EatingAsia

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.

Lao-ish Dilled Fish Soup

Dill and tua nao (fermented soy beans). Northern Thais stir-fry the two together with garlic and chilies and eat the dish with sticky rice

I'm the sort of cook that lights upon an ingredient, falls in love (or falls in love again, if I'm reliving an old infatuation), does it to death, and then moves on. The affair is usually intense, torrid ... then one day my eye and taste buds alight on something else, and it's over.

I've had a thing going with dill since I wrote this post on bitter flavors in Lao cuisine. This fling of ours, dill and I, has shown surprising staying power; it's been almost four months and to date shows no sign of fading.

My time in the kitchen is not devoted solely to Asian food, and part of dill's appeal is that, to my mind, it's neither a solely 'Western' nor an entirely 'Eastern' herb. In fact my strongest dill-related food memories are from my childhood in Michigan and our time in Lao. As a kid I loved pungently dill-y tartar sauce (the mayonnaise might have had something to do with it as well), and the dish that made the biggest impression during a few sojourns in Luang Prabang is a chicken stew that paired the herb with coconut milk.

The other afternoon I got a craving for the latter, but I abhor supermarket chicken and hadn't had time to hit the morning market. So I used fish instead, lightened the dish up a bit with fish stock, and produced a delicious fascimile. If you doubt the appropriateness of pairing dill with coconut milk think of creamy dill dishes you might have had in the past - dilled potatoes, for instance. It's not such a big leap to just think of coconut milk as substitute for cream.

Lao-ish Dilled Fish Soup

Serves 2 enthusiastic eaters or 4-6 regular eaters

If you love dill you'll like this dish (it's also really easy and pretty quick). In Lao, Isaan, and northern Thailand dill is used like a vegetable; instead of removing the frilly fronds and throwing away the stalk cooks chuck the lot into the pot. Mushrooms are optional. If you want to take this from a soup to a stew cut the fish stock to 1 1/4 cups and increase the amount of coconut milk. Serve with rice (or stir in some pieces of cooked potato) and a simple dish of greens stir-fried with a splash of fish sauce, a pinch of sugar, and perhaps a few chopped chilies.

If you're not a fish fan you could substitute chicken stock and chicken for the fish stock and fish. I'd add the chicken in step 1 and tack on enough extra cooking time for it to reach tenderness.

2 3/4 cup fish stock

2 leeks, white part only, sliced down the middle lengthwise and then cut into 2-inch/5 cm strips

5 or so black peppercorns

3 thick slices of galangal (kha)

a big bunch of dill, stems and all, washed - 5 stems roughly chopped and set aside and the rest cut in half (across the stalks)

Optional: about 8 ounces oyster mushrooms, stems removed if you like and cut or torn in half (other mildish mushrooms such as enoki or straw mushrooms could be substitute)

about 1 lb. firm, white-fleshed fish, such as snapper, sea bass, etc. (a river fish would work well here too - salmon is another option), cut into chunks

1/4 - 1/2 cup coconut milk

1/2 tsp. fish sauce

small bunch of chives, roughly chopped

3 lime leaves, layed on top of each other, rolled tightly into a cigar shape, and cut into the finest slivers

1. Put the fish stock into large saucepan and bring to a boil. Add the leeks, peppercorns, galangal, the half-stalks of dill ,and the mushrooms, if using. Bring the liquid to a boil, then lower the heat, cover the pot, and let simmer until the leeks (and mushrooms, if using) are tender, about 10 minutes.
2. Remove the lid, add the fish, and cook through, just a few minutes. Add the coconut milk (less for a lighter soup) and heat through but don't bring the soup to a boil.
3. Add the fish sauce, taste for salt, and add more if necessary, by the quarter teaspoon.
4. Stir in the chives, the reserved roughly chopped dill, and the lime leaves.
5. Remove from the heat and serve. 

