djyee100

Cradle of Flavor Home Cooking from the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore by James Oseland It's done!! Recipe Index: (numbers refer to post #s on this thread) CONDIMENTS: SAMBALS, DIPPING SAUCES, DRESSINGS & PICKLES Javanese Sambal - 156, 285 Nyonya Sambal - 10, 169, 245, 249 Lemongrass & Shallot Sambal - 51 Green Mango Sambal - 185 Sweet Soy Sauce & Lime Dipping Sauce - 40, 74, 116, 188, 301 Nyonya Dipping Sauce - 136, 142, 329 Soy Sauce, Chile & Lime Dipping Sauce - 202 Sweet & Sour Chile Dipping Sauce - 207 Javanese Peanut Sauce - 124, 198, 301 Sweet & Sour Cucumber & Carrot Pickle w/Turmeric - 17, 40, 51, 112, 236 Javanese Cucumber & Carrot Pickle - 74, 97, 142, 158, 198, 199, 235, 281 South Indian-Style Eggplant Pickle - 157 Malaysian Spiced Pineapple Pickle - 100, 292 STREET FOODS Beef Satay - 10, 40, 45, 59, 112, 188, 301 Chicken Satay - 74, 177, 198, 301 Shrimp Satay - 259 Gado Gado - 124 Chopped Veg. Salad w/Coconut & Lime Leaf Dressing - 116 Crisp Jicama & Pineapple Salad - 45 Fried Sweet Plantains - 160 Bean Sprout & Potato Fritters - 207 RICE & NOODLES Steamed Rice - 74, 142, 199, 202 Lemongrass Scented Coconut Rice - 10, 40, 51, 97, 188, 259, 301, 307 Celebration Yellow Rice - 83, 112, 144, 240, 281 Spiced Nyonya Rice - 235 Javanese Fried Rice - 10, 116, 302 Herbal Rice Salad - 318 Stir Fried Chinese Egg Noodle w/ Shrimp & Asian Greens - 210, 249 Penang-Style Stir-Fried Kuey Teow Noodles - 154, 283 Chicken Curry Noodle Soup, Kuala Lumpur Style - 67 VEGETABLES Stir Fried Asian Greens w/ Garlic & Chiles- 74, 134, 153, 217, 281, 283, 295, 301 Stir Fried Bean Sprouts w/ Chinese Chives or Scallions - 123, 157, 166, 249 Sauteed Cabbage w/Ginger & Crispy Indian Lentils - 286 Braised Cabbage w/ Dried Shrimp - 149, 164 Stir Fried Water Spinach, Nyonya Style - 17, 129, 183, 229, 245 Green Beans with Coconut Milk - 112, 144, 149, 156 Ching Lee's Braised Lemongrass Long Beans - 100, 119, 299 Rohati's Crisp-Fried Potatoes w/Chile & Shallot Sambal - 10, 150 Potato Rendang - 32, 173, 249 Fern Curry with Shrimp - 267, 334 Asiah's Eggplant Curry - 36, 202 FISH & SHELLFISH Fragrant Fish Stew w/Lime & Lemon Basil - 229, 261 Spice Braised Tuna - 10 Padang Fish Curry - 10 Hot & Sour Fish Stew w/Bamboo Shoots - 260 Indian-Style Fish Stew w/Okra - 286 Pan-Seared Mackerel w/Chiles & Garlic - 10, 134 Pan-Seared Tamarind Tuna - 51 Stir-fried Tamarind Shrimp - 130 Grilled Whole Fish w/Lemon Basil & Chiles - 318 Nyonya Shrimp Curry w/Fresh Pineapple & Tomatoes - 217 Stir-Fried Shrimp Sambal - 10, 173, 273 Black Pepper Crab - 252, 322 POULTRY The Soto King's Chicken Soup - 113 Javanese Chicken Curry - 120, 185, 280 West Sumatran Chicken Curry - 106, 307 Chicken Rendang w/Cinnamon & Star Anise - 10 Nyonya Chicken & Potato Stew - 110 Mien's Garlic Fried Chicken - 156 Nyonya-Style Spiced Fried Chicken - 136, 142, 329 Kevin's Spiced Roast Chicken w/Potatoes, Penang Style - 112 Javanese Grilled Chicken - 83, 97, 112, 144 Grilled Coconut Chicken w/Lemon Basil - 17, 166, 183, 187, 304 Nyonya Duck Soup w/Salted Mustard Greens - 169 BEEF, GOAT & PORK (FOODS OF CELEBRATION) Beef Rendang - 32, 90, 125, 158, 193, 198, 199, 234, 251, 281 Spiced Braised Nyonya Pork - 10, 100, 105, 157, 158 Malaccan Beef & Vegetable Stew - 236, 245, 251 Javanese Spiced Oxtail Stew - 285 Achenese Goat/Lamb Curry - 176, 182, 292, 299 TEMPEH, TOFU & EGGS Garlic-Marinated Tempeh - 201, 202, 272 Tempeh Sambal w/Lemon Basil - 280 Carmelized Tempeh w/Chiles - 240 Tofu & Summer Vegetables in Coconut Milk - 274, 307 Twice-Cooked Tofu w/Coriander - 224 Fried Eggs w/Garlic, Shallots, Chiles & Ginger - 16, 123, 336 Kopi Tiam Soft-Boiled Eggs - 164 Chile Omelet - 153, 295, 337 SWEETS & BEVERAGES Indonesian Spice Cake - 152 Nutmeg Tea Cookies - 163, 165 Purple Rice Pudding w/Coconut Milk - 323 Sweet Spiced Mung Bean Porridge - 164 Plantains w/Coconut Milk & Palm Sugar - 236, 338 Sweet Rice Dumplings w/Palm Sugar & Coconut - 291 Cinnamon Tea - 134 Hawker's Tea - 220 Warm Spiced Limeade - 162 Lime-Cordial Syrup - 296 Singapore Slings - 339

