poured on top of it all to nearly cover the fruit-vegetable layer.

 

The spatula is lowered into hot oil, and after a few seconds the underside of the fritter is cooked enough to float free.. The beruya are done when well-browned.

The rice batter makes these fritters light and crispy. But they're also just a little bit evil, in that way that all delicious deep-fried foods are. Beruya are fine on their own (excellent with cocktails), but best eaten dipped a sawsawan (dipping sauce or accompaniment) of vinegar flavored with freshly ground black pepper, a few chopped fresh chilies, garlic and chopped shallot.

They are also known - or at least they were that day a couple Decembers ago - as snack food of tennis champions.

 

Beruya ni Maricris (Maricris' Green Papaya and Shrimp Fritters)

These fritters make an excellent hors d'oeuvre with cocktails. Best right out of the fryer, they're also quite okay if left aside for up to an hour. The sawsawan-vinegar dip is a must; it cuts through the oil and complements the sweetness of the shrimp and sweet potato. If you can't find small shrimp use larger ones cut into pieces. If you're more comfortable shelling and deveining your shrimp, so be it - the fritters won't suffer much.

The batter recipe is inexact - depending on how wet your rice is you might need less or more water. What you want is something with the consistency of thin pancake batter. It's important to squeeze the papaya as much as possible and make sure your shrimp are dry.

Batter:

2 c medium or long-grain rice

1 cup water

5 annatto seeds

1 egg

1 tsp salt

Fritters:

1 green papaya, grated

2 small red onions, finely chopped

1/4 cup finely chopped Chinese celery, including leaves

2 small red onions, finely sliced

1 sweet potato, thinkly sliced lengthwise and then cut into 1-inch-ish squares

1/2 pound whole shrimp, washed and dried (optional: heads removed)

Sawsawan:

1 cup white vinegar

2 cloves garlic, smashed

1-2 fresh chilies, chopped (optional)

Plenty of freshly ground black pepper

1-2 shallots, finely chopped

Vegetable oil for deep-frying

1. For the batter, mix rice with 1 cup water and leave overnight
2. Soak the annatto seeds in 1 cup water for 1 hour and remove.
3. In a food processor or blend grind the rice and water until somewhat, but not completely, smooth. Remove rice to a bowl and stir in annatto water, egg, and salt. The batter should be thinnish, like thin pancake batter. Add more water if necessary.
4. Squeeze as much water as possible from the papaya; use a piece of cheesecloth or muslin or your bare hands. Place it in a bowl and add the chopped celery and onions and a pinch of salt. Mix thoroughly and set aside.
5. Mix the sawsawan ingredients together in a bowl, smashing the chilies (if using) and garlic against the sides of the bowl to release their flavor into the vinegar. Set aside.
6. Add oil to a depth of at least 3 inches to a deep pan or wok and heat over medium high. Have batter and papaya, sliced onions, sweet potato, and shrimp nearby.
7. Spoon or pour enough batter into a wide, flast ladle or cooking spoon just to cover the bottom. Lightly place on top about 1 Tbsp papaya mixture, spreading it over the batter. Place a shrimp, a piece of onion, and a piece of camote on top, pressing down lightly with your finger. Spoon or pour enough batter over theshrimp and veggies to almost cover them.
8. Carefully lower the ladle into the oil and hold it there for a few seconds, then lightly shake the fritter off of it. Cook for a few minutes until browned on bottom, then flip and cook for minute or so. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper bag or paper towels.
9. Repeat with rest of ingredients. You can fry several fritters at once, but don't crowd the pan lest the temperature of the oil drop too much.
10. Serve hot or room temperature with the sawsawan.

Retro Thai Sausage Salad

Not 'retro' as in 'a sausage salad that was eaten in Thailand back in the day', but 'retro' as in - a Thai sausage salad that we ate back in the day.

About twenty years ago (that qualifies as 'retro', doesn't it?) we were grad students in Boston, living in a long, narrow South End walk-up. It was a great apartment, on the third floor of a gorgeous old building, lovingly refurbished by our photographer landlord. The kitchen was huge, with reams of counter space. But it was in the center of the apartment, which had windows only at the front and the back. In short - no natural ventilation. No air con. No ceiling fan.

In the summer, when the sun beat through the skylight, the kitchen temp hovered around 86F (30C) degrees. As cash-poor grad students we normally cooked every day, but that summer we spent as little time at the stove as possible. We made sandwiches. We grilled gai yang (Thai grilled chicken) on a mini 'cue on our fire escape. We ate a lot of zaru soba (Japanese chilled buckwheat noodles) and pasta salad with tuna, mayonnaise, tomatoes, and capers (snicker all you like - it's fantastic). We discovered sliced cucumbers napped with chilled thick garlicky yogurt at Nadia's, a cheap Lebanese resto around the corner.

And we ate a lot of Thai sausage salad, which - if you're competent with a knife - takes about as long to pull together as it takes to steam rice in a cooker. It's perfect hot-kitchen food: few ingredients, minimal prep, maybe 2 minutes in front of the stove. And it's spicy-sour-sweetness and mix of textures (chewy and fatty-crackly Chinese sausages, cleanly crisp cucumbers, crunchy scallions) are just the thing to excite an appetite numbed by the heat.

History repeats itself. Our current place is almost perfect - great location, just the right size, pet-friendly, fits the budget. But the kitchen - oh, the kitchen. The ugly fake dark timber cabinetry and black countertop I can deal with. Ditto the refrigerator, the smallest we've ever had. But the heat is something else. No ventilation. No air con. No ceiling fan, and no room for a standing fan. KL is suffering a miserable heat wave, with no end in sight. In short, cooking means sweating, in the form of big, fat drops falling from my forehead.

So last month I pulled an old favorite from the recipe box. We're eating a lot of Thai sausage salad these days.

