.: evil jungle prince :.

Since returning from Las Vegas, my mind has been preoccupied with the delicious Malaysian food I had there. My taste buds as a result have been pleading for me to make something that will satisfy, or partially satisfy anyway, my never-ending cravings for coconut and chili peppers. Fortunately my garden came to the rescue with some fresh lemongrass, chillies, and cilantro.

This dish, Curry Kapitan Shrimp, actually began as "Curry Kapitan Prawns" but due to our lack of fresh seafood here in the desert, I've substituted with some large sized shrimp. It is essentially a coconut-curry curry with fresh tomato and lemongrass, and is big on flavor. If you're aiming for something hearty and flavorful in which the heat can be ratcheted up when one wills it, this one is a good bet.

1. First I began by making a bumbu spice mix by grinding 3 cloves garlic, 10 shallots, 1 tsp belacan, 3 candlenuts (I used almonds), and turmeric (I used powdered but the original recipe calls for a fresh piece). All these were added to a food processor and ground.

2. Next I fried (in peanut oil) half an onion, crushed lemongrass stalk, curry leaves, adding the bumbu spice mix after a minute or two. Coconut milk and 1 tsp curry powder was added and the mixture cooked for 6-7 minutes.

3. Finally I added prawns, fresh tomato, and fresh green chillies. This, with a little more coconut milk and salt/sugar to taste, was cooked for an additional 4-5 minutes. Fresh lime juice was squeezed on top after the curry was served.

I loved this dish and it was so easy to make. How lucky people in Southeast Asia are to have grown up with such a rich culinary culture. As I often tell people, I feel somewhat slighted by having been raised in a such a boring culinary tradition. No wonder I was never excited much about food until much later in my life.

Well I am off again for more travels in the coming weeks. Next week I will be in Hawaii (Big Island), and following this I'll spend a week in Portland, Oregon -- a city I frankly don't know much about, with the exception of their famous used bookstore. If anybody has any culinary or activity tips for me, please share them!

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Please pardon this less-than-elegant picture of today's dish. As I'm in the middle of photographing tons of items for sale on eBay, my food pictures were inadvertantly erased and I was left with only this picture of yesterday's dinner. Hopefully it at least gives a general idea.

I can't thank Cupcake enough for sending me a bunch of recipe books from Malaysia! (In addition to some much coveted roti jala molds.) I was thrilled, and so now I have a whole bunch of new recipes to experiment with. I love-love-love cookbooks produced in Asia because they do what all cookbooks should do: they give a picture of each dish (imagine that), break down everything into steps, and offer step-by-step preparation images to boot. I normally don't think of myself as a visual person -- I'm more text oriented -- but when it comes to food, text alonejust doesn't cut it. Something changes when I cook and I need visual information. (Another beef -- don't you hate it when a text-only cookbook attempts to describe how to fold something? Without pictures? Gah!)

Anyway, back to the food. This dish originally began as Prawn Sambal with Petai, but as petai beans are totally alien to my desert landscape, I decided to try the recipe using longbeans instead.

1. First I prepared a spice paste by placing the following into a food processor and blending: 1 cup chopped shallots, 2 candlenuts (I used almonds), 1.5 tsp ground dried red chili flakes, 2 tsp shrimp paste (belacan), 2 stalks fresh lemongrass, 4 slices galangal (ok to use ginger instead), and 1/2 cup water. (I added the water progressively as the mixture began to break down so that there would be less mess.)

2. I then fried the spice paste in a little oil until it became fragrant. I then added the longbeans (half a bunch, cut into 3-4 inch size) and 3 tsp tamarind water. (I also added a little extra water because of the large about of longbeans being used.) Added also was about 1-2 tsp of salt to taste.

3. Next I added the prawns* and cooked the mixture for a few minutes. I then allowed the mixture to stand and allowed the flavors to mature before serving.

