Javaholic

Foodbuzz 24 x 24--A Familiar New Year's Dinner

2012-01-29T23:43:00.000-08:00

People are often surprised when they learn my family celebrates Lunar New Year. Bearded, ruddy complexioned and of Anglo-Irish descent, I don't exactly look Asian. Yet for the past ten years, I've been hosting a family celebration of the Lunar New Year. Usually done the first weekend after the official New Year's date, this year's celebration happened to fall on the day of this month's Foodbuzz 24 x 24.

The first New Year's celebration that I remember was in Malaysia in 1966. Our family was living there for a year and we were invited to Cameron Highlands by the Oui family from Ipoh. Peggy had lived with us as a foreign exchange student several years before, and she and her family were very welcoming to us when we went to Malaysia. Although I'm sure we must have had some wonderful food, all that I really remember of that first New Year's is the firecrackers. I think we bought something like 10,000 firecrackers and were lighting off strings of a hundred at a time.

The first New Year's Tjing and I celebrated together was on Pulau Galang, a refugee camp in Indonesia where we were both working. That was a few months after I first met her, a good many years before we got together and married. In 1994, a few months after we got married, we moved to Vietnam for a year, arriving three days before Tet. Saigon was just starting its economic boom after years of austerity and crowds filled the streets buying flowers and foods for the celebration. The Ngo family, who we had met that first day in Saigon and who shared their house with us during our time in Saigon, invited us to share the Tet celebration with them.

In 1998, facing collapse, Suharto's regime incited race riots against Chinese. Chinese women were targeted for rape by mobs in Jakarta and elsewhere. A few months later several of Tjing's cousins, who had been living in Jakarta at that time, came to the United States where they were eventually granted asylum in January 2001. Since that time Tjing and I have been hosting the annual Lunar New Year's dinner.

We look on the dinner as a second Thanksgiving, an excuse for family to get together to celebrate our good fortune and eat some good food. I think we had maybe ten guests at the initial dinner. As families have a way of growing, the celebration has expanded to include the new members. Last night we had 17, including three small children.

Although Tjing insists we serve certain dishes (noodles and fish) others come and go depending on what I feel like cooking. We've had all Chinese dishes some years, all Vietnamese others. Not bound by family tradition, I can decide how to celebrate the year. This year we had 14 dishes and the dinner lasted about 3 hours at the table. Unfortunately, as I was busy getting dishes to the table, I forgot to get shots of the spareribs, tofu, or mushrooms.

The night's menu, some with links to recipes:

Lor Bak--pork and water chestnuts wrapped in bean curd skin and deep fried

Ngo Hiang--pork, shrimp, taro, and water chestnuts, wrapped in bean curd skin, steamed and then deep fried

Barbecued chicken wings--wings marinated in a hoisin marinade, then grilled

Pea shoot and shrimp rolls

Tea-smoked chicken

Red cooked spareribs

Braised stuffed tofu

Salt and pepper shrimp

Imperial salad

Yu choy with fried shallots and oyster sauce

Beggar's chicken

E-fu mie with beef and mushrooms

Steamed fish

Jello oranges

The lor bak is a dish I imagine we may have had at that first celebration in Cameron Highlands in 1966, popular as it is in Malaysia. Ngo hiang was a dish other UN volunteers and I used to order when we had downtime from Bidong, where neither pork nor beer was allowed. In fact, we used to call it Joe Young (which it sounds similar to) as he was the program coordinator for UNHCR. Similar to lor bak, ngo hiang also contain shrimp and are steamed before being fried. The chicken wings are something I order every time I'm in Singapore. The pea shoot and shrimp rolls are another favorite. Tea-smoked chicken has been included on most of the menus these past ten years, a good make ahead dish. The same goes with the red cooked spareribs and the stuffed tofu. Although I think some in the family prefer their shrimp peeled and headless, the salt and pepper shrimp are one of my favorites. The imperial salad and the greens with oyster sauce can be made ahead of time and assembled at the last minute. I made the beggar's chicken several years ago with a clay crust, but found the salt dough crust I used this time to actually work better. This can be baked several hours before the guests arrive and it remains warm inside the baked crust. Ia, our 5-(and a half)-year-old niece enjoyed the honor of cracking the crust. E-fu noodles are an easy, last minute dish to pull together, as is the steamed fish. Of course, steamed rice was served with the meal.

Tea-smoked Chicken

printable recipe

1 whole chicken, 3 to 4 pounds

3 inches of dried orange peel (available in an Asian market)

3 TBS Szechuan pepper salt (heat 2 TBS Szechuan peppercorns and 4 TBS kosher salt in a skillet over medium heat until fragrant. Cool and grind to a fine powder. Store the extra in a small jar.)

2 to 3 green onions cut into 2-inch lengths

4 slices ginger

1/4 cup fragrant tea leaves

1/4 cup uncooked rice

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 cinnamon stick, broken into pieces

2 to 3 star anise, broken into pieces

In a coffee or spice grinder, grind the dried orange peel and Szechuan pepper salt. Rub this over the chicken and marinate in the refrigerator overnight.

Set up a steamer. Place the green onions and ginger into the cavity of the chicken. Place the chicken on a plate and steam for about 30 minutes. Juices should show only the faintest pink. Pour off the juices (they are wonderful simmered with fried tofu) and reserve.

Line a wok with aluminum foil. Also line the lid and the tray you are going to place the chicken on. This saves a great deal of clean up. Place the tea, rice, sugar, and spices on the bottom of the foil lined wok. Place a steamer rack or whatever you're using over the rice mixture and place the chicken directly on the rack. Cover tightly with the lid. Heat the wok on high until the rice mixture begins to smoke. Smoke for 15 minutes, then turn off heat and let rest at least five minutes before serving (you can wait several hours). Brush the smoked chicken lightly with sesame oil if you like.

Beggar's Chicken

printable recipe

4 to 5 cups flour

3 cups kosher salt

+/- 1 1/2 cups water (enough to make a stiff dough)

1 whole chicken, 3 to 4 pounds

2 TBS oyster sauce

1 TBS light soy sauce

3 TBS Shaoxing wine

1/2 tsp five spice powder

1 cup roasted chestnuts (you can buy roasted chestnuts in vacuumed packed bags in Asian markets)

2 lop cheong (Chinese sausage)

1 cup 1/2-inch cubes of taro, steamed until tender and cooled

5 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked in warm water until soft

lotus leaves (or banana leaves, or parchment paper)

parchment paper (or aluminum foil)

butcher's string

Mix together the oyster sauce, soy sauce, rice wine and five spice powder. Marinate the chicken overnight in this mixture.

Stuff the chicken with the chestnuts, sausage, taro and mushrooms. Use toothpicks to skewer the cavity shut.

Mix the flour and salt together to make a stiff dough. Roll out to a thickness of about 1/4 inch.

Soak the lotus leaves, if using, in warm water for 15 minutes until softened. Wrap the stuffed chicken in two layers of lotus leaves, covering it as completely as possible. Tie this up into a bundle. Wrap the lotus leaf bundle with parchment paper, making sure it is entirely wrapped. Place the parchment wrapped bundle on the salt dough and seal completely. You need to make sure there are no openings where steam might escape.

Bake the chicken in a pre-heated 400º oven for 1 1/2 hours. Wait at least half an hour before serving. The chicken will stay warm in the unopened crust for several hours.

To serve, break open the top of the crust with a hammer. Then pull or cut away the remaining crust with shears or strong hands.

The jello oranges were made earlier in the day by Tjing. Oranges are halved, their flesh scooped out, and jello made with the juice from the oranges. The jello is poured into the hollowed out halves and allowed to set. Once set, they can be sliced into sections.

Pan Fried Pea Shoots and Shrimp Rolls

2012-01-22T12:19:00.000-08:00

Blanched pea shoots, shrimp fried with a little garlic, wrapped in a simple crepe and pan fried make a wonderful start to a meal celebrating the lunar new year. In a meal where there are going to be numerous dishes, some of which need to be prepared at the last minute, this is a dish that can be pretty much assembled ahead of time and pan fried shortly before serving. It's a light appetizer, a celebration of the coming spring and year ahead.

This is another recipe from Ellen Blonder's marvelous Dim Sum: The Art of Chinese Tea Lunch. It's a delightfully simple dish that would be at home with whatever food you choose to serve it with. Vegetarians might substitute mushrooms or carrots for the shrimp. As the rolls are sliced after they are fried, this is a much less time consuming dim sum dish for a number of people than individual dumplings.

Blonder's recipe calls for fewer shrimp than I include. Although I almost double the amount of shrimp she calls for, I don't increase the garlic or other seasonings. As a starter for the New Year's meal, the dish should be bright and not overly assertive.

Pan Fried Pea Shoots and Shrimp Rolls

printable recipe

2 large eggs

3/4 cup water

3/4 cup (95 g) sifted all-purpose flour

1 TBS peanut oil, plus more for oiling pan

1 TBS flour mixed with 1 TBS water for sealing the rolls

8 oz (227 g) pea shoots, rinsed and drained

6 to 8 oz shrimp, peeled, deveined, and cut into 1/2 inch pieces

2 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

3 TBS peanut oil, divided

1 tsp soy sauce

pinch of salt

2 tsp toasted sesame oil

First, make the crepes. In a large bowl whisk together the eggs and water. Whisk in the flour and the tablespoon of oil. Mix well, but don't worry if you still have some small lumps. Cover and let the batter stand for 20 minutes or so.

Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium-low heat. Add a teaspoon of oil and wipe the pan with a paper towel to thoroughly coat the surface. Pour in just enough batter to thinly cover the surface, tilting the pan as you pour in the batter. Cook just until the edges begin to dry. Flip and cook for ten seconds more. Remove to a plate. Continue until all the batter is used. Once all the crepes have been cooked, plated and cooled, you may wrap in plastic and refrigerate up to 24 hours.

In a large pot bring 3 quarts of water and a teaspoon of salt to a boil. Add the pea shoots and blanch for 2 minutes. You want them to have some crunch but not be too chewy. Drain the pea shoots in a colander, and rinse them under cold water. Drain thoroughly, then squeeze dry in paper towels, trying to get rid of any excess water. Once dried, roughly chop them.

Heat a skillet over medium heat. Add a tablespoon of the peanut oil. When the oil is shimmering, add the garlic, lower the heat, and stir-fry briefly until the garlic is softened and fragrant. Do not brown the garlic. Add the shrimp, raise the heat to medium and cook just long enough to cook the shrimp through. Remove the pan from heat and add the soy sauce, salt, and sesame oil. Stir in the chopped pea shoots and mix well. Set aside to cool.

To assemble the rolls, place a good portion of the pea shoot and shrimp mixture just below the center of a crepe. Along the top edge of the crepe apply a thin line of the flour and water paste. Roll the crepe from the bottom and press lightly to seal in the filling. (Nb: do not fold in the sides like making a spring roll or a burrito.) Press down on the rolled crepe to get a slightly flattened roll. Continue the process until the remaining crepes.

Once you have completed filling the crepes, heat a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the remaining 2 TBS of peanut oil. When the oil is almost smoking, pan fry the crepes, 1 or 2 at a time, turning them to brown on all sides. Drain on paper towels. Transfer the rolls to a serving plate and cut each one crosswise into 4 to 6 pieces. Serve hot. (Rolls can be assembled several hours before and fried just before you want to serve them.)

Red Cabbage and Jicama Imperial Salad

2012-01-17T13:31:00.000-08:00

Yank Sing is an upscale dim sum restaurant in San Francisco that attracts praise and criticism for its dim sum offerings. While it offers a lot of traditional dim sum dishes, it also serves a "creative collection" of modern dim sum. Many customers take umbrage at Yank Sing's deviation from classical dim sum treats, as well as its prices. It is not your typical tasty but inexpensive dim sum restaurant. Diners looking for the traditional dim sum experience of a bustling restaurant with tables filled with multi-generational families choosing from carts loaded with wu gok, siu mai, har gow, tripe and chicken feet at a very reasonable price should go elsewhere rather than Yank Sing. If you want some good dim sum that pushes the envelope of what your expectations are for dim sum, and you can afford to pay a higher price, you should give Yank Sing a try.

One of the dishes that typifies the reactions Yank Sing provokes is its Imperial Walnut Salad. While steamed greens are often served in dim sum restaurants, salads are not. That a plate also goes for more than $7 raises the ire of many diners. On the other hand, it is a delightfully refreshing salad that is a nice counterpart to the meat and seafood dumplings.

The interesting thing about this salad is that it is essentially Vietnamese. The key element to the salad is the inclusion of rau ram, or daun laksa. This herb is sometimes called Vietnamese coriander or Vietnamese mint. Although it proliferates in the garden like mint, it does suffer from cold weather. A recent cold spell in our area has reduced the herb growing in our garden. Rau ram has a bright, citrus tinged profile. It is frequently used in Vietnamese salads and in the herb platters to accompany other dishes. It enlivens the simple mixture of jicama and red cabbage in this salad. I honestly haven't had the salad at Yank Sing for quite some time, so I forget what exactly their dressing tastes like. I used a simple Vietnamese mixture of lime, fish sauce, sugar, and a little sesame oil. This made good use of the Red Boat fish sauce I received from my last Delicious Vietnam entry.

Red Cabbage and Jicama Imperial Salad

4 cups finely shredded red cabbage
1 medium jicama, peeled and cut in fine matchsticks
1/3 cup julienned rau ram
1 cup "honeyed" walnuts

3 TBS lime juice
2 TBS fish sauce
2 1/2 TBS sugar
2 TBS water
2 TBS vegetable oil
2 tsp sesame oil

In a large bowl mix together the cabbage, jicama, rau ram and walnuts. Mix the ingredients for the dressing together in a jar and shake well, making sure to dissolve the sugar. Pour the dressing (you may not need all of it) over the salad and toss well. Serve.

Do not dress the salad until you are ready to serve it.

Suon Rang--Vietnamese Glazed Spareribs

2011-12-26T10:21:00.000-08:00

The end of the semester along with an unexpected opportunity to substitute for a friend at the school where I used to teach has limited my posting recently. The end of the semester is always a busy time getting finals ready and finishing grading. The substitute position was a surprise because with cuts in the budget for adult education, the district no longer hires substitutes when teachers are sick or have jury duty; classes are simply canceled. The director of the division loathes to pay for a substitute when also paying sick leave for the absent teacher. Because her father, who himself has bone cancer, is no longer able to adequately care for his wife, who is terminally ill with cancer while also suffering from Alzheimer's, my friend had to take a family leave of absence to care for her parents. Since the school district isn't paying her, the director agreed to pay for a substitute. This is the state of compassion and education in present day America.

Although I agreed to substitute primarily because I wanted to help out a friend, I've greatly enjoyed her classes. If only the people responsible for funding education could see how important these classes are to our community. Besides recent college graduates from other countries, there is an orthodontist who fled the violence and fear of kidnapping in Mexico, a pharmacist from Algeria who is working at Del Taco, a psychologist from Spain, and a young, former accounting executive for Coca Cola in Africa in one of the classes. One of the Chinese students is also fluent in Japanese, married to a neurological researcher working at the UC Davis medical center. Many of them are already fluent in several languages, but without greater fluency in English they are reduced to working in fast food restaurants or other such menial jobs. Yet, the only reason they even have a class now is that their regular teacher is forced to go without pay in order to take care of a dying parent. Merry Christmas!

On to the main point of this blog, I suppose. The food. Today's dish is a tasteful recipe for spareribs. It has the characteristically Vietnamese combination of salty (from the fish and soy sauce) and sweet (from sugar). I served them with quick pickled beansprouts and carrots, the pickled vegetables a nice counter balance to the richness of the spareribs. The recipe is from Nicole Routhier's The Foods of Vietnam, the first Vietnamese cookbook I ever bought and still one of my favorites. In the future, I think I'll deep fry the ribs in the first part of the recipe as stir frying them requires a large wok and a great deal of patience to cook them through. I used my 22-inch wok to stir-fry the ribs, a smaller wok will probably require you to cook them in batches if you don't choose to deep fry them. Another option would be to grill them before the final step of glazing them and stir frying them with the vegetables. The important thing is to make sure they are cooked through before doing the final glaze.

Suong Rang--Vietnamese Glazed Spareribs

printable recipe

1 TBS oil
3 lbs pork spareribs, cut into 2-inch pieces
2 TBS sugar
2 TBS fish sauce
1 TBS soy sauce
2 medium onions, each cut into eighths and separated
8 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced
2 red bell peppers, cut into 1/2-inch strips
1 green bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch strips
1 bunch of green onions, cut into 2-inch pieces
freshly ground black pepper

Heat the oil in a large wok or frying pan. Add the ribs and cook on both sides until browned and almost cooked through, 25 minutes or longer. (Alternatively, deep fry the ribs in batches, about 6--8 minutes, or grill over hot coals until almost cooked through.)

Add the sugar to the ribs and cook, stirring, for another ten minutes.

Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of oil from the wok. Add the fish sauce and soy sauce and stir for five minutes. Add the onions, garlic, and peppers and stir-fry just until onions are lightly browned and peppers are becoming soft. Season with pepper and remove to a serving platter. Garnish with cilantro if you so desire. Serve with steamed rice and pickled beansprouts and carrots.

Pickled Bean Sprouts

1 pound fresh bean sprouts, tails removed if you wish
1 bunch of green onions, cut into 2-inch lengths
1 TBS salt
4 cups water
1/2 cup distilled white vinegar.

Place the sprouts and green onions in a large, non-reactive bowl.

Combine the salt, water and vinegar in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve the salt. Cool until warm to the touch. Pour this over the bean sprout mixture and stir. Marinate for at least one hour, or until ready to serve. Drain before serving.

These are best eaten on the day they are made. Don't marinate too long or they will become limp.

Pickled carrots

3 carrots
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup rice vinegar
1 TBS sugar
1/4 tsp salt

Peel carrots and cut into julienned strips or thin rounds. Combine the water, vinegar, sugar, and salt in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil. Remove and let cool to room temperature. Add the carrots to the vinegar mixture and allow to marinate for at leas one hour. Drain and serve.

I was sorry to see that Delicious Vietnam, the monthly blogging event founded by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey and Hong and Kim of The Ravenous Couple is coming to an end. It will still exist here in the world of Facebook apparently, but not as a monthly event. Anh, one of its founders, is hosting the final addition of Delicious Vietnam. Interested participants have until the final day of 2011 to take part and have a chance to win some wonderful prizes. For more detailed information, please go here.

I may try to get in another entry, but for now, this will have to do. I must say I've enjoyed participating in and having the chance to host several of the round-ups of Delicious Vietnam over the past few years. I hope it will continue to thrive on Facebook.

Pong Tauhu--Tofu with Meatball Soup

2011-12-07T12:13:00.001-08:00

Although they share many cultural, linguistic, and culinary influences, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore also have distinct differences. One of the reasons I am so fond of Indonesia is that there are so many distinct cultures throughout the archipelago. Even within Java, the Sundanese of West Java are different from the Javanese of Central and East Java, with their own language and dietary preferences.

Nonya cuisine is essentially a blend of Straits Chinese and native Malay/Indonesian spices and ingredients. As a result, you'll find a combination of tastes that you would not find in strictly Chinese or strictly Indonesian dishes. For instance, coconut milk is rarely used in Chinese dishes, and pork would of course be taboo for Muslims. This amalgamation of ingredients and flavors results in a vibrant and rich culinary tradition that stretches along the Straits of Malacca from Penang to Singapore and Riau in Indonesia.