Perhaps my timing with this post is off. It's not quite summer in the US, well into winter in Australia. But I'm willing to bet that, somewhere in the world, it's as hot as my kitchen.

Thai Sausage Salad (Adapted from Thai Home Cooking from Kamolmal's Kitchen)

If you've ever wondered what to do with those wrinkly Chinese sausages (which, by the way, keep forever in the fridge), here's one possibility. Though they needn't be fried (you could boil or steam the sausages instead), browning them in a pan brings out their sweetness and gives them crackly-crispy charred spots that are a delicious contrast to the chewy rest of them. Proportions are pretty loose here - make the salad spicier, more sour, or sweeter according to your own taste, add more or less cucumbers or sausage. In Boston we used to use jalapeno chilies rather than Thai bird chilies, for the flavor. Use whatever type of chili suits you. Do serve this with steamed rice; the coolish salad with hot rice makes for another wonderful contrast.

Interestingly, we didn't encounter this exact salad, incorporating browned and crisped Chinese sausage, in Thailand until our last trip up north in February, when we found it at a Teochew restaurant in Lampang (photo above).

6 Chinese sausages

4 large cucumbers

1/2 cup sliced red onion

4 scallions

3 fresh hot chilies (or more or less to taste)

2 Tbsp fish sauce

1/4 cup white vinegar

2-3 Tbsp fine granulated white sugar

2 tsp black soy sauce

handful of coriander sprigs

1. Slice the sausages on an angle (see opening photo) - this will expose the maximum amount of surface to the pan's heat. Fry them over medium heat in a dry skillet or wok until they start to blister. A few black spots are fine, but don't let them burn. Remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel
2. Peel the cucumbers or not, as you please. Sliced them thinly. Halve the scallions lengthwise (white and green parts) and then cut them cross-wise into 1-inch pieces. Chop the chilies finely (remove the seeds first if you want less heat). 
3. Place the onion in a large mixing bowl and pour the vinegar over. Leave it aside to soak for 5 minutes.
4. To the onions, add the sausage, cucumber, scallion, and chili.
5. Mix the fish sauce, sugar, and soy sauce, and stir until the sugar's dissolved. 
6. Add the dressing to the onion-sausage-cuke mixture and toss. Taste for seasoning and adjust as desired.
7. Transfer to a plate, top with coriander sprigs, and eat with hot rice.

Flower Power

After making a project of frequenting Southeast Asian markets over these many years, we're still making discoveries.

The other morning we stopped by a Malay stall at our local market to pick up bamboo shoots for a Burmese curry and there, nestled amongst the bunches of various green leafy vegetables we've seen a million times, were these gorgeous turmeric flowers. I can't recall having seen these before at any market - perhaps it's a seasonal item?

At any rate, the friendly guy running the stall advised us to pick the leaves off of the stalk and eat them as we would any other ulam (the fresh and blanched veggies that accompany a Malay meal, to dip in sambal or not).

These babies don't keep well in the fridge, so we had at them as soon as we got home. The leaves have a delicate butter lettuce-like texture and taste bright and 'green'. Not surprisingly, there's a hint of turmeric flavor and the root's characteristic astringency.

I can think of a few other uses for them - mixed with grated coconut, chopped dried chili, and a bit of fish sauce for a 'salad', or stirred into Indian-style 'congee'  flavored with the root (or turmeric powder) and fried curry leaves. This morning I made a sort of Indian yogurt rice - leftover rice softened in the steamer, stirred into lots of yogurt seasoned with popped mustard seeds, a bit of turmeric powder-enhanced mustard oil, salt, and chopped cilantro - and as I ate it I couldn't help but think what a nice addition this flower would have made.

One aspect of Southeast Asia's culinary culture that continues to fascinate me is how, in many cases,  every bit of the plant is used. Here we have the turmeric flower, which is eaten as a vegetable. The leaves and root are used too, as flavoring agents. (And the whole plant is fantastically good for you.) Nothing is wasted.

Sounds like a prescription for frugal eating that long predates current economic woes.

Coming up soon - cooking a part of the banana plant that you might never have thought of as food.

Northern Meat Recipe

This is the dish that got innards into my kitchen - laab khua, or northern Thai-style cooked laab (pictured upper left and opening our previous post).

Dave and I were introduced to laab khua a couple years back, while in northern Thailand researching an article for the Chicago Tribune. On previous trips to the area we'd eaten well but hadn't really taken to sticky rice and northern flavors, which seemed almost too intense (many northerners have described their cuisine to us as kem-kon, which might be translated as 'concentrated and intense'), unlightened as they are by the lime juice that appears in so many Isaan and central Thai dishes.

Well, something clicked for us on that Chicago Tribune foray. After just a couple of days in Chiang Mai we found ourselves waking with an urge for sticky rice and strong-flavored nam prik with fresh and blanched veggies and rich, meaty dishes like gaeng om and laab. In Nan we learned to make pork laab at the home of a local we'd become friends with on a previous trip. Her cousin, a real estate developer by day and reknowned cook (within Nan town, that is) during off hours, comandeered the kitchen and whipped up a feast that included jaw pakkat (pork and greens soup lightly soured with tamarind), 'red eye' nam prik, and both fresh and cooked laab. It was a spectacular meal.

When we got back to Kuala Lumpur I had to test recipes for the article - usually my very least favorite food writing-related task. But making (and eating) those northern Thai dishes was most enjoyable; we never tired of the flavors.

I submitted the laab khua recipe below with my article. My editor at CT, deeming it a bit too adventurous for her readers, elected not to run it, staying instead with 'safer' options like dtam makhya (smoky pounded eggplant dip) and gaeng khae gai (coconut milk-free chicken and vegetable curry). I don't blame her - the dish probably does include a few too many challenging bits for the average American cook and eater.

