feast of the taste buds

You may know it as a dip, or sandwich mate… Humous… not the kind that fell off trees…

It’s wierd that I first know this tasty paste in England. Labeled vegetarian meal, with some raw veggies and sandwiched between pita bread. Nice…

The key really is a good food processor. Once you have that, then we’re laughing… Okay, key ingredients are mainly chick peas or garbanzo beans or in Arabic it is… humous! thus the name…

Then you will need some tahini sauce, otherwise bake about a tablespoonful of sesame and crush it (you can do this later together with da beans). A handful of garlic (you might want to tone this down, I love lots of this stuff), juice of one lemon and salt to taste. That’s it really.

It’s best to soak the beans overnight. Some sell it drier than others. I would peel the thin skin away, others couldn’t be bothered. Whatever… Sometimes when you forget to do this, you would just boil the stuff until slightly soft.

The next step is to put everything in the foodprocessor, crush it until it forms a whitish paste. Taste. And youve got yourself humous!

I recently set up a mailing list to discuss vegetarian recipes. It’s not exclusive for vegetarians, as I myself am not a strict veggie.

All disco is in Indonesian tho. It’s a yahoo list named sayurmayur.

To subscribe email: sayurmayur-subscribe [at] yahoogroups.com

See you there!

One thing that I missed most about Thailand is yum ma-muang, mango salad. I like it more than som tam or papaya salad which is so popular over there, it’s practically their staple food.

I remember this som tam lady, who always pass near the hotel just after dark. Usualy they sell both som tam and yum ma-muang. She asked me if I would like little or more prik kee noo (cabe rawit!), I made a gesture with my thumbs: yesss! you betcha! more prik!

I made some today… unfortunatelly it’s not that easy to find green mangoes. And it doesn’t taste as good if the mango is ripe. So all you need is some mangoes, cherry tomatoes (regular ones are okay but it’s not as sour). Grate the mangoes and chop up the tomatoes.

Soak some dried shrimp and grind it. Grind garlic and chillies in a pestle. Disolve some tamarind paste in coconut water (regular water will do just fine) too, add juice from one whole lemon, a couple of spoons full of nam pla (fish sauce), palm sugar. Mix everything and taste.

Add a handfull of corriander leaves and roughly ground roasted (or fried) peanuts.

Here is the recipe for the clear fish soup that I mentioned in my previous post…

Basically you can use any kind of fish, but ones with nice smooth fillets is best such as tuna or snapper. Marinate the fillets with salt and lemon juice for about 10 minutes.

Paste about 6 shallots and 3 garlics… depending on your taste you can use big red chillis or small ones, or both.. slice them thinly…

Use a bunch of kemangi leaves, eastern dishes loves lots of these…

3 stalks or lemon grass, about 6 cms of galangal, cherry tomatoes (lots of them… ), 3 lemons, 3-4 pieces of lemon leaves, 3 cms of ginger, 6 cms of turmeric, turmeric leaves… (paste all tubers)

saute all spices with the following order: shallots-garlic, lemongrass, galangal, turmeric, turmeric leaves, ginger, lemon leaves… then add water… leave to boil…

after the water boils… add fish… wait for it to boil once more… add cherry tomatoes and kemangi… add salt and lemon juice to taste…

At least in the big cities, usually papeda is eaten with fish in yellow sauce, although sometimes you’ll see meat cooked also this way. If you look at the amount of spices and the sour-spicey taste, it must be north sulawesi influenced.

To be honest I’m not a big fan of papeda, so the yellow sauce helps a lot.

Sagu is harvested from the inside of the sago tree trunk. Once felled, the tree is split and left for about a week. Then the inside is chipped and taken to another spot to be kneaded, washed and strained to separate the starch. The result is slightly grayish and wet. The locals sell it by placing it inside bamboo stalks. I’m not sure if they dry it first or not, maybe they do, I didnt stay long enough to see this.

I went to Mangroholo, a village in the birds head region in Papua. Neighbouring Sira, another village, on top of a hill, a nice little spot in the middle of a swamp forest. The villagers plant vegetables such as cassava and kangkung, around their village and usually thir sago garden or ‘dusun sagu’ is not far away from their home.  They harvest as much as they need and sometimes more to sell but that’s it — no industrial scale production around here.