While Penang, Malacca, and Singapore are where the Peranakan culture and cuisine have been best preserved and promoted, in truth its influence remains strong along the east coast of Sumatra and along the north coast of Java wherever Chinese communities have been. This particular recipe is from a Singapore cookbook, Nyonya Specialties by Mrs. Leong Yee Soo, but it is something I could easily imagine finding on the table in my wife's home in Kediri. It's a bright, robust soup that is hearty enough to serve as a meal on a chill winter evening.

BTW, this soup, pong tauhu, should not be confused with the Indonesian tahu pong. Although they are probably derived from the same root, tahu pong are fried tofu puffs. Those in this recipe are denser dumplings of tofu that are not fried.

Tauhu Pong--Bean Curd with Meatball Soup

adapted from Nyonya Specialties

printable recipe

1 1/2 lb prawns, preferably with heads (for making the stock)
1 1/2 lb minced pork
3 TBS green onions, finely chopped
8 oz firm tofu

Seasoning
1 TBS salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp dark soy sauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil
4 cloves of garlic, peeled, minced and fried crisp
1 tsp white pepper, finely ground

2 TBS vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and pounded to a paste
1 TBS yellow bean paste (tauco), pounded
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt or more, to taste

1 1/2 pound julienned bamboo shoots
12 oz fresh pork belly

Remove the shells (and heads) from the prawns. Reserving the meat of the prawns, fry the shells in a stockpot until they change color and are charred in spots. Pound the shells and add 6 1/2 cups water. Strain and set this stock aside.

Boil the pork belly in 4 cups of water for about 45 minutes. Cut the pork into thin strips. Add the pork stock to the prawn stock.

Mix together the seasoning ingredients. Mince the prawns and tofu and combine them with the minced pork, green onions, and seasoning. Grease your hands and roll the tofu mixture into walnut-sized balls. Place the meatballs on a tray.

Heat 2 TBS oil and fry the pounded garlic until it just begins to color. Add tauco and sugar and stir-fry for a minute. Add bamboo shoots and stir. Stir in reserved pork and prawn stock. Boil for 15 minutes, then taste and add salt.

Add meatballs and pork strips to boiling soup. Cook on a low boil until meatballs float to the surface. Simmer for 5 to 7 minutes.

Serve hot.

Javanese Nuts and Bolts

2011-11-28T14:00:00.001-08:00

Nuts and bolts (AKA Party Mix) is a seasonal snack in my family, something that pops up around this time every year. Although the recipe makes a generous amount, it disappears as fast as it is put out. The combination of toasted cereals, pretzels, and nuts with butter and worcestershire sauce produces an incredibly addictive, not too salty snack (although I've always found the packaged versions to be overly salty and nowhere nearly as tasty). As much as I love the original version (or at least the version that my mother makes), I decided to try giving it a little Javanese flavor.

Instead of butter, I substituted fresh pressed whole kernel virgin coconut oil. To be honest, I was worried that the coconut oil would overpower the mix. Fortunately, it proved to be a fairly subtle back note to the mix, not at all overwhelming or cloying. In addition to the coconut oil, I added some crisp tempe, some fried kaffir lime leaves, and some fried, finely chopped lemongrass. Instead of using worcestershire sauce, I used kecap manis, some fish sauce, and some panang curry paste. Although not my mother's party mix, this proved to be just as addictive. If you're looking to give a different twist on an old standby, I'd certainly recommend giving this a try.

Javanese Nuts and Bolts

printable recipe

2 stalks of lemongrass, inner lower third only, very finely chopped (easiest to do in a food processor)
14 kaffir lime leaves

2 cups bite-size wheat square cereal (such as Wheat Chex®)
2 cups bite-size corn square cereal (such as Corn Chex®)
2 cups bite-size rice square cereal (such as Rice Chex®)
2 cups toasted oat cereal rings (such as Cheerios®)
2 cups pretzels
1 1/2 cups lightly salted dry roasted cashews
1 1/2 cups tempe sliced into pieces 2" x 3/4" x 1/3" and deep fried until crisp

1 cup fresh pressed virgin coconut oil
1/4 cup kecap manis
1 TBS fish sauce
2 tsp panang curry paste

Preheat your oven to 225º F.

In a pan over medium low heat, fry the lemongrass in several tablespoons of the coconut oil until browned and crisp, like when making tofu with lemongrass.

Fry the kaffir limes in hot oil until crisp. Alternatively, crisp in a microwave. You want to be able to crumble them easily.

Heat the remaining coconut oil in a small saucepan. Stir in the curry paste until it is dissolved in the oil, and then stir in the kecap manis and fish sauce.

In a large bowl mix the cereals, pretzels, cashews, and fried tempe. Pour in the coconut oil mixture. Mix well, tossing and stirring the cereals so all get coated. Stir in the browned lemongrass and the crumbled kaffir lime leaves. Mix well and pour into a large roasting pan.

Bake in the preheated oven for about an hour, stirring every fifteen minutes or so. Cool before serving.

I've found the kaffir lime flavor to become more pronounced the longer the mix sits. This is a flavor I think can be overbearing--as I find it is in Trader Joe's Thai-spiced cashew nuts. You can taste the kaffir lime leaves in this mix, but they don't dominate it.

Orak Arik Wortel--Carrots and Cabbage with Eggs

2011-11-25T14:42:00.001-08:00

After the excess of feasting that is Thanksgiving in the United States, this is a simple, restrained vegetarian recipe. As in many countries where animal protein is expensive and not a part of the daily diet of much of the society, in Indonesia eggs are a relatively inexpensive source of protein. Orak arik are simple scrambles of vegetables and eggs.

While a lot of Indonesian food is generously spiced, orak arik dishes tend to be rather tame. The ingredients and the spicing indicate a Dutch influence. According to this site, the orange carrots we are used to today evolved from varieties cultivated by the Dutch in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The Indonesian word for carrot--wortel--is taken directly from the Dutch.

Although this could be served as an accompaniment to a meat dish such as grilled chicken or fish, it also is satisfying on its own with some rice. Especially after the glut of indulgence these last few days, a dish like this is simply satisfying.

Orak Arik Wortel

printable recipe

1 1/2 cups julienned carrots (about 3 medium carrots)
1 1/2 cups shredded cabbage
2--3 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
3 eggs, lightly beaten
1 TBS oil for stir frying

Heat oil in a wok or frying pan over medium-high heat. Add shallots and garlic and fry until fragrant. Then add carrots and cabbage and stir fry until carrots soften, around five minutes. Stir in eggs, salt and pepper, and scramble until eggs and vegetables are well mixed and eggs are thoroughly cooked. Serve with steamed rice.

You may notice I added sliced chiles, but those are strictly optional.

Thanksgiving and Loss

2011-11-18T10:40:00.001-08:00

The world, my world, was diminished this week. Tuesday morning in Kediri, East Java, my father-in-law died. He had been sick for many months, weakened and ravaged by the cancer that first blossomed on his tongue six years ago. He had had half his tongue removed, been reduced to a diet of liquid and pap, yet he was unbowed by the disease. Oh, he complained about what the cancer had cost him, complained that he had lost his sense of taste while also complaining that the bubur, soto or whatever else he happened to be eating didn't taste good, but he had many of the same complaints even before the cancer. The eldest male in his family, when Pa spoke, everyone did as he said without argument. It was hard to see him this summer, months after the cancer had reappeared, struggling to speak, his voice stolen by the disease.

I first met Pa a little over 18 years ago. I had asked Tjing to marry me and she had, with great trepidation, gone back to Kediri to ask her father for his permission. Had he said no, that would have been the end of it. Never mind that we were both adults living independent lives, if Pa had told Tjing to end it, that would have been that. Tjing knew (as did I) there was also a very good chance that would happen. Although she had known me for almost six years by then, my existence had never been broached to either her mother, who died a few years earlier, or her father. Knowing all this, it's rather remarkable that I wasn't more nervous when I went to the train station that morning to meet him.

In fact, Pa and I got along very well together right from the start. We were oddly similar in many ways, both probably more feared by our families than by the community at large. Like me, he accepted there are idiots loose in the world, but wouldn't suffer fools gladly. He was also comfortable with silences and had little use for idle gossip. Unlike his daughter, he believed in getting to the airport or train station in plenty of time. Tjing and I both had to laugh when we said our final farewell this summer and he was enraged because he thought we would be late for our train although the station was less than ten minutes away and he had us leaving with almost 45 minutes to spare. He shook his fist and bellowed with rage at our failure to have becaks lined up in advance to take us to the station. When we had finally managed to get our bags and ourselves into the becaks, he relaxed and dismissed us with a wave.

What a lot of people didn't realize is what a great sense of humor Pa had. He came to the US a couple years after we had moved into our house. Because Tjing didn't feel able to deal with him in the classroom, he came to study in the school where I taught. As I was teaching a Beginning Low class, Pa was a student in my class. In the class there was a Russian student who had a very prominent, very long nose. He was also not particularly bright, one of those students who is always a page or two behind the rest of the class, so when he was asked a question he would give a nonsensical answer. Pa nicknamed him "Petruk," one of the clown-servants in Indonesian wayang plays. To this day, when I have a student who is a little bit lost, I think of Pa and Petruk and smile.

One time in Bandung, where one of Tjing's brothers lives and where Pa often stayed, he noticed a worker seemed to be upset. When he asked him what was wrong, the worker explained he had had a bad dream. In his dream the worker was reading the book of his life and he had come to the last page when he woke up. He was sure the dream meant he would die soon. Pa told the worker not to worry. Maybe, Pa said, it was just book one in a series. They both laughed and the worker was visibly more relaxed, able to look forward to a long life.

I could never express how thankful I am that Pa allowed me to marry his daughter, to take her so far from him, and to allow me into his family and his home. He always treated me with more respect, more kindness, and more love than I am sure I deserved. He was a good man, one who taught me much in the brief time I knew him, one I am proud to have loved and been loved by, who I will sorely miss now that he is gone. So I give thanks for the time I had with him, for the gifts he bestowed upon me, for his grace. May he rest in peace.

Vietnamese Cabbage Rolls

2011-11-10T15:36:00.001-08:00

Until I lived in Vietnam, I had never thought of cabbage rolls as a Vietnamese dish. I also had never thought of them as very appetizing. I can only remember a few times when I had eaten them, and they always seemed like death warmed over. In recent years golubsi, the Slavic version of cabbage rolls, have become one of the staples at school potlucks, and while I have had some pretty good ones, they pale in comparison to the Vietnamese version.

This recipe uses pork as the main ingredient for the filling, but in Vietnam we often had a vegetarian version with tofu. Di Nguyet, one of the aunts in the house we lived in, was a devout Buddhist and maintained a vegetarian diet. The rest of the family, however, only followed a vegetarian diet two days a month. As much as I like the cabbage rolls with pork, I enjoyed the vegetarian version just as much. I'll post a recipe for that sometime soon.

This is what I would describe as Vietnamese comfort food. I have never seen it on a menu either here or in Vietnam, but it was a dish regularly enjoyed by the family we lived with. It's a perfect dish for these cool fall evenings. This recipe is adapted from Nicole Routhier's The Foods of Vietnam.

Vietnamese Cabbage Rolls--Su Nhoi Thit Heo

printable recipe

1 head of cabbage
1 pound of ground pork
6 dried shitakes, soaked in warm water for 30 minutes, chopped
1 bundle of cellophane noodles, soaked in warm water for 20 minutes, cut in two-inch lengths
5 shallots, peeled and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
2 TBS fish sauce
1 tsp or more of freshly ground pepper
20 flowering chives or garlic chives, blanched 30 seconds, rinsed in cold water, drained

Sauce

1 28 oz can of whole plum tomatoes, no salt added, or 6 fresh plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
2 TBS vegetable oil
4 shallots, peeled and thinly sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled and thinly sliced
2 TBS fish sauce
2 tsp sugar
1 cup chicken broth or water

Place the head of cabbage in a pot of boiling salted water for about 5 minutes. Remove and place in an ice bath. Drain and peel the leaves from the cabbage. As you get towards the interior, you may have to repeat the process. Boiling the cabbage makes the leaves pliable and easy to roll.

In a food processor, pulse the shallots, garlic, and mushrooms until they are finely chopped. (You can do all the chopping by hand, but this is one of those times when a food processor comes in handy.) Add the cellophane noodles and pulse several times before adding the ground pork. Add fish sauce, ground pepper, and sugar, processing briefly to get a fairly homogenous mixture.

Place several tablespoons of the pork mixture on a cabbage leaf. Roll the leaf as if making a burrito or a spring roll. Tie a chive around the roll. Repeat with the remaining pork mixture and cabbage leaves. You should get around 16 bundles.

Heat a 12-inch saute pan with high sides over medium-high heat. Fry the garlic and shallots in the oil until fragrant. Stir in the canned tomatoes, broth or water, fish sauce, and sugar. Using a wooden spoon or a spatula, break up the tomatoes into smaller pieces. Add the cabbage rolls, submerging them as much as possible in the sauce. Simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes. If you are unable to submerge all the rolls, rotate the submerged ones with those on top about half way through.

Serve with rice.

I'm submitting this post for Delicious Vietnam # 19, hosted this month by Ginger of Ginger and Scotch (which happen to be two items I have an almost insatiable appetite for). Delicious Vietnam is a monthly food blogging event open to any Vietnamese food lover. The aim is to promote and explore the diversity of Vietnamese cuisine.

The idea behind this event came about several years ago by Anh of A food lovers’ journey. Hooking up with Hong and Kim from Ravenous Couple, the idea finally came to fruition. To learn more about Delicious Vietnam and how you can participate, click on this link.

Vietnamese Coffee Crack Pie

2011-11-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

Having heard so much about Momofuku's infamous crack pie, I decided I'd make it for a recent bookclub dinner. Essentially a variation of chess pie, Christina Tosi's crack pie is a rich, extremely sweet dessert; click on the recipe for it and a rash of links to diabetes control and information websites appear. Had Jerry Garcia survived the heroin, this would have been his demise. Give an eight-year old a suggested serving sized slice of this and pull him down from the ceiling eight hours later.

Reading the recipe for crack pie, I thought it seemed sweeter than something I would normally choose. Still, I didn't want to just say no. I made Tosi's crack pie following her recipe verbatim. It produced a luscious, enticing pie that everyone else in the bookclub enjoyed. However, it was too sweet for my taste. I loved the crust and the filling was wonderfully creamy and silky, but it was like mainlining sugar.

In as much I drink my coffee straight--black, no sugar, no milk--I still had some sweetened condensed milk in the fridge from making the Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream. Hoping to make a pie that had the silkiness of Tosi's filling without quite so much sweetness, I decided to try a coffee flavored version of crack pie using the sweetened condensed milk. The milk substituted for the cream and white sugar called for in the original recipe.

Vietnamese Coffee Crack Pie

printable recipe

1 prepared crust following Tosi's recipe
(I used a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom)

Filling

3 1/2 oz light brown sugar (about 7 TBS)
1/8 tsp salt
a scant 3 TBS milk powder
1/2 cup (1 cube) melted butter
1/4 cup espresso or strongly brewed coffee
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
4 large beaten egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla

Heat the oven to 350º F. Place the pan with prepared pie crust on a large baking sheet.

In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, salt, milk powder, butter, espresso, and sweetened condensed milk until you have a fairly homogenous mixture. Gently whisk in the egg yolks and vanilla without whisking in too much air.

Pour the filling into the prepared crust. Bake for 15 minutes at 350º, then lower the temperature to 325º and bake until filling is just slightly wobbly. This took around 15 to 20 minutes for the coffee filling, which has more liquid than Tosi's original filling. When done, remove and cool on a rack.

Refrigerate for several hours. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Slice and serve.
Tosi's recipe says each pie makes 6 to 8 servings. I'd suggest 12 slices per pie.

Terung Isi Udang--Shrimp Stuffed Baby Eggplant

2011-11-01T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is a recipe that is derived from a dim sum favorite. Dim sum restaurants make a similar dish using long Japanese eggplant sliced on a bias, sandwiching the shrimp stuffing between pieces of eggplant. It's a dish that is both attractive and delectable.

One of the many benefits of the extensive and diverse population of immigrants in California is the impact it has had on local agriculture and markets. Each immigrant community brings its own flavors and accents to the communal table. Thirty-five years ago fish sauce was a rarity, found only in Filipino markets. In Sacramento, we've seen each wave of immigrants, from Vietnam, Laos, Mexico, El Salvador and Soviet-block countries to Afghanistan and Iraq, open markets to serve the tastes of their communities. The farmers markets offer produce that was unknown here ten years ago. One such offering is baby eggplant.

Similar in taste to Japanese eggplant, baby eggplant may be dark purple, light purple, or variegated purple and white. They range in size from that of a medium egg, sometimes smaller, to several inches in length. They're great in Thai curries, in salads, or simply grilled. Stuffing them with a shrimp mousse and frying them makes for a tasty and visually appealing main dish. With a side of stir-fried greens and some steamed rice, you've got yourself a nice dinner.

Terung Isi Udang

printable recipe

12 baby eggplants (if unavailable, use Japanese eggplant)
1 pound peeled, deveined shrimp
3 green onions, green part only, finely chopped
1 tsp salt (plus more for salting the eggplant)
1 TBS rice wine
2 1/2 tsp cornstarch

Peanut or vegetable oil for frying

Make 4 cuts in the eggplants from bottom to top, so each eggplant is essentially quartered lengthwise but is still intact near the stem and calyx. Spread the eggplant open and sprinkle with salt. Set aside for twenty minutes or so while you prepare the shrimp filling.

Place the shrimp in a food processor and pulse until the shrimp are coarsely chopped. Add the chopped green onions, salt, rice wine and cornstarch. Pulse several more times to mix the ingredients thoroughly.

Squeeze and wipe the eggplants with paper towels to remove the excess salt and moisture. Holding them open, spoon in the shrimp mixture.

Heat about 2 inches of oil to 350º F in a wok or fryer of your choice. Fry the eggplant in three batches, frying four at each time and maintaining the temperature. Each batch should take around four or five minutes. Remove and drain on paper towels. You may keep the first batches warm in a low oven (200º F) while cooking the remaining eggplant if you wish.

These may be served with a simple sauce of chicken stock with some ginger, green onions, and tausi (fermented black beans) slightly thickened with cornstarch, but they also taste good with nuoc cham, the sambal of your choice, or just on their own.

Kue Soes Kopi Kapulaga--Cardamom Coffee Cream Puffs

2011-10-25T13:09:00.000-07:00

As my blog is entitled Javaholic, many people assume that I focus primarily on coffee. As much as I enjoy a good cup of coffee, which I do several times a day, this blog is more interested in exposing people to Indonesian food. However, after having gone more than two years without a post specifically related to coffee, I find myself having two coffee related posts this month.

When the Foodbuzz Tastemaker program offered interested bloggers a chance to create a post about a dish that would pair with some new blends Peet's was promoting, I leapt at the opportunity. For one thing, I got two bags of Peet's coffee from the deal. Yes, I can be had cheap. I wouldn't have done it, however, if Peet's weren't already my choice for coffee. It seems to be one of the few places where I can get a good cappuccino that is not just a frothy latté. I also appreciate that it uses a lot of Indonesian textile motifs in its decorations.

The new blends--Café Domingo, which is a blend of Central and South American coffees, and Café Solano, which is a blend of African, Indo-Pacific and South American coffees--are medium roasts. Interestingly, Indonesian coffee drinkers tend to favor medium roasts. During my visit to Kediri this past summer, my brother-in-law couldn't appreciate the dark roast Sulaweisi I brought, preferring a medium roast from Flores. He would definitely appreciate the Café Solano.

