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.

---

† 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.

Tom Yum

This is hands down one of the absolute favorites of the CC's in the Thai repertoire. It was requested so frequently by the CC's friends once that it was practically a standby as appetizer before "other" meals.

It also happens to be extraordinarily easy provided you have the right ingredients.

At its heart, it involves the simmering of extraordinarily fresh ingredients and then topping with some protein and aromatics.

Once again, it's a meta-recipe where you can have tom yum goong (shrimp) or tom yum gai (chicken) or tom yum talay (mixed seafood.)

David Thompson's recipe is ultra-minimalist and ultra-purist and it would work if the CC lived in a tropical climate and had access to the very best of produce in large quantities. It also eliminates shallots which is fine for royal cuisine but that's not what you're getting on the street.

Not having access to that quality of produce perenially, the CC's version is closer to that of Kasma Loha-Unchit's which tweaks the parameters to get the same taste profile.

The soup is an exercise in freshness. Simmer it at the last moment. Ideally, the boiling hot soup should be poured over the fresh meat/seafood and served at once. They will cook in the boiling broth and be both perfectly cooked and tender at the same time.

The CC once had a the sister of a friend who refused to eat barely cooked shrimp until we persuaded her to try it. Then she wanted seconds and thirds (of which alas, there were none!) A convert to the excellence of barely cooked seafood.

The existence of this soup on menus across the country may be a cliché but there's a solid reason it is one. It's a masterpiece of flavor.

Ingredients

3 cups water

1 small block tamarind

3-5 kaffir lime leaves
3 pieces lemongrass (sliced at a diagonal, pounded lightly)
1" galangal (sliced, pounded lightly)
3-4 Thai chillies (or to taste)
1 tbsp nahm prik pao (roasted chili paste/jam)

2 shallots (sliced lengthwise into thin slivers)
1 small tomato (sliced into quarters)
1/2 cup straw mushrooms

fish sauce (to taste)

chicken/shrimp/seafood

1-2 limes
cilantro leaves

Note 1: It's best to use water rather than broth. You get a very sharp clear taste profile. Broth muddies the waters so to speak. Think of it as the difference between limpid watercolors and an oil painting.

Note 2: The fresher the chicken/shrimp/seafood and also the aromatics, the more this soup will shine.

Note 3: The chicken should be sliced thinly against the bias. The shrimp can be left whole. The seafood should also be sliced finely.

Note 4: Since the galangal, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves are not eaten, technically you could strain it. That's not the Thai way and yet the CC has seen it done in a superb "fancy" Thai restaurant in Manila.

Note 5: Scallions are fairly traditional too but the CC doesn't like the clash between the shallots, scallions and cilantro. He likes the sharper watercolor flavors.

Note 6: There are excellent brands of nahm prik pao on the market. No artificial ingredients, etc. You could be a purist and make it but the CC finds that these are not just acceptable but positively excellent.

Note 7: The CC would like to draw your attention to a powerful concept. The idea of a background "mellow" sourness (tamarind) allied with a perfumed "fresh" sourness (lime). You will see this idea as a conceptual framework all along Southeast Asia whether it's kudampuli + lime (South India) or dried raw mango (aamchur) + lime (North India) or tamarind/vinegar/raw mango + calamansi (Philippines.) You'll see it Italy too (vinegar + lemon). It's an extraordinarily potent idea.

Recipe

Smash the galangal and lemongrass lightly. Add them, the chillies and kaffir lime leaves to the water.

In a separate bowl, pour hot water over tamarind and let it soak for 20 minutes. Strain through a fine sieve into the same bowl of liquid. Discard the remnants.

Bring the liquid to a boil. When it is boiling, turn the heat down to a low simmer. Add the nahm prik pao and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Add fish sauce and check to taste. It should be aromatic, spicy and salty (and a little tart and sweet from the tamarind.)

Add the shallots, tomatoes, and mushrooms. Bring to a boil again for 2 minutes.

Turn off the heat. Squeeze the lime juice into it.

Pour over the chicken/seafood in individual bowls. Top with the cilantro leaves.

Serve at once with jasmine rice.

Tom Kha

No, the CC hasn't lost his marbles. He knows that the soup is uniformly referred to as tom kha gai in the US except that the soup is not a soup and the "gai" (chicken) is basically optional.

It's really a family of stews at the heart of it.