But it's soooo tasty! This is the dish that propelled me to the wet market in search of a pork seller who could provide the freshest pig liver, heart, stomach, and skin. Yes - this is the dish that got me, finally, after many years cooking pretty adventurously, to tackle offal. I don't make it often (it's extremely rich, after all), but whenever I do I'm thankful for that trip to northern Thailand that banished my squeamishness. I'd urge anyone who thinks they could never eat beef or pig liver (or other bits) to give this a try. At the very least, toss in some chicken livers. The strong spices need that balance.

Laab Khua Muu (Northern Style Pork Laab)

(Serves 6-8 with a couple other dishes; recipe can be halved)

This is a pork laab, but you could easily substitute beef and beef parts (or even chicken, but use a lighter hand with the spices). I haven't included blood - if you choose to, figure on about a quarter cup or so, and stir it in with the meat - or pig skin, both of which our hostess in Nan added to the mix.

This laab incorporates a moist spice paste, and the end result is relatively dry. Some laab cooks make a much simpler version by simply stirring ground (and, presumably, roasted) spices and chilies into chopped meat and then cooking that with blood. Some cooks add water so that the laab sits in a little pool of 'soup'. Laab khua seems to me a very personal thing; make it how you want it - if you like it hot, use more chilies. If you want less spice flavor and more emphasis on the meatiness, halve the amounts.

And if you just can't countenance innards, make it without (but you should probably reduce the amount of spices because you won't have the innard richness to balance them). Sticky rice is the authentic accompaniment (but steamed rice will do), along with a generous mound of fresh vegetables.

And don't be put off by the recipe's length - you could always toast and grind chilies and spices ahead of time, or even make the spice paste a day in advance and pop it in the fridge.

250 grams of pork skin and organ meats, such as stomach, heart, liver, kidney (it’s preferable to include at least some liver)

500 grams pork, roughly chopped

10 plump cloves garlic, unpeeled

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

5 red-skinned shallots, unpeeled

 

1 handful dried red chilies

 

3 slices galangal root

1 Tbsp coriander seeds

5 long peppers

1 cardamom pod (preferably white)

½ whole nutmeg

½-inch piece cinnamon stick

2 ribs mace or 1/8 tsp ground mace

10 black peppercorns

1 tbsp Sichuan peppercorns

 

½ Tbsp shrimp paste

4 green onions (white and green parts)

½ bunch each cilantro and mint

1 bunch sawtooth herb (if not available, substitute with additional cilantro and mint)

 

Salt

Fresh vegetables and herbs for serving, for instance: sliced cucumbers, green cabbage, napa cabbage, long beans, wing beans, water spinach, mint, sawtooth herb, coriander, Thai basil, pennywort.

1. Place pig innards and skin, if using, in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water by 1 inch. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer till cooked, about 15 mins. Drain, reserving the cooking liquid. Set innards aside to cool and then chop to same fineness as chopped meat.
2. Pound with mortar and pestle, or very roughly chop, 5 of the skin-on garlic cloves. Heat a wok or frying pan over medium heat and add the veg oil. Add garlic and fry over medium heat, stirring, until golden brown. Remove garlic with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel. Leave oil in pan and set aside
3. Over a grill or an on unoiled griddle or saute pan, char the remaining garlic cloves and shallots over medium-high heat until soft, about 6-8 mins. (Or, place garlic and shallots in a microwaveable bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and microwave on high till soft, about 2-3 mins.) Set aside to cool.
4. Toast galangal and spices in an unoiled saute pan or wok over medium heat, stirring constantly, until galangal is touched with brown and spices are fragrant, about 2 mins. Take care not to burn spices. Remove from pan and set aside to cool, separating galangal from dry spices.
5. In the same pan, dry fry the chili peppers over medium heat till they're dark but not black. Allow to cool, remove stems (and seeds, if you don't want too much heat), and add to spices.
6. In the same pan, toast the gapi slowly over low heat, pressing and flattening it to a patty with a spatula to expose the maximum amount of surface to the heat. Cook until the gapi is lightly browned and no longer smells raw, 1 min. or so per side. (Or, flatten the shrimp paste with the back of a spoon, place on a piece of foil, and toast under a hot broiler till brown.) Set aside to cool.
7. Place dry spices and chilies in mortar or blender (or spice grinder) and grind to a rough powder. Remove and set aside.
8. Peel garlic and shallots and place in mortar or blender. Add galangal and shrimp paste and pound or chop to a rough puree. Add dry spices and process or pound briefly just to blend.
9. Over medium heat, reheat the garlic oil from Step 2. Add garlic-dry spice-shrimp paste mixture and cook, stirring constantly, for two minutes. Add 1/2 cup cooking water from the innards and continue to fry and stir until the liquid is mostly absorbed, about 2 mins. Remove the pan from the heat and leave aside to cool.
10. While the paste is cooling, roughly chop together the green onions, cilantro, mint, and sawtooth herb (if using).
11. Rehat the spice paste over medium-high heat. Add chopped pork and cook, breaking it up with a fork, until the pink color is almost gone. Add the innards, stir to combine, and taste adjust for salt. Add all but a heaping tablespoon of the chopped green onions and herbs, stir once or twice more to mix, and remove to a plate or bowl.
    
12. Sprinkle with the browned garlic and reserved fresh herbs and serve warm or at room temperature with fresh vegetables and rice.

The Devil Made Me Do It

Actually, my editor did. Eat three versions of the  Malaccan Cristang dish devil's curry (debal) in less than 24 hours, that is, for a piece in today's Wall Street Journal Asia 'Weekend Journal'. (No link at the moment, unfortunately.)

This was our first encounter with debal, but it certainly won't be our last. For us this earliest of fusion (sorry! I hate the word too, but in this case it applies) dishes, a blend of Portuguese, Indian, and Chinese influences, hits all the right notes: spicy, tangy-sour, with a little kick from mustard seeds. It's a curry that tastes neither quite Malay, nor quite Indian. It's the addition of vinegar that makes the difference. If you like Goan vindaloo (which is probably curry debal's precursor), you'll love it (though it needn't be as wildly spicy as vindaloo usually is).

