Aïgo Boulido (Provençal Garlic Soup)

The name literally means "boiled water" but this soup is a masterpiece of how to extract flavor out of only two ingredients — garlic and sage.

Ingredients

Soup

12 cloves garlic
12 large sage leaves
6 cups water
2 tbsp olive oil

salt
pepper

Toast

baguette (sliced)
1 clove garlic
gruyère (grated)

Recipe

For the toast, rub the garlic clove on the baguette. Top with the grated gruyère and stick in the broiler until the cheese has melted. If you have stale baguette slices, this will work even better. You can even skip this step and just use the stale slices.

Put the garlic and sage leaves with the water and olive oil and bring to a boil. Let it cook for about 10 minutes. Salt and pepper to taste. Purée the mixture really fine. Serve by pouring it over the toast.

Fairy Tales and Food

We've all read our share of fairy tales but only later do you realize how many involve food.

Food has always been scarce throughout history.

The modern century is really strange where food is plentiful and obesity runs rampant.

Goldilocks doesn't burgle the bears (too hot, too cold, just right) because she's bored. Jack doesn't just use the magic beans but murders the giant and steals his property. Hansel and Gretel aren't just starved but the witch seduces them via food, and then tries to turn them into food.

The CC has already talked about Rapunzel here.

Snow White is seduced by the apple. Cinderella by the pumpkin carriage. Little Red Riding Hood is bringing her grandmother both food and a bottle of wine (and the wolf isn't exactly bored either - grandma is food!)

Food scarcity is a real thing even today for most of the world.

The fairy tales are just telling stories to children about the reality of a past experience.

Lacto-Fermentation

This is one of the easiest techniques of pickling in the repertoire.

All you need is salt, water, and time.

Plus, a mechanism to keep the vegetables below the water line. The CC recommends a Japanese pickle-press which is designed to do so. Even if you don't have one as long as you are committed to just shaking the container daily, you're good to go.

Pickling is an exercise in hygiene and cleanliness. Something that is very relevant to our times. Most of the hard work of pickling lies in sterilization. You are trying to get rid of all the bad bacteria and fungi and introduce the good ones.

There has never been a pickler in history who has said "My workspace is too clean."

Anal-retentives, please report to the front of the class!

There are just a few steps:

[1] Pour boiling water over your jar to sterilize it.

[2] 5% of salt by volume at the bottom. (Don't sweat this percentage thing. Just don't under-salt!)

[3] Scrub and clean [ and cut ] your vegetables.

[4] Boiling water over the top.

[5] Seal and store in your refrigetator - there's a reason for this.

Your vegetables are your babies. They will "burp" so every day, you will need to "burp the baby" — open the seal, "burp", close the seal again.

They will settle down just like babies.

Crispy vegetables e.g. carrots take longer to ferment. Rest work faster.

On the safety issue, as one FDA commissioner said and the CC quotes loosely, "There has never been a recorded case of illness [ due to lacto-fermentation ] in the entire history of the FDA. It's the safest technology we know."

Cherry Granita

It's almost absurd how the CC has never posted this.

Ingredients

2 lbs cherries

2 tbsp white sugar

2 lemons (or 2 limes)

dash of salt

Note 1: You absolutely need the sour part. Otherwise the mixture will taste bland on serving. It's how our tongues work.

Recipe

Pit the cherries. The CC knows that this is serious work. Buy a pitter (seriously, the only "special purpose" device that the CC owns!)

Blend them with the ingredients in a blender. Filter them through a sieve into a bowl.

Stick the mixture into your freezer. Every hour you need to scrape it. What this really does is turn everything into ice crystals.

Is this work? Not really, if you set a timer.

Serve scooped in a martini glass - preferably with a basil leaf!

Sopa de jitomate y elote (Tomato & Corn Soup)

In the depths of winter, this soup is just fantastic. Recipe courtesy of Zarela Martinez.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by P S (@crazychef_ps) on Feb 28, 2020 at 5:11pm PST

Ingredients

(serves 4)

1 large onion
6 cloves garlic (unpeeled)
6 tomatoes - use the best you can get but even crappy winter tomatoes will work
1 28-oz can of tomatoes
1-2 jalapeños - more if you like it spicier

6-8 sprigs cilantro (whole is fine)
1-2 springs cilantro - leaves separated and chopped finely - to serve

2 tbsp Mexican oregano - this is crucial!