For starters, there is neither the concept of "soup" nor that of "courses" in Thai cooking. A rich dish such as this would be served with rice and it would be a blowout meal (because of its richness.)

The tom roughly suggests a soup or a stew and the kha refers to galangal. Substitutions are pointless since galangal is the main feature.

Secondly, it's really a meta-dish in the sense that the basic stew is prepared first and then other stuff added. You can have tom kha tao-hoo (with tofu) , tom kha hoi (with shellfish), tom kha talay (with mixed seafood), etc.

The dish is all about the aroma, and you have an insanely umami-laden broth with a mildly sweet, savory, sour broth and a solid kick on the back-end.

The CC will provide a recipe with a mild variant that he once had — it had a slight amount of pandanus (screwpine).

Superb in every way.

Ingredients

3 cups coconut milk
3 cups chicken broth (substitute with water)
1 stalk lemongrass (sliced on a bias)
10 pieces of sliced galangal
2 chillies
1 piece pandanus
2 cilantro roots
3 kaffir lime leaves
1 tbsp palm sugar

fish sauce

12 pieces chicken (sliced against the bias into thin slices)
1 cup straw mushrooms
2 shallots (sliced lengthwise)
1-2 lime(s)
1/3 cup cilantro leaves

Note: The chicken is cut into very small pieces. It's poached in the broth. This preserves its tenderness because it's barely cooked through.

Recipe

Smash the lemongrass, galangal, and cilantro roots gently in a mortar and pestle. Add them to the coconut milk, broth, chillies, pandanus, palm sugar, and kaffir lime leaves. Bring to a boil. Simmer very gently at a low heat for 12-15 minutes.

Add fish sauce to taste (this provides the salt.)

Taste it. It should be intense, faintly sweet and fragrant. It will become tart once you add the lime later.

(Technically, you can strain it at this point but that's not the Thai way.)

You can stop the process here if you like. (Remember it's all about the smell and it dissipates so don't wait too long.)

When ready to serve with jasmine rice, bring once again to a boil. Turn off the heat. Add the chicken, mushrooms, shallots, and lime. Let it sit for 3-4 minutes.

Serve with the cilantro leaves on top.

Ikan Kuning (Fish stew with Lime, Turmeric and Basil)

The CC bought some amazing black bass from the local fisherman and was going to make the afore-mentioned steamed fish with fermented black beans, ginger and scallion except that the CC hates repetition and is easily bored.

This is a wondrous dish from southern Indonesia. You see the Indian influences right off the bat (turmeric) and the Southeast-Asian influences (galangal, kaffir lime leaves, basil, etc.) The New World shows up as chilis, of course.

Ideally this dish is cooked with a whole fish or fish segments with bones but let's get real. Just make it with a fillet. It's not the same and it does matter but not substantially so.

Pair it with the most basic rice you can make because the flavors in the dish are already overwhelming.

Ingredients

black sea-bass
4 tbsp lime juice
tamarind

2 shallots (chopped coarsely)
2 cloves garlic
1 red chili
1/2" ginger (chopped coarsely)
1/2" galangal (chopped coarsely)
1 fresh turmeric (chopped coarsely)

lemongrass (sliced diagonally)
1" pandanus leaf
4 kaffir lime leaves

peanut oil
salt

2 cups water

lemon basil (or Thai basil or Italian basil)

Recipe

Note 1: Once you combine the lime juice with the fish, the clock is ticking. Do it after you make the paste, and right before you start cooking.

Make the tamarind water. Pour boiling water over the tamarind and let it steep for 20 minutes. Pass the mixture through a sieve keeping the water and discarding the residue.

Pound the shallots, garlic, chili, ginger, galangal, and turmeric to a paste. Set aside.

Combine the fish gently with the lime juice and tamarind water set aside. Let it sit for 10 minutes.

Heat up some peanut oil till it shimmers. Add the paste, lemongrass, pandanus, kaffir lime leaves and let it fry till the raw smell disappears. Add the water and bring to a boil. Let it cook for 5 minutes.

Add the fish and the lime juice and tamarind water. Let it cook through. This is swift. No more than a few minutes.

Top with the basil and serve at once.

Stir-Fried Squid with Long Beans, Thai Eggplants, Shrimp Paste & Green Peppercorns

There's this wonderful Thai restaurant near the CC's old workplace which has a dish that the CC is obsessed with.

It ticks off all the right notes - funky, umami, complex with enough heat to set your mouth alight and yet, in that precise Thai way, it works!

