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So*, in the land of strange things, I've had breadfruit (love it), mangosteens (love love love it), rambutan (love it except for the difficulty getting the pit away from the flesh, so not quite love it), and more recently, jak fruit.
Now, jak can be curried one way if it's really really young, another way if it's not anywhere close to ripe, and can be eaten as is when ripe. I've now had it all three ways.
I'm getting the impression that jak is a relative of pineapple, but a bigger, meaner, badder version. It's insides look similar and the taste of the ripe jak is similar to pineapple. More mellow & sedate, not as sweet or juicy or acidic, but similar nevertheless.
And we had it with salt. Cuz that's the way it's eaten here.
Since we're now living in Fahim's parent's house (with his parents), I've been having a LOT of opportunities to get Sri Lankan cooking lessons. As in, nearly every day. So I'm learning how to do it right, which is fantastic. She's a fantastic cook, so I'm really getting a great deal here. Plus she buys the local fruits and vegetables (which Fahim wouldn't do - he doesn't like them as much, plus I didn't know what to do with them anyway), so I'm really getting the full cultural experience. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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A lot, if not all, ingredients should be available in Asian grocery stores. What we use here is, near as I can tell, relatively common throughout the region. I would have to provide pictures of the raw ingredients simply because what it's called here is not necessarily the same as what it's called anywhere/everywhere else, and you've got to have some way to identify it, eh? Like mokonuvena or murenga or kos. Okay, so kos is the same as jak, but still. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I love rambutan, but I've never had the opportunity to try either breadfruit or jakfruit (is jakfruit a large spiny ovoid, somewhat similar in appearance to a durian?).
Have you tried either longan or langsaart (aka langsat)? I love both of them, with the latter actually giving mango a run for its money as my favorite fruit.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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At a Samoan luau I had a concoction of coconut cream and onions wrapped in taro and banana leaves cooked on an umu. Interestingly, this concoction is called lu'au and tastes absolutely divine.
I can't say I was too impressed with jackfruit (or langka as I knew it) but I loved rambutan and could eat them by the dozen.
As for eating raw fruit, I'm not that much of a fan. In the Philippines they eat raw green mango slices with a concoction called bagoong (pronounced bago'ong) spread over the top. Bagoong is EXTREMELY salty. Philippinos get a kick out of feeding this awful "flavor enhancing agent" to foreigners (probably most specifically Americans) and watching their reaction (much in the same way we liked to feed them Warheads).
Posts: 258 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Oh my goodness, that description of bagoong sounds exactly like something my Hawaiian roommate used to love. She said it came from the Philippines, but she called it something that sounded like "hamhah." She would come back with a jar of it after she went home for a visit, and kept it in the fridge and would use it on top of rice or other things (can't remember if mango was one of them). Anyway, talk about "distinguishable" odor--that stuff was vile. I could tell if that jar had been opened while I was out of the house, even if the meal was all cleaned up and put away.
And what are Warheads?
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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What exactly is "curry(ing)"? I originally thought it was a type of food, but now I'm getting the impression it's more a way of cooking.
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote: These stinky sauces are basic to the Asian pantry -- called bagoong or patis in the Philippines, nam pla in Thailand, nuoc mam in Vietnam, hom ha in China, saeu chot or myolchi chot in Korea and kusaya gravy or shottsuru in Japan. In English call them fermented fish or shrimp sauce, gravy or paste. Whatever the name, these basics to street food and regional home cooking have begun to intrigue the Western palate.
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and from the same article (now I don't feel too bad about the expressions of disgust I flung at my friend when she would eat this stuff):
quote: Hom ha: The smell of this sauce, made from fermented, ground, tiny shrimp, is said to turn off even most Chinese chefs and is quite a challenge for the unaccustomed. The pinkish-gray paste is used in clay-pot casseroles, noodle dishes and the popular hom ha fried rice. A less perishable, dried form of shrimp paste is sold in bricks and used in Southeast Asian curries, marinades and sambals.