I'm originally from Massachusetts, so I remember this story. The Boston Cream Pie became the Massachusetts State Dessert when a high school civics class in 1996 asked the legislature to designate it as the state dessert. It was a class project. They thought they were choosing an uncontroversial subject. Wrong. Lobbies developed to make the Toll House cookie or Indian pudding the state dessert. After a legislative battle, the students and Boston Cream Pie won out. Those students learned more about real-life civics than they had bargained for. The following year, a third grade class asked the legislature to designate the Chocolate Chip (or Toll House) cookie the Official State Cookie. The legislature acceded. They like to make people happy. I'm waiting for Indian pudding to be designated the Official State Pudding. You can read about the Massachusetts State Dessert controversy in the Boston Globe archives for a fee (see bottom of list). http://search.boston.com/local/Search.do?s...ate=&s.endDate=

Say Yes to BIL, and a bunch of us here will volunteer to take it off your hands.

I'm envious. I recently bought a quart of premium maple syrup and I refuse to tell people how much I paid for it. Do you make ice cream? Here's an adapted recipe of Maple Walnut Ice Cream from David Lebovitz's The Perfect Scoop. http://foodandpaper.blogspot.com/2007/11/i...eam-rewind.html One of my favs from the cookbook. I've already made this ice cream twice. And here's a recipe for Banana Maple Walnut Bread. It smells divine when it's baking, great for breakfast. BANANA MAPLE WALNUT BREAD 2 large eggs, lightly beaten 1/4 cup vegetable oil 1/4 cup melted butter 1/2 cup maple syrup 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp baking soda 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp salt 2 ripe bananas, mashed (1 1/2 to 2 cups) 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and chopped Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9 X 5 loaf pan. In a large bowl, mix together eggs, oil, butter, and syrup. Place a large sieve over the bowl and sift in the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Alternatively, combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a smaller bowl and add to the wet ingredients. Stir the wet and dry ingredients only until just blended. Mix in the bananas and walnuts. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake for 50-55 mins until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

After reading Robin's post last night, I decided to look for fiddlehead ferns when I went grocery shopping today. And there they were--at $8.50 per lb. So these ferns are definitely a pricey item. But I bought a small portion to try 'em out. I ate sauteed fiddleheads as an appetizer at a restaurant a couple wks ago, and while I liked them, they were very bitter (like lacinato kale). So I blanched these fiddleheads to lessen any bitterness. Then I stirfried them in a little oil as Tepee suggested upthread, and served them with Chile Omelet and steamed rice for a quickie dinner. Everything tasted good. The ferns had a very "green" flavor (a nice touch on Earth Day). They were slightly bitter, and reminded me a little of crunchy green beans. In hindsight, I should have checked the Farmers Mkt today. For fresh, less costly fiddleheads that would have been the place to go. But did I think of that when I was running around to finish my errands and shopping? Nope. Maybe next week.