A week after we returned from Malacca I made a potful so that Dave could take photos. It's not that difficult a dish to cook - especially if you grind the paste with a blender or food processor instead of by hand - and it greatly improves upon standing, so it's good make-ahead fare. Crusty bread seems as appropriate an accompaniment as rice and a side of stir-fried veg. Readers in places where it's not quite curry weather might tuck this recipe away for a rainy (or snowy) day.

Debal (Devil Curry)
Adapted from Cuzinhia Cristang by Celine J. Marbeck (a great book on Cristang food - highly recommended!)

Like many curries and stews this dish really is better made at least one day ahead and it freezes very well. Debal was traditionally made for Boxing Day, with a mix of roast meats and sausages left over from Christmas. But the chicken version is tasty as well. One of the Cristang cooks that I interviewed for the article makes her debal with regular white vinegar. I'm not sure it matters much which type of vinegar you use but it's essential to keep tasting for sourness. The finished dish should have a pronounced - but not overwhelming - tang. Feel free to reduce the number of chilies. French beans are optional - I prefer my debal without them, though they do make for a colorful photo.

1 kg chicken
1tsp dark (thick) soy sauce, or regular soy sauce mixed with 1/4 tsp brown sugar
3 Tbsp vinegar (red wine, white, rice, white wine, apple cider, even Sherry vinegar)

For the curry paste:
1 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
30 shallots, peeled
5 cloves garlic, peeled
6 candlenuts, peeled (substitute 12 blanched almonds)
bottom 7 cm of three stalks lemongrass, sliced
a thick coin of galangal, peeled and chopped roughly
1/4 tsp turmeric
50 dried chilies, soaked in hot water for 1/2 hour and drained, soaking water retained if you'll be making the paste in a blender or food processor

2 tbsp tamarind pulp (soaked in 1/2 cup hot water and strained to extract 1 Tbsp juice)
1/3 cup oil
2 thick coins young ginger, peeled and cut into matchsticks
2 large onions, peeled and quartered top to bottom
6 large fresh red chilies (mild), red stalks left on and cut in half lengthwise
2 tsp mustard seeds
6 potatoes, peeled and quartered

20 or so French beans, slit in half lengthwise (optional)

salt, sugar, and vinegar to taste

1. Mix the vinegar and soy sauce and marinate the chicken for 20-30 mins.
2. Blend or process paste ingredients till smooth, adding chili soaking water or plain water as necessary to facilitate grinding (if you're not doing it by hand).
3. Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or other stew pan over medium-high heat. Add the ginger, fry till golden, and remove and set aside. Repeat with the onions, and then with the red chilies.
4. Lower the heat to medium, add the 2 tsp mustard seeds, and allow them to pop.
5. Add the paste and fry, stirring constantly, until it loses its raw smell and becomes dark and glossy, with an oily sheen.
6. Remove chicken from marinade and slowly add the liquid to the fried paste, stirring constantly.
7. Add chicken and potatoes and toss to coat well with paste. Add 1 Tbsp tamarind juice and enough water to cover the chicken.
8. Boil rapidly, uncovered, for 10 mins, then reduce heat to simmer and cook until the chicken is tender, about 30 minutes. (Top up water if necessary, but you do want the gravy to reduce.) Add French beans if using and continue to cook until tender.
9. Add salt to taste. Taste for sour and add more vinegar - or sugar - if necessary.
10. Serve hot, or allow to cool and then park the debal in the fridge for up to a week or the freezer for up to 3 months.

Fruit or Veg?

Officially fruit, but in practical terms this sukun (a.k.a. breadfruit) possesses the qualities of both fruit and vegetable, depending on when it's eaten.

We were gifted this specimen by a favorite vegetable seller at Kuala Lumpur's TTDI Sunday night market. She had just a few, all from her own tree. I didn't recognize it as a breadfruit because the specimens I'm used to seeing are oblong-ish and much, much larger, like a jackfruit. This baby wasn't even 6 inches in diameter.

In Malaysia breadfruit is usually eaten young (unripe), coated with flour and deep-fried. You'll often find crispy breadfruit slices sold alongside sweet potato and banana fritters. It tastes like, well, bread - all well and good I suppose, but not particularly interesting.

We took our baby breadfruit home and left it on the counter. When we got to it a couple days later - surprise surprise - it was soft. Cutting it open without squishing it and peeling its skin without also pulling off a good bit of flesh was a challenge. I tasted it raw and loved its texture - smooth, soft, and buttery, like an overripe avocado or the finest Malaysian durian - and wonderful banana-pineapple-with-a hint-of-citric-tartness flavor.

I dipped a couple slices in flour and fried them as our veg vendor had advised. The texture was pleasing enough, like a deep-fried plantain, but the breadfruit's specialness - that lovely tropical essence - had disappeared.

The next day I tried again with the leftovers. I figured if I undercooked the fruit I might be able to preserve its custard-like texture and subtle flavor. The fact that it was chilled through was a good start. I dropped a knob of butter into a saute pan and let it sizzle, then added a hefty shaving of gula Melaka and swirled it around in the pan to melt a bit (but not completely). I then slid in a few thick slices of  breadfruit, and left them in the bubbling butter just long enough to barely brown all sides.

Eureka! What I ended up with were slices of breadfruit bathed in golden butter and stuck here and there with smoky, caramel-like bits of gula Melaka. They were barely firm on the outside, warm but still pudding-like within, and tasted very much like, well, a deliciously fragrant tropical fruit rather than a piece of bread. A scoop of vanilla ice cream would have worked here. Think banana and pineapple flambe without the booze.

This experiment got me wondering why, in this land of durian made into ice cream and pastries, the same isn't done with breadfruit (or is it? Breadfruit is incorporated into sweets in Thailand, by the way.). Malaysians seem to love their breadfruit as a vegetable, but is anyone here eating it as a fruit?

