Roti Jala
Roti Jala
Roti Jala translates to “net bread” from Malay. For obvious reasons. In the simplest terms, it’s a coconut crepe. The batter is a similar formula to a crepe or thin pancake, except that coconut milk replaces regular milk. That sounds good, right? It is.
The tricky thing about this is achieving the pretty lace quality of the crepe. In Malaysia, they have these little plastic things called Roti Jala Molds. Here is a photo of one in action. I imagine they are ridiculously cheap, but unfortunately, they are not sold in Toronto – or, at least, I have no idea where I’d find one. I tried making roti jala without a mold (using a free-pour style out of a measuring cup) and I got a lot of blobs and large streaks of batter in the pan. It tastes fine, but does not make my eyes happy. I tried punching holes in the bottom of a styrofoam cup. That didn’t really work, either. The batter wouldn’t run through the holes until I punched them quite large, and then it just dripped out in blobs, making a mess.
Rendang Daging
Rendang Daging
Historically, this beef dish originates in Western Sumatra, Indonesia with the Minangkabau ethnic group, and dates back at least 500 years in literature. Or that’s what I’ve gleaned from Wikipedia, anyway. My personal experience with the dish dates back to a lunch-time cafeteria in Singapore. I remember enjoying the dish, but otherwise have completely forgotten the flavour. Maybe that’s a good thing, since cheap cafeterias ordinarily don’t produce the greatest versions of things. Who knows?
Whatever it was, though, it impressed me enough to inspire an ongoing quest to make rendang (pronounced ren-dahng, daging is dah-ging) at home, here in Canada. I found some Indofoods rendang spice packets at Loblaws, so it is popular enough to infiltrate the Western marketplace in some form, but the resulting mess was sub-standard. Hell, most of those spice packets produce only a pale imitation of the real thing. For many Southeast Asian foods, you need fresh ingredients. Lemongrass, ginger, shallots, garlic, and so on. Which means I needed a real recipe. For rendang, specifically, you need all of those aromatics and spices, plus one more crucial ingredient: infinite patience.
Nasi Lemak / Coconut Rice
Nasi Lemak / Coconut Rice
Nasi Lemak translates literally to “rice in cream”. Nasi means rice and lemak is the cream. Due to it’s relative simplicity and versatility, it can be served on it’s own as a breakfast, accompanied by sambals, or paired with heavier curries for later meals. Hence it’s designation as the national dish of Malaysia.
WTF are Pandan Leaves?
Pandan Leaves
Alternate Names: Screwpine Leaves, Kewra/Kewdaa, Rampe, Ban Lan, Toey/Taey/Tey Ban
I’m going to refer to these as “pandan leaves” since that was the name first introduced to me. They are the leaves of a herbaceous plant native to Southeast Asia, where it’s cultivated for use in cooking as a flavouring element. And when it comes to certain dishes in Indo-Malay cooking, I’ve been told on good authority that pandan leaves are absolutely essential to achieving an authentic taste.
The problem is they’re almost impossible to find, unless you know what you’re looking for. I was originally searching for these leaves over 5 years ago and basically gave up hope until I was in the back area of a basement-level grocery store in Chinatown about a month ago, and I found a package of frozen pandan leaves by complete coincidence. Now that I’ve been researching their use in more detail, I’ve discovered that Indian food-sellers would probably refer to Pandan as “Kewra”, and I am 99% positive I’ve seen Kewra Water and Kewra Extracts at several Indian markets. This excites me. Once again, understanding the multiple translations of the ingredient’s name would’ve saved me a lot of time (years, in this case). The search, however, is half the fun.
Shrimp Satay
Shrimp Satay
Like most humans, I get deep primal satisfaction from cooking with fire. Grilling over wood or charcoal makes me feel like how I imagine the ape from 2001: A Space Odyssey felt after he discovered he could use a large bone to club his enemies to death – like I have finally obtained the necessary power to do anything I want.
So I bought this for the balcony. Yes, for 29.99, this 14″-diameter Colourful Portable Charcoal BBQ has empowered me with our species’ ancestral gift of Fire. My first choice for what to apply this Fire to? Shrimps. Shrimps? Yes, because I don’t love shrimps, unless they’re grilled. Then, I would bash your skull in with a buffalo femur to eat just one of them.