Philippine Food Reads: Of Bananas and Drinking Food

The Philippines is blessed with a substantial body of good food writing, both serious literature and research by the likes of Edilberto Alegre and the late Doreen Fernandez, and less 'learned' but nonetheless enjoyable books by professional and amateur food lovers. An hour spent browsing the shelves in the food writing/cookbook section of a Manila bookstore never fails to deliver something surprising and delightful.

In December I found a couple of gems: a thirty-year-old publication by the Philippine Banana Export Industry Association called 100+1 Banana Recipes, and a slim paperback called Pulutan: From the Soldiers' Kitchen. The first is what its title suggests, a straightforward collection of recipes (written in both Tagalog and English) featuring banana as the main ingredient. Included are fairly mundane dishes such as banana muffins and banana pudding, as well as recipes for more curious (to the non-Filipino, at least) concoctions such as banana omelet, banana-stuffed bangus (milkfish), banacorn soup (made with corn grits, unripe banana, and green onion), and banana chicken with ubod (palm heart). It's a quirkily enjoyable illustration of the centrality of the banana in Philippine cuisine - for less than U$5.

Pulutan: From the Soldiers' Kitchen is, perhaps, an 'only-in-the-Philippines' sort of creation: a book of anecdotes and recipes written by two junior military officers serving time for their alleged involvement in what is referred to in the Philippines as the 'Oakwood Mutiny', an event in which some 300 soldiers took over the Oakwood Hotel in Makati (Manila) and declared their withdrawal of support from the government of current Philippine president Gloria Arroyo. The recipes in the book are all for pulutan, a category of food perhaps best explained by the authors:

'Pulutan conveys many things Filipino. That is probably why there is no English word that truly captures the concept of pulutan.

Finger food is not quite accurate because many pulutan are eaten with a fork or with a spoon. Neither is appetizer quite right because pulutan is a meal by itself. In fact, when the plate stops being replenished, that means it's time to go home.

Pulutan conjures comraderie. A drinking session is the Filipino concept of breaking bread. Pulutn is the bread.

The word pulutan has also evolved to mean being a main topic of conversation. If one is absent in a drinking session, he gets talked about and becomes the pulutan. (p. xv)

Each chapter ('All Time Favorites', Goat Meat, Lasang Exotic, 'Not the Usual Parts', etc.) opens with a discussion that mixes memories and anecdotes ('For my twenty-sixth birthday in 2005, I wanted something different to celebrate it with classmates who were also fellow detainees. I didn't want the usual spaghetti and fried chicken.'); Philippine food-related factoids (humba, a pork and vinegar dish, is often served at festive occasions in the Visayas, and a Philippine drinkers' tale says that fathers cook better than mothers because while the latter only learn to cook when they marry, the former learn to cook as soon as they start drinking alcohol); and kitchen tips (when preparing Bloody Belly Grill, an Ilocano dish, 'the swine's blood must be fresh and pure. Do not add water to increase the volume').

Many of the recipes are for dishes that might be 'challenging' to the Western palate. I doubt that I'll ever cook Vampires' Delight, a pork loin preparation that also includes intestines, liver, and fresh blood, or Sinigang na Adidas, sour soup of chicken feet (nails removed). But Ginataang Kuhol (snails cooked with coconut milk, squash blossoms, ginger, and chilies - mussels or other shellfish might be substituted for the snails) sounds delicious, and how can you go wrong with Steamed Stingray?

I love books of this sort for the highly focused and sometimes offbeat slices of culinary culture that they offer the reader.

Ginataang Kuhol (From Pulutan: From the Soldiers' Kitchen, Ellen T. Tordesillas and Yvonne T. Chua, eds.)

30-50 pieces edible snail

2 Tbsp. chopped garlic

4 medium onions chopped

2 Tbsp. grated ginger

1 cup gata (coconut milk)

4 pieces siling haba (finger chile)

1 cup water

1 cup squash shoots and/or flowers

1. Wash the snails in boiling water and set aside.

2. Heat oil in a pan then saute garlic, onions, and ginger.

3. Add snails. Cover pan and cook for 10 minutes.

4. Add coconut milk, siling haba, and water. Cover pan and bring to the boil.

5. When the sauce is thick, add squash shoots. Season to taste.

6. Turn off heat but leave the pan covered for 5 minutes before serving.

From Boat to Market

Before it's kinilaw, tuna is just one of many catches of the day, here arriving at one of Surigao City's fish landings.