1 cup corn (frozen is fine)

4 cups chicken broth

1 tbsp cumin

salt

olive oil

1/2 cup heavy cream

Note 1: If you have access to Mexican crema which is very similar to crème fraîche, use that instead but cream works fine too.

Note 2: The original recipe calls for it to be topped by cotija cheese but the CC didn't have any.

Recipe

Cut the tomatoes along the equator. Place them in an broiler-proof pan face up. Cut the onion into four parts. Place in the same pan. Place the unpeeled garlic cloves in there as well.

Broil all of them for 10-15 minutes. Check at the 10-minute mark since it has a tendency to burn. All three should be lightly charred.

Pass the tomatoes through a food mill. Coarsely chop the onions and garlic. (Don't worry too much. It's going to get puréed.)

In a skillet, roast the cumin seeds till fragrant.

In a pot, heat the oil. Fry the onions and garlic till fragrant. Add in the cumin, the tomatoes, the chopped jalapeños, the canned tomatoes, the broth, the whole sprigs of cilantro, and the corn. Let it simmer for 10-15 minutes until cooked through. Add salt to taste.

Purée the mixture either with an immersion blender or in a regular blender. If doing the latter, let it cool first because it will "explode" otherwise. Try to make the mixture as smooth as possible.

Return to the pot. Bring to a boil and turn off the heat. Add the cream, stir, and serve with the diced cilantro on top.

La Raie

This wonderful painting of a skate by Jean Simone Chardin has been exhibited in the Louvre for the longest time. Dating to 1728, it was widely condemned for fairly obvious reasons but has always courted favor with the painters for its dramatic flair and painterly realism. The geometric composition was much admired by the Impressionists. You can easily see why Cézanne would be fascinated.

Note the composition of the cat - its foreshortened perspective is also in the shape of a diamond neatly mirroring the diamond composition of the skate. It's also provides the "drama" in this little mini-narrative.

The cat is ignoring the fish and the oysters, and its hackles are up — what is it looking at? A potential competitor for these riches?!?

Real Men Eat Salad

A nineteenth century salad from the works of Lucien Tendret - author of La Table au pays de Brillat-Savarin.

Put into a salad bowl some olive oil of the best quality, some white wine vinegar, 4 tablespoons roast turkey juice, 1/2 teaspoon tarragon mustard, the inside of a lobster, salt, and pepper. Stir until the mixture is perfectly smooth. Then add slices of lobster flesh, slices from the breast of a braised chicken and the breast of a roast turkey without the skin, the breast of three young partridges (keep the best slices for decoration), some thinly sliced truffles cooked in an excellent dry white wine, some mushrooms prepared in the same way, and a number of shelled crayfish. Cover with a layer of blanched endive (chicory) leaves. Add a second layer of the mixture, then a further layer of endive. Then on top tastefully arrange the reserved slices of meat, a few strips of ham from which the fat has been removed, a few large slices of truffle and mushroom, a border of shelled crayfish, a tablespoon of capers washed in white wine, and a cupful of stoned (pitted) green olives. Put a mound of thick mayonnaise in the centre with the largest truffle on top. Serve with the finest dry champagne, very cold but not iced.

Twenty-first century, eat your heart out!

Lime Leaves

Most citrus leaves are edible. In fact, they are downright addictive. Particularly when steeped and added to a martini.

(However, that's not this article.)

Somebody smart at my local farmers' market figured out that they could market lime leaves. As many of you might know, winter is the time for citrus fruits. Ergo lime leaves.

While they are not a perfect substitute for kaffir lime leaves in Thai cooking, they work perfectly excellently in the soups. Most importantly, they work really well as substitutes for curry leaves in Indian cooking particularly when you slice them into pieces. They are hardier so they will not be edible and you will have to fish them out but they lend exactly the correct aroma.

Your rasams and your chitraanam can now be "locavore".

The CC is just thrilled.

The Spicy Alcohol Burn

It's always entertaining to learn some brand new linguistic content.

Historically, the Japanese adjective for spicy -- karai (辛い) -- didn't mean spicy as we understand it now.

It referred to the burn of raw alcohol as it went down your throat. By extension to pain in general and hence to the relatively modern concept of spicy.

Both mustard and horseradish are 辛い because they have that "burn".

A smooth alcohol without that raw burn wouldn't be characterized as such.

