tryska

what is it about restaurant folks and after-hours sushi? it's like programmers and sushi. i just don't get the connection. and yeah - i must admit - no megaphones at my local. only the yelling when you enter and leave.

See it's never struck me as loud and crowded when i've gone. i mean yeah there's music, and lots of people, but not so much that it made me crazy being there. but my idea of loud and crowded might be by NYC standards.

y'all late night posters are dedicated.

*lol* makese sense to me, since i know what turmeric smells like kew! now here's another question....i'm intrigued by the season with salt and sugar part. is rendang supposed to be on the sweetish side? oh and shiewie - don't worry about not getting the recipe typed out correctly in the middle of the night - i still appreciate oyu posting it!

wow - i didn't know ru-sans was all over the place. that it was jsut an atlanta thing. i like it, but i'm not a sushi snob - in that i don't much care how authentic a place is, and i'm a maki fan - so it doens't have to be sushi grade tuna only for me to enjoy it - i can accept a lower grade, provided it's fresh quality. in any case i do like them alot - both the lunch buffets,a nd their veggie friend rice and tempura.

shiewie? quick question...does the kerisik get added in with the tamarind and lime leaves in your recipe too? question about turmeric leaves - i'm fairly confident I can't find those here. is there a substitituion? what flavor do they impart?

if it were me, i wouldn't have added onions. maybe shallots, but i would have made it into a paste - so there wasn't any distinct onion bits in the curry.

Kew - I just wanted you to know - that I had a conversation with a vietnamese friend yesterday, and we plan to do a cultural food exchange in the next couple of weeks. She wants me to go shopping with her to get ingredients to make Indian food, and in turn she's taking em to the Asian Groceries so I can find the ingredients I need for my rendang.

*lmao*! perfect!

*lol*! i just picture the scenario...of the sheeps stomach filled with milk accidentally left behind in a cave or something... "what's the hell's that smell?" "i dunno - smells like happy underpants" "damn - someone eft behing some milk - lord only knows how long it's been there...hmm..think it's still good?" "i dunno - why don't you try it?" "no - you try it..." "fine, fine....wuss."

That's always been my question: How'd anybody go from wheat in a field to a loaf of bread? Now, THAT's thinking outside the box! Ingrid i'm still wondering who the first guy to eat cheese was. (you know it was a guy)

on the flip-side - white flour, well wheat flour in general, but the effects are mitigated when left whole, stimulate an insulin-release in the blood. In large frequent doses, this is weakens the insulin response, eventually leading to type-II diabetes.

ricin is actually from castor beans. kidney beans have some hemo-agglutinating factor in their lect. (it might actually be called that i can't remember) another is fava beans..arne't they poisonous? pretty much all beans and seeds have to be processed first. part of their maekup is to be poisonus, so well..no one eats them and the species can go forth and propogate.

enjoy your sleep kew! and thank you so much for your help. I definitely appreciate it. I will let you know as I have more questions!

Thanks for the critique! i definitely want authentic. And i promise, no matter what, when I make my rendang it WILL contain kerisik.

I just looked the Adabi rendang up on the web, so I know what the spice packets look like. When I get back from Florida this weekend, I will check our local markets out and see if I can find it. so if i were to use the powder - i would mix it with the paste of shallots, lemongrass etc? and then marinate the beef in it? Also - if i used the powder would i still need the tamco?

i totally missed this part. Thank you so much for the kind offer. So you like this powdered base then? is it simpler to use, or does yeild an authentic flavor. You know I cook so rarely that I try to do everything from scratch for the challenge. My mom always tells me to use powders - but many of them just taste off, as opposed to using fresh. In any case - i don't want to put you to any trouble - I've got a lot of asian stores here in Atlanta - i will search them first. (after making rendange from scratch of course!) I just ran across Madhur jaffrey's recipe (who knew?!) tell me what you think of this: http://www.pepperfool.com/recipes/thai/rendang_daging.html i'm intrigued because it uses curry leaves. and i have access to those fresh.

Well a lot of this restaurants "curries" had string bean and potato - judging from the way it was cooked - i would say the string bean and potato had been added just prior to cooking the meat dry. My best guess is they keep the rendang in a semi liquid state, and the "dry it off" before serving. In any case it was dry large chunks of good quality meat - like i said with the string bean and potato (not a whole lot) And at first it tasted sort of sweet, and definitely coconutty. It was very tender and it was very dry. it was also a darkish brown. the one i got from the second restaurant had no veggies - just meat, but not good quality meat, and it was very liquidy. it was hotter, and less obviously coconutty - a little redder than the original one. what i would like is a rendang that has the dry tender coconutty quality of the first one, and the spiciness of the second one. i'm also going to give the roti canai a whirl the next time i order form that place I'm getting excited about indonesian/malay food now! *lol*

Thank you Kew! To be honest - I'm just now getting into malaysian and indonesian food, as quite coincedentally 2 different malyasian/indonesian/thai restaurants have opened up and offer delivery in my area. One of them I don't like very much. I was turned off by their food the first time I ordered. Some chicken dish. But the 2nd place I ordered the renadang from I was very impressed. They had string beans and potatoes in theirs tho. I ordered rendang fromt he first place again last night, and realize now, it's not the food i dislike, it's the quality of this restaraunts food. *lol* their rendang doesn't compare at all. From what i'm seeing on the menu i like that indonesian/malaysian food is based on lots of fresh ingredients, and I'm intrigued by the use of coconut and mango in ways I've never seen before, yet seem intuitive. (I'm Indian) My next taste adventure is going to be mango shrimp I think. here's a question - i had gotten a mango and sticky rice thing for dessert. It was chopped up mango, with a sweetened coconut sauce and a sticky rice cake. The sticky rice wound up being too hard - but how was i supposed to eat it all together? Also dishes that go well with rendang would be very helpful! I'd love to make it to eat as my evening meal, for the week after next.

Hey Alton - I'm a big fan, and am glad to see a local on TV. I've often wondered - a lot of the stores that wind up on your show are stores I frequent. Are they your preferred markets? Where do you like to go for produce? meats? I've read a little on how you feel about factory farming - do you have any sources for "clean" meats? (other than Harry's/WF) Lastly - thank you so much for bringing that cute baker from Harry's to my screen.

Kew i am forever indebted to you! I can get lemongrass, galangal, kaffir like leaves and the other fresh spices. the kerisik - i think was the word that threw me off in most recipes. it seems almost like making a roux, with coconut instead of flour and butter. and I do have a marble mortar and pestles to mash it in. one question i have is on the tamarind. I have some tamco tamarind concentrate - can i use that instead? and yes please! more recipes!

way too many to count. i can say my latest was a gentleman with whom i discussed galliano bottles as a weapon with, who then showed me his scar from somebody's pool-cue. i also made me an on-the house special cocktail, who's name i will not share in mixed company. it was damn good tho.

*lol* haven't done it yet Monica - it will have to wait for a couple of weeks. This weekend was a no cook weekend, as I';m off to florida on thursday. When I get back, I will start giving it a go. However this weekend I can look forward to my moms kofta curry and puris, and spinach dal, among other things. I had really wanted white radish dal, but she couldn't find any, so she's decided to try growing them.

Hey Y'all. I just had beef rendang for the first time over the weekend and loved it. I would love to replicate it at home, but the recipes i'm finding on the web aren't very US-Friendly. Does anybody have a recipe they would be willing to share? thanks!

Well I'm thinking of almsot 10 years ago, in Queens. Some were from Bangladesh, some were from various parts of India. Actually to be honest - the Bangladeshis were more likely to be busboys.