This landing is a small stretch of beach wedged between a wholesale seafood market and a disintegrating pier extending out into the water from a collection of stilt houses varying in condition from basic to decrepit. Not very far offshore are several islands - alluring masses of verdant green, some ringed by pearlescent sand.

 

While Dave is wandering around with his camera I speak with a man named Eric Estaban, owner of some of the boats unloading in front of us. He tells me there are several kinds. Banca are the largest, so large in fact that they have to weigh anchor offshore and pass their catch to smaller boats for transport to shore. (In more general terms boats of almost any size can be a banca, including passenger boats.) They're deep-sea boats with crews of about 30 men that spend 2 weeks at a time in the Pacific, returning with up to 7,000 kilos of seafood.

The medium-sized boats pictured above are called lawa-lawa. Many lawa-lawa carry spear-caught coral reef fish (some of them endangered, unfortunately). Spear fishing is done by 2 or 3 men at a time, at night with the aid of a torch.

Kaka are the smallest boats here. Some, outfitted with lights, are squid boats (lights attract squid to the surface of the water), and some are 'service boats' whose sole purpose is to accompany fishing boats and carry the catch. Squidding can be lucrative, Eric tells me. His boat, which cost 60,000 pesos (about U$ 1,500), usually brings in 8,000 pesos (U$ 200) worth of squid a day. From that amount, of course, he has to pay the middleman and his crew, buy fuel, keep the boat in good repair, and support his family. Still, at age 32, he's managed to make enough from the fishing business that he inherited from his father to grow it to 4 squid boats, 4 service boats, and 6 lawa-lawa.

When we arrive at dawn much of the landing's activity is already over, but every ten minutes or so a couple of boats pull to shore and are quickly unloaded.

Large catches are carried straight into the wholesale market, where they're watched over by the guys who hauled them in until someone makes a bid.

Bids are spoken here, not whispered as they are at some other Philippines seafood markets.

Once a bid is accepted (it's up to the fisherman) it's recorded by the market's managers, who act as middleman (and woman). They record each transaction in a couple of notebooks (no computers here!) and collect the money from the buyer, which is in turn passed on to whomever is representing the boat that brought the fish in, minus ten percent.

The product is then dispatched, via various modes of transport.

We found this tuna being packed into styrofoam coolers in preparation for its journey to a destination four to five hours inland.

While all this is going on a parallel process takes place out on the beach, where small-time vendors not registered with the market wholesale small catches from their portable tables.

What's on offer here can vary in size from a just three or four 6-inch squid to a good-sized single fish. As inside at the market, fishermen hang around their middleman waiting for an offer.

It can be a good place to pick up a recipe or two.

The seller of these slender squid advises turning them into kinilaw:

'Mix coconut vinegar with lots of chopped ginger, sliced red onion, chili chopped fine, and green onion leaves. Clean the squid and slice it, then add it to the vinegar mixture. Eat it with tomato. And eat it right away. If you leave the squid in the vinegar more than one or two minutes it will shrink and get hard. Then it's not tasty anymore.'

Eric tells me that most of the fisherman on these boats are from Hikdop, the largest island opposite this boat landing. By now it's 8am, the end of their day nine hours until they return to their boats and prepare to head out after another catch.

Shave Before Serving

A trip to the wet market never fails to turn up something new. This morning's visit to Temerloh's always enjoyable Pekan Sehari ('one-day' market - Sunday mornings only) was no different.

Today every other vegetable vendor, it seemed, was displaying small piles of hairy eggplant. We'd seen 'bald' versions of these bristle-haired vegetables in Thailand, where they're called ma-euk; in Nan we learned to squeeze their innards into nam prik kapi (shrimp paste 'dip'). But we'd never encountered them with their fur (we didn't know they have fur), so we didn't know what we were seeing.