Such linguistic terms are interesting. The CC referred to the conceptual category of "smooth" which only makes sense in English but in Japanese it would be "sweet".

Markets

Game Market (Source: LACMA, Los Angeles.)

Fish Market
(Source: Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg.)

Originally a set of four paintings (along with Vegetable Market and Fruit Market), these are masterpieces by Frans Synders in the Dutch still-life tradition.

The peacock feathers don't come across that well in rendition. You will have to visit LA to see the gorgeous plumage in person. (And yes, peacocks and swans were definitely eaten in the middle ages!)

The CC particularly loves the little cats (and kittens!) all clawing away at the fish and meat.

Tricky Transformations (or the Panic of Your Senses)

Every year the CC goes through the same ritual at the end of summer. Making tomato paste.

And each year he goes through the exact same set of demons. It's time to exorcise the demons and put them to rest.

First, the CC always uses too small a vessel to boot up the process. Today he used the most massive vessel that is available at his disposal and yet inevitably, it was still too small. However, for better or worse it's (mostly) been fixed.

Second, the CC doesn't trust the "clock". Just let the stove do its job.

Thirdly, the CC panics midway through — it's all water not tomatoes and it's never going to turn into a paste. This is completely an error of the senses. There really is this sense half-way through that it's all water and it's all going to evaporate but suddenly it changes phases (in the chemistry sense) and you're dealing with paste.

The final panic which is real is that you really must stir it towards the end otherwise the sugars have a tendency to burn. That at least is real.

At the end of the day, the CC has a deliverable tomato paste.

When the icy fingers of February approach, the CC will be prepared.

Eight-Vegetable Mac-n-Cheese

So the CC posted on his Instagram a suitably random post about how even vegetable-hating kids love the CC's mac-n-cheese. Lo, to his surprise, there was an inundation of requests for the recipe.

The recipe will be provided but since chez CC we tend to be of analytic bent, let's back up a little and ask ourselves a few questions.

Why is what the CC doing working for kids?

Why exactly?

Here are the claims:

[1] Kids are irrational.
[2] Kids won't eat anything green.
[3] Kids hate vegetables.

These are empirical observations that can be backed up in spades. The CC is not going to contest these observations and concerns. They seem to be real.

They are also demonstrably false as the CC's recipe would contest. After all, the CC is working empirically in the real world against a real set of kids and it's working great!

So let's back up one more time and ask why is this even happening?

Why?

There are two plausible answers - one evolutionary and one cultural.

Evolutionarily, all bitter flavors are banned. There's a very good reason for this. Bitter flavors generally speaking correspond to alkaloid poisons. It takes a very sophisticated palate to start appreciating bitter flavors in vegetables — okra, eggplants, broccoli, kale, spinach, brussels sprouts — even beer and wine!

Culturally, basically kids will eat whatever you shove in their face. Shove enough spicy food slowly amped up and they will learn an appreciation for spicy flavors. Shove bland food in their face and they'll only eat chicken nuggets.

So now we're ready to proceed — kids will eat complex flavors as long as you keep the vegetables on the "sweeter" side and the flavors "familiar".

Both of these words are basically garbage - "sweeter" is all relative - if you roast brussels sprouts properly, they'll turn "sweet" and of course, and as the Greeks might've told you in 3rd century BCE, all of "familiarity" is in the eye of the beholder.

So now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's proceed.

What we're gonna do is pick vegetables that kids perceive (falsely) as sweet and we're gonna cut them into small enough pieces so that they don't stand out (very chef-like) and we're gonna go back to the two classical evolutionary devices — carbohydates and fats.

We're also going to the use full panoply of French and Italian classical cooking devices to make a superior meal — yes, that means understanding bechamél and sauce Mornay. Escoffier to the rescue!

Hey, think of the kids!!!

You wouldn't expect otherwise with the CC and yet, not so hard. Also, it's eminently available for assembly ahead of time. Just pop it in the oven later.

Ingredients

(serves 6)

2 cups macaroni

2 tbsp butter (no substitutions!)
4 cups whole milk (no substitutions!)
4 tbsp flour

2 cups gruyère
2 cups parmigiano-reggiano

1 large zucchini (diced)
1 large carrot (diced)
1 cup french beans (diced)
1 cup broad beans (slivered)
1 cup fava beans
1 cup peas
1 cup cauliflower florets (cut as small as realistic)
1 cup celery (skin shaved and then diced - skin shaving is not optional!)

fresh rosemary/sage (slivered finely - optional)

salt
pepper

panko (Japanese-style bread crumbs)

Recipe

Cook the macaroni in heavily salted water until done. Depends on your brand. Roughly 12 minutes.