They eat ’sagu bakar’ or baked sago with coffee or tea in the morning. They call it Papuan bread It’s baked in an iron cast tray that looks like a big ice tray. They heat the tray upside down on their fireplace and when hot enough they put it aside and place raw sago inside the trays, then cover it with banana leaves. It tastes better if mixed with coconut shavings.

It reminded me of sagu ambon that my grandmother use to cook during ramadhan. The colour’s different, sagu ambon is redish, not sure why, was colouring added? The way grams do it is by cooking the dry sago trays with water, add palm sugar and cubes of sweet potato. Sprinkle a little bit of salt to balance. Then serve it with coconut milk boiled with some pandan leaves.

No not east asia or ‘the orient’ lah … eastern Indonesia… Papua to be exact.

Two months ago I had the opportunity to visit Papua for the first time… yes, yes, I havent been there before. All I’ve heard about Papuan food is sago, sago larvaes and palolo worms… yikes! I’ll pass!

Well let me tell you first that in that enormous jewel of a country, every area has their own specialty… heck, two neighbouring villages only a few hundred metres away have their own language! Look up the facts lah, Papua has something like the most number of languages in the whole world.

So let me tell you about sago. Its starch. In Jakarta I dont think you can get it as easy. Some say ‘Sagu Tani’ is the closest you can get to Papuan Sago. Corn starch (maizena) is slightly too thin. Mostly you will get sagu ubi - a type of starch harvested from yam - not sure which one produces sagu.

Sago, in my limited experience in Papua, is served in two main way - papeda or baked. Papeda is sort of a staple food eaten with veggies or fish/meat. I often made it for my nieces and nephews to play cutting and pasting… yes, your cheap non-toxic glue. That’s exactly what it is… glue… nothing else added, just mix room-temp water with the sago, then after its mixed well, add boiling water until it looks shiny and thick. Then you have to eat it while its hot. It will harden when cold. It becomes hard to the consistency of jelly pudding.

Immediately when you hear the name gado-gado, you will think of thick peanut sauce and kangkung (a type of water crest). The thing is, kangkung didnt come until much later. When I was younger, gado-gado’s main green ingredient is spinach. Then comes runner beans, labu siam (a type of squash), potatoes (boiled then fried), hard boiled eggs, fried tempe and tahu.

If you live in Central Jakarta, you will definitely heard of Gado-gado Boplo. They were very popular, not to mention expensive. As long as I can remember they were in Pasar Boplo, near the Gondangdia train station. (I cant be sure but I think they moved even before the station was built in the early 90s.) I was never a big fan of Gado-gado Boplo. What I dont like about them is their sauce. It looks like it was blended in a food processor. It feels impersonal, industrial even.

I prefer the one in Jalan Menteng Kecil. Still within walking distance from Pasar Boplo. Gado-gado Betawi, which was sold by a Sundanese woman. It’s not that cheap either, but for a similar price, you get gado-gado with sauce made from fried peanuts crushed in her huge ulekan. The right way to make gado-gado sauce. You have to crush the peanuts, but at the same time avoid crushing it too soft or you’ll end up with peanut butter!

It’s been a long time since I visit that place, gado-gado perfection. Another important ingredient that makes me come back again and again to this gado-gado place is their huge emping. Crackers made of melinjo nuts – another Betawi special — smeared with sweet shrimp paste.

Saturday, January 03, 2004

Anthony Bourdain may dislike vegetarians, but he of all people should know that you can be very creative with veggies.

I thought you can only use gluten to substitute for meat, and I dont like gluten that much. I’d rather use nuts and beans in place of meat. But there is at least two other veg that I know that can easily pass for meat. One is unripe jackfruit and the other one banana blossom - both easily accessible in tropical countries. With jackfruit, you cant really fool people with its taste, but it resembles meat especially when you cook it with palm sugar.

We had fun today experimenting with banana blossoms. Actually theres nothing novel about it. Mum use to cook it with curry and tell people it’s chicken and most people bought it. Nadrah tried making abon out of it. The process is a bit tedious, but then again making abon out of meat is also not that easy.

First you have to boil the blossoms, then pound it until soft. Soak with coconut water or coconut milk. For seasoning use shallots, garlic, candle nut, galangal, salam leaves, lemon grass. Mash all the ingredients and then put it on low heat while occasionaly stirring until dry. Place it on a tray and bake it until golden brown.