kokum--cambodge

[mongo_jones]

(perhaps this belongs in the rare ingredients thread. then again it might not be rare to anyone other than me)

tonight i dipped into my penguin "kerala cookbook" for the first time and made a country style fish "curry".

it called for cambodge which is not available here. however, the writer indicates that kokum (which he says is related to and often confused with cambodge but is not) is a good substitute and i remembered seeing kokum in the local indian grocery (which as i've said stocks more southie than north-indian stuff). so i hied me to the store only to discover that they have packets of both black and white kokum. i recalled my friendly store-manager's exhortations to "ask if you have questions" and asked her what the difference was. first she hit me with, "this one is black, and this one is white"; seeing the expression on my face she then added, "i think the white one is the dried one and the other one is the wet one". i decided to make a judgement call and bought the "wet" black kokum. the recipe called for soaking the cambodge and so i decided to soak the black kokum too. i don't know if this was the right kokum or whether it needed to be soaked but the resultant dish was excellent.

we ended up eating a pan-indian dinner (indian fusion if you will): a fish curry from kerala, punjabi style kali urad dal, and bengali style alu-gobi. it all went together quite well.

i'm going to start experimenting with more of the recipes--probably stick mostly to the coconut-free ones (did someone say "elevated cholesterol"?). has anyone else tried anything from this entry from the penguin series?

[Episure]

Maybe the cholesterol in Coconut will be offset by the Kokum

It's also supposed to be an appetite suppressant!

The 'white' Kokum is useful if you dont want the colour to take a pinkish hue. But it takes a lot of cooking to release it's flavor unlike the dark one.

[mongo_jones]

i'm down for the suppression of cholesterol formation--i take a dimmer view of the whole appetite suppressing part; i like to eat.

seriously, i wonder if anyone has done a population study of lipid-profiles in coastal areas of kerala. almost every fish recipe in this book calls for cambodge. i assume, by the way, that given the close relation between cambodge and kokum that the chemical properties are similar.

(edit to fix spelling)

Edited March 15, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[Episure]

Appetite loss = Kam bhoj.

[jw46]

(i'm going to start experimenting with more of the recipes--probably stick mostly to the coconut-free ones (did someone say "elevated cholesterol"?). has anyone else tried anything from this entry from the penguin series?

While coconut products are certainly not fat free, they ARE cholesterol free...that is a product of animal tissue..

[mongo_jones]

(i'm going to start experimenting with more of the recipes--probably stick mostly to the coconut-free ones (did someone say "elevated cholesterol"?). has anyone else tried anything from this entry from the penguin series?

While coconut products are certainly not fat free, they ARE cholesterol free...that is a product of animal tissue..

yes. however, the problem is not so much with cholesterol content of foods (the large majority of cholesterol is produced by the liver) but their saturated fat content. as someone with elevated cholesterol (i've managed to bring it down through diet and exercise to just a little over the old standard of "normal") i have to watch out for foods high in saturated fat.

edit to add: coconut is very high in saturated fat. palm and coconut oil in particular are really bad but coconut milk is no slouch either. strange as it is a nut.

Edited March 16, 2004 by mongo_jones (log)

[jw46]

yes. however, the problem is not so much with cholesterol content of foods (the large majority of cholesterol is produced by the liver) but their saturated fat content.

Ok, I stand ( or rather Sit) corrected...

Why is it that stuff that tastes really really good, is also really really bad for us?

Sigh, I guess life is sometimes unfair...

[gingerly]

kudampuli/cambodge

[trillium]

edit to add: coconut is very high in saturated fat. palm and coconut oil in particular are really bad but coconut milk is no slouch either. strange as it is a nut.

You might want to do some reading before you totally strike coconut fats from your diet. "Is Coconut Oil Bad for you? Hardly." is a fun place to start (I heart Kasma, one of my favorite food writers).

There is a similiar story for palm oil (not palm kernal oil). It's been widely used in Europe as a healthier alternative to things with a lot of trans fatty acids (like Crisco). I'm not saying they're health foods, but part of their bad reputation most certainly comes from the non-hydrogenated soybean oil lobby that had people swilling down margarine and vegetable shortenings like they were good for them. I notice the American Heart Association is still sitting on the fence on this one.

regards,

trillium

[mongo_jones]

actually there was a discussion about this on another forum soon after i made that post. tryska and others convinced me i should be eating 10 pounds of coconut a day and bathing in coconut oil.