Make the bechamél. Heat the butter in a pan. Add the flour and let it "cook" until it is golden. Immediately add the milk. Let it cook completely till it thickens.

(What is really happening is that the milk proteins are denaturing.)

Add the salt and pepper. Add the rosemary/sage (optional.) Taste and adjust. Don't forget the cheese will add extra salt.

Toss in the vegetables one at a time in the order of "hardness" - first the carrots, then the french beans and broad beans, then the fava beans, then the cauliflower and zucchini and celery - finally the peas.

Add the cheese to turn the bechamél into what is technically called sauce Mornay — you can do it at the same time as adding the macaroni. Toss it all together.

Layer in a baking dish. sprinkle heavily with the panko breadcrumbs all over.

The next step depends on your baking dish.

If you have a shallow baking dish, preheat your oven to 350° F. If it's deep (like the CC's), preheat to 400° F.

Cook the dish covered for 25 minutes. Cook uncovered so that the surface crisps for about 10-15 minutes. Check towards the end because there's a tendency of burning.

Serve with a crisp salad (for the adults).

Shave the Celery!

Celery is a completely misunderstood vegetable mostly because people get the technical details wrong.

To fully appreciate it, you must shave it. Take the skin off. No different than a carrot (and not particularly hard either.)

After that, you get a very different vegetable. Very aromatic, even elegant, one that is completely worthy of a first course in a fine French meal.

Ingredients

(serves 4)

8 celery stalks (the best you can find - preferably celery hearts)

1 cup chicken stock (substitute by vegetarian dashi)

salt
pepper

cream
vinegar
mustard

Recipe

Skin each celery stalk using a potato peeler. Be careful because the tops are likely to break when you do that.

Cut each stalk into halves.

Poach the stock in the broth with the salt and pepper for about 8 minutes until the stalks are tender. Pull them out.

Mix the cream, vinegar, mustard with extra salt and pepper like a vinaigrette. Add water. It should be reasonably liquid. Poach the celery stalks into that and refrigerate.

This is best made the day before.

Serve as a first course.

Sopa de elote y calabazín

Mexican chefs think of soup as an all-purpose instrument not just a winter thing. In fact, in the dog days of summer when nobody feels like eating, soups work better than heavier meals.

This dish is only going to work at the height of summer when corn and zucchini are at their very best.  It relies on the very best of ingredients and the chicken broth must be homemade not store bought.

Epazote is an herb that divides. It has a stinky smell analogous to asafoetida but once you love it, you won't be able to live without it. It is claimed to have the same anti-flatulent effect as asafoetida and it's heavily used with beans, corn, and most interestingly, zucchini!

This dish is complexly spiced in that Mexican way with chili peppers but it's emphatically not hot. It's very mild and soothing and absolutely phenomenal in this summer heat.

Ingredients

6 ears of corn (stripped into kernels)
2 small zucchini (diced into even cubes)

1 large onion (diced)

3 sprigs epazote

3 cups chicken broth (substitute by water)
3 cups water

salt
pepper

1 ancho chili
1 guajillo chili

"neutral" oil

1 lime quartered (to serve)
queso fresco (to serve)
crushed ancho chili (to serve)

Note 1: Since this is a summer dish, there were magnificent fresh onions in the market. This dish is a marvel with them. Use both the white parts and the green parts.

Note 2: Do not ignore the lime. This dish will not come "alive" until you squeeze it all over the soup.

Note 3: The reason to dilute the chicken broth is to make sure that the primary flavor is corn. In Mexico, they probably would go with straight chicken broth. However, the CC thinks that this tastes better.

Recipe

First roast the two chilis on a dried skillet until they are puffed and mildly charred on both sides. Let them cool. Slit them apart and remove the seeds and the stem. Set aside.

In a large pot, heat up some oil and toss in the onions and let them fry for 5 minutes at a medium-low heat. Toss in the chilis and the corn and stir-fry for 2 minutes. Add the salt and pepper.