I don't generally drink much coffee past noon, but I do enjoy it sometimes with dessert. As one of the desserts that Tjing likes is kue soes, which is what Indonesians call cream puffs, I decided to make some with an Indonesian spiced pastry cream. Topped with a simple dark chocolate sauce, these pair very nicely with the medium roast blends.

Kue Soes Kopi Kapulaga--Cardamom Coffee Cream Puffs

1 cup of bread flour (although all-purpose will also work)

1 TBS sugar

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup milk

1/4 cup water

1/3 cup butter (5 1/3 TBS)

4 large eggs (at room temperature)

Sift together the flour, sugar and salt. In a medium saucepan bring the milk, water and butter to a boil over medium heat. As soon as the liquid comes to a boil, dump in the flour mixture and stir well to form a soft dough. Off the heat, stir in one egg at a time, making sure that each egg is thoroughly incorporated before adding the next egg. By the time the last egg has been incorporated, the dough should be satiny and smooth. Using a pastry bag or two tablespoons, place twelve balls of dough on a parchment or silicone lined cookie sheet. Bake for ten minutes at 400º F, then lower the oven to 350º F and bake another 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Cool before filling.

Cardamom Coffee Pastry Cream

1 1/4 cups whole milk

1/4 cup espresso

1/2 cup sugar

4 egg yolks

3 TBS corn starch

the seeds from 4 cardamom pods, finely ground in a mortar

1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg

Whisk together the egg yolks with the sugar until light and creamy. Stir in the corn starch, making sure there are no lumps.

Meanwhile, bring the milk, espresso, cardamom and nutmeg to a boil. Pour the hot liquid into the egg yolk mixture while whisking steadily to temper the eggs. Then add this back to the rest of the milk in the pan and stir over low heat for several minutes until it thickens. Chill the pastry cream until you are ready to fill the cooled puffs.

Dark Chocolate Sauce

1/2 cup light corn syrup

1 cup whipping cream

8 oz dark chocolate (I use Trader Joe's) finely chopped

In a small sauce pan heat the corn syrup and whipping cream just until it comes to a simmer. Pour over the chopped chocolate and stir to melt the chocolate. Drizzle warm over the filled cream puffs.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee or the beverage of your choice.

I'd like to thank Foodbuzz and Peet's for the coffee and coupons they sent me for taking part in this promotion.

Olive Oil Pound Cake with Almond Meal

2011-10-18T12:03:00.000-07:00

While my wife and I share similar tastes for most savory dishes, desserts are another matter. I have a weakness for butterfat. The higher percentage of butterfat in a dish, the more likely I am to love it. My wife, however, has an aversion to butterfat. Shortbread cookies--no. Croissants, proper ones--no. Traditional pound cake--no. My mother makes a very good traditional pound cake rich with eggs and butter. I love it, but Tjing doesn't care for the buttery richness. Desserts are a cultural divide that finds us on two distant shores. This olive oil pound cake helped us bridge that distance.

Catherine, a local blogger who is very active in the Sacramento food scene and is the author of Munchie Musings, helped organize a dinner for Sacramento bloggers at the Greek Village Inn last month that was also a promotional event for Star Fine Foods who wanted to showcase their release of a 100% California olive oil. Besides a nice chance to meet and interact with some other local bloggers while enjoying a delicious Greek meal (Tjing also can't stand the smell of lamb, so any time I have it is a rare treat), I came away with a bottle of olive oil (the regular extra virgin--not the California terroir). As fond as I am of butter, I did think this made a delicious pound cake, one that you could almost feel righteous in eating, good fat vs bad fat and all that. Most importantly, it tastes good.

Olive Oil Pound Cake with Almond Meal

1 1/4 cups (160 gr) all purpose flour

1/2 cup (50 gr) almond meal

2 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

4 eggs, room temperature

3/4 cup olive oil

finely grated zest of one lemon

1 tsp almond essence

Preheat the oven to 350º F. Grease a 9" x 5" loaf pan. You may line the bottom with parchment paper if you wish. (I found it slightly easier to remove the cake when the pan had the parchment paper, but not that difficult to remove it without the parchment paper. I use a pyrex glass pan, and I think I liked the crust a little more on the loaf without the parchment paper.)

Sift or stir together the flour, almond meal, baking powder, and salt.

In a large bowl set over a pan with about an inch of hot water, beat the eggs and sugar together until the volume nearly triples. The mixture should be the consistency of whipped cream just before it gets to the soft peak stage.

Carefully fold the dry ingredients into the egg mixture by sprinkling the flour mix over the top little by little and stirring it in. Add the olive oil, lemon zest, and almond essence, making sure to stir well to keep the oil from pooling in the bottom of the bowl. Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake for 40 to 50 minutes until the cake is a golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Let cool in the pan for five to ten minutes, then remove and cool on a rack.

Delicious Vietnam--Chi Lang Profiteroles with Caramel Rum Sauce

2011-10-09T23:25:00.000-07:00

The first thing someone usually says to me when they hear I have a blog called Javaholic is "oh, so you write about coffee." And then I explain that no, my blog is not about coffee or coffeehouses, but deals mostly with Indonesian and Southeast Asian food, with a leaning towards the food of Java. In fact, I believe this is my first post in the two and a half years the blog has been in existence that coffee is the primary focus of the post. And then it's for Vietnamese coffee. As the basis for ice cream.

Although not a focus of this blog, I do drink several cups of coffee almost every day, and have done so for most of the last thirty-five years or so. I like my coffee black, no sugar, no milk--kopi pahit in Indonesia, kopi o kosong in Singapore and Malaysia, cafe den in Vietnam. However, I occasionally enjoy a glass of cafe sua da, Vietnamese iced-coffee with sweetened condensed milk. So when I came across a recipe for Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream in David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop, I decided to use it as the basis for my submission to this month's Delicious Vietnam.

(Follow the jump for the recipe and the rest of the story.)

In 1994, recently married and living in Vietnam, I was struggling to make a living as an ESL teacher in Saigon. Some friends and I had the bright idea of trying to establish an English language school with a Vietnamese partner and while our classes were full, we were being paid in dong. I also had some private lessons, so my days often began at 7:00 in the morning and my last class didn't end until 9:00 at night.

One of the simple pleasures in Saigon was having a cup of coffee at a streetside cafe. Chi Lang was a small park located on Dong Khoi where we would sometimes stop after our last class. At a time when a dollar was worth about 15,000 dong, an iced coffee was around 4,000 dong and for 3,000 more you could add a shot of local rum to get what we called Vietnamese rocket fuel. It was a great energy boost at the end of a long day, but I soon learned it was not anything to fool with if I wanted to get a good sleep that night. Although I was saddened during our last visit to Saigon several years ago to see that Chi Lang had been turned into yet another high end shopping center, its combination of Vietnamese coffee and rum was the inspiration for these profiteroles.

All of the recipes used to assemble this dish are actually from The Perfect Scoop. I was thinking of using a cream based caramel, but when I read Lebovitz's recipe, it seemed much more appropriate as it is essentially just Vietnamese caramel sauce with a shot of rum. Add some whipped cream if you like; I would have if I had had some at hand. A good chocolate sauce would also complement the ice cream.

Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream

1 1/2 cups sweetened condensed milk
1 1/2 cups espresso or strongly brewed coffee--use decaffeinated coffee if you wish, but use good coffee
1/2 cup half and half (light cream)
1 tsp finely ground dark roast coffee

Whisk together, the condensed milk, espresso, half and half, and ground coffee. Chill. When the mixture is thoroughly chilled, freeze it in an ice cream maker.

Profiteroles

1/2 cup water
1 tsp sugar
3 TBS unsalted butter, cut in small pieces
1/2 cup flour
2 large eggs, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 425º F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silpat.

Stir the water, sugar, and butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat until the butter is melted. Remove the pan from the heat and dump in the flour. Stir briskly with a wooden spoon until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the sides of the pan.

After allowing the dough to cool for two minutes, beat in one egg at a time. After the first egg has been thoroughly incorporated, beat in the second egg. The dough should be smooth and satiny.

Using two spoons or a pastry bag, make mounds of dough about the size of walnuts on the baking sheet evenly spaced about an inch apart. Bake the puffs for about 30 minutes or until puffed and golden brown (I found they were done around 24 minutes in my oven). Turn off the oven and leave them in for another five minutes. These are best on the day they are made.

Caramel Rum Sauce

If you have some Vietnamese caramel sauce on hand for your kho, simply add a tablespoon (or more!) of a good dark rum to make the caramel rum sauce.

To make Vietnamese caramel sauce, Andrea Nguyen has a good tutorial here.

To serve the profiteroles, split a cream puff and fill with a generous scoop of the ice cream. Drizzle a small amount of the caramel sauce on top.

I'm submitting this post for Delicious Vietnam # 18, hosted this month by bonniebella. Delicious Vietnam is a monthly food blogging event open to any Vietnamese food lover. The aim is to promote and explore the diversity of Vietnamese cuisine.

The idea behind this event came about several years ago by Anh of A food lovers’ journey. Hooking up with Hong and Kim from Ravenous Couple, the idea finally came to fruition. To learn more about Delicious Vietnam and how you can participate, click on this link.

Indonesian Red-Braised Beef Shanks

2011-10-07T12:25:00.000-07:00

Red-cooked dishes are popular Chinese dishes although they are not often found in restaurants in the US. Most commonly featuring chicken or pork, the "red" stock they are cooked in is often a master stock that has been used and refreshed numerous times, becoming ever more flavorful and nuanced. Unlike those dishes, this red-braised beef is a simpler affair, with its flavors similar to those of beef semur.

Although Tjing doesn't much care for beef, her cousins are big meat eaters. As their kitchen is currently undergoing a major renovation, I've been asked to cook some dinners for them. With a recent cool down and light showers bringing an end to our summer, it seemed like a good time to make some stew. This is a stew any meat and mushroom lover would appreciate. The recipe is adapted from Terrific Pacific Cookbook, a cookbook with many delicious recipes influenced or inspired by Asian cuisines.

Indonesian Red-Braised Beef Shanks

1/4 cup peanut oil
1 TBS roasted sesame oil
3 to 4 pounds meaty beef shanks
1/2 pound crimini mushrooms, sliced
2/3 cup shao hsing rice wine
6 TBS kecap manis
1 TBS dark soy sauce
3 slices ginger, crushed
10 dried shitake mushrooms, stems removed, rinsed to remove any grit
1/3 cup tamarind water (from 1 TBS tamarind pulp dissolved in boiling water, strained)
1 stick of cinnamon
4 1/2 cups beef stock or canned broth

2 tsp cornstarch mixed with 1 TBS cold water

Tie in a piece of cheesecloth or place in a spice bag:
2 star anise, crushed
1 tsp black peppercorns, lightly crushed
1 tsp coriander seeds, lightly crushed
5 cloves, lightly crushed
3 pieces tangerine peel

In a dutch oven or large pan heat the oils over medium-high heat until almost smoking. In batches, brown the beef shanks. Remove the beef from the pan and fry the mushrooms until browned. Remove the mushrooms and place with the browned beef.

Pour off the fat from the pan and add the rice wine, scraping the pan with a wooden spoon to get up all those good brown bits. At this point I pour all of this liquid into a Chinese claypot and cook over medium heat until the liquid is reduced by about half, but you can simply continue cooking in the same pot if you like. Add the soy sauces, tamarind water, ginger, shitakes, cinnamon, spices in the cheesecloth or spice bag, along with the stock, and bring this to a boil. Add the beef and sliced mushrooms, cover the pot, and simmer for 1 1/2 to two hours, until the beef is tender and falling from the bones.

Uncover the pot and simmer on low until the liquid is reduced and thickened to your liking. Stir in the cornstarch slurry and cook for several minutes. You don't want a gravy-like sauce, but something approaching that of a good beef bourguignon.

White Peaches with Saffron Jam

2011-09-27T10:45:00.000-07:00

Several years ago, several months after I began this blog, I participated in Steph Chow's initial Jam Exchange. Steph organizes this each summer, pairing participating bloggers who produce and exchange two half pint jars of jam. Although Tjing and I don't really eat a lot of jam, I decided to participate as a way to motivate myself to try something I might otherwise choose not to do.

Making the jam itself didn't seem particularly daunting, but canning it successfully, without producing a toxic gift package, did give me qualms. Science wasn't exactly my forte in school, and canning seemed an arcane and possibly perilous undertaking. Anyone who has canned at home knows the relief I felt when the lids of those first jars pinged as the jars cooled.

In reality, if you can bake a cake, you can can. It's simply a matter of following some steps and paying attention to details. You may need to step up your game (and buy a pressure canner) to do more challenging canning with low acid foods, but preserves and jams seem fairly straightforward.

Although the rules allow you to send two half-pint jars of the same jam, I always try to send two different jams. Both the jams I sent this year were adapted from Christine Ferber's Mes Confitures. Sacramento enjoyed a remarkably cool summer which seemed to extend the peach season. As I was still able to get some good white peaches in September, I chose to try Ferber's recipe for white peaches with saffron. This produces a very nice jam with a subtle flavor and hue from the saffron. It is quite splendid on a warm buttermilk biscuit.

White Peaches with Saffron

3 pounds of firm, ripe white peaches
3 1/2 to 3 3/4 cups granulated sugar
juice of 1 small lemon
a pinch of saffron (Ferber calls for 15 threads)

Blanch the the peaches in boiling water for a minute or two. Remove and immediately place the peaches in an ice bath. After peeling the peaches, cut them in half and remove their pits. Thinly slice the halves and put in a large pan with the sugar, lemon juice, and saffron. Bring this mixture to a simmer and then turn into a glass bowl. Allow to cool, then cover with plastic and refrigerate overnight.

The next day, pour this mixture through a sieve set over a large pan to drain the liquid from the fruit. Boil this syrup, skimming the froth, until it reaches 221º F on a candy thermometer. Add the peaches and return to a boil for about 5 minutes, skimming as needed. As soon as the mixture reaches 221º F, remove from heat and place into jars. Follow the directions for canning jams.

(Ferber suggests simply ladling the jam into sterilized jars, placing on the lids, and turning the jars upside down--forgoing the water bath method of canning. While this may be fine for the French ;-), it falls short of USDA guidelines. Fearful of shipping off a half-pint of botulism--and with my veins flowing red, white, and blue--I follow the American guidelines.)

Ahi Poke

2011-09-23T10:45:00.000-07:00

If you look towards the right side of the island, you'll notice the landing strip for Bandaneira, the main island in Central Maluku. Landing on the strip in a twin engine prop is a exhilarating experience. As you approach the island you notice how the strip bisects the island where it narrows. It seems impossible that the plane will stop before the strip ends and you find yourself in the sea, but it does. At least it did when I flew there in the late 80s.

Bandaneira is an island that doesn't attract too many foreign visitors although some of the best snorkeling in Indonesia can be found there and at other nearby islands. It was here that the Dutch East Indies Company shifted from being simply a commercial force to a colonizing power. Nutmeg is indigenous to the Banda islands, and the Dutch so wanted to maintain absolute control over the production of the spice that they traded Manhattan to the British for one of the islands.

I traveled there by myself, staying in a guesthouse for a few dollars a day. The only other tourists at the time were a handful of young Germans who had the charming habit of dipping tobacco and were intent on getting some good underwater pictures of sharks. The apparent leader of the group seemed to be the heaviest user of the dip, and as he spoke he would intermittently pause and dribble some dark saliva into a cup he carried.

They had a great wealth of underwater cameras, lights, and gear for filming their snorkeling excursions. We all hiked up the adjacent volcano one day before snorkeling in a beautiful cove. Because he wanted to get some good close-ups of sharks if possible, the dipper thought it would be a good idea to tie a mesh bag filled with fish heads around his waist while he snorkeled. I swam away from the group.

It was during this trip I first had raw ahi. A sport fishing boat that was connected to the hotel in town had caught some yellowfin. I happened to be at the hotel when they arrived and proceeded to fillet the fish and serve up some pieces with some wasabi and soy sauce. That began my appreciation for raw ahi.

Poke is a Hawaiian dish of ahi and onion with a simple dressing of soy sauce, sesame oil and a few other ingredients. As with any recipe for raw ahi, the most important thing is to make sure you use only the best, freshest sashimi grade ahi. The recipe is adapted from HAWAI'I Magazine.

Ahi Poke

1/2 lb. fresh ahi cubed into 1/4 inch pieces
1 TBS Ponzu sauce
1 TBS soy sauce
2 green onions, chopped, including green tops
2 TBS chopped Maui onion (or sweet yellow onion)
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp Lingham's Hot Sauce with Garlic
Sea salt, to taste
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
1 tsp roasted kemiri (candlenut) ground with 1/2 tsp sea salt

Mix all ingredients together in a bowl. Refrigerate for two hours before serving.

Tjing and I make a meal of this with rice and wakame (a kind of seaweed), but it also makes a nice appetizer served with fried won ton skins.

Cherry Tomato Clafoutis

2011-09-20T10:48:00.000-07:00

I first encountered Patricia Wells while working in Sungei Besi refugee camp in Malaysia. Having little else of interest to read, I would read every inch of the International Herald Tribune, including the financial news and coverage of test cricket, two subjects I remain woefully ignorant of. Patricia Wells' articles came out once or twice a week as I recall.

While almost all the writing in the paper was of a very high standard--even the cricket coverage could be compelling--I particularly enjoyed Wells' articles. Mostly reviews of Parisian eateries, her writing was informative and informed. When she praised a particular chef's handling of bouillabaisse, she placed it within the context of other chefs' treatment of the dish, not only pointing out the differences, but explaining why each chose the approach they did. It was obvious when reading her that Wells had a great knowledge of and keen passion for the food she wrote about. Living on a $500 a month salary, working in a rather bleak refugee camp on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, I found myself transported to the bistros and restaurants Wells assayed in her articles.

Although I tend to cook mostly Asian food and thus my collection of cookbooks skews towards recipes from those countries, I do have a handful of other cookbooks I enjoy. For French and Italian food I am partial to Wells and Joyce Goldstein. Both authors not only write clear, tasty recipes, but also include information on the background of the dishes and useful tips along with a clean prose style. I have seldom been disappointed in any of the recipes I have tried from either of these authors.

Having stopped by the Mien strawberry stand down the street from my house, I discovered they had these brilliant jewels of cherry tomatoes little bigger than peas. Once I saw them, I decided I'd have to find a way to use them. This recipe for cherry tomato clafoutis is adapted from Wells' recipe for tomato clafoutis from Patricia Wells at Home in Provence. Larger cherry tomatoes would work just as well--and be a lot less time consuming when halving and salting. Wells recipe (which I halved) calls for baking the clafoutis in a 10 1/2-inch round baking dish.

Cherry Tomato Clafoutis

1 1/2 cups cherry tomatoes, halved
fine sea salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
3 TBS heavy cream
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves

Preheat the oven to 375º F.

Place the halved tomatoes in a colander, cut side up. Sprinkle them with the salt. Set aside for 30 to 60 minutes to allow the salt to draw the liquid from the tomatoes. Then place the tomatoes in a bowl lined with paper towels.

In a small bowl, bet together the egg, yolk, cream, half the cheese, and half the thyme leaves.

Divide the tomatoes between two four-inch ramekins. Pour the batter over the tomatoes. Top with the remaining thyme and cheese.