Cabbage, cauliflower, and broccoli are all strongly flavored and strongly textured--they need cooking to be tender. Cooking also mellows their flavor considerably. They do not taste sweet. They are earthy with a bitter edge. I would say rutabagas and turnips would fall into that category, too. Maybe kohlrabi (I've forgotten the taste of kohlrabi, it's been so long since I've eaten it). Beets and celeriac (celery root) would also probably qualify as "strong" vegetables. Beets are sweet, but they are very earthy also. Radishes have that hard texture, and they taste earthy, but most of all they are spicy. If fennel qualifies as a strong vegetable, then so does celery. Some greens like kale and mustard greens have a strong flavor that must be tamed by cooking, but their texture is tender. Tomatoes and onions are really sweet vegetables. Tomatoes are so sweet that some people think they should be classified as a fruit. As for peppers, which peppers? Pimentos are sweet and tender. Green bell peppers have a bitter earthy edge but their texture is tender. The hot peppers, I think, belong in a category by themselves. They are strong flavored, but like a spice. good luck on your test. Interesting question (though since you're the one on the hot seat, you may not view it that way.) ETA: Oh, and parsnips! Parsnips taste bitter when they are raw, but turn much sweeter when they are cooked.

One of my favs is Julia Child's Navarin Printanier, or Lamb Stew with Spring Vegetables. An adapted version of the recipe was printed in Saveur here: http://www.saveur.com/article.jsp?ID=16001&typeID=120 (Same ingredients list, different instructions.) I never carve the potatoes, carrots, or turnips into ovals. (Are you kidding?) I cut them into bite-size chunks. But I do like to strain the sauce through a sieve (not a colander, as this recipe says) for a nicer presentation. This stew is wonderful served with some good crusty bread. Now that you've reminded me, I should make this stew again soon.

Cook's Illustrated has done a bunch of testing, and they side with a skillet, rather than a wok, because of the greater surface area of the skillet on home stove burners. The most recent article on this question: http://www.cooksillustrated.com/testing.asp?testingid=651 But there was another older CI article I remember reading, wok versus skillet, but I couldn't find it on the web. This blog may refer to that article: (See post for 2/12/08.) http://buggydoo.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html It seems CI recommended a cast iron skillet. I myself use a 14" nonstick wok with a handle. I'm used to it. But the best wok I ever cooked on (& it didn't belong to me) was a traditional seasoned 16" carbon steel wok mounted very securely on a gas burner. That 16" size was perfect for scooping and tossing the ingredients with room to spare. I've tried stirfrying in a large skillet, and the skillet cooks very well, but it didn't feel like Chinese cooking. So I stick to the wok and sear in small batches for best results. BTW, I've been told that a wok should be less than half full of ingredients for optimal cooking results.

A professional baker I know attributes the rising cost of flour to the conversion from wheat-growing to corn-growing (with attendant govt subsidies) for ethanol. Apropos of the subject is Paul Krugman's op-ed about rising grain prices in a recent NYT. (The entire article is worth reading, BTW.) "Where the effects of bad policy are clearest, however, is in the rise of demon ethanol and other biofuels. The subsidized conversion of crops into fuel was supposed to promote energy independence and help limit global warming. But this promise was, as Time magazine bluntly put it, a “scam.” This is especially true of corn ethanol: even on optimistic estimates, producing a gallon of ethanol from corn uses most of the energy the gallon contains." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/opinion/...85a8&ei=5087%0A To the degree that the problem is due to bad policy, that decision can be reversed. We can hope. Meanwhile, as a restaurant patron, I've always been troubled by the waste of the bread basket. If I were asked ahead of time if I wanted bread, I would probably say No most of the time.