* Here I used a special trick to mask the flavor of less-than-optimal prawns. Sometimes the only prawns I have in the house are frozen. Depending on your source, some frozen prawns can taste really disgusting. If I have less-than-optimal quality frozen prawns, what I like to do is (after they have de-thawed) drop them briefly into salted, boiling water. As soon as they turn pink, I take them out and drain them. I then set them aside and cook them as normal in whatever dish I'm preparing. This process removes any residual freezer tastes.

4. One last step -- open all the windows. The belacan is really going to stink up your kitchen!

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 06:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I've already posted this recipe, but I couldn't help but post photos of last night's ayam kleo (fragrant coconut chicken) dinner. Could there be a dish with a more gorgeous color? I doubt it.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 08:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's a first time for everything and last week it was laksa ayam's turn to be my experimental dish. Laksa ayam is rice cellophane noodles with chicken in a coconut sauce.

1. I started by placing few chicken pieces in water and and allowing them to simmer until cooked. I then removed the chicken, sliced, and reserved the liquid (after skimming the top).

2. Next I made a spice paste by grinding 4 shallots, 3 garlic cloves, and 4 candlenuts (I used macadamia). I then heated some peanut oil and fried the paste, adding 1 stalk of crushed lemongrass (crushed, cut into sections). Once fragrant, I deglazed the fried paste by adding the chicken stock and a can of coconut milk. This I brought to a slow simmer, adding salt to taste.

3. Meanwhile, I prepared the rice sticks by bring a pot of water to a boil and then turning off the heat completely. I then added a sheet of rice sticks, covered, allow to sit for ten minutes, and then rinsed the noodles with cold water.

4. Finally, I placed the noodles into a bowl and poured over the coconut sauce. I garnished the noodles with some Thai basil, sliced chicken, peanuts, krupuk, and fried onions.

Result: this dish turned out relative well, though I felt it lacked heat. Granted my recipe didn't call for any use of chili, I couldn't stop myself from adding a little chili shrimp paste in for color and body. Next time I will also get a little more creative with the garnishing, as I felt the overall appearance was a little boring and might use some more color, such as freshly sliced red chili to help visually replace the egg slices and shrimp which I left off.

By the way, does anybody have a good recipe for kueh bakar manis? I also tried making this dish, but as you can see I failed pretty miserably. The taste was tolerable but the cake looked nothing like the one pictured in my cookbook, which frustratingly did not list a recipe. My attempt was only gleaned from what little I could find on the Web. I'm anxious to figure this out, as I love the taste of pandan and have a flourishing pandanus plant in my backyard which is simply yearning to be made into sweets.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Sometimes a dish turns out so well that I can hardly believe I've survived in this world without making it a part of my regular culinary vocabulary. This is one such dish, or sidedish I should say: kerabu timun, or Malay cucumber salad prepared with a kerabu dressing (coconut, chili pepper, dried shrimp, and lime juice).

Similar in some ways to Korean kimchi, this might be better described as a tropical kimchi as it is prepared with ingredients entirely lacking from Korean fare. This flavor combination was so robust and refreshing... I just loved it.

1. Dry roast 2 tps grated or dried coconut flakes. Add to a mortar together with 3 tps dried shrimp (after soaking water). Crush/mix with pestle.

2. To the mixture now add 6 fresh red chili peppers with seeds removed. Mix. Also add 1 tsp dried shrimp paste, pan roasted without oil. Mix. Add fresh cucumber pieces into this mixture.

3. In another bowl, add the juice of two limes, 1tsp brown sugar, and a pinch of salt. Mix and add to the cucumber mixture just before serving.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

With about fifty million onions at my disposal (okay not quite that many, but I did go to Costo last week), I thought Indian mee goreng style noodles might be a good option for dinner since onions are used in both the sauce and the stir fry.