Bake in the oven until the batter is set and the clafoutis is golden. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Choy Sum Stir Fried with Eggs--Cah Caisim Orak-arik Telur

2011-09-13T14:34:00.000-07:00

Indonesian food is a marvelous melange of ingredients and influences from around the world. Peanuts, native to South America, were brought to Asia by the Portuguese. Although nutmeg and cloves are native to Indonesia, many other spices commonly used in Indonesian dishes, including coriander and cumin, drifted to the islands from traders to the west. Dutch, Portuguese, Arabic, Indian, Chinese and Champa influences are evident in the culture and cuisine of Indonesia. Although Chinese were reported to comprise less than 2% of the the population in the 2000 census, they have had a disproportionally large impact on Indonesian society and culture. Of course, one of the greatest areas of impact is on the food.

There are countless recipes entitled orak arik. Simply meaning scrambled, these are simple stir fry dishes in which eggs are scrambled with vegetables. They are quick, flavorful, and a good source for protein for people unable to afford or not wanting to consume meat. The ingredients as well as the cooking method point to the obvious Chinese origin of this dish. Along with some steamed rice it makes for a most satisfying meal.

This is another recipe adapted from 240 Resep Hindangan Sehari-Hari untuk 2 Bulan

(240 Recipes of Dishes for Every Day for 2 Months).

Cah Caisim Orak-arik Telur

1 bunch of choy sum (about 1/2 pound) cut in 2-inch lengths
2 eggs, beaten
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
4 shallots, thinly sliced
2 red chiles, thinly sliced on the diagonal
1 tsp fish sauce
1 TBS oyster sauce
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/4 tsp sugar
2 TBS water
2 green onions, sliced into 1/2-inch pieces on the diagonal

2 TBS oil for stir-frying

Heat the oil in a wok and stir in the garlic, shallots and chiles. Briefly fry until fragrant, then push to the side of the wok. Add the beaten eggs and stir until scrambled. Then add the choy sum, stirring until limp. Add the fish sauce, oyster sauce, salt, pepper, and sugar. Fry quickly, tossing the vegetables and eggs to coat thoroughly with the sauce. Add the water and cook for a minute or two so everything is well cooked. Stir in the green onions. Remove from heat and pour into a serving dish. Serve immediately. (Although in Indonesia this might well be cooked at noon and not be eaten until several hours later, most Americans will probably enjoy this dish served hot.)

Corn Fritters with Lemon Basil--Perkedel Jagung Kemangi

2011-09-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

Perkedel jagung are one of my favorite Indonesian dishes. Usually served as part of a nasi tumpeng, they also make a great appetizer or snack. I usually make them with a little fresh shrimp and kaffir lime leaves as in this recipe, but came across this vegetarian version while in Kediri this summer and thought I'd give it a try. Right now both corn and kemangi (lemon basil) are readily available at the farmer's market, so this is the perfect end of summer dish.

Fried basil is a delicate flare of flavor that enlivens these fritters. The crispness the leaves take on from frying is a nice counterpoint to the sweet corn. For those who want a little more kick, try adding some thinly sliced chilies to the batter.

The only tricky part of this recipe is getting the oil to the right temperature. You want it to be hot enough that the fritters don't absorb too much oil, but not so hot that the fritters brown too much before being cooked through. I fry them in a wok with about an inch of oil with the temperature around 350º F.

Perkedel Jagung Kemangi--Corn Fritters with Lemon Basil

adapted from 240 Resep Hindangan Sehari-Hari untuk 2 Bulan

(240 Recipes of Dishes for Every Day for 2 Months)

2 ears of sweet yellow corn
6 small shallots
2 cloves of garlic
1/2 tsp coriander seeds, ground
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
leaves from three stalks of lemon basil
3/4 cup of all purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
vegetable oil for frying

Using a sharp knife, shave the kernels from the corn. Place half the kernels into a mortar and pound to a fairly smooth paste. Add the remaining kernels and pound lightly, preserving the shape of the kernels. Remove the corn to a large bowl.

In the mortar (or a food processor) grind the shallots, garlic, coriander, turmeric, salt, and pepper to a smooth paste. Stir into the corn. Add the lemon basil, flour and egg to the corn and spice mixture. Stir well to incorporate all the ingredients.

Pour about an inch of oil into a wok or pan. Heat over a medium flame to around 350º F. To cook, drop tablespoons of the corn fritter batter into the hot oil. Fry about 2 minutes, then turn the fritters over and fry about two minutes more on the other side. Remove and drain on paper towels. The fritters may be served warm or at room temperature.

Fried Tofu with Flowering Chives

2011-09-02T11:39:00.000-07:00

There are two places I like to go when I visit any city. One is the bookstore, the other the supermarket. Those two places give a good feel of the city and what the tastes of its population lean towards. A city that only has a bookstore stocked almost entirely of popular generic fiction and spiritual/financial/home decorating self-help tomes is likely to have a supermarket that has preformed taco shells and rice in the "Ethnic" aisle. A proper bookstore is a place one can lose oneself in, drifting from find to find, discovering books and authors scattered throughout the aisles, one discovery leading to the next.

While Indonesian bookstores (and really there is only one major chain that operates throughout the country--Gramedia) have limited offerings in the realm of fiction (the government having long suppressed critical voices--although it is now possible to buy copies of Pramoedya Ananta Toer's novels in Indonesia), the cookbook selection is fairly extensive. A large number of the cookbooks have a slant towards home industry--collections of snacks and variations that can be sold for profit. The rest of the cookbooks tend to be for the home cooks who wants to expand their familiarity with traditional Indonesian dishes.

As many Indonesian families employ maids to help with cooking and cleaning, a lot of Indonesians grow up not learning how to cook. A maid from Central Java is going to cook soto ayam different from a maid from West Java. My father-in-law (who is from East Java) is famous for complaining about the food when he stayed with his son in Bandung, West Java. Nothing ever tasted right to him. The cookbooks with 30 variations on soto help the beleaguered housewife soothe her family's tastes.

One of the cookbooks I picked up during our stay in Indonesia this summer is 240 Resep Hindangan Sehari-Hari untuk 2 Bulan (240 Recipes of Dishes for Every Day for 2 Months). The book presents four recipes for each day, one for breakfast and the other three for lunch/dinner, with photos. It has a number of recipes that look promising and I'll be posting in the coming months. The coconut milk used in this one gives the fried tofu a lushness that is not usually associated with tofu. I served it with Lingham's Hot Sauce with Garlic, but a Thai sweet chili sauce would also work, and I think Vietnamese ginger-lime sauce (nuoc mam gung) would be really nice with this.

Fried Tofu with Flowering Chives

(Tahu Goreng Tepung)

1 large block of regular tofu cut into 1-inch cubes

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 cup rice flour (do not use glutinous rice flour)

1 tsp fine sea salt

1/2 tsp ground white pepper

1 1/4 cup coconut milk

1 large egg, beaten

10 flowering chives, cut into 1-inch lengths

oil for frying

In a large bowl mix the flours, salt, and pepper. Whisk in the coconut milk and beaten egg until you have a fairly smooth batter. Stir in the chives and about a third of the tofu cubes.

Heat the oil in a wok. With a fork or slotted spoon remove pieces of tofu that have been covered in the coconut batter and carefully lower into the hot oil. Gently fry until all the pieces are a golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels. Repeat until all of the tofu pieces have been battered and fried. As with all fried foods, these are best served hot.

Gazpacho with Lemongrass Foam

2011-08-23T09:20:00.000-07:00

Perhaps influenced by my stint in Kediri during Ramadan, I got to thinking about what would be a nice way to start off a summer meal, to break the fast if I were fasting. Although I have what some would say is a strange aversion to cucumbers, I do enjoy a good gazpacho. And this is one soup that almost cries out for an Asian touch. Lemongrass has a natural affinity for tomatoes, but getting the flavor without the fiber of the stalks is problematic. One approach would be to infuse some oil with lemongrass. I decided to take a different path. Using some soy lecithin, I made a foam which I floated on the surface of the gazpacho. This resulted in an ethereal touch of lemongrass that nicely complemented the gazpacho but did not overwhelm it.

Summer is a great time to visit the farmers market in Sacramento. Besides an abundance of stone fruits such as peaches, nectarines, and plums, there are also all the summer vegetables. The variety of tomatoes now available is astounding, and I decided to use some of those in this gazpacho. Happening upon some vibrant purple bell peppers, I chose to include those in the soup as well. Unfortunately, they didn't add much to the appearance of the gazpacho, and I didn't think they tasted quite as good as regular bells. The kaffir lime leaves which are from a tree we have growing in our back yard were a nice addition to the mix. Kalamansi limes spark the soup with a dash of zing.

Indonesian Gazpacho with Lemongrass Foam

(makes approximately 6 four to six ounce servings)

1 1/4 pounds of vine-ripened tomatoes (I used a mix of red and green zebras)

2 purple bell peppers, seeded and chopped

1 persian cucumber, seeded and peeled

2 shallots, peeled and chopped

1 to 2 cloves of garlic, peeled

1/3 to 1/2 cup olive oil

1--2 TBS rice vinegar

juice of 3 kalamansi limes

4 kaffir lime leaves, center vein removed, finely chopped

1 hot chile, seeded and chopped

salt and pepper to taste

3/4 cup water

two stalks of lemongrass, pale whitish bulb only, chopped

1 TBS lecithin

To make the gazpacho, quarter the tomatoes and press the seeds into a coarse mesh strainer set over a bowl. Put all the ingredients into a blender. Add the liquid collected from the drained seed pulp. Puree the mixture and chill in the refrigerator.

To make the lemongrass foam, puree the lemongrass and water in a blender. Allow to sit for at least several hours before straining the lemongrass from the liquid. Chill the liquid and add the lecithin. Using a stick blender mix the liquid until a light froth forms on the surface.

To serve, pour the gazpacho into four to six ounce glasses and spoon on a layer of the lemongrass foam.

Breaking the Fast--Buka Puasa

2011-08-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

In Indonesia, where more than 90% of the population is Muslim, Ramadan is an important month. During this month Muslims are called upon to fast from sunrise to sunset. But this is much more than just a fast in the sense that most non-Muslims probably consider the word. For Muslims, the fast does not simply mean not eating during the daylight hours, but also not drinking (anything, including water), smoking, gossiping, looking at profane images or objects, or engaging in any activities that might enflame the passions. It's a month of sacrifice and self-reflection, a time to think less about one's own appetites and focus more on the community. The breaking of the fast is done at sunset and is a communal event including family, friends, and neighbors.

This was my first Ramadan in Kediri. I recall that in Cepu during Ramadan the town was basically closed down, the rumah makans closed or appearing so, so as not to tempt, or taunt, any fasters. I recall religious patrols in KL making sure restaurants had their front doors closed so that Muslims would not be affronted by the sight of people eating during the day. I expected Kediri to also close down during daylight for the month. Much to my surprise, this didn't happen.

While some warungs and rumah makans closed the first day or two of the month, by day three most of them appeared to reopen. Doors were not kept closed, nor was there any attempt to disguise the fact that food and drinks were being served and that some people were eating. At the Podjok Soto (Soto Corner), a rumah makan featuring chicken soto that has been in operation since 1926 and, like the now defunct Tower Records, is open every day of the year, including all holidays, a young Muslim woman wearing a jilbab (a headscarf) was serving customers soto and drinks. All of this openness about eating during the day during Ramadan really took me by surprise, but I was glad to see it.

Another thing that surprised me about Ramadan in Kediri was the selling of drinks and foods to break the fast. Perhaps because Cepu was such a relatively small town, or maybe because in the early 80s people did not have the disposable income to spend on prepared foods, but there was nothing like the array of prepared snacks offered in Kediri. From after the afternoon call to prayer to the breaking of the fast at sunset, vendors set up tables on Jl. Hayam Wuruk, one of the main streets in Kediri. Again, as the fast also means no liquids during the day, drinks, especially sweetened fruit drinks, are a popular treat to break the fast. The demand for these snacks and drinks is such that a special police patrol makes sure that the vendors and their many customers don't entirely cut off traffic from the street.

Opak Gambir--Rolled Wafer Production in Wlingi

2011-07-30T03:07:00.000-07:00

Tjing’s favorite aunt in Kediri, an excellent cook whotaught me how to make botok jagung last year, arranged an outing to herhometown to visit some homes where opak gambir is produced. These are thin,crisp wafers made from a variety of flours, coconut milk, eggs, and sugar thatare cooked between two plates of iron stamped with various designs. Rolled orfolded while still hot, opak gambir may be plain, with sesame seeds, orflavored with banana, pandan, ginger, or durian. In Vietnam, banh kep ngo are a variation of opak gambir with cilantro leaves and asweetened peanut filling.

Wlingi, the town where Ching’s aunt, Yi Tjim, was born and grew up, is not quite half waybetween Kediri and Malang. Although not a big town, it has grown since Yi Tjim moved to Kediri andshe couldn’t quite place her old haunts. Many of the people living there have been there for generations, so whenYi Tjim (who is in her 70s) would meet an older person she would introduceherself by saying she was so and so’s daughter.

Bu Liu has been making and selling opak gambir since1968. It is a small operation,with only two cooks, each managing 5 or 6 irons at a time. On the day of our visit, the moreexperienced cook, whose hands have toughened to the point where she can foldand roll the still hot wafers, was absent. The young woman working that day could only make the rolledversion of the wafers.

Given the opportunity to try our own hands at rolling thewafers, Tjing and I had mixed success. Tjing was unable to do more than pick up the wafer briefly beforedropping it back onto the hot iron. I managed to roll one, but it was a grosser, cloddish effort compared tothe tight rolls the young woman produced.

My effort at producing a roll.

From there we drove maybe a quarter mile down the street tovisit another maker of opak gambir. This was a larger operation than Bu Liu’s. From the street we descended a steep alley to an areabordering rice paddy. Housed in ashed with wire-meshed windows and a corrugated zinc roof, this “factory”employed seven cooks and two packers. It seemed to be primarily a wholesaler, packaging the opak gambir inmassive bags containing several thousand wafers. As with Bu Liu’s, each cook handled 5 or 6 irons, constantlyopening, filling, closing, flipping, and lifting one iron or another, alwaysremembering which held a wafer ready to be rolled or folded. Each cook produced about 6 1/2kilograms (a little over 14 pounds) of wafers a day. A kilogram of wafers sells for a little less than $3.

Laundry drying outside the factory.

Don't worry, the girl is the owner's daughter. She doesn't work there.

Mixing the batter.

Pandan flavored cone shaped opak gambir.

A scant teaspoon of batter is used for each wafer.

The hot wafer is folded, then rolled to form a layered cone.

The heat from the bank of coals is quite intense.

One of the packers.

Should you happen to find yourself in Java sometime, opakgambir are great with coffee or tea. They’d also be nice with a dish of ice cream. We picked up a couple of the irons in a shop in Kediri, soI’ll be attempting to produce my own opak gambir after returning to Sacramento. Stay tuned for that post.

Feathered by the Sunlight--Kecap Manis in Wlingi

2011-07-29T03:04:00.000-07:00

Kecap manis being produced in a home in Wlingi, East Java. Thisoperation was even smaller than Bu Evie’s, with asingle wood burning stove in a room at the side of the owner's house. The whole house was rich with the perfumeof kecap manis. Shafts of lightpoured through the atap roof illuminating the room where the kecap was beingcooked.

To fully enjoy this post, heat up some kecap manisuntil its fragrance fills the room.

Apel Hutan--Forest Apple

2011-07-18T03:08:00.000-07:00

The variety of fruit available in Java is astounding. With a temperature that varies onlyslightly from month to month, and an even parsing of day and night throughoutthe year--sunrise and sunset forever between five and six--Java is not anisland one would expect to find seasonal differences in what fruit isavailable. Although certain fruitis available throughout the year, papaya, for example, others such as klengkeng(longan, a fruit similar to lychee) and rambutan (another fruit related tolychees) are only available for a month or two.

It is my misfortune that my favorite variety of mango, andthe one that is generally most prized in Indonesia, harum manis (sweetsmelling), is not really in season in Java during the months Tjing and I are able tovisit. After tasting the mangoesthat are available in Indonesia (and there are tens of different varieties), Iam always disappointed by those I get in California.

Yesterday my sister-in-law Lili brought home a new fruit forme to try. Apel hutan (forest apple)are about the size of softballs. The light green exterior is of a cork-like consistency, firm yetyielding, about a quarter inch thick. The ivory flesh is the texture of honeydew melon that has just passedthe peak of ripeness. The taste is reminiscent of honeydew as well, but withoutthe aggressive sweetness.

Slicedin half, each half serves as its own bowl. The flesh is spooned from the shell like a creamypudding. I can find no mention ofthis fruit elsewhere and Tjing and others in her family had never had it beforeeither. Perhaps it is known by adifferent name elsewhere? If youhave any information on this, I’d love to hear it.

Street Food

2011-07-16T02:37:00.000-07:00

Treats abound on the streets of Java. Go anywhere and there is someoneselling something good to eat or drink. Vendors sell from stalls set beside the road, from pushcarts, frombaskets slung from cloths across their shoulders onto their hips, from trayspoised on their heads, and from wooden boxes suspended from poles they balanceon their shoulders.

Walking to the supermarket to buy some shampoo, I pass a mancarrying some grilled cakes with the aroma of coconut. I stop and ask what he is selling. Kue rangin, he says, a savory snackmade from fresh coconut and flour that is cooked in half-moon molds. Like waffles dense with fresh coconut meat,the salty cakes are served with sugar. The contrast between the saltiness of the kue and the sweetness of thesugar spark the tongue.

He tramps the streets balancing the stove on one end of hisjoist, some finished cakes in a display box on the other end. There is a rhythm to the walk of thesevendors carrying their wares upon their shoulders, an easy, rolling gait. Like acrobats balanced on a wire, theystride with apparent weightlessness, moving easily among the traffic ofmotorcycles, bicycles, trucks, andautomobiles.

Lowering his two boxes to the dusty street, the vendorplucks a batch of the kue from the molds, and wraps them in a piece of paperwhich he sprinkles with sugar before placing the wrapped cakes in a plastic bag and handingthem to me. Lightly greasing themolds, he pours in the next batch of batter, arranges his goods, arises and ison his way.

Where I Am Writing From

2011-07-14T07:30:00.000-07:00

My posting has become infrequent,sporadic. Lack of discipline,entropy, inertia, a failing appetite, a reluctant acknowledgement that my wifeand I are newly unemployed teachers, a dying father-in-law, witness to thedismantling of two ESL programs that served several generations of adultimmigrants in Sacramento and helped it become recognized as the most diversecity in the United States--any and all of these may be behind the scarcity ofrecent posts. I try to begenerally upbeat in my posts, but it has been hard to be upbeat recently. Yet, in the end, what choice do wehave? Stew in our funk, or try toenjoy life.

Currently we are in Indonesia,visiting my dying father-in-law. While the death of any parent is difficult, it is more so when they arenot near. Tjing’s mother diedwhile Tjing was getting her Master’s in Australia. She also had cancer, but her death was swift, happening justdays after being diagnosed. Although Tjing was home within 72 hours of hearing the diagnosis, it wastoo late. That loss, that failureto connect with her mother one last time, is a hurt that haunts Tjing to thisday.

Despite the advancesof science, cancer remains an unpleasant killer. My father-in-law’s cancer of the tongue is particularlyinsidious, not only making it nearly impossible to eat or drink, but alsorobbing him of his voice. Hespeaks as if muffled, choking on the tumor that mushrooms on his tongue anddown his throat. Still unbent in spine, he stands about 5’9’’ but now barelyweighs 90 pounds. A once vibrant,social man who enjoyed morning walks and conversations with all manner ofpeople, he now spends most of his days in his room, wanting only, he says, todie.