Teh Tarik
Teh Tarik
A cup of tea is one of life’s simpler pleasures. It’s just some leaves steeped in hot water, right? Right. Except there’s hundreds of different ways to prepare it, and can range from simple and pure to complex and heavily spiced. This is the way I had tea in Singapore’s Little India, and midnight kopi tiams and prata shops. It’s got the basic ingredients, but it’s preparation gives it it’s character: black tea and condensed milk are long-poured back and forth between vessels to create a thick frothy head to the tea. Here’s a video clip of one guy’s technique.
Done correctly, the pouring technique produces a very smooth, very sweet, creamy blend of hot water, steeped tea, and sweetened condensed milk with a inch of frothy bubbles at the top of the glass. As a secondary benefit, the pouring technique also tends to cool the tea down to drinking temperature through the repeated airing-out process.
Malaysian Meat Curry Powder
Malaysian Meat Curry Powder
Once every year or two, I make an attempt at curry puffs from-scratch. So far, no luck, as they’ve always lacked the rich flavour and crisp pastry covering. I can excuse the pastry because the dough I did end up using was tasty in it’s own way, but bland filling is absolutely unacceptable. A good curry puff is delicious on it’s own, and doesn’t require smothering in chili sauce (like mine did). So, to remedy this, I am truly starting from scratch this time, by making my own curry powder to season to filling.
The curry powder I had been using was a recommended brand and was probably fine for the job, but it was a large package of ground powder and probably lost most of it’s flavour over time, thereby rendering it’s effect on the meat unnoticeable. Blech.
Using this recipe, you can get the freshest possible spice blend, and believe me, it’s worth it. I splashed a few tsps of this powder into my Christmas dinner stuffing and the flavour was remarkable. I am anxious to begin my curry puff attempt now, as I predict much improved results. Expect a curry puff recipe here soon!
Chicken Satay
Chicken Satay
So, some friends and I are at this media party thing at the Mill St. Brewery, and they’re serving free appetizers and cookies and the like. One of the items being displayed on little platters are sticks of satay with a tiny dish of peanut sauce for all of them. I’m not going to talk shit about Mill St. (their taps are pretty great) but when my friend said the satay was good, I begged to differ. I was 75% sure the meat wasn’t marinated in anything, and it definitely was missing some key ingredients if it was, since there was no distinctive colouring, or any significant flavour. Basically it was some pieces of chicken on a stick. Maybe some salt and pepper. That’s not satay.
I was (and am) biased when it came to satay though, since a few years before that, I was sitting in a outdoor food court on Pasir Ris beach in Singapore, watching an old Malay man fanning satay on a proper satay grill. Unbelievably good. That’s how satay is actually done – you’ve got white-hot coals slow-roasting the meat, and when the chef determines it necessary, he fans the coals to re-ignite the flames to sear and blacken the meat, while he’s basting it with oil or coconut milk. Plus, the whole thing’s been marinated for a day in spices and aromatics. The difference between this and a piece of chicken on a stick is fairly significant, to say the least. Can you blame me for being an ass about it, then?
Cucur Udang
Cucur Udang
In Malaysia (and other places in the region), these are usually found as roadside snacks. Some guy will have a giant wok full of oil on a cart, and will fry up a batch of these (or other similar things) to order. I’ve never had them from the source; my first experience with them came from a package of pre-mixed cucur flour purchased in a Malay-district shopping mall grocery store in Singapore. Just add water and deep-fry. Making them from scratch isn’t much more complicated, though.
These are “shrimp fritters”. Udang is the Malay word for “prawn” if I remember right. Cucur (“choo-churr”) is the word meaning “fritter”, I guess. What this recipe makes is basically a thick batter full of shrimp and spices that you’ll drop spoonfuls of into hot oil.
Ingredients (serves 2 as meal, 4 as snack):
- 1 1/2 cup flour
- 1 1/4 cup water
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp cayenne chili powder
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 shallot or 1/2 small onion, finely chopped
- 8 shrimps, raw, thawed, peeled, deveined, tails removed and rough chopped
- the green parts of one green onion
- vegetable oil for deep-frying
Serve with: cucumber slices, chili sauce, peanut sauce
No More Microwaves 