.: evil jungle prince :.

I had so much fun making today's lunch. Although my expectations were low seeing as this was my first time preparing both dishes, I thought the end result turned out pretty well. The first dish, kari tauhu, started out as a recipe for curried beef (kari sapi). Not being an eater of beef, I substituted tofu instead. The second dish, roti jala, was a challenge to make because I had to first construct a way of making the pancakes "lacy." I'll go into more details below on how I tried to do that.

1. I initiated my tofu curry but preparing a spice blend of equal parts (about 3-4 tsp each) garlic, shallots, candlenuts (I used macadamias instead, which are a related nut), and red chili peppers. These were blended finely in a food processer together with 1 tsp tumeric and a little peanut oil. This spice mixture was then set aside.

2. Next I fried the following in a little bit of oil: 1 stick cinnamon, 4 cardamom pods (cracked), 1 piece of lemongrass stalk cut into 4-inch pieces (white portion only), 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1 tsp coriander powder. After becoming fragrant, I then added the spice mixture and fried the combination for 2-3 mins on low flame.

3. Finally, I added a can of coconut milk, 1 tsp sugar, and 1 tsp salt and allowed the curry to cook on a low flame for about 20 mins. I added cubes of firm tofu near the end so that they could absorb some of the flavor.

While my curry was nearing completion, I started working on preparations for the roti jala.

1. First I prepared the roti jala batter by combing 1 cup coconut milk, 2 egg whites, and 1 cup flour.

2. Next I punched a few holes in the bottom of my coconut milk can. (This part was purely experimental on my part. If you know if some better ways to make the lacy effect of the rotis, please let me know!)

3. Finally I heated some butter in a pan, poured the batter into the coconut can, and in a swirling motion allowed the batter to drop through to the pan, creating a lacy pancake. Per the instructions I have, I cooked the rotis on one side only and folded them over once.

Result: oh-so-very-yummy in my tummy. But calorie counters beware! This recipe used up 1.5 cans of coconut milk in the process, and taken together with the butter which was used in the pan, these dishes made for a very, very naughty guilty pleasure.

Areas for improvement: I was not entirely happy with the lacy effect I achieved with my coconut can. When I look at pictrues of roti jala online, the lacy effect is much smaller. Next time I may try making the batter a little more watery in order to get the batter through smaller holes. One problem I initially encountered was that the batter was too thick to go through the holes I made, so I simply enlarged the holes. This worked but the lacy effect doesn't seem quite there yet.