So yes, I’m in Indonesia, acountry I feel at home in and enjoy as much as any. Yet, it’s not exactly a vacation. Still, it’s hard to stay in a funk in Java, to notappreciate the magic of its people, food, and culture. Soon there will be more postings onsome of that magic. This Ipromise.

Salmon Cornets with Cold-Smoked Salmon

2011-06-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

As teachers, my wife and I don't make the kind of scratch to afford dining at the finest restaurants. Actually, we could afford it, I suppose, but would feel extremely guilty for doing so. When we do go out, we have a few favorite Vietnamese, Chinese, and Mexican spots where we can have dinner for about $20 for the two of us, including tip. In other words, I don't expect we'll be dining at The French Laundry anytime soon.

But eating on the cheap doesn't mean eating poorly. With access to good ingredients and good recipes anyone can eat well with a little effort. Thomas Keller's salmon cornets have always appealed to me. Salmon tartare with creme fraiche in a savory tuile cornet, they sounded delicious. Unlike some chefs who seem to favor form over substance, Keller's recipes always put taste at the forefront.

This is not a recipe you are going to whip up for a quick snack. While not particularly difficult, it is time consuming. The cornets require the sort of finicky attention to detail that can try the patience of even a serene soul such as myself. Should you have small children in the house, you might want to keep them far from the kitchen unless you want them to learn a-whole-nother vocabulary. Words cannot express the frustration of watching a tuile slide off the slipat like a house in a landslide. Still, a few F-bombs improves one's mood. They can be made ahead of the day you intend to use them, so you will be in a better mood when filling them.

Keller's recipe calls for fresh salmon, but I used some cold-smoked sockeye salmon because I had just smoked it and had it on hand. I also added some fresh dill. I did not mince the salmon as finely as Keller does, but I like the slightly larger dice. Deceptively rich, these make a wonderful appetizer for a small gathering. I served them standing in bowls with tuerca de maiz which I get at Corti Brothers, the corn kernels anchoring the cornets but also providing another snack once the cornets were finished.

The recipe is in Keller's The French Laundry Cookbook. It can also be found here.

Spreading the batter on a stencil on a slipat.

The cornets after they've been removed from the forms.

Ready to serve.

Screw It! We're Doing Beanie Weinies Java Style for Dinner

2011-06-10T07:02:00.000-07:00

The weather affects my mood. My normally ~~bubbling cheerfulness~~ gruff forbearance, becomes downright grim when winter stretches through spring. The first week in June and Sacramento hasn't even seen the 90s. We had a week of cold rain and tornadoes--in June, in northern California. June usually finds me struggling to be heard over the roar of the rattling air conditioner in my classroom. Monday the radiators were gurgling with steam. Anyone tries to be perky around me these days--I'll gut them, make them eat their own livers.

After putting together all the dishes for my 24 x 24 entry last week, I was looking for something less taxing. Normally, I would be grilling in June. The weather has put me in such a funk that I decided to go old school, cooking some baked beans with some homemade beef dogs. I made the hot dogs earlier and had to find a way to use them up. They were good dogs, smoky with a good snap, but how many hot dogs can a person eat?

Beanie weinies--a favorite of my brother-in-law, PapaBob--is a traditional American comfort food. Baked beans with bacon (or salt pork) and hot dogs in a sweet sauce are a great dish for a cold, wet winter day. So it's June; I don't care anymore. The days are dark and the rain is puddling in the streets.

Baked beans call for cornbread. Cathy, over at Gastronomy, had a posting featuring some cornbread muffins recently. They got me salivating. I had some corn to use up, so I decided to make up my own batch. They didn't turn out quite as cheesy as I'd like, but they were very good. Even with the miserable weather I managed to improve my mood.

Soon we'll be in the 100s. Good. Great. Bring on the heat. As good as the beanie weinies and cornbread muffins were, I'd prefer not to have an excuse to eat them until November. It's time for margaritas and grilled meats.

Javanese Beanie Weanies

printable recipe

1 lb. small white beans, soaked overnight in 10 cups water

1 onion, peeled and diced

1/2 lb. bacon, cut in 1/2 inch pieces

1/4 cup kecap manis

1 cup coffee

1 cup pineapple juice

100 grams gula merah or dark brown sugar

3/4 cup tomato ketchup

2 tsp mustard

6 to 8 hot dogs, sliced in 1 inch pieces

In a 6 quart pot, fry the bacon until it is maybe half way cooked. Add the onion and cook until softened. Drain the beans, reserving the water. Stir in soaked beans and the remaining ingredients except for the hot dogs. Add reserved water to cover by about 1/2 an inch. Cover the pot with foil and bake in 300º F oven for 5 to 6 hours, stirring every 90 minutes or so.

Add sliced hot dogs and cook for another 30 to 45 minutes. If beans are too liquid, remove the foil. If too dry, add more of the reserved water, stir well and cook longer. Serve with rice or cornbread.

The cornbread muffins recipe is adapted from Dorie Greenspan's which I found at Serious Eats.

Corny Cornbread Muffins with Bacon, Jalapeño and Cheese

printable recipe

1 cup yellow corn meal

1 cup all purpose flour

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

kernels from 2 ears of corn, or 1 cup of frozen kernels

4 slices of bacon, cooked until crisp, crumbled

4 jalapeño peppers, seeded and diced

1 cup grated cheddar cheese

6 TBS sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

3 TBS bacon grease

3 TBS vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 400º F. Grease or spray 12 muffin standard muffin pan with no-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, stir together all the dry ingredients. In a large measuring cup mix the liquid ingredients together, beating the egg and egg yolk to mix thoroughly. Add corn, cheese and bacon to the flour mixture. Pour in liquid mixture and stir to make a thick batter. Ladle or pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan. Bake in middle of the preheated oven for 15--18 minutes until done. Cool muffins on a wire rack.

Foodbuzz 24 x 24: A Taste of Java--Nasi Tumpeng

2011-05-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

Sri Owens has written a number of cookbooks on Indonesian food. In her first, Indonesian Food and Cookery, she notes how animated Indonesians get when they get together to share a meal, and suggests "that in a Moslem country food has to do alone what food plus alcohol perform in Europe or America." When I happened to meet the Bishop of Surabaya a couple of years ago, he put it another way. The Javanese, he said, love to get together to share whatever food they have, whether it be an extravagant meal or a bowl of rice. The important thing is to be together with others; the food is simply an excuse.

In my family, food is certainly important, but it doesn't have to do double duty. No one has gone thirsty at a family gathering. While we enjoy our food and drinks, we also enjoy getting together. Ours is not a family that dreads communal meals. Indeed, it sometimes seems we look for excuses to have a meal together. When Foodbuzz agreed to my proposal for 24 x 24 to create nasi tumpeng to celebrate my nephew's graduation from CSU, Sacramento, we all looked forward to a warm evening on my mother's deck enjoying a variety of Indonesian dishes.

Of course, that didn't happen. While the normal high for May 28 is 85º F, yesterday was twenty degrees below that. Rain is rare in Sacramento from May to October, but it rained steadily yesterday afternoon and evening. All plans for the outdoor meal for 15 people had to be shifted indoors. A few dishes that had been planned were scratched from the menu, but we managed.

The picture at the top of this post is of a painting my mother did of Sam, my nephew, from a photo of him at our rehearsal dinner in 1993. His parents, Tju and Han, were invaluable in making the arrangements for our wedding. Although we got married in Surabaya, both Tjing and I were living in Jakarta. We also had a large contingent of my family come to the wedding from the United States. Tju and Han took care of all the arrangements, booking hotels, arranging transportation, renting a villa for my relatives to stay in in Tretes for a few days before the wedding, and so much more for which we are eternally grateful. All three of their children have now graduated from college in California, which is an especially remarkable accomplishment considering they came here with limited English skills.

Nasi tumpeng is a ceremonial version of nasi rames. Tumpeng is a a cone of rice said to symbolize a sacred mountain. For this celebration, Tjing made nasi kuning (yellow rice) flavored with pandan leaf and coconut milk. Besides cooking the rice, Tjing also made all the decorations and arranged the food around the tumpeng. Forced to buy a different brand of turmeric than she normally uses, Tjing complained the rice was not as yellow as it should be.

Besides krupuk udang and emping, the meal included tempe goreng, kering tempe, sate ayam (chicken satay) and sate babi (pork satay, while not served in most Javanese households, is popular with Chinese Indonesians), ayam panggang Jawa (Javanese grilled chicken), empal (beef that is first boiled several hours, then cooked in a spicy coconut milk sauce, and then fried), perkedel jagung (corn and shrimp fritters), perkedel kentang (mashed potato and ground beef fritters), oseng-oseng tauge dan wortel (fried bean sprouts with carrots), and telur puyuh bumbu Bali (hard boiled quail eggs in a spicy sauce). There were also brambang goreng (fried shallots), serundeng (roasted grated coconut), and kacang goreng (fried peanuts).

Anticipating a warm evening eating outside, we planned a refreshing dessert. Tjing made es campur which was favored by the Indonesian side of the family.

My sister made two luscious ice cream pies, a vanilla one with a macadamia nut crust, and a chocolate one with a cookie-like crust. I had also found some fresh litchees which were much sweeter than the ones we are usually able to get here.

The weather could have been better. A cold rain in late May is not what I anticipated when suggesting this meal. In the end though, it wasn't the food that brought us together. We got together to celebrate Sam's completion of his undergraduate studies with a double major BA and to wish him continued success in the future. We only wish his family in Surabaya could have been here to celebrate with us.

Two sites I highly recommend for anyone interested in Indonesian food are Indonesia Eat s and Indochine Kitchen. Pepy, who writes Indonesia Eats, seems to have an almost encyclopedic knowledge of Indonesian food. It was from Pepy's blog that I recently stumbled across Indochine Kitchen, which has beautiful photography and very clear recipes. Both blogs are very well written.

Telur Puyuh Bumbu Bali

printable recipe

Although telur bumbu Bali is usually made with regular eggs, quail eggs work well when you are serving many dishes. They taste just like regular chicken eggs.

20 hard boiled quail eggs, shelled (fresh quail eggs are sold in most Asian supermarkets)

6 shallots, peeled

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

3--5 red chilies, seeded

1 tsp terasi (shrimp paste), grilled in a piece of foil

2/3 cup water

2± tsp kecap manis, taste

1 TBS tamarind water

1 tsp gula merah or brown sugar

2 slices of ginger, minced

salt, to taste

3 large plum tomatoes, large dice

Combine the shallots, garlic, chilies, terasi and water in a food processor or blender and process to a fairly smooth paste. Fry this in the oil for several minutes. Then add the kecap manis, tamarind water, sugar, ginger, and salt. Cook for about a minute before adding the eggs and tomatoes. Continue to cook until the sauce thickens, stirring the eggs to ensure they are well coated with the sauce.

Grilled Asparagus and Smoked Salmon Salad Rolls

2011-05-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

I'm not one for mash-ups of cuisines or dishes that have no natural affinity. While Korean and Mexican food may share certain characteristics that make the Korean taco seem a natural permutation, some fusion dishes seem forced, the culinary equivalent to bestiality. Foie gras con molé rojo y carnitas de conejillo de Indias might be interesting and fun. Bestiality, after all, has its adherents. Still, there are times when it's best just to walk away.

Not wanting to sin against nature, I'm always hesitant to mess with a good thing. Goi cuon, Vietnamese salad rolls, are a very good thing. Most often filled with shrimp, bean sprouts, rice vermicelli, lettuce, and herbs, they almost make one feel virtuous simply for eating them.

One of the meals Tjing used to fix us when we lived in Vietnam was roast pork with banh hoi and fresh vegetables. Living on the 3rd floor in a Saigon townhouse without air-conditioning, we frequently had this during the hot, dry months before the rainy season. Composed of sheets of banh hoi brushed with scallion oil, thit heo quay (roast pork purchased from a nearby shop), beansprouts, pineapple and young banana wrapped in lettuce, the rolls required no cooking. Dipped in nuoc cham, they were lighter than a sandwich and we could easily doctor them to our individual tastes.

Spring in Northern California brings us asparagus and dill. Grilled asparagus with a squeeze of lemon is one of those heavenly combinations. Cha ca, the classic Vietnamese dish from Hanoi, pairs dill and fish. Gravlax, salmon cured with dill, is a classic combination from Europe. Add in asparagus with mustard dill sauce and we have a party. Making a non-traditional salad roll using cold-smoked salmon and grilled asparagus with a mustard dill sauce, therefore, didn't seem as though I was bedding the beast. A peck on the cheek, perhaps, maybe a whispering of "who do ewe love?", but certainly no walk of shame.

The rolls turned out as good as, or better, than I had hoped. Had we had these in Saigon, they would have been perfect on those stifling nights before the rains. Here, I would recommend one or two pieces as a starter, but we enjoyed a plate of them for a delightful supper.

Grilled Asparagus and Smoked Salmon Salad Rolls

printable recipe

8 8-inch rounds of rice paper (banh trang)
16--24 asparagus spears, brushed with oil, lightly salted and grilled, cooled and cut into 2-inch lengths
1 six-ounce piece of cold-smoked salmon (in Sacramento, Oto's Japanese Market on Freeport sells this) sliced about an 1/8th inch thick (this is thicker than gravlax is usually sliced)
4 sheets of cooked banh hoi--halved lengthwise
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 green onions, thinly sliced
1/3 cup fresh dill, chopped
honey mustard dill sauce

Heat the oil in a small saucepan to almost smoking. Turn off the heat and add the green onions and dill. Brush this mixture over the sheets of banh hoi.

Dip a round of rice paper briefly in a bowl of water. Place on a towel. Place a slice of the salmon about a quarter way from the top of the round. Place a half-sheet of banh hoi below the salmon. Place four pieces of asparagus on top of the banh hoi. Place two tips of asparagus at opposite ends of the banh hoi, so that when you make the rolls the tips are sticking out of opposite ends. Spoon some honey mustard dill sauce over the asparagus. Roll up the rice paper into a firm roll. Cut in half.

For the honey mustard sauce, I mixed together several tablespoons each of Dijon mustard, chopped dill and honey. I added fresh lemon juice and stirred it all together.

Lotus Stem Salad with Shrimp--Goi Ngo Sen

2011-05-10T06:11:00.001-07:00

Although I spent several years living and working in Vietnamese refugees camps, lived in Vietnam for close to a year, and have visited the country half a dozen times, I don't think I had ever had this salad until a student brought it to a potluck in my class in Sacramento several years ago. Essentially a salad of lotus stems and rau ram dressed with nuoc cham and topped with poached shrimp, it is a delightfully refreshing salad. Served with some freshly fried shrimp chips which I had recently received from our friends in Vietnam, it made for a perfect lunch for a recent birthday.

This is an easy salad to put together. The dressing can be easily adapted to your tastes, decreasing the sugar if you prefer a sharper dressing, increasing it if you prefer a sweeter one. You may omit the garlic and chili from the dressing if you like; I prefer the note the chili adds. Although freshly fried shallots are vastly superior to the ones you can buy in Asian markets, I used the purchase variety and they were satisfactory (and much, much easier).

I adapted this from several recipes. One source was Authentic Recipes from Vietnam, a book that has a number of good recipes. Another source was Mai Pham's Pleasures of the Vietnamese Table. Pham gives the useful tip of stirring the cut stems for several minutes with disposable bamboo chopsticks while in a bowl of water. The hair-like fibers from the cut stems wind around the bamboo. Regular chopsticks don't work because they are too smooth.

Goi Ngo Sen--Lotus Stem Salad with Shrimp

printable recipe

6 to 8 shrimp, poached, peeled, and halved lengthwise
1 8 oz jar of lotus stems, drained, cut into 2-inch lengths on the diagonal
3--5 TBS rau ram (daun laksa/Vietnamese coriander) chopped
2 TBS fried shallots
2--3 TBS roasted peanuts, chopped

1 clove of garlic, finely minced
1 red chili, seeded and minced
2--4 tsp fish sauce
2 TBS fresh lime juice
1 1/2--2 TBS sugar

First, make the dressing by mixing the garlic, chili, fish sauce, lime juice and sugar. Stir well to completely dissolve the sugar.

After stirring the cut stems with the disposable chopsticks or bamboo skewers in a bowl of water for several minutes, drain. Place in a shallow bowl and add the dressing and rau ram. Mix well. Place the halved shrimp on top. Sprinkle with shallots and peanuts. Serve with shrimp crackers.

I am submitting this to Delicious Vietnam #13, a monthly blogging event celebrating Vietnamese food. Founded by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey, and Kim and Hong of Ravenous Couple, Delicious Vietnam welcomes submissions from bloggers around the world. The roundup for Delicious Vietnam #13 will be hosted by Jing of My fusion kitchen. More information can be found here. Check out the roundup to find the details on who will be hosting Delicious Vietnam #14.

Ahi Larb

2011-04-22T10:33:00.000-07:00

If you've read this blog before, you are probably aware that I have a special fondness for ahi. Good, fresh tuna is a taste that's hard to beat. While many Americans have an aversion to raw fish and will only eat seared ahi, I especially like raw ahi. Served as carpaccio or tartare, it makes a wonderful appetizer. This version of larb could also be served as an appetizer or, with sticky rice, as part of a Thai meal.

In the US, larb (or laab) is found in virtually every Thai restaurant. Usually, larb gai--chicken larb--is what is on offer, made with cooked chicken, lime juice, fish sauce and herbs. Other meats may also be used for larb.

My first exposure to larb was about 25 years ago when teaching some Lao students in Sacramento. I was occasionally invited to their houses for celebrations and they always had plenty of food. Larb was something that was always served, but very often the larb they made was with raw beef. Although I like raw beef, my wife won't touch it, so I generally avoid beef these days. This ahi larb is my attempt to create something like I used to have at the Lao parties.

The primary requirement for this dish is the availability of sashimi grade fresh ahi. The lime juice "cooks" the fish, so its best to make the larb just before serving. It is a simple, quickly prepared dish that may be served with lettuce, Belgian endive, Vietnamese sesame crackers, or sticky rice. Increase or reduce the number of chilies to adjust the level of heat in the dish to your taste.

Ahi Larb

1/2 pound sashimi grade ahi tuna, chopped in a small dice

1-4 red Thai chiles, seeded and minced

3 small shallots, peeled and minced

2 TBS fresh lime juice

1 1/2 TBS fish sauce

1/2 tsp sugar

3 TBS minced rau ram (daun laksa)

1 TBS minced mint

black pepper, to taste

2-3 TBS roasted rice powder

In a medium bowl, mix the ahi with the other ingredients. Press into a small bowl and invert the bowl onto a serving platter. As an appetizer, guacamole is a nice accompaniment with sesame crackers and Belgian endive spears.

Oatmeal Streusel Ginger Berry Bars

2011-04-12T07:00:00.000-07:00

Although my father was always a National League fan when it came to baseball, my mother adheres to Ted Williams' philosophy when it comes to freezing food. Nothing can be frozen too long. Roasts that were calves when Ted Williams still walked this earth reside in the back recesses of my mother's freezer, bargains that proved irresistible when the family still gathered for Sunday roasts. A bargain at today's prices will seem even more so when discovered a few years hence, shadowed with freezer burn perhaps, but still "perfectly edible."