Malays call this member of the Solanum genus buah terung asam, or sour eggplant 'fruit'. The vendor who sold us our tumpuk (pile) told us the hair could be easily removed with the blade of a knife (she was right - a matter of a few gentle scrapes), and a fellow customer shared a recipe for a hairy eggplant condiment to eat with rice.

Once we got home I gave the lot a good shave and wash and then ate several uncooked, out of hand. Raw, this variety of eggplant that Malays call a fruit tastes nothing at all like a vegetable. It's thin-skinned and juicy, pleasantly sweet-sour, and has a somewhat floral essence reminiscent of passion fruit.

The rest I put in a pan with water to cover and added asam keping (the dried slices of a green fruit called buah asam that give Malaysia asam laksa its hallmark sourness), a few chilies, and a hefty pinch of salt. After the liquid came to a boil I allowed the eggplant to simmer for just a few minutes, removed the pan from the heat, and let the vegetables cool in their water bath. Cooking brought out the eggplant's vegetal flavor, but they still retained quite a bit of sourness. This will indeed be a delicious piquant accompaniment to a plate of rice and a rich, coconut milk-based Malay curry.

You might find shaved hairy eggplant at Thai supermarkets, fresh or frozen. Definately worth a try, raw or prepared as below.

Hairy Eggplant Condiment

hairy eggplants

a few slices of asam keping or other souring agent, such as several lime leaves or a teeny knob of tamarind

chilies, as many as you dare - sliced down the middle for more heat

a generous pinch (or more, depending on how many eggplant you have) of salt

1. Place eggplant, asam keping (or other souring agent), chilies, and salt in a small pan. Add water to cover.

2. Bring the water to a boil, then turn down the heat and simmer a few minutes. The eggplants are done when they give to pressure. Remove from heat and let them cool in the liquid. Store in the refrigerator but serve at room temperature, on their own or with rice.

Vietnam's Other Black Gold

A few days before we left for Saigon, I poured the last of the 5 pounds of Vietnamese black pepper that had moved with us to Malaysia in 2005 into our pepper grinder.

This was not a coincidence.

Did we return to Saigon just to restore our stock of Vietnamese pepper? I wouldn't say that, exactly. We knew we'd go before the end of the year. As October passed and our stash shrank, well ... it just seemed like a good time to make plane reservations.

Vietnam isn't the country that comes to mind when gourmets start talking black pepper. It's all Tellicherry this and Sarawak that; if a pepper-loving foodie really wants to impress her cohort she might proclaim an allegiance to Ecuadorian prganic Ecuadorian black pepper.

That's black pepper they're walking on

Vietnam is the world's largest black pepper producer, and the spice is a key component of the cuisine. While Vietnamese food isn't as overtly chile-hot as Thai food, many dishes have a nice kick thanks to this Vietnamese black gold. A quick Google search turned up no mail-order sources for this peppercorn that, in my opinion, is the equivalent of any other 'gourmet' varieties. If you happen to be in Vietnam you can buy it by the kilo for a steal.

What follows is an extremely quick, tasty recipe that highlights black pepper's uniquely complex heat. If Vietnamese isn't within your reach, use whatever is. Just make sure that it's very fresh (ie. still fragrant; a good whiff should make you want to sneeze), and freshly ground.

Light and Bright Vietnamese Herby Omelet with Black Pepper-Salt-Kalamansi (or Lime) Dipping Sauce

We ate this street snack on a grey, misty winter morning in Hanoi. At 630am on a Sunday the city's streets were strangely quiet. About 4 blocks from the lake we came across a granny tucked under the overhang of an office building. Seated on a tiny stool, she was making omelets, emerald green with chopped herbs, in a small pan over a single burner. We ordered one and marveled at its simplicity and brightness. The dipping sauce - a combination of salt, lots of fragrant black pepper, and kalamansi juice - added zip and beautifully complemented the fresh taste of the herbs.