How fascinating! Something is supposed to happen when you put a food at the top of the ramp. Something is supposed to dribble down the ramp (I surmise). Put some fresh-churned and kneaded butter at the top of the ramp, see if it's still extruding liquid down the ramp? If so, it requires more kneading to remove liquid. Put some jelly you're cooking on the ramp, watch it dribble down the ramp, check if it's viscous enough to set properly? Or (my favorite) there is some food which extrudes precious liquid. Put the food at the top of the ramp, save the liquid, discard the original foodstuff. I hope somebody cruises by and tells us what this is.

TheSwede (post #18) may have hit on the answer to your question. At the Basic level, people are cooking for themselves. But at the Intermediate level, people want to cook for and entertain their friends (maybe show off a little too). Mastering a dinner party menu may be the goal at the Intermediate level that will give people the pleasure and confidence to keep cooking. I'm not sure what you mean by teaching Shopping in the classroom. (Am I missing something?) In classes that I've attended, teachers frequently keep a sample of the whole ingredient on the prep tray, and mention a few things to look for when shopping, e.g., coconuts without mold on the surface, lots of liquid sloshing around inside when you shake it, coconuts that are heavy for their size. They also pass around the packages of any unusual ingredients they may be using, so people know what to look for at the store, e.g., this is a package of kasoori methi you can find at Indian grocery stores. In general, passing around samples of raw ingredients and spices for people to see, smell, and touch always seems to help.

You don't mention how to make stock in your course description. Homemade stock makes such a difference in the taste of a dish. Knowing how to make a white sauce and a brown sauce are also important for so many recipes. Whipping egg whites--definitely, as in souffles and meringues. A BIG issue for most students. Custards, as in not curdling. Making your own ice cream is a great pleasure for people, and it beats that overpriced, over-aerated product at the supermarket. People like creme brulee, too, and get a thrill from making their own. Piecrust. I realize that baking is covered elsewhere in your teaching setup, but various savory dinner dishes incorporate pastry. In my observation, students need a lot of exposure to pastry making before they make piecrust well. Everyone has his/her own pastrymaking technique, also, and you never know which approach will finally make sense to a student. A little extra instruction on piecrust never hurt anyone. Risotto. Always tough to get right. People also need to learn holding techniques for risotto, i.e., cooking the risotto until it needs one more ladleful of stock to cook thru, holding the risotto at that point, then adding that last ladleful and finishing the cooking when you're ready to serve. Shellfish. Shucking fresh oysters and clams; debearding mussels; deveining shrimp. How to shop for shellfish. People need to learn to be comfortable handling and cooking shellfish. You could try crab and lobster, too, but maybe save that for the Advanced class that sounds like it will be in your future. Chocolate. Again, probably covered in baking, unless you do a chocolate custard. A tricky ingredient to cook with, and students benefit from some specific instruction. They also love to taste samples and compare chocolates. Do you think they care that it's not a baking class? HA. Deep-frying. Everybody's bugaboo (including Julia Child). Certainly technique and ethnic/flavor/texture explorations. A reprise on proper salting is always a good thing, too. But I would emphasize technique, so people have the basic skills to cook anything.

You cooked the fried chicken the day after you received the book! That's motivation. Are you planning to buy a food processor? The recipes in this book are heavily dependent on making spice pastes for flavoring. People say the small food processor is very handy for making the pastes. I own only a regular size food processor myself (since I refuse to buy one more appliance in an already crammed kitchen), and that has worked out fine for me. Sometimes if the paste is not fine enough, I finish it off in a mortar and pestle.

Try doing a simple Google search for what you're looking for. I think the LA Times is no longer hiding old news stories in its archives, and they are accessible.

I've eaten them sauteed quickly with lots of olive oil, and they were delicious. This LA Times article from last year has a bunch of good ideas for cooking nettles: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo...-headlines-food

Same here. I made a Singapore crab years ago with red chilis, ketchup, and eggs in it. I wasn't wild about the specific recipe I tried (not spicy enough, not enough depth of flavor), but I definitely liked the type of dish it was.