Like my father, I am a fan of National League ball, the World Champion San Francisco Giants to be precise. But like my mother, I tend to use the freezer like a time capsule. There are some items that have been there for well over a year. I believe we have some blocks of sauce for gado gado that we picked up when we were in Indonesia a half dozen years ago. It's not that I am stocking up on bargains, but I sometimes don't get around to cooking something right away, so I shift it to the freezer. Fortunately, we don't have a stand-alone freezer, so I am limited to what I can entomb.

I had had a bag of mixed berries from Trader Joe's in the freezer for some time. I don't think they were as old as the bumbu gado gado, but I wouldn't testify to that under oath. The berries seemed to have passed through several partial warming ages also, and the bag was half ice crystals when finally opened. Still, they were perfectly edible, and featured prominently in these berry bars I made for Tjing's most recent knitting session.

Oatmeal Streusel Ginger Berry Bars

printable recipe

1 1/2 cups old fashioned rolled oats
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened and cut into small pieces
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 16 oz. bag of frozen mixed berries, thawed
juice and zest from half a lemon
1 TBS fresh ginger, finely grated
2 TBS corn starch

Preheat the oven to 350º F.

Mix the oats, flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt together. Cut the butter into this mixture. Reserve a third of this mixture.

Line a 9" x13" pan with baking parchment, leaving several inches on each side to enable you to lift it out later. Press the bulk of the oatmeal mixture into the parchment lined pan. Bake in the pre-heated oven for ten minutes. Remove and allow to cool.

While the base is baking, prepare the berry filling. In a saucepan simmer the berries, lemon juice, zest, sugar and ginger for about eight to ten minutes. Mix the corn starch with a little water to form a slurry. Stir this into the berry mixture and simmer for another couple of minutes, until the mixture thickens. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.

Pour and spread the berry filling over the cooled base. Sprinkle the reserved oatmeal streusel mixture atop the filling. Return the pan to the oven and bake for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown.

Lift the parchment paper out of the pan and allow to cool completely on a wire rack before cutting.

Ca Ri Ga--Vietnamese Chicken Curry

2011-04-10T10:44:00.000-07:00

Chicken curry comes in many guises. There is jungle curry from Laos and northern Thailand that doesn't include coconut milk, red and green curries from central and southern Thailand, variations throughout Malaysia and Indonesia, other variations from India, and then there is ca ri ga, Vietnamese chicken curry. I don't believe I've yet had a chicken curry that I haven't enjoyed, but of all of them the Vietnamese version is my favorite. It is spicy, but not incendiary, with a nice balance of coconut milk in its base. Served with a freshly baked baguette, it made for an especially comforting dinner on an unseasonably cool spring night.

There are many recipes for ca ri ga out there. Although I have tried many of them, I keep coming back to this one, which I have been using for the last twenty years or so. Its use of both curry powder and curry paste, the use of less coconut milk than some other recipes, and the frying of the potatoes before adding them to the sauce are what set this curry apart. Like other curries and stews, this is a dish that may be even better the next day. It also freezes well, so you may want to double the recipe.

The recipe comes (slightly adapted) from The Foods of Vietnam by Nicole Routhier, the first Vietnamese cookbook I ever bought and still one of my favorites.

Ca Ri Ga

3 stalks fresh lemongrass, tender, lower third only, chopped
4 shallots, peeled and chopped
5 cloves of garlic, peeled
2 to 3 fresh red chile peppers, seeded and chopped
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp ground black pepper
2 TBS Madras curry paste
3 TBS Madras curry powder
3 TBS fish sauce
1 chicken, 3 to 4 pounds
2 large Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch thick slices
2 white-fleshed sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 1/2-inch slices
2 bay leaves
1 large onion, cut into eighths
2 large ripe tomatoes, core, seeded and cut into eight wedges (I didn't have any tomatoes in, so left them out this time, but do think they add to the curry)
2 cups chicken stock made from backbone, neck and gizzards of the chicken
salt, to taste
2 large carrots, cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces
1 can coconut milk
2 tsp cornstarch (optional)

Cut the chicken into serving pieces, reserving the backbone, neck, and gizzards for making the stock.

In a food processor, combine the lemongrass, shallots, garlic, sugar, chilies, pepper, curry paste and powder, and fish sauce. Process to a very fine paste.

In a pie plate or similar dish, spread the paste all over the chicken pieces . Cover and refrigerate for an hour.

Heat 1/2 inch of vegetable oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes and brown on all sides. Drain the potatoes on paper towels.

Remove all but 3 tablespoons of the oil from the Dutch oven. Scrape the paste from the chicken and reserve. In batches to avoid crowding, add the chicken pieces to the pan and brown on all sides. Remove the browned pieces to a clean platter.

Heat 3 tablespoons of oil in a clay pot. Add the paste and bay leaves to the oil . (Of course, you may choose to continue using the Dutch oven. The advantage of using a clay pot is that it not only looks nice on the table for serving, but also retains the heat well.) Stirring to keep the paste from burning, fry for about two minutes before adding the onions. Continue to stir and cook the onions until they are lightly browned. Add tomatoes, and stir to coat with the paste. Add the chicken broth and chicken pieces and bring to a boil. Add salt to taste, reduce the heat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes. Add carrots and potatoes and simmer another 20 minutes.

Dissolve cornstarch in the coconut milk (or mash one of the potato pieces). Add the coconut milk to the curry and simmer, uncovered, until the sauce thickens, about 15 minutes. Be sure to stir during this final cooking time to prevent the curry from sticking on the bottom of the pot.

Serve in shallow bowls with rice or French bread.

I am submitting this to Delicious Vietnam #12, a monthly blogging event celebrating Vietnamese food. Founded by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey, and Kim and Hong of Ravenous Couple, Delicious Vietnam welcomes submissions from bloggers around the world. To learn how you might participate, click here. The roundup for Delicious Vietnam #12 will be hosted by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey. Check out the roundup to find the details on who will be hosting Delicious Vietnam #13.

Potstickers with Curried Skins

2011-03-31T07:27:00.000-07:00

Potstickers are comforting and timeless. They can be made in minutes with packaged skins, add a few minutes more for homemade skins. Although good packaged skins certainly make acceptable dumplings, fresh skins elevate the potsticker to another level. Making your own skin allows you to vary the thickness of the wrapper according to your own tastes. Some people prefer thinner, gyoza-like skins, whereas others like a more substantial wrapper. Either way, you can make a couple of dozen skins quicker than you could run over to the store to pick up a package. The taste and texture are also superior to what you might purchase.

As much as I like a traditional potsticker, these curried skins make a nice change of pace. They also produce a lovely, saffron hued dumpling. I'm not sure that I'd include them as part of a Chinese dinner, but as a stand alone appetizer with cocktails they are outstanding.

I used a pork, shrimp, and mushroom filling for these, but you could certainly adapt the filling to your own particular tastes or dietary restrictions. The curry taste from the skins is prominent, but not overpowering. Paired with a gin and tonic, what's not to like?

Curried Potsticker Skins

(recipe adapted from Dim Sum by Ellen Leong Blonder)

1 cup all purpose flour (plus extra for dusting the board)

2 tsp curry powder

pinch of salt

approximately 7 TBS lukewarm water

In a medium-sized bowl mix together ingredients until combined. Turn the dough out on a well-flour board and knead until smooth. You want a fairly stiff, yet still pliable dough. Roll into a 12-inch cylinder; then cut in half, giving you two 6-inch cylinders. Dust with flour, cover with plastic, and allow the dough to rest for about 20 minutes at room temperature.

When ready to make the skins, cut each cylinder into 12--15 equal sized slices. On a well floured surface roll each slice to form a 3-inch circle. Fill with the filling of your choice. Crimp the edges of the formed dumplings tight. Note that when making your own skins, you don't need to moisten the edges of the dumplings with water to seal them as you do when using purchased skins. Set filled dumplings on a well floured board or plate while you fill the remaining skins.

To cook the filled potstickers, heat a skillet and add 1 tablespoon of oil. When it is almost smoking, arrange potstickers in the pan as close to each other as possible without touching. Fry for 2 to 3 minutes on medium heat being careful not to burn them.

When the bottoms are browned, pour in a half cup of water, cover the pan, and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for about 5 minutes, until most of the water has evaporated. Uncover, raise the heat to medium/medium-high and cook for another couple of minutes until all the water has evaporated and the potstickers are brown and crispy. Serve warm with a soy and vinegar dip.

An Apple Cake from Kyrgyzstan

2011-03-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

One of the benefits of being an ESL teacher is that students sometimes share foods and recipes from their native countries. We usually have a potluck about once a semester, and some days students just happen to bring in some food to share. Whenever there is a dish I particularly enjoy, I do my best to get the recipe from the student. As I generally teach the lower level learners, from literacy level to beginning low, this can sometimes be a challenge. Occasionally, as with this recipe for apple cake, the directions are simple and straightforward enough that writing the recipe is not difficult at all.

Until recently I had been teaching a small group of students in a makeshift classroom on a troubled high school campus. The idea behind the class is that I would teach the parents of struggling students who would then realize the value of education. Unfortunately, most parents who have children who aren't doing well in school probably don't really give a damn. And the majority of those parents are native speakers of English. Many immigrants may be struggling with the language, but one of the primary reasons they have come to the United States is get an education for their children. Among the few students the class attracted, one was a parent of a child at the high school. Ironically, Fatimah--not her real name--recognized the school was not very good and was doing all she could to get him transferred to another school.

Fatimah is a middle-aged woman from Kyrgyzstan. Her father was Tartar and her mother Russian. In Kyrgystan she was a businesswoman, operating a shop that sold Swarovsky crystal. Although her husband has been here several years and is currently working on an MA at the local university, Fatimah and her children have just been here since last August.

Most of the nearly 300,000 Russian speaking immigrants in the greater Sacramento area are evangelical Christians. Although I have had many students from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan (as well as Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova), Fatimah is the first Muslim student I have had from one of the former Soviet republics. While many students from the northern countries have a dour, almost humorless affect, Fatimah, like many other students I've had from the "Stans", has a very upbeat and cheerful outlook.

Tattoos are rare among the Russian speaking immigrants, save for the occasional crude army tat that some men have. Fatimah has a prominent abstract tattoo of intertwining geometrical shapes on her left shoulder. Curious, I asked her about tattoos in Kyrgyzstan. She told me that while some younger people have them, most people don't approve. She got hers a few years ago, when her husband was over here and she was still in Kyrgyzstan. "I like," she said, "so I get. I don't care what people think. My husband very surprised when he see. 'Why?,' he ask. I tell him I think it's beautiful, so I get. I am 35 years old when I get. I old enough to do what I like. My son not like, no understand. My daughter happy, smiling, says it beautiful."

Last week this class was shifted to the morning, allowing me to return to a much larger class at the adult school. Even though I am pleased not to have to travel between schools anymore, not to have to tell students that they couldn't come to class until the school completed a criminal background check on them, not to have to lock up whiteboard markers and erasers, and to have a regular class of more than a handful of students in a real classroom, I felt bad abandoning those students.

On the last day of the class, Fatimah brought an apple cake she made. It's one she makes frequently for her family, she said. Apples, flour, eggs, and sugar, it is made without oil or butter. Still warm from the oven, it was a delightfully moist, not too sweet cake. It was a lovely treat on a bittersweet ending to the class.

Oil-free Apple Cake

3 to 4 apples, peeled and thinly sliced

3 to 4 eggs, beaten

1 cup of all purpose flour, sifted

3/4 to 1 cup of sugar

(I added about 1/2 teaspoon of freshly grated nutmeg)

Preheat oven to 350º F. Line the bottom of an 8-inch round cake pan with parchment paper.

Mix apples with sugar, using less sugar for sweeter apples, more for tarter apples. Stir in beaten eggs. Stir in flour and mix well. Pour batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake 30 to 40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool. Sprinkle with confectioner's sugar and serve warm or at room temperature.

French Apple Tart--Tarte aux Pommes

2011-03-19T11:15:00.000-07:00

The hard part of maintaining a food blog is not the work involved, which is considerable, it's finding and establishing the rhythm of cooking, taking the pictures, writing, and posting. It takes time to find that rhythm while still balancing the other demands in one's life: work, love, friends, household chores, and alcohol. I might be able to put off doing some chores, but that evening cocktail is not to be trifled with. This is why most of my posts are written early in the morning, usually several hours before school starts.

Like anything that demands a certain amount of discipline, running, for example, or studying a foreign language, any break in the routine of maintaining the blog makes it that much more difficult to get back into the rhythm of posting. It's always easy to find an excuse to put off writing up a post, to find something else that needs to be done, an additional hour of sleep perhaps, or an episode or two of 30 Rock that you hadn't seen yet. Having found myself in a work-and-state-of-affairs-of-educational-funding-in-California-induced-funk, I decided I needed a brief break from blogging. I didn't realize how difficult it would be to pick it up again. It's like Michael Phelps after a few weeks of hitting the bong and then jumping back into the water. Whoa! Dude, 100 meters seems like a mile!

Tarte aux pommes is an elegant looking, relatively simple and straightforward apple pie. Although it holds no candle to my mom's apple pie, it is a very delicious dessert. The apples are not masked by an excess of sugar or cinnamon as sometimes happens in apple pies; they are front and center in this tarte. A fan of thinly sliced apples rest on a bed of a lightly sweetened purée of sautéd apples. It seemed a fitting dessert for our book club's discussion of Parrot and Olivier in America.

For the crust, I used the recipe from The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook. It really is, as advertised, the perfect pie crust. Don't use a food processor to do this. You can, but by the time you do the clean up, what's the point? This is something that can be done so easily in a bowl with a fork.

The Perfect Pie Crust

(adapted from The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook)

1 cup unsifted all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
3 TBS chilled, unsalted butter, cut in 6 to 8pieces
1/4 cup shortening, chilled, also cut in pieces
3 to 4 TBS ice water (I use a cocktail shaker to chill the water and easily pour a little at a time.)

Mix together the flour and salt. Cut in butter. Then cut in shortening. Sprinkle with the ice water, a tablespoon or so at a time and stir. Add just enough water so the mixture is moist enough to gather together in a ball.

Wrap the ball of dough in a sheet of plastic wrap and press into a CD sized disk. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. Place into a 9-inch tart pan. Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork. Line the shell with parchment paper and fill with dried beans or pie weights.
Bake in a pre-heated 425º oven for 10 minutes. Remove the parchment paper and weights, and bake for another 3 to 5 minutes until the bottom is lightly browned. Allow to cool before adding the apples.

I used two varieties of apples for the filling. I used golden Mutsu for the purée, and Granny Smith for the top. Any good, tart apples would work.

To make the purée, core, peel and slice three to four apples. Sauté the apples with a tablespoon of butter, a squeeze of lemon, a sprinkle of cinnamon, 2 tablespoons of panko breadcrumbs and about a 1/4 cup of sugar, more or less to your taste. Cook until the apples are soft enough to mash with a fork. Mash into a chunky purée and cool.

Core, peel, and slice another 3 apples for the top of the tart. You want the slices to be a uniform thickness. Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet and saute the slices until just slightly softened, three to five minutes.

Spread the purée of apples on the cooled crust. Fan the slices of apples in a decorative pattern on top of the purée. Sprinkle with several tablespoons of sugar and bake in a 375º oven for around 25 minutes, until apples are soft and lightly brown. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

This tart is best served the day it is baked, but I found that it still tasted very good the next day.

Calamari with a Sweet Hot Sauce--Cumi Goreng Pedas Manis

2011-03-09T06:30:00.000-08:00

When I was working on Pulau Galang, the Indonesian refugee camp for refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia, I had to make regular trips to Singapore every three months to renew my visa. All of the foreign workers in the camp had these special three-month visas rather than the typical one-year work visas so the government could easily prohibit us from returning to the camp if we caused any trouble. As Singapore was just a couple of hours away by boat, and the process took three days, it was a nice break from the camp and a welcome change from the dining hall routine.

One of the dishes I have enjoyed on different visits to Singapore is the fried baby squid (although I think it's probably baby cuttlefish). These are whole, baby cuttlefish that are first deep fried and then finished in a sweet sauce. Done right, they are delicious. Unfortunately, I've sometimes had them when the cook didn't do right by them and I was faced with a pile of cloyingly sweet, rubbery aliens from the sea. Squid is one of those dishes that either is cooked right or is a disaster. If the first time someone tries squid, the cook fucks it up, that person will probably never try squid again.

When I usually cook squid, which is not often, I use frozen squid, as this is what is most often available. A few weeks back I noticed that Sunh Fish, where I buy most of my seafood, had some fresh squid in their case. I didn't buy any at that time, but made note of it so that I might take advantage of some fresh squid next time they had some in when I was there. That day came a few days ago and I bought a couple of pounds.

I had planned to make some grilled squid, cumi panggang, but when I got the squid home and cleaned them, I felt they were too delicate for such an approach. Once cleaned, there were around thirty squid to a pound. The bodies were extremely thin walled, about the thickness of a slice of skin from a careless moment with the mandoline. Although I didn't think I could do them justice on the grill, I knew they would be great fried.

I intended to try the recipe from The Food of Singapore, a book that I generally like. After frying a few pieces of squid following its recipe, however, I decided to ditch that recipe and try my own approach. The original recipe calls for a marinade in a batter of curry powder, cornstarch, soy sauce, and egg. The fried squid tasted good, but didn't have the delicately crisp exterior that I prefer. Discarding the wet ingredients, I kept the curry powder and cornstarch, and added some rice flour. Dredging the squid in this mixture provided just the taste and texture I was looking for.

The sauce is even simpler. To a half cup of Yeo's Sweet Chili Sauce, I stirred in about two tablespoons of kecap manis Cap Nonya. This was heated in a wok and then the fried squid were added and tossed with the sauce to coat. The result was at least as good as any squid I've ever had in Singapore, or anywhere else. If you like calamari, this is a dish I would definitely recommend.

Crispy Fried Squid in a Sweet Hot Sauce

2 pounds small, fresh squid or 1 pound cleaned, frozen squid, thawed
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup rice flour
3 TBS curry powder
2 tsp sugar

oil for deep frying

1/2 cup Yeo's Sweet Chili Sauce (I prefer Lingham's, but it wasn't at the market I went to on this day)
2 to 3 TBS kecap manis
water, as needed, to thin the sauce if necessary

Clean the squid and remove the eyes and beak from the tentacles. Lightly score the inside of the bodies in a crosshatch diagonal pattern and cut into strips. Dredge the prepared squid in the cornstarch mixture. Fry in batches in hot oil for about 30 seconds. Drain on paper towels.

After all the squid has been fried, heat the chili sauce and kecap manis in a wok or pan that can easily accommodate the squid. Toss the squid briefly in the heated sauce, plate, and serve.

Pardon this interuption--a minor rant before carrying on

2011-03-01T01:09:00.000-08:00

This blog is primarily about food, in particular food I like to cook. Having had the good fortune of living in Southeast Asia for a number of years, some of those years in refugee camps and others in large cities and small towns, there is a bias towards food of that region. Although many people think the title of the blog suggests it to be about coffee, I had never had much luck getting good coffee in Java, or elsewhere in Indonesia for that matter, until my visit last summer. Indonesia produces a lot of great coffee (not too much in Java), but finding a good cup is definitely a challenge. Probably the best I enjoyed was a cup of café den at a coffee shop in the refugee camp on Pulau Galang. So, no, this is not a blog about coffee.