Buttery Ripe Breadfruit with Palm Sugar

Thoroughly chilled soft, very ripe breadfruit

a big knob of butter (not margarine!), about 3-4 Tbsp.

about 1/2 Tbsp gula Melaka

1. Cut the breadfruit into slices about 1 inch/2cm thick.
2. Heat the butter in a (preferably non-stick) over medium-high heat till sizzling. Add the gula Melaka and stir or swirl the pan to melt it a bit.
3. Slide in the breadfruit and cook VERY briefly on each side. The fruit should remain soft.
4. Remove the breadfruit to a plate and pour butter and gula over it. Serve immediately.

Got Your Goat

This dish has absolutely nothing to do with Asia, other than the fact that I cooked it in my Malaysian kitchen, but sometimes a good recipe should be shared whether or not it fits the theme of the food blog.
And a dish this rich and meaty is probably not going to appeal right now to most of our in-the-grip-of-summer North American readers, but I know that somewhere in the world it's daube weather.

I cooked goat for the first time just a few months ago, in a spicy coconut milk-based goat curry. The dish was delicious and got me wondering what else I could do with the other red meat.

It was Dave who suggested goat daube (a daube is wine-based stew). He'd been thinking about the string of Decembers we spent in a rented farmhouse in Piemonte. Not surprisingly (it's Italy after all, and this was before the precipitous drop of the US dollar) those weeks were all about eating and drinking and cooking and the sporadic sightseeing that occurred on the way to and from open markets and shops and osterie and trattorie and restaurants. One of our most memorable Christmas Eve meals was a Provencal daube made with bue grasso beef that we purchased from the local butcher. The daube recipe was one I'd followed a bunch of times at home, but made with Piemonte's exceptional beef it was an altogether different - and tastier - animal. Bue grasso tastes stronger, more minerally, and, for lack of a better word, beefier than American beef.  That Christmas Eve daube was so good, in fact, that I never made  the dish again, unless we were in Piemonte.

Until a month or so ago, when Dave suggested I substitute goat for the bue grasso. It's not a true substitution, of course - goat is a bit gamey and awfully tough. But, we thought, tamed by the overnight soak in red wine that this recipe calls for and stewed slowly for a good, long time, it might give the daube the sort of extra 'edge' that it gained from the Piemonte beef. Long story short - we were very happy with the rich, uber-meaty daube, in which goat and dry red wine played off each other beautifully. We ate half the day I made it and stuck the rest in the freezer. Leftovers, eaten for dinner Sunday night, were even tastier than the first round.

Most every KL wet market has a mutton and goat vendor (or five), and that's where I purchased the goat meat. I told the butcher I was making curry and asked him to leave the bones in when he chopped up the meat. Ten years ago I might have found eating a dish made with bone-in meat a pain in the rear, but living in Asia has inured me to the hassle of negotiating my way around bone bits; I've also come to realize that the extra flavor bones lend to slow-simmered dishes are more than worth the effort of dealing with them at the table. If I really don't want bones in a stew or soup I remove the meat from the finished dish, let it cool, and then add it back in after I've deboned it. But for cooking, bones stay in.

This goat daube must be started 24 hours ahead, so the meat can soak overnight in (a whole bottle of) red wine. Also in the drink are carrots and onions, freshly ground pepper and salt, fresh thyme and rosemary branches, bay leaves, garlic, and a couple strips of fresh orange peel.

When it's time to cook the daube, remove the meat from the marindate and pat it dry, so that it will brown well. First, chopped onions and minced garlic are sauteed in vegetable oil or, if you wish, pork fat. After they're removed the goat is added and browned off, then removed from the pot and set aside.

Flour is added to the fat left in the pot and cooked and stirred until it browns,

and then in goes the marinade.

Once the pan's been deglazed - bits clinging to the bottom scraped up and incorporated into the liquid as it's brought to a boil - in go the other marinade ingredients, to which are added the sauteed onions,

the browned meat,

some water and, finally, a few dried mushrooms (porcini or cepes).

The stew is simmered, covered, on the stove (it could also be placed in a hot oven) until the goat is tender - which took about 3.5 hours this time around. From pulling the marinated goat from the refrigerator to putting the cover on the pot to simmer took maybe 45 minutes max. Once it's cooking away you're pretty much golden ... not much to do except check the stew every half hour or so to see that it's at a gentle simmer and that sufficient liquid remains to keep things from sticking.

Daube with a (goaty) difference - we like it served with a grind of pepper and a mash of potatoes and winter squash.

Goat Daube with Dried Mushrooms (adapted from The Food and Flavors of Haute Provence by Georganne Brennan)

2.5 pounds bone-in goat meat (or about 2 pounds off the bone), cut into 2 to 2.5-inch pieces
2 yellow onions
3 carrots
8 or so thyme branches
2 rosemary branches, about 6 inches long
2 dried bay leaves
salt
freshly ground black pepper
5 cloves garlic
2 strips orange zest
1 bottle (750 ml) dry red wine
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 cup water
2 ounces dried mushrooms (cepes or porcini), some broken up and some left whole
1 cup water
1/2 cup flat leaf parsley (optional)

1. Trim and discard any large pieces of fat from goat. Place it in a non-reactive bowl, add 1 onion (quartered), carrots (peeled and cut into 2-inch pieces), 2 cloves of garlic, herbs, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 tablespoon pepper, and orange zest. Pour the wine over all and turn to mix and immerse the ingredients. Cover and marinate overnight in the fridge, stirring occasionally to make all ingredients get a good soak.
2. To cook the daube heat 2 tablespoons oil (or pork fat) in a large heavy casserole or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the remaining onion (diced) and garlic cloves (minced) and saute till their translucent, then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.
3. Drain the meat and reserve the marinade. Pat the meat as dry as possible and then add to the pot a few pieces at a time to brown (don't overcrowd the pot or the meat will steam). Saute for about 5 minutes, turning to brown all sides, then remove with a slotted spoon and continue till all meat is cooked.
4. Add the flour to the pan and cook until it browns, stirring often. Raise the heat to high and slowly pour in the marinade liquid, deglazing the pan by stiring up any bits clinging to the bottom. Add the rest of the marinade ingredients, then the onion, goat, 1 teaspoon salt, and more ground pepper to taste. Throw in the dried mushrooms, pour in the water, and bring the mixture to the boil. Reduce the heat to very low, cover with a lid, and simmer until the goat can be cut through with a spoon, 3-4 hours.
5. Once the daube is cooked skim off some of the fat and serve sprinkled with parsley (optional), with pasta or a mash of potatoes and sweet winter squash.