I tried combining a number of Indian mee goreng recipes online, as they all seemed so inconsistent from one another. I assume this is because Indian mee goreng is a hawker dish and as a result has not been codified and made a science. My first attempt was tasty but there remains plenty of room for improvement: next time I will more liberally use fresh chillies and also cut down on the amount of sugar I used in the sauce. All the same, it made for a hearty dinner and I managed to use up two more onions (of about 20). For fun I tried presenting this dish in a Korean style, topped with fresh cucumber and cabbage, which added some freshness and crunch.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 11:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

After yesterday's failed attempt at making kuih buah malaka, it was extremely satisfying to prepare a lunch which not only met expectations but exceeded them. Today's meal consisted of two dishes, ayam kleo (fragrant coconut chicken) and gado-gado (blanched Indonesian vegetables with a spicy peanut sauce).

First let me say that I'd never actually tried this dish before, so I was in for a real surprise. My cookbook tells me it's a favorite in Malaysia, and no wonder! The fragrant and saliva-inducing combination of lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, coconut milk, chillies, garlic, and turmeric was a sure-bet from the get-go, daddy-o. Kowabunga! This was so delicious, savory, and wonderful that it is destined to become a regular player in my regular culinary regime. Certainly one of the best and most exciting dishes I've had in recent years.

I also prepared a side of gado-gado, or Indonesian blanched vegetable salad with spicy peanut sauce. Preparation of the ayam kleo was not easy, so I took a shortcut here and used pre-prepared pecel dressing. This was actually the first time I'd prepared this dish with chayote and I really enjoyed the addition. Chayotes are incresingly one of my favorite vegetables, with their sweet but crunchy texture... very reminiscent of a green mango or papaya in some ways. I look forward to using them more diversely.

1. To prepare the ayam kleo, I began by making a mixed chili paste by pureeing shallots, garlic, chili peppers, galangal, and 1.5 tsp turmeric.

2. The chicken was then marinated for an hour by mixing it with 1 tsp salt, juice from one lime, and 2 tsp of the mixed chili paste.

3. After one hour, the chicken was placed in the oven and baked at 450F until it began to brown.

4. Meanwhile, I created the fragrant sauce by sautéing 1 stalk of chopped lemongrass and 2 shredded kaffir lime leaves in oil. To this I added 1 cup of coconut milk, 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp tamarind water, and 5 tsp of the mixed chili paste. The chicken was then cooked slowly on a low flame for 20 minutes, turning the chicken occasionally.

Wanna dance tonight. Here's what I'm listening to:
Title: Gimme Gimme Cha Cha Heels | Play Song:
Artist: Eartha Kitt & Bronski Beat
Album: Where Is My Man?

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 01:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I was a bit nervous about making today's lunch because I've never eaten or seen mee goreng before, so I had only the recipe to work with. Fortunately the recipe was fairly straight forward, but the locals will have to tell me how I far off base I was with the presentation/preparation.

I enjoyed the recipe. Unlike yakisoba, no ginger was used. Instead, the shrimp paste and garlic were the stars of the flavor show here. And they were helped along with the use of some chili from my garden.

1. To start the show, I boiled egg noodles, drained them, and then set them aside.

2. I then fried fresh chillies, 1 tsp garlic, 1/2 tsp shrimp paste. Next I added the firm tofu. Once aromatic, I added half a cabbage and a handful of bean sprouts and fried briefly.

3. Next came the noodles themselves and soy sauce to taste. The whole mixture was then fried on high heat.

This was a good dish but it would be much improved with a more liberal use of fresh chillies. I used one jalapeno which is normally enough to set one dish completely on fire, which you'll know if you've ever eaten a jalapeno from my garden. (Sometimes I think my plant must have cross-bred with some firey ornamental, because they are damn hot.) However, in this dish I could barely recognize any spiciness... very strange!