I cook because I enjoy it and because it makes good food affordable. My wife and I are both teachers, teaching adult education, and, despite what some politicians suggest, are not living high on the hog thanks to our union contracts. Besides my full-time day job teaching, I also teach a couple classes at one of the local community colleges. Despite having M.A.s and years of experience in our field, neither of us enjoys a particularly lucrative contract. We do, however, have jobs we love. We both enjoy our students (most of them) and our colleagues (many of them) and don't particularly loathe our bosses; at least one of us has a boss we actually respect. This blog is a creative outlet for me, a way for me to think about something other than how to get students to recognize subject-verb agreement or write a coherent thesis statement. I never wanted it to be a reflection of my daily life, my struggles and successes.

Still, life sometimes intrudes. I have not posted anything for some time not only because I've been busy with my classes, but because I've just been so goddamn frustrated. Frustrated that my wife, who's one of the best teachers I've ever worked with, is losing her job because her district has decided to scrap its adult education program. Frustrated that although the district will no longer be offering adult ESL classes, the state is still going to be funding the district for the program at the same level it was funded two years ago when it was much larger. I'm frustrated that this is happening to programs up and down the state of California and nothing is being done about it.

Yes, the economy here is rotten. The state legislature is dysfunctional and programs are being cut right and left. GOP representatives are refusing to allow voters to vote on whether or not to extend some minimal taxes rather than gutting social and educational programs that have already been cut to the bone. The state is still funding adult education programs, but allowing districts to abolish the programs and shift the funds to K-12 programs. At the same time budgetary pressures on the community colleges are forcing them to limit the lower level ESL classes they offer. Adult immigrants who don't arrive in California fluent in English are going to be limited to their ethnic enclaves. As people are stuck in separate neighborhoods with fewer chances for advancement, as our communities become more insular and stratified, resentment will grow among everyone.

"Why don't these people learn English?" This is a fairly common sentiment among many Americans, a people not exactly renowned for their multilingual abilities. Indeed, listen to the average American who is a native-speaker of English speaking on the street and you might wonder what his first language is. To learn a language beyond the survival level of expressing basic needs, wants, and abilities takes time and study. Some people seem to have this idea that all the immigrants coming here were illiterate field hands or trash pickers in their countries, people with little or no education who should be thanking Jesus every day that they now get to live in the greatest country on earth. They don't realize that the cook in their favorite Chinese restaurant was an engineer or teacher in China. When a person's language skills are limited, others treat him as if he were a child, no matter that he may have been a doctor in his native country.

In 2002 Time magazine designated Sacramento the most diverse city in the United States. They gave it this designation not based on the number and variety of immigrants living here, but on the social, economic, and educational success the various ethnic groups achieved in this city. A lot of that success starts at the adult education level with students getting a foothold by learning basic English skills. In 2004 the ESL program in our district was awarded a Program of Excellence designation by the California Department of Education. Next year our budget for the year, if the tax extensions are passed, will be less than the cost of 20 seconds of air time during the Superbowl. If the tax extensions are not passed, there will likely be no program at all.

So, yes, it has been a little hard to get up any enthusiasm for taking pictures and writing about food. Still, what else is to be done? I just hope that the next time someone complains about these goddamned immigrants who don't learn the language he does something about reopening the goddamn classrooms and allowing them to learn.

Soon, a brand new post about food. Yum.

Roast Duck Salad with Hoisin Vinaigrette

2011-02-10T06:45:00.000-08:00

Chinese roast duck is one of life's guilty pleasures. Duck is such a rich meat and when done right it hits all the right notes. Crisp skin, dark meat glistening with fat, it is great by itself or as an accent to a dish. It's a bit of a pain to cook, however, a bird that requires some practice to get just right, and not something you are likely to cook often. Fortunately, if your city has a Chinese or Vietnamese community, you should be able to find at least one shop that knows how to do it justice.

As an ESL teacher, I have students from many countries and cultures. I often ask them where they buy the foods from their countries in Sacramento. When I first returned to Sacramento from Vietnam about 15 years ago, I asked a student where she thought the best char siu was in town. Although she lived in the south area, she steered me to Cheung Hing market near the corner of 11th and T. I have been a regular there ever since my first visit.

Besides great char siu, Cheung Hing also produces wonderful salt chicken, roast duck, soy sauce chicken, and roast pork. I've also ordered a whole roast pig there several times for different celebrations over the years. They draw a fairly decent lunch crowd for their set lunches which include a meat dish, chow mein or fried rice, a vegetable, and a piece of har gow or siu mai for about $5. Or you can get one of their roasted meats over rice for about the same price.

I honestly don't remember where I first saw these pear chips. I think I saw them on Foodgawker or Tastespotting, but I don't recall. I used them with a blue cheese dressing for another salad and liked their flavor and texture. I think they go particularly well with the duck and the hoisin vinaigrette. They take some time to make, but not much effort. They make a nice addition to salads, if you can keep from snacking on them by themselves.

This is a salad that can be served by itself or with other dishes as part of a meal. You can easily adjust the vinaigrette to your personal taste and preferences, adding a little heat if you like or perhaps a touch of sesame oil. I'd recommend the greens be lightly dressed so the duck, the pears, and the walnuts don't get overwhelmed by the dressing.

Roast Duck Salad with Hoisin Vinaigrette

1/2 roasted duck, meat and crisp skin removed and shredded
1/2 cup "honeyed" walnuts (I use Susanna Foo's recipe)
2 bosc pears, sliced about 1/8 thick with a mandoline
1/2 small head of red cabbage finely julienned
2 cups micro greens and/or arugula
1/2 red pepper, julienned

1/4 cup hoisin sauce
2 TBS rice vinegar
3 TBS canola oil
1 tsp kecap manis
1 TBS finely grated ginger

To make the pear chips, dip the slices in the reserved syrup from making the walnuts, place on parchment lined baking sheets and bake in a low oven (225-250º F) until crisp, one to two hours, flipping the slices every 30 minutes or so. They'll be light brown when finished and will cool to a brittle crispness. If you find you haven't crisped them quite enough, pop them back into the oven and bake a little longer.

To assemble the salad, lay two to three pear chips on a plate, and top with a mixture of the duck, greens and other ingredients. Lightly dress with the hoisin vinaigrette (you'll have some left over). Serve with one pear chip placed on the side of the salad. Serves 4 to 6.

Indonesian Pepes Ikan Tacos with Mango Salsa

2011-01-30T22:35:00.000-08:00

Ikan pepes is a traditional method of preparing fish throughout Indonesia. The fish may be whole or filleted, covered with a spice paste, wrapped in banana leaf and then steamed or grilled. The paste keeps the fish moist and gives it a wonderful flavor. Although banana leaves are used to wrap the fish in Indonesia, foil can be used if you don't have a Hispanic or Asian market from which to purchase frozen banana leaves in the US.

I decided to adapt a pepes ikan recipe for a twist on fish tacos. The spice and heat of the pepes ikan makes perfect sense in a fish taco, and the mango salsa with jicama and daun laksa is one that could easily be made in Indonesia. A drizzle of sambal kecap might have been an interesting addition; I'll try it with that next time I make these.

Unfortunately, today was a cold, rainy day more suited to a bowl of pozole than fish tacos. They tasted good, but I was cold and wet from the grill, dreaming of white sand beaches while my feet were as cold as the coldest beer in Bali. Fitting, perhaps, for a recipe entered in the Alaska fish taco contest.

Indonesian Pepes Ikan Tacos with Mango Salsa

1 12 oz package of Alaskan cod
6 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
2 slices of laos (galingal) about the size of quarters, peeled and chopped
2 slices of ginger, peeled and chopped
2 stalks of lemongrass, chopped, using only lower third, tough outer layers removed
2 tsp sambal oelek (Indonesian chili paste)
4 kemiri (candle nuts)
1 tsp ground turmeric
2 tsp light brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp vegetable oil
6 cherry tomatoes, sliced
banana leaves (or aluminum foil) for wrapping the fish

mango salsa
1 cup of mango, preferably fresh, diced
1 shallot, small dice
1 to 2 red chilies, seeded and cut in small dice
1/2 small jicama, diced
1/4 cup of laksa leaves (Vietnamese rau ram) finely chopped
juice of 1/2 lime

red cabbage, finely sliced
avocado, sliced

tortillas

Add the shallots, garlic, laos, ginger and lemongrass to a food processor with a metal blade and chop fine. Add sambal, kemiri, turmeric, brown sugar, salt and lemon juice, blending to a fine paste. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the spice paste for several minutes until fragrant, but take care not to brown it. Remove the paste to a bowl and allow to cool.

On an 8 x 12 inch banana leaf (or aluminum foil) lay one fillet of cod. Spread the fish with some of the cooled spice paste. Turn it over and spread the other side. Top the fillet with some of the sliced tomatoes. Fold the banana leaf into a packet, using toothpicks to seal the folds. (If using banana leaves, it may be necessary to use two leaves to ensure your packet doesn't leak.) Follow the same procedure for the remaining fillets.

Grill on a medium-hot grill for 20 to 25 minutes, flipping the packet over halfway through the cooking time.

While the packets are being grilled, prepare the other elements. Make the salsa by mixing together the ingredients in a bowl. Add more lime juice if necessary.

To serve, slice open the grilled packets. Slice off some fish from a packet and add it along with some slices of cherry tomatoes to a warmed tortilla. Add some of the red cabbage and slices of avocado. Top with some of the mango salsa. Enjoy with Bir Bintang or a crisp lager.

Roasted Carrot Cumin Dip

2011-01-24T06:55:00.000-08:00

For the longest time, while the princess was living with us, I got away from cooking with carrots. Perhaps influenced by her aunt, the duck--who also has an almost deathly aversion to the root--the princess refused any food with carrots. Although we had carrots in for my wife and I to snack on, they were rarely included on the menu. Now that the princess has returned to Indonesia, we are free once again to enjoy carrots.

Epicurious is a site I often go to when looking for an idea for something to cook. The recipes are usually clearly written and there's a wealth of them. I generally have an idea if I'll like the recipe or not based on the ingredients used. If I have bought something I want to cook but haven't decided what to do with it yet, I'll search the database for ideas. This dip is one that evolved from one I discovered from one such search.

The original dip at the Epicurious site is actually easier and equally delicious. It uses raw carrots and doesn't include cumin. It takes about five minutes to make and tastes wonderful, if you like carrots and ginger.

Cumin and carrots seem to have a natural affinity. One of the dishes that appears at almost every class potluck in which at least one student is from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, or Kyrgyzstan is plov. A rice dish which includes beef and carrots, it is usually generously spiced with cumin. The combination of the braised carrots and cumin in the plov is always satisfying. This dip attempts to capture the essence of that combination. Roasting the carrots before pureeing them gives the dip an added depth. The dip resembles hummus in texture and can be served with crudities, chips, or crackers.

Roasted Carrot Cumin Dip

5 medium carrots (about 600 gr)
1 TBS olive oil
1/2 cup +/- mayonnaise
1 1/2 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1/4 cup chopped peeled ginger
1 tsp cumin seeds, dry roasted in a pan, cooled, and then ground
salt, to taste

Coat the carrots with the olive oil and place in a baking pan. Cover with foil and bake in a 400º oven for about 15 minutes. Remove the foil, stir the carrots and bake another 15 minutes or so. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

In a food processor or blender, puree ginger and carrots. Add remaining ingredients and mix until you have a relatively smooth dip. Adjust seasonings to taste.

Soto Madura

2011-01-15T12:59:00.000-08:00

Outside of the Indonesian spiced coffee cake recipe that I posted last month, I realize I haven't posted many Indonesian recipes lately. I could blame it on the season--winter in Northern California just doesn't put one in an Indonesian frame of mind--but it's more likely the result of laziness. Cooking for just the two of us, I don't feel the urge to cook up a dish that I know I will be eating for several days in a row. Winter is also the time Tjing finds her way to the kitchen, cooking up large quantities of noodles and pigs feet in soy sauce. We cook one or two nights and eat leftovers for lunch and dinner the rest of the week. However, this week I decided to try out a recipe for soto Madura.

Just as Indonesia has numerous versions of sate (satay), so too does it have countless variations of soto, a soup that can be found throughout the archipelago. In fact, the cookbook that this recipe comes from--668 Indonesian Recipes from 33 Provinces (668 Resep Masakan Khas Nusantara dari 33 Provinsi)--features 23 recipes for soto and only 11 for sate. Soto is a perfect dish for rumah makans because the bowls can be assembled per order with the ingredients the customer requests and then filled with the hot broth.

I am particularly fond of Soto Ayam Ambengan (which may lay claim to being the most popular soto in Indonesia), but like other versions as well. As with Vietnamese pho, the key to any good soto is the broth. Although you could make a quick version using canned chicken broth, it will be a far cry from a soto made with homemade chicken stock.

Madura, an island off Surabaya that is now connected to Java by an impressive bridge, is included in the province of East Java. Javanese generally consider the Madurese to be coarse folk easily angered. Then again, many Javanese describe almost all non-Javanese this way. With a slightly drier climate and less fertile soil than Java has, Madura has developed a cuisine with some differences from Java. Bull racing (kerapan sapi) draws adventurous tourists to the island, and the bulls also feature prominently in traditional dishes, most famously in rujak cingur and soto daging. This soto ayam Madura may have evolved from the popularity of chicken soto in nearby Java.

As I mentioned, the recipe is adapted from 668 Resep Masakan Khas Nusantara dari 33 Provinis by Yulia T and Astuti Utomo; Agromedia Pustaka; 2008.

Soto Ayam Madura

1 small chicken, preferably free range, about 3 pounds
1 TBS salt
3 quarts filtered water

12 shallots (smallish ones, shallots in Indonesia tend to be the size of large garlic cloves)
9 cloves of garlic
2 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
1/4 cup fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/4 cup fresh laos (galingal) peeled and coarsely chopped
7 kemiri (candlenuts) unsalted macadamia nuts may be substituted
1 1/2 tsp sugar

2 cups bean sprouts, blanched by pouring boiling water over and drained
1 pound potatoes, boiled, sliced and fried
4 to 6 eggs, hard boiled, peeled, and sliced in half (or as you like)
6 stalks seledri (a leafy celery that you can find in Asian supermarkets), finely sliced
6 TBS fried shallots
2 limes, sliced

In a sufficiently large pot, place the chicken with the water and salt. Bring to a boil, then lower to a simmer and cook until done, skimming any foam from the surface. Remove the chicken, allowing it to cool before shredding the meat with your fingers. Skim or separate the fat from the broth.

In a food processor, puree the spices until you have a relatively smooth paste. Add a little broth if needed to make the process easier. Stir the paste into the pot with the broth. Simmer for 20 minutes or so.

Prepare bowls by adding some shredded chicken, bean sprouts, sliced potatoes, half an egg, and sliced seledri. Ladle in the simmering broth. Top with fried shallots. Serve with sambal, kecap manis, and sliced limes, allowing diners to adjust the seasonings to their taste.

Vietnamese Crispy Fried Shrimp with Kumquat Salsa

2011-01-09T20:52:00.000-08:00

Com dep, pounded glutinous rice flakes, make a wonderful covering for fried shrimp. Paired with a kumquat salsa, they are a great appetizer. Using Andrea Nguyen's Crispy Shrimp Coated with Green Rice as a jumping off point, this recipe is an amalgamation of ingredients and techniques. It takes very little effort or time to pull together.

Andrea Nguyen has a nice description and history of com here. For people interested in Vietnamese cooking, her cookbook, Into the Vietnamese Kitchen, is one of the best.

Vietnamese Crispy Fried Shrimp with Kumquat Salsa

12 large prawn, peeled (leaving on the tail and last segment) and deveined

1/2 cup of ginger, peeled

4 TBS water

1 tsp salt

2 tsp sugar

5 TBS tapioca starch

1 large egg

1 tsp fish sauce

com dep--green, glutinous rice flakes (available in Vietnamese supermarkets)

oil for deep frying

6 kumquats, seeded, chopped

2 tsp rice vinegar

1 shallot, peeled and minced

2 tsp fish sauce

2 tsp sugar

1/3 to 1/2 cup Thai sweet chili sauce

In a blender, puree the ginger and water. Press through a sieve, reserving liquid. Mix in the salt and 2 teaspoons sugar. Marinate the shrimp in this mixture for half an hour or so. Drain the shrimp.

Mix the tapioca starch, egg and fish sauce in bowl until smooth. Place a quarter cup or so of the rice flakes on a plate. Heat 1 to 2 inches of oil in a wok or pan to 350º F.

Dip shrimp into the egg batter and let excess batter drip off before rolling gently in the rice flakes. Fry several shrimp at a time for a minute or two in the oil, flipping them so both sides are evenly cooked. Drain on paper towels. The cooking causes some of the flakes to brown slightly, but most of the covering will remain green.

To make the salsa (which is really more of a kumquat nuoc cham), stir together the fish sauce, vinegar and sugar until the sugar is dissolved. Mix in the other ingredients.

Serve the fried shrimp with the kumquat salsa as an appetizer, or along with rice and vegetables for dinner.

I am submitting this to Delicious Vietnam #9, a monthly blogging event celebrating Vietnamese food. Founded by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey, and Kim and Hong of Ravenous Couple, Delicious Vietnam welcomes submissions from bloggers around the world. To learn how you might participate, click here. The roundup for Delicious Vietnam #9 will be hosted by Pepy of Indonesia-Eats. Check out the roundup to find the details on who will be hosting Delicious Vietnam #10.

Chinese Fried Turnip Cake--Lor Bok Goh Dzin

2011-01-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

I and the rest of my family have to credit my wife for introducing us to the pleasure of lor bok goh dzin. Although we had long been fond of going out for dim sum, these had never appealed to us, primarily because of their English name. Turnips just don't have much appeal, at least in my family. How these acquired their English name is a mystery, for they contain no turnip. Their primary ingredient is daikon, a large, mild white radish.

The best lor bok goh are almost pudding-like in their consistency, firm enough to cut into rectangles to be fried, but still soft and gelatinous. When fried, there is the contrast between the crisp crust and the silky interior. We prefer to eat these with a generous amount of crushed chili in oil and soy sauce.

Erring on the side of caution, I steamed these a little too long, which produced a firm cake that was easy to slice and fry, but lacked the suppleness I was aiming for. Next time I will cut back on the steaming time, removing the pan just when the edges of the cake begin to pull away from the sides.
The recipe is adapted from Eileen Yin-Fei Lo's The Dim Sum Book.

Lor Bok Goh Dzin

21 ounces (about four cups) fresh daikon radish, washed, peeled, and coarsely grated
25 ounced cold water
1 quarter-inch-thick slice of ginger, peeled and mashed
1 clove of garlic, peeled
2 TBS Shaoxing rice wine
pinch of white pepper

1 pound of rice flour (not glutinous rice flour)
2 cups cold water
2 TBS dried shrimp, soaked in water to soften, then diced
2/3 cup Chinese bacon (lop yuk), diced
3 dried shitakes, soaked to soften and diced
1/4 tsp white pepper
1 TBS salt
1/2 cup liquefied fork fat (or vegetable oil)

2 TBS dry-roasted sesame seeds
4 green onions, finely sliced
1 TBS cilantro, finely minced

Placed the grated radish, ginger, garlic, wine, pepper and water in a large pot. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. When it comes to a boil, lower the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Discard garlic and ginger, drain.

Mix together flour and water in large mixing bowl. Add shrimp, bacon, mushrooms, pepper, salt, and oil. Stir to mix well. Add the drained daikon and stir until everything is thoroughly mixed.

Pour into a greased 9-inch-square cake pan and steam until cooked, about 1 hour. I would recommend steaming until the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan but the center is still slightly jiggly.

The cake can be served warm, cooled slightly after removing from the steamer and then sliced. Sprinkle with the sesame seeds, green onions and cilantro.