Maybe it needs more coconut milk. The dessert looks wonderful (both versions). I wondered why nobody cooked this easy recipe before. Maybe they were put off by "purple rice"? Too weird sounding? But the dessert is elegant. Maybe it should have been called "Black & White Rice Pudding."

Black Pepper Crab has already been cooked upthread, but it had problems. Both Prawncrackers and Pat_00 made some good comments for improving the dish. With their suggestions in mind, I decided to give this recipe a try. The recipe calls for pre-cooked crab from the market. That's convenient, but not as tasty as fresh-cooked live crab. I bought 2 live Dungeness crabs, just under 4 lbs total weight. Sauteed crab tastes best when it's made from fresh raw crab. But there's a difficulty here: doing in a live squiggly pinching shellfish using a knife. I've done this a couple times in my life, and I confess that when it comes to killing shellfish in this manner, I'm a wuss. For people who are brave and skillful and who want to maximize flavor, Hzrt8w has an excellent thread on the traditional method here: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showto...6&mode=threaded I have my own system, of parboiling the crab before sauteeing it. It's easy, though the final result may not taste as great as if cooked from raw crab. But it certainly tastes better than supermarket pre-cooked crab. I can't say my method is more humane to the crabs, either, but it spares my feelings. When I'm ready to cook the crabs, I unwrap them in the sink and keep them upside down and immobile. I rinse them under cold tap water. I bring a large stockpot of water to a rolling boil over high heat, and also prepare an ice bath for later use. Then I pick up the crab from the back end (to protect my hand from the pincers) and drop it quickly into the boiling water. I cover the stockpot to bring the water back to a boil ASAP. Watch the pot so that it doesn't boil over. I parboil crabs for about 5 minutes. The shell will turn red, and the legs will turn inward and under. That's how you know the crabs are ready for the next step. Then I pull the crabs from the pot and plunge them into the ice bath to stop the cooking action. The parboiled crabs, drained from the ice bath. When the crab is cool enough to handle, I pull off the top shell (don't discard it immediately, since you may want the tomale and crab fat in it--more about that later). An uncleaned crab looks like something out of the Alien movie. The top crab is uncleaned, the bottom crab is cleaned. Pull off the white-gray feathery things, which are gills, any facial parts, and the anal flap on the underside of the crab. The dark brown membrane in the middle of the crab body hides the abdominal cavity. I break through the membrane with a spoon and scrape out the cavity thoroughly. Discard the contents of the cavity, since it contains a little triangular gland that is toxic. At this point some people like to rinse the crab under the tap. I don't. You're just washing away the tasty crab juices. Back to the top shell. It has this ugly yellow and white gunk in it. The yellow gunk is a gland, often called tomale (though that may not be the proper scientific name for it), and the white gunk is crab fat. Both will add a savory umami flavor to any crab dish. I have been cautioned not to eat these parts because of the pollution in the ocean. Well...maybe not crab from SF Bay. But these crab were from (hopefully) more pristine waters in Alaska. I scraped out the tomale and fat with a spoon, and added them with the crabmeat when I cooked the dish. I like to cut up crab by splitting it in half along the abdominal cavity, then separating the legs. Then every piece has a leg and some chunky body meat. At this point you can crack the claws and legs with a wooden mallet or nutcracker for easier eating. I rarely do. It's a messy job. I feel fine about handing nutcrackers to people at the table and letting them crack their own crab. Besides, the crab cooks up juicier if the shell is uncracked. Prawncrackers said upthread that the dish was excessively spicy, and Pat_00 said that longer cooking would bring down the heat (posts #252, 254, 256). Both comments were very helpful (thanks, Prawncrackers & Pat). I adapted the recipe by making only half the quantity of the flavoring paste, with 2 level tablespoons of black peppercorns. Even 2 TB is a lot of ground black pepper. All the other ingredients in the flavoring paste were also halved, of course. Then I sauteed the flavoring paste with oil in a wok over medium-low heat, per the instructions. The recipe gives a cooking time of 5-7 minutes. I first tasted the paste at 4 minutes cooking time, and that was a mistake. At 5 minutes, the paste still tasted harsh and wickedly hot (whew). At 7 minutes it was a little better but still too hot for me. The trick here, I think, is to keep cooking that flavoring paste until you reach a heat level you like (or you're so hungry you don't care). I reached that point (liking the heat level) at 10 minutes total cooking time for the flavoring paste. Keep in mind that the paste will cook for another 5 minutes or more with the crab. The longer you cook the flavoring paste, the less harsh and hot the black pepper becomes, and the fruitiness of black pepper starts to show. The other spices, garlic, ginger, and turmeric, also mellow with longer cooking. So you decide how you want it. At the end of the cooking time for the paste I added a few generous pinches of sugar to round off and combine the flavors even more. I sauteed the crab pieces with the paste per the instructions. Since the crab was only parcooked, I added another 3 minutes to the 5 minute cooking time suggested in the recipe. The crab didn't seem to need more time, and I was careful not to overcook it. As with any seafood, residual heat will cook the food quite a bit too. The final dish was very tasty. But even with the changes I made in the recipe, this dish is still very spicy. Ideally, I wouldn't serve this dish as an entree because it is so spicy (although, to be honest, I ate a big plateful for dinner). Instead, I think this dish would make a splendid (if messy) appetizer--a small plateful per person. Eating with your hands seems to break the ice at parties, too. I recommend serving this dish with lemon wedges. A spritz of lemon juice really enhances that black pepper flavor. Despite the lengthy explanation here, this recipe is easy and quick to prepare, even if you start with live crab. (If you've never cooked live crab before, you'll get used to it.) If anybody else cooks this dish, I'd love to hear about your results.