Any combination of Asian-ish herbs works here, the more the merrier - just be sure not to go too heavy on the strongest-flavored herbs. This morning my omelet included Thai basil, mint, Vietnamese coriander (polygonum/laksa leaf), perilla, cilantro, and sorrel (caution: too much sorrel and your omelet will be more gray than green). You might also use wild pepper leaves, or a bit of dill. Arugala would be a nice, albeit inauthentic, addition. A few chives or one scallion chopped with the greens are possibilities, but don't use enough to overpower the herbs. Don't be alarmed at the amount of minced herbs in this dish - the egg really shouldn't be much more than a binder. 

sea salt or Kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

kalamansi or lime halves, for squeezing

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup of a combination of fresh herbs chopped together to a fine mince

vegetable oil

1. In a small saucer mix (for each person) a pinch of salt, a few generous grinds of pepper, and kalamansi juice (2-3 halves, depending on the size of the fruit) or lime juice (1/2 a juicy lime). Mix lightly - it's not necessary to dissolve the salt.

2. Beat the eggs to thoroughly combine. Stir in the herbs.

3. Place a (preferably non-stick) skillet over medium heat. Add a dribble of oil and then wipe it around with a paper towel to remove the excess.

4. Add the eggs and cook slowly, covered, to allow them to set. Once the top no longer jiggles slide the omelet onto a plate and then turn the plate over into the skillet, to cook the other side. Avoid browning the omelet, if you can.

5. Once the omelet is cooked, slide it onto a plate and eat by dipping pieces into the sauce. (Lovely eaten room temperature, too.)

Tons of pepper for export

Lao Bitter

Our first trip to Laos, in 1994, was our virgin foray into Southeast Asia. We were living in Hong Kong, and had lived in and travelled around China, but everything south was, to us, The Unknown.

We had three weeks around Christmas. Someone told me Laos was 'incredible' - or maybe I read it somewhere - and so we booked tickets and took the plunge. Landing in Vientiene was a jolt. The city (if you could even call it a city, then), with its single traffic light, seemed as far from Hong Kong as the moon. With their ready smiles and soft voices, Laos were to 'Hongkies' as day is to night. And the food!Lounging riverside, eating sticky rice with spicy dips and laap, garlicky grilled sausages and soups fragrant with intriguingly unfamiliar leaves and herbs, it was hard to believe we were merely two hours from delicate dim sum.

On that trip we encountered flavors that simultaneously delighted and confused, dishes that mixed Asian ingredients with those we associated with the West. In Luang Prabang we were served a French-influenced uncooked salad of watercress and runny-yolked boiled eggs dressed with a light gado-gadoish peanut dressing. On the surface of an otherwise Thai tom kha gai-like stew of chicken, galangal, and coconut milk floated a surprising flurry of chopped fresh dill. Zest and slivered leaves of kaffir lime lent a pleasing astringency to egg-based tarts.

Bitterness is a flavor we'll always associate with Laos - not the bright, sharp bitterness of a raddichio salad or the caustic, mouth-drying bitternes of arugula (rocket) gone to seed, but the mellow, appetite-rousing bitterness of meaty soups and stews thick with herbs and wild greens. It's a taste and a perfume so common to the country's cuisine that it's hard to imagine a Lao meal without it.

I was reminded of that distinctive bitterness the other day when I came across boxes of long-dormant slides from that and subsequent visits to Laos. Dave's images triggered a rush of memories - of a dusty bicycle ride to a crumbling, abandoned wat in a forest outside Luang Prabang, of a gulp of lao lao and wrists tied with bracelets of white string before a bumpy (and - because our drivers had partaken too - slightly frightening) jeep journey across the Bolaven plateau, of a slow boat from Pakse to a speck of a village and the deserted ruins at its edge. Suddenly I was craving the comfort of a pungent Lao stew accompanied by sticky rice.