By the way, I received another delivery of online groceries today and they brought me all the right vegetables this time, including a real Japanese daikon. (My description of it as aesthetically akin to a child's arm apparently did the trick, however much I regret ever thinking of that metaphor.) They only got one thing wrong: my 12-pack of Beck's beer is light beer, as in low-calorie. But I'm not phased -- I figure the univerise is probably just trying to tell me something.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 01:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

I hope people from Malaysia won't laugh at me too much for attempting to make what some consider to be their national dish (and substituting baby zuchini for cucumber slices, which I didn't have on hand). I've never eaten this dish before and have little idea what the presentation is supposed to look like, but alas.. there must be a first time for everything.

When I began preparing dinner this evening, I actually only intended to make coconut rice (nasi lemak), which utilizes coconut milk, lemongrass, and pandanus leaf to lend a divine fragrance to the rice. (Yep, I cheated and stole a leaf from my baby pandanus plant.) Well, after these ingredients were placed into my rice cooker, you can't believe the amazing, intoxicating scent that issued forth. (Subsequently, the taste of the rice was magnificent and I'll certainly be making this often.)

As I searched around for nasi lemak recipes, I realized that this dish was normally part of a larger meal and decided to push ahead and try making a meal of it, despite the fact I was missing cucumber. I decided on a nasi lemak / sambal ikan bilis combination. (Ikan bilis is a sambal prepared with dried anchovies, onion, garlic, tamarind, shallots, dried chillies, belacan (fermented shrimp paste), salt, and sugar.) I also fried some peanuts in a little oil and with a dab of sambal oelek.

I was super-pleased with the result, although I am sure that this dish could be improved upon by leaps and bounds with the help/feedback of people who really know how to make it. I pretty much just followed the recipe at the link above, but I can't speak to its accuracy. Who knows? Malaysian/Indonesian fare is new territory for me.

My favorite part of this dish was definitely the coconut rice scented with lemongrass and pandanus leaf. Oh my god. The smell and taste were just heavenly. How can I have not tried this dish up until this point in my life?

After this meal, I thought now would be a good time to break open the package of Indonesian ginger coffee I purchased a while back and give it a try. I can definitely say that the taste of this coffee was... shocking! The ginger was potently strong, as were the other herbs used to flavor this unique brew. I think most Yanks would spit out the stuff, but after flavoring it with a little cream and giving myself time to adjust to it, I began to find the overpowering ginger taste pleasing. Almost soothing. I think I will give it a few more tries and see if I don't develop a taste for it.

This particular type of coffee was powdered but not "instant" -- the majority of the grounds were too large to dissolve completely and fell to the bottom of the cup quickly, much like Greek style coffee.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 08:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

As I "teach" myself various Asian dishes, I find that my three main challenges are typically:

1. Presentation. How do I present the dish if I've never seen it before?

2. Ingredients. How can I learn to authentically replicate a dish when it is at times next to impossible to find the required ingredients?

3. Meat to Veggie. How can I alter dishes that are traditionally meat-based into something suitable for a largely vegetarian diet and still remain true to the dish?

There are no answers, of course -- only challenges. In this case, I have never eaten Siamese laksa lemak, seen it, or even tasted it. But after spotting this recipe, I thought I'd just give it a try. As complex as the dish is, I was fortunate to have nearly all of the ingredients on hand. (Exceptions: I have no idea what a candlenut is and obviously don't have any. I don't have access to real tamarinds and used concentrate rather than skins. I don't know what a laksa noodle is and used Taiwanese flour noodles. There were also a few toppings I was lacking but didn't worry about it -- I was more concerned with the getting the bumbu right.)

Some of laksa lemak recipes I saw called for seafood and meat toppings -- I used tofu instead. Being a laksa lemak virgin, I can't comment on the authenticity of my rendition, but I can at least say that I thought the result was quite delicious. Very complex and savory, I'll save this one for nights I want to set my mouth on fire. (Which is more often than you might think.)

I think I'm falling in love with Malaysian food. I don't suppose there are there any Malay familes out there interested in adopting lil ole me?

