huiray

BTW: "Semur Daging" or "Semor Daging" in Indonesian/Malay. ("Smoor" is a Dutch word. So if you search for "Smoor Daging" you will find largely Dutch websites/answers. Searching for "Semur/Semor Daging" gives you websites/answers in Indonesian/Malay. I note that the chef in question is Dutch, from his name.) BTW2: Just FYI the Indonesian/Malay recipes for this might include more things - like hot chillies and lemongrass. ETA: "Semur" means a sort of braise, such as is applied to the dish here where it is cooked in a brown gravy quite common in Malay and Indonesian cuisine. "Daging" simply means "meat". Because of Islamic prohibitions since the introduction of Islam into Indonesia, the default meaning for the term becomes anything-but-pork, commonly beef nowadays but could be water buffalo, goat, and so on especially in older periods. I suspect the Hindu Javanese period still used something other than pork, but I am guessing here (wildly speculating).

See my ETA note which I was composing as you posted.

A noodle soup bowl. Beef stock, oil, sliced pattypan squash, basil, shaved beef, mei fun. That's it.

?? D'you mean Sayur Lodeh? You ought to be able to get candlenuts in a pan-Asian store --- surely there must be one in Ottawa? Ask for "buah keras" if the owners are Malay/Indonesian rather than Chinese... Yes, I've read about macadamia nuts being used as a substitute - but have never done so, because I have access to candlenuts. Even when using buah keras (candlenuts) myself, I tend to ramp up the quantity called for in recipes, even if the idea is just to add a suggestion of "lemak" or creamy texture to the dish. P.s. If you use coconut milk (and you should be, for sayur lodeh) it might be an idea to just add a bit more, in lieu of the candlenuts if you can't get them (or also skip the macadamia nuts). ETA: It seems "Sajoer Lodeh' is the Dutch version/name. Are you looking to make the Dutch version or the Javanese version of the dish, if there is a difference (if any)? (The Malay version is pretty much like the Javanese version, I think, even if the dish varies with the cook and the vegetables available to the cook, across the various regions. It's another dish which does not have an ABSOLUTE invariable recipe) (But for myself, if it did not have cabbage and yard-long beans in it I would be reluctant to call it "sayur lodeh". :-) ) ETA2: @ElsieD, if you are in a Chinese-owned grocery and they don't know what "candlenuts" are, try showing them this name: 石栗 ("stone chestnut"). Then, if they have it, confirm by looking at the package. Most of the stuff in the USA (and, I'm assuming, Canada) would come from a few importers via Indonesia and they will have the English name on the package; or, "(buah) kemiri" on it.

Chow Mei Fun. Plain bubbly omelette: very hot oil, eggs beaten w/ water, oil, salt, white pepper; then cut up. Oil, garlic, ginger, scallion whites, red-orange carrots, karuveppilai, Madras curry powder, cabbage, Chinese long beans, deseeded hot green chillies, softened mei fun, shaved beef, scallion greens, cut-up omelette, fish sauce.

It can be tricky for a home cook, and tricky for me too. Often there is a trade-off between crispy shells/heads and still-completely-succulent flesh. One needs very hot oil in a big pan (or wok) and the place will smell for a while. ;-) So I might go for a "professionally-done" dish in a restaurant sometimes instead. :-) Still, a couple of examples I've posted here on eG: here, here. One tries to select fresh shrimp with thin shells, not too large. Chilling them helps also. Cornstarch helps. A couple of recipes here, here. Folks use Sichuan peppercorns in some recipes (general search here) but I myself never have. The formerly-active prolific eGulleteer hzrt8w posted a pictorial here too. Oh, one needs to eat it while still hot. As the dish/shrimp cools and sits on the plate the shells etc get UN-crispy faster and faster. With a big plate of this stuff I often end up peeling the shells off the last few shrimps.

Lotus root soup. Water, pork spare ribs, lotus root slices, Solomon's Seal rhizome slices, black jujubes, honey jujubes, goji berries, longan flesh, raw peanuts, sea salt. ETA: ...and a couple of small dried whole cuttlefish. (NB: dried cuttlefish has a very different taste profile from fresh cuttlefish, for those who are unfamiliar with it) A rice plate. Stir-fry w/ peanut oil, garlic, minced pork, fish sauce, pattypan squashes, hon-mirin, sea salt, green & yellow French filet beans, Chinese long beans, water, Thai basil. White rice.

Consider trying something like this. Salt-and-Pepper shrimp with intact shell-on whole shrimp done so they are crispy might be another way that might appeal - you eat everything, heads and shells and legs, crunch crunch, without peeling, and you get a nice dose of chitin. (ETA: Yes, I've posted various dishes with whole entire shrimp in a SE/E Asian style - but you comment that it is not really something that you would really do)

A very late meal. The rest of the riff on fagioli corallo al pomodoro from here was cooked down, seasoning adjusted, and served over whole wheat capellini.

Earlier - Roma beans w/ onions, tomatoes, basil. Plus coarse Braunschweiger and Pugliese bread. Later - Itek Tim.

Oh well. And the reuben (by itself) was $14 too. Shapiro's has decent stuff, sort-of; but there are failures too, IMO.