That night I prepared the following recipe. The kitchen smelled, to us, like the probably long-gone Luang Prabang hole-in-the-wall where we fell in love with Lao bitter.

Lao Pork and Bitter Greens Stew

Adapted from Alford and Duguid's Hot Sour Salty Sweet (page 245), a seven-year-old book that continues to surprise us and feed us well (every single recipe works, brilliantly). I've changed the quantity of some ingredients, increased the cooking time, and substituted pork ribs for the sliced pork in the original recipe. The bones add tremendous flavor and, after long cooking, slide right away from the meat. If you're averse to bones in your stew then remove the ribs and let them cool, take the meat off the bones, and return it to the pot before serving.

This comforting stew is incredibly easy to make - minimal active time and long cooking. The combination of dill, mustard greens, and lime leaves makes for a complex earthiness marked by gentle bitterness. Sticky rice is the best go-with (very easy to make - just remember to soak the rice overnight), but regular white rice will do. Heat things up a bit with a side of Thai nam prik dtaa daeng, replacing the smoked fish with a teaspoon or two of fish sauce (to taste) and fresh minced galangal, or with a Hmong scallion-chile relish from Andrea Nguyen's article on California Hmong farmers in the August-September 2007 issue of Saveur.

12-14 ounces meaty pork ribs, preferably cut into pieces no longer than 2 inches

2 Tbsp. vegetable oil

1/4 cup roughly chopped shallots (or red onion, in a pinch)

6-8 garlic cloves, chopped

4-5 cups water

1 pound Chinese mustard greens (choy sum), cut into 2-inch lengths

5 whole stalks dill

small bunch of Chinese chives, cut into 1-inch length (substitute 1/4 cup sliced regular chives)

8 lime leaves

2 Tbsp Thai fish sauce or to taste

5 scallions, white and green parts, chopped

freshly ground black pepper

1. Heat the oil in a medium heavy pot over high heat. Add the garlic and shallots and stiry-fry briefly, until they start to brown.

2. Pat the pork ribs dry with a paper towel and add to the pan. Stir-fry to brown the ribs all over. Add 4 cups of the water and then add the dill, choy sum, and chives. Tear 5 of the lime leaves into pieces and add to the pot as well. Stir to immerse the greens. Water should nearly cover the ingredients - if necessary add more.

3. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a gentle simmer, stirring to immerse the greens. Partially cover the pot and cook slowly for about an hour and a half, stirring occasionally to make sure all the greens are cooked. Add more water if anything starts sticking.

4. At the end of cooking time the greens should have softened and partially melted into the stew and the meat should be falling-apart tender. Add the fish sauce and taste for seasoning. At this point the stew can be set aside for a couple of hours or refrigerated overnight.

5. Just before serving, bring the stew back to a simmer. Stack the remaining three lime leaves, roll into a tight cylinder, and slice into slivers; add them to the stew, along with the scallions and lots of black pepper to taste. Serve in bowls with rice on the side.

Stuffed, Rolled, and Wrapped, Philippine Style

Philippine cuisine is Southeast Asia's most under-appreciated (except by Filipinos); it's probably for this reason that Salcedo Market, a once-a-week outdoor affair in Makati, Manila's business district, is so little known. Were Salcedo - a juried collection of stalls offering a bounty of Philippine regional (and some international) foods - located in Singapore or Bangkok or Saigon it be known to Southeast Asia-bound globe-trotting foodies. Instead it's bounty is left to the purvey of mostly locals, expats, and the occasional tourist.

On this day Dave and I've come to Salcedo in search of neither lechon nor piaya (though we'll end up sampling plenty of each), but for bangus relleno: grilled milkfish, boned and stuffed with a mixture that includes its own chopped meat. Dave was lucky enough to nab some on a solo jaunt to Salcedo in February (while I lay in our hotel room, felled by the flu) and I've been waiting for a chance to partake.

Alas, by the time we make our way to the front of the queue the relleno is sold out, and we're obliged to settle for milkfish stuffed merely with chopped vegetables. Yet as we soon find out, we're isn't 'settling' at all, for this version of grilled fish is a delicious dish in its own right.