Add the epazote and the broth and water. Bring to a boil. Turn the heat down to low and simmer for 20 minutes.

Pull the sprigs of epazote out. Don't worry too much if a few leaves fall off. That's part of the flavor.

With a hand-blender, blend the soup as fine as possible. You have two choices at this point. Strain the soup for an elegant product or leave it rustic.

The soup should take on a rust color because of the chili peppers.

Back in the pot, bring the mixture to a boil and add the diced zucchini and cook for about 8 minutes till they are cooked through.

Serve with the lime, the crumbled queso fresco and sprinkles of the crushed ancho chili.

2-acetyl 1-pyrolline

Do you love Thai food?

Do you love fresh bread?

Do you love basmati or jasmine rice?

If so, you're in love with this particular molecule.

It amplifies itself in both Indian and Thai culture with their love of jasmine blossoms and pandanus leaves — both of which have the above molecule as a dominant fragrance — and which are added to rice to amp up the already existing fragrance.

Sanskrit literature has a tendency to have lovers' meetings beneath jasmine trees. The majority of Indian miniature paintings in the "romantic lovers' mode" feature jasmine trees. Even today, jasmine is the dominant flower for weddings in India.

Clearly in the modern parlance, 2-acetyl 1-pyrolline, you got game!

Scrambled Eggs with Green Peppercorns & Feta

Ingredients

(serves 2)

5-6 eggs

2 small shallots
1 tbsp green peppercorns (pickled in brine)

goat-milk feta (crumbled loosely)

butter
salt
pinch of black pepper

Recipe

There are only two tricks here.

One is that half the green peppercorns must be loosely crushed in a mortar and pestle so that the scent pervades the eggs and the rest left whole to be crunchy.

The second one is two slightly under-salt the eggs since the salty feta will be sprinkled on top.

Heat up some butter in a pan. Add the shallots and the green peppercorns (crushed and whole.) You should have a amazingly rich smell come up through the pan. Add the eggs and scramble them into large curds until soft.

Serve at once sprinkling the feta sprinkled on top.

Constructing a Meal

(This article was written earlier but Blogger has a rather annoying "auto-save" feature and the article got deleted. The CC had to rewrite it from scratch.)

One of the things that perennially bugs the CC is that neither home chefs nor professional chefs give any insight whatsoever into how a meal is actually constructed.

This has something fundamentally to do with the "recipe" format of cookbooks. One really needs an entirely alternate model that works at the meal level.

Cookbooks also rely on the entirely unreliable fact that people just magically absorb knowledge by "osmosis" and "culture". Both of these seem to be demonstrably false assertions. Since one is not always granted the luxury of an Italian nonna or an Japanese obaachan and since kids are not born knowing complex culinary logic when yanked from the womb, one is left with the inescapable conclusion that all knowledge is learned.

That means one should be able to both teach it and learn it.

The CC is going to use himself as an example.

The only thing planned before the Saturday was that the meal would be Japanese and it would feature some form of clams - either asari gohan (= あさりご飯 = clam rice) or asari no miso dashijiru (= あさり味噌汁, clam miso soup.)

The CC arrived at the farmers' market on a frigid Saturday morning only to find that most of the vendors were missing. It was already turning into a disaster.

Thankfully there was one vegetable vendor and the fishmonger was around.

Cauliflowers were obtained (purple, romanesco) as were some carrots. The CC noted that he had exactly two Italian flat beans and two cherry tomatoes at home. This was going to be a tricky operation.

The CC noted that there were no scallions at home and none at the market neither. However, he did have some homemade furikake already prepared. That put paid to the idea of the asari gohan (because of the black furikake) and hence it was going to the be the clams with miso soup.

(Note how we rarely make decisions. They are made for us already.)

Luckily, the CC still had one of the last of the late summer cucumbers so a quick sunomono (vinegar pickle) was added to the mix. The CC still had some pickled ginger in his cabinet. The vegetables were steamed and combined with a modified tare sauce that the CC just loves. The dish can be made ahead of time and is actually better at room temperature rather than warm.

The CC needed a fifth dish (rice doesn't count) and he had carrots so he made the classic quick stir-fried dish with carrots and hijiki.

The meal follows the entirely Japanese principles of washoku (= 和食) — there are five vegetables of different colors, five methods, five tastes, etc.