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 08:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

As I was flipping through my new Malay/Indonesian cookbook, I came across a beautiful picture of the dishes nasi kerabu (fragrant coconut rice) and telor balado (eggs in spicy red sauce) and wondered how I might make this dish eggless. As the eggs are normally deep fried before they encounter the balado seasoning, I thought deep fried, firm tofu might be a suitable candidate. So I came up with tahu balado. (Or should I say "balado tahu" -- can anybody tell me?)

Yum-yum-yum! To my great surprise, this dish combination turned out great despite my relative virginity in the field of Malay cuisine and the fact I took the telor out of the original recipe and replaced them with tahu. Actually, the result was gorgeous (at least to my tongue), so the recipe I used follows for future reference...

Fragrant Coconut Rice - Nasi Kerabu

1. Wash one cup rice until clean. Add one pounded stalk of lemongrass, three slices of galangal, two fresh pandan leaves, dash of salt, and a mixture of coconut milk and water to the level prescribed by your rice cooker for one cup of rice. Mix well inside the rice cooker before hitting Start.

2. While the rice is cooking, prepare the fresh ingredients as toppings: shred 1-2 kaffir lime leaves, cilantro leaves, 2-3 finely chopped cucumber slices, 2-3 knotgrass or basil leaves (I used basil), thinly sliced one red chili pepper, thinly slice one shallot. When the rice is done, let is sit for ten minutes, remove the cooked ingredients from the top of the rice, and then top of the fresh ingredients.

Deep Fried Tofu in Spicy Red Sauce - Tahu Balado

1. Heat oil. Slice firm tofu and coat liberally with flour. Fry the tofu on each side until cripsy, shaking the pan back and forth periodically so that the tofu won't stick to the pan. Remove and cool.

2. In the remaining oil, fry 2-3 spoonfuls of pre-prepared chili paste (see below), dash of salt, a fresh tomato (diced), and 1-2 pieces of lemongrass stalk. Fry until fragrant.

3. To the thickened sauce, add a dash of lime juice, a dash of sugar, and water if the sauce becomes too dry. Add the tofu to the sauce, coat, and then serve with the nasi kerabu.

Chili Paste

1. Add chopped red chili peppers, shallots, and garlic cloves to a food processor. Blend, adding a little oil if it's too dry. Refrigerate for future use.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Dinner tonight was a dish I first tried in Honolulu. It's called otak-otak ikan, otherwise known as grilled fish cakes in banana leaves. I served it with a side of fresh veggies and homemade peanut sambal, made with some of the last remaining jalapeno peppers from the garden.

This was my first time making peanut sambal from scratch and it was remarkably easy. I prepared it by:

1. Preparing a puree of two jalapeno peppers and three cloves of garlic.

2. Mixing the puree with 1/16 tsp salt, 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup hot water, 1.5 tsp tamarind juice, and 1.5 tsp palm sugar.

3. This mixture was then heated until the oil began to separate.

I remember eating my first bite of otak-otak ikan. I thought I'd died and gone to culinary heaven. The combination of charred banana leaf together with other sweet and savory tastes sent me off to some distant planet momentarily. I hadn't eaten it again until today, and was pretty thrilled at how similar it tasted to my first otak-otak initiation. I prepared mine by:

1. Mixing 1/2 lb fish paste, 1/4 cup coconut milk, 1 egg white, 1/2 tsp pepper, 1/2 tsp galangal juice, 1 tsp sugar, and 1 tsp cornstarch in a blender.

2. Placing 2-3 tsp of fish paste into a banana leaf section and folding it twice over. I used a toothpick to secure both ends and then cut off any extra/unnecessary leaf. (Tip: soak your toothpicks in water so they don't burn while being grilled.)

3. I then oiled a pan and cooked the otak-otak for fifteen minutes on each side.

After being grilled, the interior of the otak-otaks look just lovely, don't they? Charred and beautiful, tender and moist. Dipped in the peanut sambal and eaten with a little rice, this was a culinary orgasm. Really, I can die happy now.

Posted by Evil Jungle Prince at 07:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)