The CC has had plenty of opportunities to "reverse engineer" this particular dish. It looks like a variation on the equally famous pad prik khing.

The CC is totally a sucker for the green peppercorns that come in the dish. They are not easy to find but you must get the ones pickled in brine not in vinegar.

There seemed to be a complex metallic note behind it, and the CC figured it the old fashioned way when he spilled some on his shirt. It was fresh turmeric. The CC was out a shirt but had gained a recipe. Cosmic balance and all that.

Ingredients

Paste

4 kaffir lime leaves (sliced very fine)
4 cloves garlic
1 large shallot
2 tbsp shrimp paste
1 tbsp fish sauce
1" galangal
1 lemongrass stalk
1 small turmeric
2-3 Thai bird chilies
sugar (to balance the taste)

Stir-Fry

peanut oil

2 squid (read notes below)
6 Thai eggplants (quartered)
8-12 long beans (cut into 1" pieces)
1/2 cup bamboo shoots
3 tbsp green peppercorns

Thai basil

Recipe

Note 1: You will need a mortar and pestle to pound it to a paste. A food processor is simply not the same.

Note 2: Traditionally, the paste may require more or less ingredients depending on the quality thereof. For example, the CC only used 1 chili pepper since it was super hot. You need to taste and adjust based on the ingredients you have.

Note 3: The squid are cut into 1.5" x 1" pieces and cross-hatched with a knife. They will curl up and quickly cook in the stir-fry.

Note 4: The stir-fry goes at a rapid pace. You will need to have everything ready.

First prepare the paste. In a mortar and pestle, pound all the ingredients together to a fine paste. You may need to add more fish paste to loosen the sauce, or a little more sugar if it feels too salty. The paste should be thick, pungent and definitely have a bite from the chilies.

Heat the peanut oil until it is shimmering. Add the paste and fry for a bit. Add the eggplants and continue frying for 2 mins. Add the bamboo shoots and the long beans and fry for 2-3 mins. You may need to add 2-3 tbsp of water to loosen the sauce at this point. Add the squid and the peppercorns. Take off the heat as soon as the squid curl.

Top with the basil leaves.

Serve at once with jasmine rice.

The Sufferings of Summer

The CC went to the farmers' market this weekend, and then his friend's mother gave him a "small" helping of the vegetables from her garden. Her version of "small" is enough to feed a small city!

The CC's kitchen overfloweth.

Lemongrass Sorbet

This was the other wonder the CC encountered at the restaurant in San Francisco in August.

This is truly an object of greedy lust, and any of you who know that the CC is not that fond of dessert should know that when a dessert item inspires food lust in the CC, well...

Ingredients

7-8 stalks lemongrass (outer leaves peeled)
2 cups water
2/3 cup fine sugar
1 cup mint (torn into pieces by hand)
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
large pinch of salt

Recipe

Cut the lemon grass into vague rounds. Smash them once with a pestle.

Add the water, sugar, and lemon grass together. Bring to a rolling boil.

Do not boil. Remove from the flame immediately.

Toss in the mint leaves, and let it steep for at least 20 minutes (until cool.)

Add the lime juice and salt, and blend in a blender.

If you want a sweeter presence, tone this down. If you want a traditional "sorbet", leave it tart. Remember that as it chills, the acid is going to lose a large portion of its edge so the solution may be quite tart but the sorbet will be "refreshing".

Line a sieve with several layers of cheese cloth, and filter the mixture. Toss the residue. (Yes! you need both the cloth and a fine sieve.)

Now, do the "sorbet" thing. Freeze, and every 30 minutes break up the mixture with a whisk/fork until you get fine crystals.

The "Right" Restaurants

Well, the CC hied himself to one of his favorite restaurants in the Bay Area, a hole-in-the-wall. We've already heard about this in an earlier entry.

The owner (who's also the server) has the right attitude to food. When he goes on vacation, the place shuts down. If he thinks something is better, he tells you that you should change your order (which brings the CC to question why the original item is on the order but let's not get too analytical about these things.)

The absence of a certain I-wont-eat-pork-or-chicken-ista provided the rare indulgence of a feast of flesh. We had catfish (amok), beef, and catfish topped with shredded chicken.

The CC was told in no uncertain terms that he should upgrade to a different catfish dish from the one he ordered, and the CC did so unhesitatingly. Only the need to look dignified stopped the CC from licking the plate clean of the wondrous lemongrass sauce.