OH GOD THE FOOD!

Glass noodle salad with peanuts, shrimp, ground pork and cilantro. Tastes like I might never come back to Washington, DC.

Sticky rice.

OH GOD. Som tam with tiny field crabs in it to flavor it like crab. You don't actually eat these crabs, but the crunch of the green papaya and the heat of the chiles combines amazingly with the lime and fish sauce dressing.

Birthday Weekend A Success; Nation Cheers

Josh and me in the minibus on the way to the Thai border.


Uhhhhhh.... right. This is what Josh is around for. READ THE SIGN, MONKEY! No, really, he's totally good at reading signs and I am proud.


Raul (we named our car Raul. Get on board.) has many cousins in Thailand! His name is Pracornchit. No seriously.


Oh god THE FOOD. Coconut Curried Fish and Braised Pork with Green Chili, over jasmine rice. OH GOD THE FOOD.


Even better with a bottle of $2 ice cold Singha beer. OH MY GOD THE FOOD.


From left to right: red beef curry with coconut milk, red braised pork in ginger-wine broth, sour tamarind curry, chicken curry with sweet potato. Did I mention: OH GOD THE FOOD.


Our Thai friends, excited that we could eat "village style". I think it was called village style because there was a pig laying in some mud about fifteen feet to the left and a chicken was sitting under the table at one point. As if farm animals are going to keep me from eating curry.


Me, swimming in a waterfall, in the jungle, the day I turned 32. Swimming in the waterfalls in the jungle was seriously one of the best, most refreshing things I have ever done and I never want to forget about it. Although, two minutes before this, the Thai kids in the picture were laughing at me histerically because I fell into the water, cause I am totally awesomely coordinated. Hope the government doesn't mind my passport being soaked.



This picture is blurry cause it was night and everything was moving and Josh had drank like four beers at this point, but look very carefully at what I am petting. AN ELEPHANT. That's right. I fed it sugarcane and it put its weird, wet trunk on my head and I felt very special.


After many more beers, Josh decided he needed the "Fat Girl Special" from 7-11, which is instant noodles with a spicy hotdog inside. No really, it's called that.


So in summary, Thailand is awesome. That is all.

Nasi Lemak

*Note to self: taking pictures of food under florescent light does no favors to the food.

Remember, from before, that thing that I ate? Yeah, well I learned how to cook it. At last we have a kitchen. Nasi lemak consists of three parts- the rice, the sambal, and the garnishes. The rice is cooked with coconut milk and lightly spiced. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the traditional spice is Pandan, or Screwpine Leaves (yeah, I have no idea where that name came from, as the plant itself looks like broad grass). If you can't find that, a bay leaf will work nicely. The sambal is the spice paste that is garlic, shallots, onion, fresh chilies, dried chilies, shrimp paste, and sometimes lemon grass, fried until fragrant in oil and then cooked with tamarind juice to give it some tartness. The garnishes are traditionally fried peanuts, chopped cucumber and maybe some cilantro or mint leaves.

Nasi lemak actually refers to just the rice, but it is normally served with a protein as well. I decided to go crazy traditional Malay: dried tiny anchovies. Yeah, I know, sounds gross. But really, they came out excellent. You can easily substitute peeled shrimp or pieces of fish or chicken. The tiny anchovies are friend until they are golden brown and crunchy, and really, they sort of remind me of bacon. Fish bacon.

Just a note on getting all this to come together, I put the rice on and then fried the fish and the peanuts, and then made the sambal. It was all done about the right time.

The How To:

Coconut Rice

240 ml / 1 c rice

240 ml / 1 c coconut milk

80 ml / 1/3 c water

2 pantan leaves or 1 bay leaf

¼ stick cinnamon

1 whole clove

pinch of salt

Put everything into a saucepan with a tightly fitting lid. Bring to a boil and then reduce to the lowest flame possible (just barely simmering). Let cook undisturbed for 20 minutes.