"La speranza!" "Si! La speranza che delude sempre!" Lunch at Shapiro's downtown in Indy. Reuben. Lentil soup. Marinated mushrooms. The Reuben was as unremarkable as before although it looked good. The sauerkraut was also as insipid as before. The mushrooms were probably just waved over some flavored water. The lentil soup (Tuesday special) was fine. General view of the inside. Location on Google maps.

Soup. Call it "clear tasting garland chrysanthemum tofu soup" ("清味茼蒿豆腐湯"). Chicken stock, water, soft tofu chunks, trimmed washed garland chrysanthemum ("tong ho"). That's it. Zucchini stir-fry w/ pork. Served over lots of white rice. Cocozelle zucchini [Full Hand Farm] sliced into batons. Pork cheeks [Fischer Farms, via Goose the Market] sliced up. Hot pan, hot oil, chopped smashed garlic, pork slices, sea salt, zucchini, sauté; covered for a bit, stir some more. Splashes of water. On the way there. Half a melon. This is a Sugar Cube melon [Van Antwerp's Farm Market] (see here too) – they're small melons which also keep well relatively speaking.

Heh. Probably "medium hot" insofar as Japanese tastes go. :-) One recalls that hot/spicy food - in the South & SE Asian sense and other places where spicy dishes have seriously high Scoville units attached to them - are not that well tolerated by Japanese folks by-and-large (in my understanding). Japanese curry, as adapted by the Japanese, definitely has a distinct sweet taste and is mild by the standards of folks like you two and others who eat more spicy food. :-)

@sartoric, d'you mean this one, or a tin of powder? I've never used this, maybe I'll look for this the next time I'm in my local Japanese grocery. @ElsieD, karē raisu is one of the most popular dishes in all of Japan. :-)

Some meals. Pork spare ribs & daikon soup. Oil, garlic, onions, short-cut pork spare ribs, water, chicken stock, daikon batons, cabbage, fish sauce, this-and-that. Served w/ softened mei fun & chopped scalions. Fresh-made tamales from Carniceria Morelos. Pork w/ red chili sauce (shown opened up above), chicken w/ green chili sauce, cheese w/ jalapeños. Eaten w/ scallions & Hot Giardiniera [DeVanco Foods] Beef short ribs braised w/ stuff. Beef short ribs [from Carniceria Morelos], browned; finely chopped yellow carrots & leafy celery stems [both Silverthorn Farm] and red & yellow onions [Fields Farm Fresh] sautéed & browned; water, sea salt, simmer; yellow carrots (and red) (color fades) cut into sticks, leafy parts of leafy celery, generous fresh oregano & thyme (from deck), high-gelatin chicken stock, dried bay leaves; simmer. Seasoning adjusted. Served with and over Cipriani tagliarelle. Plus green & yellow French filet beans [Full Hand Farm] sautéed w/ Maussane-les-Alpilles Fruité Noir olive oil (this one) & sea salt.

Uh, glad you like the idea of "play with your food" but the Yee Sang salad I posted about is not a papaya salad. (I have also never seen shaved green papaya in any Yee Sang that I know about or have ever had or seen) But if you want to "play with" your papaya salad - sure, why not - go for it. P.s. I'm still curious where you are and what culinary tradition you draw on.

@Smithy, regarding this past post of yours – see my post above. :-)

BTW, there's one particular enticement for folks considering making this salad especially for a get-together with others, whether friends or acquaintances or even strangers. YOU GET TO PLAY WITH YOUR FOOD AGAIN. Your Inner Child is encouraged to come steaming out once more. :-) Look closely at that last image set (this one). Everyone – adults, children, young and old, the High and Mighty, and the Most Powerful to the humblest person, all ethnicities and nationalities, who take part in the prescribed traditions of this dish, are GRINNING FROM EAR TO EAR as they gleefully toss away... :-)

Ah. Where are you located, please, if you would be willing to say so? Do you also have a culinary heritage upon which you draw, and where/what might that be, if you are willing to say so? Just curious.

Yes, which would make it more "defined" as perhaps a version of som tum, a Thai papaya salad, although the Malays and Vietnamese and Nyonyas have their versions too - and with other refinements one could make it clearly an Isaan dish.

Here are some examples of something that I suspect (but could be wrong) that you may not have seen before – "Yee Sang" or "Yusheng". Here's an example of this dish from earlier this year that I put together. A discussion of what goes into it here. Some Google image sets here and here. :-)

Is this a salad that is popular in your area of Asia - I believe you are in South Asia?

I gather the two types are called by different names in English by you and folks in your area where you live in South Asia. Still, they are both luffas/loofahs. The one you call "ridge gourd" is Luffa acutangula while the one you describe as "smooth" and as "luffa" (actually, slightly bumpy skin but no ridges) is Luffa aegyptiaca. The "combined" wiki article is here.

Skyline and other parlors have their "signature" (or otherwise) hot sauces. I mentioned it in the original post above. Many (if not most) people put it on their Cincy chili. I do it sometimes, sometimes not, sometimes interspersing chugs of it onto portions alternating with no-hot-sauce portions. At this last meal (above) a guy at the next table was lacing his plate of what looked like a 4-way too with COPIOUS amounts of Skyline Hot Sauce. Heh. As I was leaving I took note of his wiping the heavy sweat off his face. :-)