You Start With a Few Gorgeous Crabs...

In  between watching the trunk of a sago palm be transformed into flour, sampling kinilaw (Philippine 'ceviche') at the fish market, and learning how sap of the nipa palm's flower stalk becomes vinegar (and liquor), we looked on as a Butuan native made a few of her favorite dishes. Our favorite of her favorites would have to be Buntaa Binuntaan, crabs stuffed with fresh coconut and their own fat and cooked in coconut milk.

Despite the fact that coconut oil is now deemed healthy, this dish is clearly over the top - lusher than lush and not something you'd eat every day. It's also the sort of dish that I can't imagine anyone, other than those with a serious aversion to coconut milk, not loving. And it's surprisingly easy to make, assuming you have access to a key ingredient: buko or young coconut, still soft enough to be scraped from it's shell in silky strands (which you probably do; I saw them for sale at a Whole Foods grocery store in Santa Fe, New Mexico and they can be found at many stores specializing in Southeast Asian ingredients).

Our hostess, the same lovely woman who hooked us up with the sago makers, learned this recipe from her mother and great grandmother. She started with about two and three quarter kilos of fresh crabs. Female crabs are what you want for this dish, because their roe is a key component (how do you tell a female from a male crab? Flip them over and compare the size of the 'flap' that covers the bottom half of their bodies; the female's 'flap' is wider). She put the crabs in the freezer for a few hours, until they were 'asleep' and immobile, and then pulled off their top shells.

After removing the crab's gills and cleaning the nasty bits from the top half of the shell

she carefully removed fat and roe and from both halves and set it aside.

It would be mixed with the shredded buko.

To this mixture she added a generous amount of garlic - pounded in a mortar, not chopped - chopped ginger, thinly sliced scallions (both white and green parts), chopped red onion, and salt.

She carefully cleaned the empty crab shell tops and stuffed them with the mixture.

More stuffing went into the cavities of the crab bodies created when their gills and fat and roe were removed.

After stuffing the crabs she reassembled them

and tied the halves together with kitchen string.

The liquid that remained on the platter after the crabs were stuffed was set aside for later.

                                 stuffed and ready for the pot

The crabs went into a deep casserole, along with a good amount of crushed fresh ginger. Probably the most laborious part of this recipe is squeezing the coconut milk (assuming it doesn't come out of a can).

My favored method for extracting coconut milk involves hot water, an electric blender, and cheesecloth, but in this Butuan household it's all done with manpower - two 'pressings', the first for coconut cream and the second for the thinner coconut milk.

After placing the crabs in the pot our host added thin coconut milk to cover them by about two thirds. There was some coconut-crab mixture leftover after the crabs were filled; this she wrapped in tin foil (you could use a banana leaf) and placed in the pot as well. After bringing the coconut milk to a boil she covered the pot and left it to simmer steadily for about twenty minutes.

As soon as the shells of the crabs turned red red she added the coconut cream and the coconut-crab fat juices that had drained from the filling mixture and muddled the liquid in the pot a bit to mix.

Once the liquid came to a boil again the dish was finished.

The kitchen had filled with the heady aroma of good, spanking fresh seafood, peppery ginger, and  coconut oil. The crabs came out of the casserole with bits of congealed coconut cream clinging to their shells, and there was plenty of coconut milk sauce to spoon over rice. I know that a number of other dishes were placed on the table that evening, but for the life of me I can't remember a single one. I passed the evening in a delirium, a crab and coconut milk-induced fog.

Buntaa Binuntaan (Butuan City Coconut-Stuffed Crabs in Coconut Milk)

I'm not including amounts because (1) I didn't do any measuring while our hostess prepared this dish and (2) this is very much a to-your-taste sort of food - if you hate ginger, omit it. If you love garlic, add lots. If you don't have red onions on hand, add more scallions. Just be sure you've got female crabs, that they're big enough to make prying apart, cleaning, and stuffing worth your effort, and that you've enough coconut milk and cream (if you're using canned consider thinning some with water to substitute for the second pressing coconut milk) on hand (a good way to guesstimate is to determine the capacity of the pot you'll use and then figure on at least half that amount in coconut milk).

female crabs, the bigger the better
a young coconut or two, meat scraped out and sliced into matchsticks or shredded
green onions, thinly sliced (white and green parts)
garlic, pounded to a mash or finely chopped
a small red onion, finely choped
salt
ginger - some finely chopped, some thickly sliced and pounded in a mortar, with the side of a cleaver, or with the handle of a heavy knife
coconut milk and coconut cream

special equipment: kitchen string

1. Put the crabs in the freezer for an hour or two, until they completely stop moving.
2. Working quickly, pull the top shells off of the crabs, discard the inedible gook clinging to the inside of the shelll, and carefully scrape into a bowl all crab row and fat. Clean the crabs and their now-empty top shells under running water and set aside.
3. Using your hands or a fork. mix the shredded coconut with the crab roe and fat, the green onions, garlic, red onion, salt to taste, and the chopped ginger.
4. Fill each crab shell and body with the coconut-crab roe mixture, then reassemble the crabs and tie them together with kitchen string. Wrap any leftover filling in tin foil or a banana leaf to make a flattish packet. Set any liquid aside.
5. Lay the crabs on top of each other in a deep casserole (use an appropriately-sized casserole; the crabs should be in at least two layers) and add thin coconut milk to cover them by about two thirds. Scatter crushed/pounded garlic on top of the crabs.
6. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat to a  brisk simmer and cover the casserole. Check the crab's progress occasionally.
7. As soon as the crabs turn pink pour in coconut cream and leftover filling 'juice'. Stir quickly just to mix, bring the liquid to a boil again, and then remove the casserole from the heat.
8. Serve hot or warm, with lots of rice.