Sambal

1 small red onion (really, should be ¼ small red American onion- we seem to have gargantuan produce in North America)

4 small shallots or 2 large

2 cloves garlic

10 whole dried red chilies

5 fresh hot red chilies

1 t shrimp paste (substitute anchovy paste, normally sold in the Italian section of the supermarket in a tube, if you can't find it at an Asian shop)

¼ t salt

1 T sugar

4 T tamarind paste, dissolved in 1 c water for 30 min, then strained

You can do this by hand, like I did (because I don't have anything else to do it with, not because I am better than you), or use a food processor. I wholeheartedly approve of the food processor. Basically, grind the onion, shallots, garlic, dried chilies, fresh chilies, shrimp paste, salt, and sugar until they become a chunky paste. You might have to add a bit of water to the mixture to get it to blend smooth, but try to add as little as possible. When you have a paste, heat four tablespoons of oil in a wok. When the oil is shimmering, add the spice paste and fry about two minutes, or until the garlic smells fragrant and the chilies start to smell toasted. Add half of the tamarind water, and mix well. Continue cooking over high heat until the oil begins to separate out from the sambal. That is your signal that it is done. Reserve the sambal and the remaining tamarind water.

Garnishes

60 ml/ ¼ c raw shelled peanuts, fried in 2 T oil for few minutes, until golden

½ English cucumber, sliced into small pieces

Protien

2 oz dried ikan bilis (small whole anchovies)

-or-

4 oz shrimp, peeled and cleaned

-or-

4 oz boneless chicken meat, chopped into small cubes

If using the dried anchovies, fry them in a ¼ c of oil until golden brown. Strain.

If using chicken or shirmp, sear in a hot wok with a spoonful of oil until nicely seared but not done.

Add the protein and 2/3 of the sambal mixture to the wok, and add the remaining tamarind water. Bring to a boil and cook until the meat is done and the sauce has thickened (you want the sauce to be like thick chili, basically).

To Serve:

Mound the rice and top with the protien in sambal sauce. Serve the remaining sambal on the side as a condiment, along with the cucumbers and peanuts. Eat, and be mad you never had this before.

More Satay, and What I Wouldn't Do for It

I promise I will figure out how to make this. The meat itself is fantastic, but the satay sauce is where the real magic is. I'd lick it off the floor. Off the floor of a slaughterhouse.

Carniverous.

Last Meal in Indonesia

Fried shrimp with black pepper noodles, fried calamari, and some other kind of noodles, fried, most likely. Can you see the fried noodle fatigue in Josh's eyes? Yeah, it's the thousand yard stare.

Actually, our last meal in Indonesia was at Pizza Hut. Yeah, I won't apologize for it. It was excellent. I'd do it again in a second.

Mama Donut

Food on Palau Wey was, uhhhh, sort of fail. I don't really expect that much when you are on a tiny beach, on the backside of an island, in the middle of nowhere, at the tip end of a gigantic country. So Mama Donut was a blessing. I don't actually have a picture of her, as she was very shy and/or hates my blog, but imagine the Aunt Jemima syrup bottle lady, but wearing a head scarf unstead of whatever the bottle wears, and holding donuts, not selling syrup like a cheap hussy.

Mama Donut would just appear mid-morning, I guessing from the next village over, but for all I know she could be camping in the jungle and have a big bonfire over which she does her frying. In the afternoon, after I had personally eaten all of the donuts on the island, she would just sort of melt away. She did a very nice sugared donut, as well as fried bananas, egg rolls, spicy vegetable fritters, and the holy grail of the beach: fresh coconut filled beignet. I can taste them now.

Egg rolls from Mama Donut save me from eating fried noodles. AGAIN. No seriously, I love me some fried noodles. But I love Mama Donut more.

Out of Order Miscellanea #1

This krazy kute kancil (Malaysian Mousedeer) was housed in this amazing park that surrounds the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur. I like things that replace C with K. These are terrible pictures, but they really do prance like deer, but are the size of guinea pigs.

Which make me think they would be excellent roasted.