This is my go-to recipe for sun-dried tomatoes (the kind you still have to hydrate). I often bring it to potluck dinners as an appetizer. It's easy and you can make it days ahead of time. Just before serving, I fold little chunks of feta cheese into it. I serve it with country-style bread. People really like it. http://www.callwild.com/recipe_sundried.htm

No ridicule from me. Kudos! Those were both fairly tough dishes to make, which is probably why they were still left to do when the countdown was T minus 4. That fish looks great. I hesitated to make this dish because I thought the banana leaf wrapper would be hard to deal with. But it looks like it held up well on the grill. I once attended a party where a grilled fish like this was the center of the buffet table. People loved it and polished it off like that.

I was reading one of Anne Perry's murder mysteries set in Victorian England. The heroine, who is a nurse, doesn't have time to cook fancy dinners for her husband the detective. (She's not much of a cook anyway.) So, she keeps a pot of stew constantly on low heat at the back of the stove--for weeks at a time. Every few days she replenishes it with more meat and veggies. Sounds like a kind of Lushui Zhi to me. Given the many authentic details in Anne Perry's Victorian England books, it wouldn't surprise me if the author came across this cooking method in her research. It makes sense for a working class dinner, don't you think? BTW, this murder mystery is about a psychopathic serial killer on the loose and hiding in the sewers along the Thames River. But what piques my curiosity? That stew cooking for weeks at the back of the stove. How do you know when you're a foodie...

You've got company on this thread, don't worry. I just meant I wouldn't cook the same things you're cooking. I never made it to the market on Friday or Saturday, so my COF cooking will happen next week. Look forward to hearing more about the fish dish.

It's all yours, Robin. Good luck with the lemon basil.

Great minds think alike. Do you know that Robin and I have been emailing each other this week about cooking on this thread again? I'm willing to do at least one recipe, maybe the Grilled Whole Fish or the Herbal Rice Salad. If someone out there really really wants to do one of those recipes, pls say so, and I'll do the other one.

Crixa has been my favorite bakery for a long time. I like Masse's also. Both Crixa and Masse's have many fragile cream-based cakes that should be kept chilled. I'm not sure they would travel well. Crixa does have some homestyle cakes (like its ginger cake, based on the Chez P recipe) that don't have to be chilled and would travel fine. I once ordered a couple chocolate rum cakes from Crixa for a party. The cakes got a little frosting knocked off the sides in transit, but they tasted so delicious, nobody cared. Another possibility is the bakery in the Rockridge Market Hall. http://rockridgemarkethall.com/index.php?o...=107&Itemid=223 Given that it's a holiday, maybe you should order something ahead of time?