The Daily Grind

Other than a knife and chopping block, this basalt stone mortar and pestle is the single most important tool of the Indonesian kitchen. The mortar, called cobek in Indonesian and penyan tokan in Balinese, is wide, shallow, and heavy, with a rough surface that makes quick work of reducing ingredients to a paste. Balinese call the pestle anak, which also means 'child'. The anak is short and right-angled with a flattish round base of sizeable diameter.

Most other mortar and pestle dictate a lot of pounding. Think of the hollow 'tok-tok' sound that rises from the mortar of a Thai somtam vendor. A penyan tokan, by contrast, is all about grinding: placing your feet flat on the floor, standing a bit back from the counter, weight on the right (or left, if you're a lefty) arm, and gently rocking back and forth as you move the anak away from your body to the front of the mortar, bring it around the rim to gather ingredients to its center, and then push it forward again. Though I favor mortar and pestle for many preparations I generally don't enjoy it. Pounding is hard and tedious, and it shakes the kitchen counters. The noise sends my cats up the wall and drives the dogs to distraction.

Scraping an anak across the surface of a penyan tokan, on the other hand, is richly satisfying. Garlic cloves, shallots, fingers of turmeric, chilies, lemongrass stalks, and even whole nutmeg give way effortlessly under the pressure of an anak. Back and forth and around, back and forth and around - it's almost hypnotizing.

Penyan tokan and anak are not confined to the home kitchen. They're useful tools at market and street stalls as well. In Sumatran markets whole sections are populated by (usually female) chili grinders, and they're not using machines, just heavy-duty mortar and pestle like this one (or larger, rectangular models) to reduce chilies to mush. At Bali's Sererit Market I watched my sirat (rice pancake) vendor prepare serving after serving of pecelan (vegetable salad with a dressing that might, according to the customer's taste, include peanuts, chilies, and shallots) using a penyan tokan. Putting anak to the mortar's stone surface, she pulled an order together in a minute and half flat.

From behind a table in the open alley downstairs this vendor made pecelan dressed with a more complex sauce, consisting of pre-made bumbu (spice paste - look for the half-covered white pot in the second photo) ground with chopped peanuts, chilies, kecap manis, and kalamansi juice.

The salad included pressed rice cakes, cucumber, bean sprouts, and blanched snake beans. After mixing the pecelan she scooped it onto nature's disposable dinnerware (a banana leaf) and sprinkled it with crunchy deep-fried peanuts and soy beans.

The result was an intense, lively collage of the flavors I've come to associate with Balinese cooking, especially turmeric, nutmeg, and galangal - and, as per our request, plenty of chili heat. It left our lips tingling and our bellies wishing for more.

When we returned from Bali last month I decided to reintroduce to my kitchen the penyan tokan and its 'child' that I bought in Bali about five years ago. Watching those market ladies whip up fantastic dishes in a matter of minutes inspired me to make use of these tools I'd shamefully left to languish in the cupboard. I seasoned the stone by grinding wet rice, garlic, turmeric, and chilies, letting the paste almost dry on the mortar and pestle, and then washing (with water only) and repeating. After just a few days the stone surface was sealed and ready for a test drive.

Last night I made a brilliant pecelan with the simplest dressing of peanuts, kecap manis, chilies, shallots, and kalamansi juice, thinned with a little water. This light salad is about as far from the thick, gloppy, overly sweet gado-gado served in many a Stateside Indonesian restaurant as you can get. Best of all, with a mortar and pestle like this (or a mini-chopper) the dressing literally takes 3 minutes to make. The only other labor involved is chopping and blanching the vegetables and steaming some rice to serve alongside.

Next week: a more complex pecelan with a dressing that incorporates some of that bumbu (spice paste).

Pecelan (Balinese Vegetable Salad With Peanut and Chili Dressing)

Use a stone mortar and pestle to make the dressing (Indonesian or Malaysian, or a Mexican molcajete), or chop the ingredients finely and finish in a Thai ceramic mortar, or do it all in blender (though you may have to add water to get the ingredients to blend).

I've deliberately left amounts (other than peanuts) out, because this dressing is all about personal taste. I think, in fact, that it's impossible to screw this dressing up, because you can always counter an off taste with more of the other ingredients. Want more salt? Up the kecap manis. Like a lot of sour (though this should not be Thai sweet-sour)? More lime juice. If you don't have kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) use regular soy and pound in some palm sugar or brown sugar or maple sugar. You could also add a garlic clove and/or some lemongrass, or leave out the chilies altogether if you don't like hot. You could also thin with coconut milk instead of water, for a richer dressing.

You can use as few as one vegetable here or as many as you have time to chop and blanch. Replace the tofu with tempeh or pressed rice cakes. Or leave the protein out altogether.

This sauce made with a handful of peanuts should dress enough salad for two big eaters. Great eaten with steamed rice or barbecued fish. 