Dead simple to prepare, the dish starts with a mix of chopped red onions, green chilies, and tomatoes seasoned with dark soy, and kalamansi juice.

The steps in the assembly line behind the grill fall in this order: the boned, butterflied fish is laid flat, skin side down, on a piece of banana leaf laid on top of a piece of tin foil.

It's rubbed with coarse salt and kalamansi juice,

and spread with a generous mound of vegetables drained of their soy and kalamansi sauce.

The fish is rolled tightly in its tin foil packet, but the head end is left open so that a ladel of sauce can be spooned in. Once the packet is completely sealed it spends about 15 minutes or so over the coals, the fish cooking away in all that lovely citrus-soy juice.

The fish emerges from the packet moist, fragrant, and bit piquant from chilies and kalamansi, and the vegetables are perfectly cooked, the onions having lost their harshness, the tomatoes still holding a bit of shape, and the chilies toothsome. A little extra uncooked sauce on the side makes for a nice dipping sauce.

Hot-off-the-barbie fish bundles in hand, we stake out a position at one of Salcedo's crowded picnic tables and dig in.

Salcedo Market Stuffed and Grilled Fish

Most any firm-fleshed fish would do for the this recipe; at home we've used red snapper and mackerel. A completely boned, butterflied fish is ideal, but we've also done well with mostly-boned, backbone-intact specimens. The idea is to create as much space in the belly of the fish as possible, because the more stuffing, the better.

This is not a dish that calls for the tastiest, juiciest, heirloom tomatoes. For this recipe, use firm tomatoes with a bit of tartness - green tomatoes would even work. Chilies should not be overwhelmingly fiery - you don't want to overpower the taste of the fish. We like more heat than most, achieved in this dish by chopping up a few bird chilies and adding them to the leftover raw vegetables-dipping sauce. We also found a bit of chopped coriander to be a nice addition.

If it's not grilling weather bake the fish in the oven, at around 220C or 400F for 15-20 minutes, depending on the size of your fish.

3-4 medium firm tomatoes, chopped

1 medium red onion (or 6 or so red shallots), chopped

1-2 cloves garlic, minced

7 or 8 long green chilies, chopped

2 1/2 Tbsp DARK soy

3 Tbsp kalamansi juice (susbstite lime juice or 3/4 lime juice and 1/4 orange juice)

1/2 tsp sugar

banana leaf (optional)

vegetable oil

1 medium-sized whole firm-fleshed fish, head and tail on - boneless and butterflied or mostly boned and opened as wide as it will go

coarse salt

2 or 4 kalamansi halves, depending on size of fish

bird chilies or other very hot chilies, chopped (optional)

1/2 bunch cilantro, finely chopped (optional)

additional kalamansi or lime (optional)

1. Mix together the tomatoes, onion, garlic, mild chilies, sugar, soy, and kalamansi juice and allow to sit for 14 minutes. Taste for saltiness and tartness, add soy and/or kalamansi or sugar if necessary.

2. Spread a piece of tin foil (doubled over, if not heavy-duty) big enough to enclose the fish on your countertop, shiny side up. Place banana leaf, if using, cut to width of body of fish in middle of foil. (If not using banana leaf, very thinly coat tin foil with cooking oil.

3. Place the fish on the foil or leaf (skin side down, if butterflied) and rub its flesh with salt; follow with kalamansi juice. If fish is butterflied, mound filling (drained and juice reserved or spooned from bowl with a strainer) over fish almost to edges. If the fish isn't butterflied, fill it with as much drained stuffing as it will hold without gaping open too wide.

4. Wrap the fish tightly on all but the head end. Hold the package upright and pour in a generous spoonful or two of sauce. Close the head end tightly.