The rules above might have a Japanese origin but they are not laws of nature. They are just an excellent set of rules-of-thumb to ensure nutritional completeness and stave away boredom. The CC finds himself using the rules even if he's making a classically French dinner or an Indian one.

Dinner is served.

Five autumn vegetables with modified "tare" sauce
♦
Clam miso soup
♦
Cucumber sunomono
♦
Sweet-sour hijiki
♦
Pickled white ginger
♦
White rice with furikake

Japanese Dinner

Tuna croquettes (マグロのコロッケ)
♥
Baby potatoes fried in duck-fat with gomashio ♥ Truffled foie gras
♦ ♦ ♦
Oyako Don (親子丼)
♥
Miso soup with acorn squash & ginger
♥
Greens with calamansi vinaigrette
♥
Homemade Japanese pickles — carrot; watermelon radish; ginger ♥
Winter vegetables in tare sauce.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The CC was "traditional" — American, Filipino, French, Indian, Italian, Japanese. (Thai couldn't make it sadly.)

Lamb chops with rosemary & anchovies
♥
Brussel Sprouts with parmesan & pomegranates
♥
Stuffing with chestnuts & sage
♥
Champagne with pomegranates
♥
"Fruit Salad" with apples, tangelos, pomegranates

Beef Rendang

This is the CC's second-favorite beef dish with the honors going to steak tartare.

A true masterpiece of Indonesian cooking but it does take some work to make. It requires a ton of time and it's even better the next day. The CC once started it at five in the evening which turned out to be a terrible idea. The hungry hordes waited and we ate at ten at night.

The CC suggests starting at noon for dinner. The dish literally makes itself. All you need is a timer and towards the end a little bit of stirring every 10 minutes. (This is one of those places where a large non-stick flat pan works great!)

Rendang is actually a preservation technique not significantly different from the French duck confit or the Philippine adobo. It's as much a mechanism of preserving the meat in the absence of refrigeration as it is a cooking technique.

(There's a reason that the meat is tender but almost dry and coated with a fatty sheen and the list of spices includes garlic, shallots, ginger, galangal, and especially turmeric all of which have strong anti-microbial and anti-fungal properties.)

The recipe is adapted from James Oseland. (He skips a few crucial spices but since these are old-hat to people used to Indian cooking, the CC has restored them.)

Traditionally, made with water buffalo, you really want the leanest cut of beef that you can get — boneless chuck, top round, bottom round, or even shoulder. It's going to be braised in coconut milk and a ton of spices so there will be the plenty of time for the dish to turn meltingly tender.

James Oseland does have one of the great lines of all time:

Rendang has its own lethargic cooking rhythm, so that the more you try to rush it, the longer it seems to take.

This is talking truth to lazy cooks. Just let it do it's own thing, stir it occasionally, indulge in a book or a crossword, and it will make itself.  It has its own meditative rhythm which cannot be rushed.

The accompaniment (shown below) is a classic nasi kuning (= turmeric rice) which is nothing more than rice boiled with fresh turmeric and salt — pandanus leaves if you have them.

(Note that traditional nasi kuning would generally be cooked with coconut milk but if you do that for such a rich dish, the two would clash so you should go with the simpler style.)

While the recipe is complexly spiced, it's emphatically not "spicy". It has a layered complexity not pure heat.

You will need a side salad and while the CC went with greens and tomatoes (which is a tad French); you'll be equally well served with the classic — slices of cucumbers, salt, and whole chillies.

 
Ingredients

Flavoring Paste

1 whole nutmeg (cracked)
5 cloves
2 cardamoms
1/4 tsp cumin

5 candlenuts (read notes)

1 largish piece of turmeric (or 2 small ones)
2" ginger
2" galangal
3 stalks lemongrass (sliced diagonally very thin)

5-7 fresh red chilis (more if you like it spicy)

3 cloves garlic

6 shallots (coarsely chopped)

dash of palm sugar (substitute by brown sugar)

Main

2 lbs boneless beef chuck (or bottom round) - cubed in 2" pieces
2 1/2 cups coconut milk

1/2 cup asam keping water
1/2 cup roasted dried coconut

3 thick stalks lemongrass (tied into a knot)
1 piece cinnamon stick
7 whole kaffir lime leaves
5 whole daun salan leaves (read notes)
salt

To Serve

1 tbsp kaffir lime leaves (very finely shredded)

Note 1: You will need a mortar and pestle. No, the food processor will not work. Deal with it! The CC knows that people claim it does including Oseland but it gets the textures all wrong. Oddly, the shallots are not soft enough to just dice finely. You need to pound them.