To fry, refrigerate the cooled cake overnight and slice into 1/3-inch-thick rectangular slices. Heat a pan over medium-high heat and add a tablespoon of peanut oil. When it is almost smoking, plan fry the slices for about 3 minutes on one side until browned, then turn and brown on the other side. Sprinkle with the garnishes and serve hot.

Rosemary Crackers

2010-12-29T15:41:00.000-08:00

Crackers and cereal are two food items that seem ridiculously overpriced. Consisting of little more than wheat and water, they are priced as if made from frankincense and myrrh. Although I don't see myself making my own grape nuts or shredded wheat any time soon, crackers are a different matter.

Essentially an unleavened flatbread, these crackers are not only economical, but quick and easy as well. By the time the oven is heated, these are ready to be baked. They taste as good as any crackers you might find in an upscale store and are a fraction of the cost. Using a pasta machine to roll out the dough, you can vary the thickness from paper-thin to a thicker consistency that will stand up to dips and spreads. The amount of rosemary might seem excessive, but the flavor is surprisingly subtle.

Rosemary Crackers

adapted from this recipe found on The Fresh Loaf

1 1/2 cups (7.2 oz) flour

1 tsp salt

pinch of sugar

2 TBS finely chopped fresh rosemary

2 TBS olive oil

4 oz ice water

Place a baking stone in the lower third of an oven and preheat oven to 475º F, allowing at least half an hour for the stone to be heated. Place a pan on the bottom of the oven.

Put the flour, salt, sugar and rosemary in a food processor with a cutting blade and pulse to blend the ingredients. Add the olive oil and pulse several times to blend. With the machine running, add just enough of the water for the dough to begin to come together. You don't want it to actually form a ball until you press it together by hand.

Form the dough into a ball and divide into four equal sized pieces. Working with one piece at a time, cover the other pieces with plastic or a damp towel to keep from drying out.

Flatten the dough into a rectangular shape that will fit into the widest setting on a pasta machine. Dip the dough into flour, brushing off excess. Roll dough through the pasta machine until you reach your desired thinness. 8, the next to last setting on my Atlas machine, produces an almost ethereal cracker, but one that is not very practical for spreading. I find the setting of 6 to produce a very thin but still relatively sturdy cracker.

Cut the rolled sheets of dough to the size cracker you want. Place on a piece of parchment paper, and lightly brush with water and sprinkle with sea salt.

Pour a cup of water into the pan on the bottom of the oven. Place the parchment paper with the crackers on the baking stone. Bake for 2 to 3 minutes--until just beginning to show spots of brown--then flip the crackers over and bake for another 2 minutes or so. Remove to a rack and cool. Follow the same procedure with the rest of the dough.

Spekkuk Spiced Coffee Cake

2010-12-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Spekkuk is one of the few positive byproducts of Holland's brutal, nearly four-century colonization of Indonesia. A rich cake heavily spiced with some of the spices that first attracted the Dutch to Indonesia, Spekkuk is traditionally served with sweet tea. Baked in alternating layers of spiced batter and plain batter, lapis legit, is an even more elegant version of spekkuk and can be found in bakeries throughout the archipelago.

Wanting something sweet for a morning get together that had the flavor of spekkuk without the excessive richness, I adapted a recipe from The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook for Cafe Beaujolais Coffee Cake. The original recipe is delicious, but the spices for this spekkuk version result in an even more amply spiced coffee cake. This is a no-fuss recipe that could easily be prepared for a Christmas morning breakfast or brunch.

Spekkuk Spiced Coffee Cake

adapted from Cafe Beaujolais Coffee Cake

2 1/4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tsp nutmeg (preferably freshly ground)
4 teaspoons cinnamon, divided (I ground one stick of Indonesian cinnamon)

6 whole cloves, ground
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup corn oil
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 egg, beaten
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350º F. Butter a 9 x 13 x 2 inch (22.5 x 32.5 x 5 cm) baking pan.

In a large bowl thoroughly mix the flour with the salt, 3 teaspoons of the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and sugars. Stir in the oil and mix well. After removing 3/4 cup of this mixture to a smaller bowl, add the chopped nuts and remaining teaspoon of cinnamon to it.

Add the remaining ingredients to the mixture in the large bowl. Stir well until you have a fairly smooth batter. Pour the batter into the greased pan and then sprinkle the nut mixture on top.

Bake for about 40 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Although best served warm, this is also fine served at room temperature.

Blue Cheese Tartlets with Honeyed Walnuts

2010-12-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

I can't recall when exactly I became fond of blue cheese, but I know I was well into adulthood. Blue cheese, like brussels sprouts, is something of an acquired taste. It requires a certain aging of the taster as much as the cheese. Like brussels sprouts, it is pretty much a take it or leave it proposition. I doubt you'll find too many children who appreciate the tang of a good blue.

I particularly like blue cheese in salads with pears and walnuts. The crisp sweetness of the pears is a perfect foil to the salty richness of the cheese. A salad with arugula, pears, blue cheese, and walnuts lightly dressed with a vinaigrette is a perfect winter salad.

The holiday season is one of potlucks and cocktail parties for many. As my wife and I both teach--at different schools in different districts--the last days before winter breaks are often hectic with competing parties. One annual party that we look forward to is a wine tasting that raises funds for local ESL teachers. With school districts dismantling adult education programs (a bill passed several years ago allows school districts to continue to receive funding for adult education classes even though the districts no longer offer classes, siphoning the funds for K-12 classes) these are lean times for ESL instructors. The annual wine tasting is an enjoyable event that also helps out a few people.

Once you have the shells made (and you could certainly use packaged phyllo cups instead), these are a snap to assemble and bake. I made several variations, putting bacon in some, diced apples in others, some with membrillo spread on the bottom, and the rest simply with the cheese and walnuts. I think my favorite were the ones with the membrillo; the sweetness of the quince paste was a nice counterpart to the cheese.

To make these, fill pre-baked tartlet shells with several teaspoons of softened blue cheese mixed with cream or cream cheese. Top with honeyed walnuts and bake at 350º for eight to ten minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature. Bacon, pears, caramelized onions, or membrillo may be placed in the shells before adding the blue cheese mixture.

Tuna Tartare with Kaffir Lime Leaves

2010-11-29T06:20:00.000-08:00

The deliciousness of my recent ahi carpaccio prompted me to make this tuna tartare. Like the carpaccio, this is a dish I've had in the past with beef. While there is an understandable reticence on the part of most Americans to consume raw beef and raw eggs, steak tartare is a treat that I enjoy. Using impeccably fresh tuna in place of the beef and yolks from quail eggs, this was every bit as tasty as the ahi carpaccio.

I used a tomato paste can to serve the tartare on a layer of diced avocado. The raw yolk added another dimension of lusciousness to the tartare. For those concerned about consuming raw yolk, it could be hard boiled and then grated, or left out altogether.

We are lucky enough to have a kaffir lime tree that seems to be thriving in our back yard, so getting fresh kaffir lime leaves is not a problem. Their presence can overtake a dish though, and with something like ahi tartare you want to make sure the lime leaves don't detract from the simple clean taste of the tuna. I found three leaves for a half pound of fish to be plenty, imparting a tropical citrus taste but not overpowering the other ingredients.

Tuna Tartare with Kaffir Lime Leaves

1/2 pound sashimi grade ahi tuna, small dice

1-2 shallots, depending on size, finely minced

3 whole kaffir lime leaves, midrib removed, finely minced

salt, to taste

avocado, small dice

quail egg yolks (optional)

chili oil (optional)

fried wonton triangles

Lightly toss together the diced tuna, minced shallots, and minced lime leaves. Using a small tomato paste can, biscuit cutter, or similar cylinder with approximately 1 1/2 inch diameter, place a half inch of lightly salted, diced avocado in the bottom of the cylinder. Top with 3/4 to 1 inch of tuna mixture. Press down and push onto a serving plate. Repeat. You should have enough to make about four separate tartare towers. Top each tower with an egg yolk, if desired. Chili oil may be drizzled around the base of each tower. Serve with fried wonton triangles.

Giving Thanks

2010-11-25T10:49:00.000-08:00

Despite its excess, its gaudy commercialization and celebration of intemperate consumption, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It is not the food, for I don’t particularly care for turkey or pumpkin pie, but the communal celebration, the sharing a meal with the people who matter in my life, that holds Thanksgiving’s appeal.

I am fortunate in that most of my close relatives live nearby. My mother lives about 7 miles away in the house I grew up in, a house she and my father bought in the early 50s. My brother and his wife live 3 or 4 miles from her. My sister and her husband, in whose house we will celebrate Thanksgiving, live about half an hour drive away up in the foothills. Two of my wife’s cousins and a nephew live about a mile from us. Although we get together in different combinations many times throughout the year, on Thanksgiving we all gather together for a few hours.

The absence of a loved one—a soldier deployed overseas, a family member who has moved away or cut off contact with others, a hospitalization or death—the void of this absence resonates at Thanksgiving like at no other time. We come together to share our blessings, to bask in the company of each other. That absence reminds us of both our good fortune and our loss, evoking memories of Thanksgivings past and awareness of losses to come.

The foods of Thanksgiving, the familiar dishes we return to year after year, anchor our celebrations. While some pimp the traditional with whatever the current culinary rage might be—cranberry foam on spherical turkey ravioli with bacon crusted Brussels sprouts—most of us long for the comforting reassurance of the dishes we remember from when we were children, and were loved and protected from the world. We might not like the green bean casserole with cream of mushroom soup and fried onions from a can, but if that is what we had as children, we find comfort in its presence on the table.

This Thanksgiving we will be missing someone special. I’ve known my sister-in-law’s mother, Teddy, since I was in high school, when Richard Nixon was President and we were still fighting the Vietnam War. She has always been an extremely gracious, giving person with an unflappable air of calm about her. While my sister-in-law might be raging or bubbling over with excitement, Teddy would always murmur, “Oh, Lisa,” or “hmm, hmm. That sounds wonderful.” Over the years, Ted and Fred (my sister-in-law’s father), have been extremely generous towards our family, welcoming not only my wife, but also her extended family of cousins, nieces, and nephew.

Teddy passed on all her cooking skills to her daughter, so it’s fortunate that Lisa married someone who likes to cook. Otherwise, Lisa would be living on a diet of canned, boxed, and frozen food. Teddy tells of the time she cooked her first Thanksgiving turkey and was so pleased to find the turkey came pre-stuffed, not realizing until after it was cooked that the neck, gizzards and liver weren’t intended as stuffing.

Someone else cooks the turkeys for our Thanksgiving dinners, but Teddy’s cranberry jello mold has been a fixture for many years. Although Teddy won’t be able to make it to this year’s gathering, her jello will be there. As difficult it sometimes is to please Tjing’s demanding palate, she loves Ted’s jello salad. Fortunately, Tjing requested the recipe from Teddy several years ago, and, of course, Teddy graciously passed it on. Shopping for the ingredients this week, I was unable to find either the Cranberry Jello or the Raspberry Jello called for in the recipe. I substituted Black Cherry Jello for the cranberry and a generic raspberry gelatin for the Jello brand.

Holiday Jello Salad

(recipe courtesy of Teddy)

1 large pkg Cranberry & Fruit Jello
1 small pkg Raspberry Jello
3 cups boiling water
1 can whole berry cranberry sauce
2 small cans mandarin oranges, drained
1 large can crushed pineapple plus juice
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

In a large bowl dissolve the two jellos in the boiling water. Add cranberry sauce and stir to dissolve. Stir in mandarin orange segments and pineapple. Mix in walnuts. Pour mixture into jello mold(s) and chill until set.

Mexican Spiced Lava Cakes

2010-11-24T10:05:00.000-08:00

Who doesn't like a lava cake? Properly made, they are light clouds of rich chocolate with an oozing core of molten ganache. While easy to whip up, they do require a reliable oven and careful attention to timing. However, even if you miss the mark a little as I did with these, they still taste wonderful. Chocolate with chocolate, butter, cream, sugar, flour and eggs, what's not to like?

These were another book club dessert. They preceded a spirited discussion on home-schooling that nearly resulted in the dissolution of the book club. As spirited discussions are no strangers to my family's get-togethers, I was surprised to hear several of the participants were too upset to want to continue to meet every six weeks or so. I like to think I could even be civil with Dick Cheney were we to get together once every six weeks, although I would ask him to check the shotgun at the door. Matter of fact, it would be my pleasure to serve this dessert to Cheney, but he'd have to get his own transportation to the hospital if it triggered yet another cardiac arrest ; )

The book we had read for that night was The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver. Since much of the book is set in Mexico, I prepared a Mexican meal for the night. To give a Mexican twist to the lava cakes, I adapted a Ghiradelli recipe by adding some cinnamon and ancho chile powder to the molten centers. Both complement the chocolate nicely and are not in such quantities that they overpower the chocolate, remaining more a back note than a jarring blast.

Mexican Spiced Lava Cakes

(makes 2, can easily be doubled or tripled)

for the molten centers
1 ounce dark chocolate (I used Trader Joe's Pound Plus 72% Belgian Dark Chocolate Bar)
2 TBS whipping cream
1 tsp ancho chili powder (available in Mexican markets and many supermarkets)
1/2 tsp cinnamon

for cakes
2 ounces dark chocolate
1/2 stick butter (4 TBS)
scant 3 TBS sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 TBS cake flour

To make the centers, melt the chocolate and whipping cream in a double boiler or in the microwave. Stir in the ancho powder and cinnamon until completely mixed. Chill this mixture in the refrigerator. When chilled, form into two balls.

Preheat the oven to 400º F. Butter 2 six-ounce ramekins.

Melt dark chocolate and butter together in double boiler or microwave. Whisk to thoroughly incorporate the butter into the chocolate.

In a small mixing bowl, use an electric mixer to whisk egg, egg yolk, sugar and vanilla until light, about 5 minutes. Gently fold in the chocolate mixture and flour until just incorporated. Pour the cake mixture into the prepared ramekins. Press a chocolate ball into the center of each ramekin.

Bake about 10 minutes, until cakes are firm. (My oven is terribly erratic, making it a guessing game each time as to when the cakes will be done, anywhere from 7 to 12 minutes. ) Let cakes sit on a rack for 3 to 5 minutes. Run a knife between the edge of the cakes and the ramekins. Invert a plate on each ramekin, flip plate and ramekin over, remove ramekin and serve. Garnish with powdered sugar, raspberry coulis and fresh raspberries.

Soft-Shell Crab--Cua Lot Chien Bot

2010-11-18T07:31:00.000-08:00

As a child, I had heard of soft-shell crabs from my parents, who were both originally from the East Coast. Although I don't remember being fond of any kind of seafood before our family lived in Malaysia for a year in 1966, the concept of a soft-shell crab always fascinated me. It seemed so brutal and perverse to wait until the animal was at its most vulnerable stage to harvest and devour it. That there was this small window of time when the crab's exoskeleton was defenseless against a predator's appetite always held some allure for me. This was not an everyday dish. This was special.

Still, for all their appeal, I didn't get the chance to try soft-shell crab until 1994 while living in Saigon. By the time the Gastronomer discovered the crab shack in 2008, prices had risen considerably from what they were in 1994, but the food there is still worth every dong. I believe the cha gio were 5,000 dong (about 35 cents) when we first ate there and the soft-shell crabs were similarly priced. I know the beer bill was always higher than the food bill when it came time to pay. And beer was cheap.

When I was picking up some ahi from Sunh Fish on Broadway, I noticed they had some boxes of soft-shelled crabs in their freezer. The crabs come five to the box, have already been cleaned, and are ready to cook once they thaw. Although they couldn't really compare to the ones in Saigon, at a little under $2 a piece they were worth a try.

I was tempted to make a sort of soft-shell crab po' boy sandwich, or with a tamarind sauce, but in the end decided to go with a crispy fried version served on top of a meatless yum woon sen containing several types of mushrooms. Although I was pleased with how the crabs tasted, I think fried food never tastes as good when you are the one doing the frying. More importantly, they were a hit with Tjing, who has a particularly unpleasant memory associated with Quan 94 in Saigon.

The recipe is adapted from Authentic Recipes from Vietnam. The use of soy sauce results in a dark batter; replacing the soy sauce with a tablespoon of fish sauce would probably produce a lighter, more attractive batter.

Crispy Soft-shell Crab

1 tsp sesame oil

2 cloves garlic, crushed

1 tsp grated ginger

2 tsp gound white pepper

1 tsp salt

1 cup all-purpose wheat flour

1 cup rice flour

1 cup water

1 TBS rice vinegar

2 TBS soy sauce (see note above)

1 tsp oil

1 tsp sugar

soft-shell crabs

flour for dusting the crabs

oil for frying

Mix the first five ingredients together and marinate the crabs in this mixture for 30--45 minutes.

Mix the ingredients for the batter, aiming for a thin, pancake-like batter.

Dust the marinated crabs in flour, then dip in batter before frying in oil at 360º--375º. The crabs will have a lot of moisture and may spatter while frying, so be careful. I found I could comfortably fry two crabs at a time in a wok.

Serve with Thai sweet chili sauce, nuoc cham, or tamarind-ginger dipping sauce.

Vietnamese Ahi Carpaccio--Ca Tai Chanh

2010-11-05T09:45:00.000-07:00

While I am a fan of traditional carpaccio made with raw beef, and I also enjoyed bo tai chanh on several occasions while living in Saigon, Tjing doesn't like cooked beef and raw beef makes her shudder. So I decided to eliminate the beef and use ahi for this dish. The combination of the ahi with the herbs is delicious and makes an impressive starter.

The one requirement for this dish is sashimi grade ahi. Sunh Fish in the Asian Food Market is where many of the local sushi restaurants in Sacramento get their fish. The quality of the fish is excellent and they are just as responsive to individual customers as they are to their restaurant buyers. They are also one of the few places I know of in Sacramento that you can find fresh squid.

The key to this dish is pristine ingredients. Assemble the components and let diners appreciate the simple clean tastes of the herbs with the raw ahi.

I served this with sesame cracker (banh trang me), but I could also see serving it with banh hoi brushed with scallion oil. I had to take the pictures at night, so they are less than ideal.

Vietnamese Ahi Carpaccio--Ca Tai Chanh

1/2 pound sashimi grade ahi tuna

2 TBS lime juice

2 tsp fish sauce

scant teaspoon of sugar

1 shallot, sliced lengthwise with a mandoline to get paper thin slices

1/4 cup mixed herbs, finely sliced or chopped,

1 TBS young ginger, finely minced and briefly fried

Slice tuna into pieces 1/4 inch thick. Place one slice between two pieces of plastic wrap. Gently pound with a meat pounder (or rolling pin, wine bottle, or sauce pan) to about an 1/8 inch of thickness. You don't want these to be paper thin.

Place fish in saucer with lime juice mixture for just a few minutes. With good quality ahi there's no need for the lime juice to "cook" the fish.

Place the slices on a plate, and top with sliced shallots, herbs, and minced young ginger. Serve with sesame crackers, banh hoi, or whatever you like.

I am submitting this to Delicious Vietnam #7, a monthly blogging event celebrating Vietnamese food. Founded by Anh of A Food Lover's Journey, and Kim and Hong of Ravenous Couple, Delicious Vietnam welcomes submissions from bloggers around the world. To learn how you might participate, click here. The roundup for Delicious Vietnam #7 will be hosted by Nina, of the blog MissAdventureAtHome. The submission deadline is November 14, 2010. For full details on how to participate, please go to the Delicious Vietnam page at Ravenous Couple's blog. Check out the roundup to find the details on who will be hosting Delicious Vietnam #8.