5. Grill, turning 3 times, 15-20 minutes (depending on size of fish) or bake 15-20 minutes at 400F (220C), turning once.

6. Optional: While the fish is cooking stir chopped cilantro and/or chopped hot chilies into leftover sauce.

7. Serve with rice (the fish is also tasty with a nice crusty baguette!), dipping sauce and kalamansi or lime wedges on the side.

Meet the Third Generation

Many of Kuching's decades-old shop houses accomodate decades-long residents. Chinatown (the clutch of guest houses at one end of Carpenter Street notwithstanding) is still chockabloc with small businesses (a tinsmith, a coffin maker), coffeeshops, and multi generation-run eateries. And though some of the colorful shop houses on Jalan Padungan, near the western end of the city's riverfront promenade, have been transformed into smart bars and cafes, others still house unassuming family-run food enterprises.

Worn wooden trays laden with irregularly shaped coils of golden noodles alerted us to the presence of one such business, Seng Ngee Foh. We'd walked past the shop's quietly anonymous Jalan Pandungan front with nary a second glance and then, turning into the parking lot behind, beheld this bounty drying in the sun.

We circled the block again and poked our heads through the small gap between Number 148's folding doors. Cellophane-packaged noodles sat in a pile on a table near the front of the long, narrow space; in the back, we spied noodle makings.

Egg noodles have been made here for forty years; the man who started the business still tends to the noodles with the help of his children and, now, theirs. Things get going at 8am; noodles are set out back to dry around 10 and brought inside and packaged at the end of the day. Every Monday through Saturday, mixing and processing and shaping and drying and packaging happen here, in (and out back of) one small shop.

Sundays are for rest.

Regular readers know we're suckers for a good artisinal food story, but in the end flavor is what matters. Seng Ngee Foh's noodles are as good as they look, substantial (each coil weighs about 4 ounces), smooth with a good bite, and richly eggy. After boiling up a couple of coils and hanging our heads in the yolky steam that rose from our bowls, we dressed them simply with a few drops of good quality toasted sesame oil, a drizzle of dark soy, and a splash of black vinegar. Next time we'll add ginger and garlic, chili oil and Sichuan peppercorns, bean sprouts and shredded chicken, or enjoy them with an anise-scented, red-cooked beef stew ladeled on top.

 

Here's to Seng Ngee Foh's third generation.

Seng Ngee Foh, No. 148 Padungan Road, Kuching. Tel. 241471.A two-pound package of noodles costs 3 ringgit.

Spicy and Vinegary Chicken Noodle 'Salad' (adapted from Asian Pasta by Linda Burum)

14 ounces fresh Chinese egg noodles or 10 ounces dried

2 tsp sesame oil

Dressing:

2 tsps Sichuan peppercorns, lightly toasted and crushed in a mortar or ground in a spice grinder

2 Tbs grated ginger (collect the juice)

1 Tbsp finely minced garlic

3 Tbsp light soy sauce

3 Tbsp dark soy sauce

4 Tbsp (or to taste) Chinese black vinegar (Chenkiang vinegar) - or substitute red rice vinegar

4 tsp sugar

3 Tbsp good quality toasted sesame oil

2 tsp chili oil (or to taste)

2 tsp chili oil 'sludge' (the chili grounds from the bottom of the jar) - OPTIONAL

4 scallions, shredded

a couple handfuls of bean sprouts - washed, drained in a colander, then doused (softened) with boiling water and allowed to drain again

1 medium cucumber, seeded and cut into matchsticks

half bunch of cilantro, tough ends of stems discarded, roughly chopped - OPTIONAL

Combine all dressing ingredients except the Sichuan peppercorns and chili oil sludge (if using), stir or whisk to dissolve the sugar. Add the sludge and peppercorns; taste for heat and sourness, adjusting with additional vinegar or sugar or chili oil if necessary. Set aside while you cook the noodles.

Cook the noodles until just al dente, drain and plunge into cold water to stop the cooking. Drain again and toss with sesame oil (use your hands to avoid mushing noodles).

Toss the noodles with the dressing and set aside for about 10 minutes. Add vegetables and scallions, toss again, and serve at room temperature.