Note 2: Add kosher salt to the mixture while you are pounding soft ingredients. It makes it far easier to control the texture. You won't need to add salt to the final product.

Note 3: Candle nuts are hard to find outside of specialty stores. While most recipes call for macadamia, the CC finds that hazelnuts actually provide the right kind of fat content and taste. You will need 10 hazelnuts since candle nuts are larger.

Note 4: You're bluntly going to have trouble finding asam keping (= "garcinia atroviridis".) Your best choice is to use kudampuli from Southern Indian cooking (= "garcinia cambogia"  or "garcinia gummi-gutta".) If you are totally stuck, use the North Indian kokum (= "garcinia indica") or even in the worst case, plain ol' tamarind. (This makes less difference than you think. It's primary job is the both tenderize the meat and make it less "meaty" while adding a subtle sour flavor.)

Note 5: The remaining fresh spices are easily available at your local Thai store. They're so popular now that the CC found all of them this weekend at his local farmers' market. The dried spices are Indian classics. You should be able to find them in any supermarket or even cheaper in the Indian markets. Use whole ones freshly ground not pre-ground ones!

Note 6: The leaves known as daun salan are actually dried leaves of the cassia tree. Not cinnamon but cassia. They are called tējapattā in Hindi (= तेजपत्ता, literally: "cinnamon leaves") and you find them in Indian stores labeled as "bay leaves" which is complete nonsense since they taste nothing like traditional bay laurel. (If you don't have them, your best bet is a smattering of cinnamon or cassia although the dried leaves are stronger in flavor so amp it up a notch or two.)

Note 7: The two absolute non-negotiables are lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves both of which add very strong citrus notes. In fact, as you read in the recipe below, you need more kaffir lime leaves finely slivered to add to the beef as you serve it (easily seen in the picture above.)

Note 8: Nutmeg is also crucial. Enjoy your happy vivid dreams!

Recipe

To make the asam keping water, just add the dried ingredient to some water and boil it for a few minutes. This is one of the places the microwave works great. (If using tamarind, just cover it with boiling water. When it cools down, squish it with your hands and pass through a sieve. Discard the solids.)

Take all the ingredients for the flavoring paste and pound them using a mortar and pestle. First do all the spices and the hard ingredients then all the soft ingredients. (They are listed in the order that you should do them above.)

Don't worry if your mortar gets full. Just empty it into a bowl and mix afterwards.

This pounding will take the better part of 20-30 minutes so patience is required.

(It's harder to pound soft ingredients rather than hard ones since they just squish and slide around rather than get pounded into a paste. Very counter-intuitive but important to know.)

Combine the paste, all the other ingredients including the beef, coconut milk, leaves and spices into a large pan. Stir gently to mix them all. Bring the mixture to a boil and immediately turn the heat down to medium-low.

Let it bubble away stirring every 20 minutes so that the paste and coconut milk do not stick to the bottom and burn.

James Oseland describes the rest vividly:

The meat, coconut milk, and flavoring paste will now go on a fascinating journey. At first, the broth will be thin and gorgeously bright orange^†. As it cooks, the coconut milk will reduce, its fats (as well as the fat the meat renders) separating from the solids. It will be become progressively thicker and darker eventually turning brown.

Keep stirring until the meat becomes rather glossy with a very thick sauce. This will take the better part of anywhere between 3 to 4 hours^‡. The meat should be tender enough to easily poke with a fork. (You may need to add some water from time to time.)

When all the liquid has evaporated, reduce the heat to low and allow the beef to brown in the fat. Stir every 5 minutes because it has a tendency to stick.

The beef should be coffee-colored and barely moist with a glossy sheen.

(As a general rule, there should not be any fat left in the pan but if there is skim it with a spoon and store for later use. It's great for a classic Indonesian dish made with new potatoes!)

Discard the whole lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, daun salan leaves, and cinnamon.

Allow the beef to rest at least 30 minutes before serving. More if you can swing it. It's best served at room temperature (or slightly warm rather than hot) topped with the finely slivered kaffir lime leaves.

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† from the turmeric.

‡ This may very well be an underestimate. Five hours is not out of the question if the cut of the meat is extremely lean.