Dressing

A big handful of roasted, unsalted peanuts (I used peanuts roasted in the shell and left the skins on - not a problem)

Fiery small chilies (optional)

Kecap manis (or soy sauce + dark brown sugar or palm sugar or maple sugar)

A couple shallots

Kalamansi or limes

If you're using a stone mortar then everything can be left whole. Start by grinding the peanuts, then add shallots and chilies. Dribble in some kecap manis and just a squeeze of kalamansi or lime juice. Taste for seasoning and adjust to your liking BEFORE adding enough water to thin the dressing somewhat. Remember that some of your salad ingredients will probably have water on them from blanching/washing, so don't thin the dressing too much.

If you're using a blender first chop the ingredients as finely as possible, then blend using a dribble of kecap manis, some lime juice, and water. Taste for salt, sour, heat, and add ingredients accordlingly.

Salad

Amounts are malleable but - as a general guide, if you're including all the vegetables, you might start with 2 handfuls of soy beans, 4 snake beans, half a small cabbage, and a small bunch of sturdy greens.

1 block firm tofu, cut in half horizontally, wrapped in a kitchen towel, and placed under a cookie sheet or other pan weighted with cans, and left for about an hour

snake beans or green beans

green round cabbage

bean sprouts

A sturdy green, such as daun ubi (cassava leaves), the leaves of large bok choy, chard, kale, etc. You could also use spinach

a long (English) cucumber or several pickling cucumbers

a handful of raw peanuts and/or soy beans

vegetable oil

For serving (optional): kalamansi halves or lime wedges and cilantro leaves

1. Cut the tofu into small squares. Slice the snake beans into small pieces. Shred the cabbage (not too thinly).
2. Blanch the bean sprouts (quickly - they should still be crunchy), greens, snake beans, and cabbage and drain. When the greens are cool squeeze them dry and chop, then shake the leaves to separate them. When all the vegetables are well-drained (squeeze lightly between kitchen or paper towels if necessary) place them in a mixing bowl.
3. Split the cucumber(s) lengthwise and remove the seeds with a spoon. Cut them into small wedges and add to the bowl.
4. Heat about a quarter inch of oil in a small pan over medium high heat. Add the peanuts and/or soy beans and fry until browned and crunchy. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel.
5. Add the dressing to the salad and mix carefully - try not to break up the tofu squares. Spoon onto a plate and top with the peanuts/soy beans and cilantro leaves, if using. Serve with lime wedges or kalamansi halves (if using). 

DIY Coconut Oil

Coconut oil is made from ...

... coconuts.

Not exactly breaking news, I know, but we don't often think about where the most basic of our kitchen staples come from. By now olives harvested from trees and pressed into oil is a well-trod story. But what is vegetable oil made from, exactly? How do you get oil from corn? And what is canola, anyway?

All worthy musings, but today it's the humble coconut to which we turn our attention. On Bali we spent a couple days watching, cooking with, and photographing two local cooks. Ibu Nengah and her husband are renowned for their kitchen prowess; they're hired by folks in the area to prepare feasts for weddings, birthdays, and other festive occasions. One morning they showed us how to make coconut oil. Ibu Nengah says that, time allowing, they prefer to make their own oil because what they can purchase at the store just can't match the homemade version for flavor and fragrance.

The coconut oil-making process is relatively simple, if time-consuming. It starts, unsurprisingly, with coconut meat, here grated by hand with a nifty tool that consists of a board sprouting rows of nails. Actually this homemade grater reduces fresh coconut into fine shreds much more quickly and efficiently than a Western-style metal grater.

Hot water is added to the grated coconut, and the mixture is stirred until it cools, at which point the coconut is squeezed - hard! - to get it to release as much 'milk' as possible.

This is the first pressing; more hot water is added to the squeezed coconut meat and the process is repeated. Three coconuts produce about 1.5 liters of coconut milk.

The coconut milk is put over a good-sized fire and is left to boil briskly. Two coins of turmeric are added (and removed about an hour later). The turmeric colors the oil, and Ibu Nengah says it keeps it 'fresh'. It probably adds a bit of flavoring as well, which doesn't much matter because just about every Balinese dish that coconut oil might be used in includes turmeric as an ingredient.

After about an hour foam forms on the liquid's surface yellowish fat starts appearing around its edges of its surface. Ibu Nengah's husband sprinkles water on the coconut milk's surface - to further draw out the oil, he says.

By the time the coconut milk is pulled from the heat (about one and a half hours) it's been reduced in volume by about one half, the foam has dissipated, and its surface is covered with a thin cap of golden oil.

The milk-oil is poured through a mesh strainer to capture foam and any bits of stray coconut meat,

and then returned to the pan and left aside to allow the coconut milk solids to settle. (If you've ever clarified butter these steps will sound familiar.) After about five minutes Ibu Nengha and her husband use small bowls to skim the oil from the surface of the pan.

and transfer it to a smaller, heavier cast-iron wok (above left). What's leftover in the big pan after skimming is set aside.

The smaller pan is placed on the fire for about fifteen minutes. It's removed from the heat spitting and gurgling,

but after just a few minutes the bubbles fade away to reveal nearly clear oil.

Now Ibu Nengha places a plastic mesh cloth over a woven basket, sprinkles it with a bit of grated coconut meat (to create a finer sieve), and scrapes in the mush left in the black pan after the oil's been poured off (above). To this she adds any further oil that's surfaced after the first boiling (below), transferring it to the sieve with a small bowl.

Then she scrapes and presses the mixture with a spoon to retrieve every last drop of oil.

What's left in the basket/mesh sieve is a wickedly unctuous coconut-flavored, slightly nutty sludge. It will be eaten as a sweet snack, just a spoonful  at a time (it's delicious but so rich that more than a spoonful is out of the question), or stirred into rice to eat with other dishes.

All that effort and time, and 1.5 liters of coconut milk, yields one small bottle of oil.

But it's by far the best coconut oil we've ever sampled, and the scent that fills the kitchen when I heat it in a pan makes us think of Ibu Nengah and her husband, their tranquil outdoor kitchen, and the clove and coffee tree-swathed hills of northern Bali.