Mie Aceh

I'm going to level with you: Indonesian food has been underwhelming. Less than impressive. Lacking.

Until I found Mie Aceh. Mie means noodles in Malay (a dirty secret: Indonesians and Malaysians speak the same language. Don't say that to their faces, but the difference is about the same between American and British English. They're a touch tetchy about the subject.) Aceh is the northern part of Sumatra.

Again, apologies for no picture here (earlier technical difficulties were resolved, but there were losses. We have to move on people. Don't loose faith.) Mie Aceh reminds me of Pad Thai- noodles fried with garlic, peppers, and ginger, but in place of fish sauce and lime, they use soy sauce and bitter kalamansi lime juice. Brilliant, delicious, and I ate two servings.

Chicken Satay, Redux

Sorry about the truly terrible photo. I was starving and you are thousands of miles away, so guess what was my first priority? Not you.

Malaysian Chicken Satay 0, Indonesian Chicken Satay 1. Hands down, this Indonesian satay wins by multiple goals. Lightly acidic while still being rich and a touch sweet, it had notes of kafir lime and lemon grass in the sauce, with just enough ground peanut to give it that distinctive taste. The fact that I ate it at this random restaurant in Danau Toba only added to it's appeal.

More like this please, Indonesia.

Uhhhh, this is food?

Food FAAAAAAAAAAAAAIL.

If you are ever in a hawker center in Kuala Lumpur and you look up and as sign that says “Economy Rice. Cooked Meat Vegetable” turn around and run away. I haven't a picture of the bowl of noodles, which I decided to call “Used Chicken Soup”, but it was this: one shred of chicken meat, a meager fist full of noodles, a broth with the full rich flavor of salty water. The owner of the stall was eating something that looked totally delicious, some sort of huge dumpling, almost like a Chinese perogie. I pointed to it and tried to order two, and he swatted my hand away and said “MY FOOD!”

Indeed.

So we got what was not his food, a bowl of nothing served with noodles. His cooking skills are almost as good as his English skills.

Nasi Lemak

Breakfast is really where a people show their true colors. Do they want a sweetened fried bun? Do the like toast spread with jam? Do they like rice spread with sweetened fish paste, chili sauce, peanuts, and coconut milk? I thought that I would be two of those three types of people. I mean really, donuts and marmalade are pretty easy to get behind. But fish paste?

I was wrong. Spicy, salty, crunchy, and satisfyingly rice-centric, it goes great with a cup of iced coffee as the sun starts to come up.

Food, Glorious Food

It's not a secret that I like to eat. And drink. Never forget that when buying me presents and trying to get me into bed. I'll do almost anything for barbequed brisket. And a cold beer on a hot afternoon- let's not talk about something we are all going to regret.

But Singapore. Oh my god. It had me at the first bite. Also, when it decided to be tropical and hot but also have an amazing public transit system. I have weird needs. Singapore also served up something called the Hawker Center, which is more delicious than it sounds. A while back, Singapore had great street food, but people kept getting hit by busses while eating noodles (or the noodle stands were blocking the sidewalk- I wasn't paying that much attention to the explination). The government decided that street food was here-by banned, but the hawkers would be moved to purpose built centers, which ended up looking like a mall food court somehow became detached from a Sears and washed up on the corner.

The architecture of vendors surrounding a central area of dining tables is where the comparison to a mall food court ends. In place of Sbarro's and Taco Bell are tiny stands serving Dim Sum, Laksa, Roast Pork, Pad Mie Goring, Steamed Buns, Fried Noodles, Lamb Murtabak, Roti, and also the occasional hotdog stand. There is usally a few stands suppling juice and beer and dessert, and a lot of fans, as none of them are air conditioned and Singapore is actually located on the surface of the Sun and it gets a touch steamy at times.

Your correspondant, looking creepy, like a cult member, if you will, waiting for people to bring him food.

Also, I ended up eating six meals a day in Singapore. There's one hidden after breakfast, lunch is two parts, and there is a third that I call “Afternoon Breakfast”. Be sure to schedule more time at the gym.