OK, quid, you can have your thread back now! ;-)
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Well, whatever "Wester palates" they are talking about, I certainly can't taste it.
I remember when I was introduced to bagoong on raw mango and only put a bit on each slice until a Philippino, who was appalled by my actions, started preparing me slices smoothered in bagoong. Needless to say, after two slices, I was done.
Posts: 258 | Registered: Jul 2006
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Uprooted, that was fun. Thanks for the derail.
[quote="Noemon"](is jakfruit a large spiny ovoid, somewhat similar in appearance to a durian?).
Have you tried either longan or langsaart (aka langsat)? I love both of them, with the latter actually giving mango a run for its money as my favorite fruit.[/quote]I haven't seen durian, so I don't know, but the description is pretty good. I'd say it looks like a large spiny ovoid with stem and scale that also faintly resemble pineapple.
I haven't had longan or langsaart, although it's also possible that they're known locally by another name. I'll see what I can find out.
[quote="Uprooted"]Oh, will you make it a chatty cookbook w/ lots of good stories in it?[/quote]Yup! That's what I was planning on. I want it to reflect the food as a part of culture, not just a menu devoid of personality, if that makes sense. I want to set the scene, supply the backdrop, and tell the story.
[quote="happymann"] In the Philippines they eat raw green mango slices with a concoction called bagoong (pronounced bago'ong) spread over the top. Bagoong is EXTREMELY salty.[/quote]That sounds... interesting. It's pretty common for people here to eat fruit with salt or with salt and red chilli powder (think red pepper flakes ground up).
Cheiros, a curry is, by local definition, any food which has spices added and usually results in a gravy. So, pretty much everything is a curry except for sambol, which are not. There's a huge variety in how a curry can be made and what can go into a curry, and no, not all of them - a lot of them don't, in fact - include curry powder. My mil rarely uses curry powder, actually. She uses a lot of coconut, coconut milk, onions, garlic, maldive fish flakes, turmeric, red chilli pepper, black pepper, coconut oil, curry leaves. Another cook from the same village even will have completely different recipes, and someone from another province will have different recipes yet. Does that make it clear?
Oh, patis or nam pla - yeah, I know what those are. Had 'em, I think, and even mildly enjoyed 'em, but it was a long time ago. Ooooooh, yeah, I know eactly what that is. I had a friend who used to cook with that stuff, but he always left his bottle outside.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Luckily, here, it's assumed that foreigners want to go easy on all the strange stuff. Well, only sorta lucky. When we go out to eat, everyone assumes that I can't handle spicy food just because I'm so pale pink. What they don't realize, even after I ask them to make stuff as hot as possible (which they always ignore), is that I can handle food as spicy or spicier than locals can.
A few days ago, the new maid cooked the meal, which Fahim and I happily ate. A while later, Fahim's mom asked us if it was too hot for us. What? Was it supposed to be hot? We didn't know... Turns out that both of Fahim's parents had a problem eating one dish because it was too spicy for them. Fahim and I happily continued eating it for the next couple of meals after everyone else bowed out.
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Gee, and I thought this was going to be a thread about those goofy PC trivia games from the late 90s... man I wish I could still play them on my computer...
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That's actually not an absolutely typical looking durian; they're usually larger than that, with four pods containing the custard-like fruit.
Posts: 16059 | Registered: Aug 2000
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I am very fond of the durian. It is sweet and creamy and putrid in a funky kind of way. It is more interesting and complicated than, say, a banana which is sweet and creamy in a different kind of way.
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What kind of banana? There are types of bananas that I love and other tupes of bananas I can't stand.
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And that reminds me of the other strange food I ate recently...
We made a cooked sambol out of the ash plantain peels. I never, in a million years, would have thought of cooking those up and eating them, but they were perfectly fine. Go figure.
Tante, I've heard the durian referred to as being like eating blancmange in a bathroom. No one in this house likes durian, so it doesn't look like I'll get a chance to try it any time soon. Ah well.
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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I love jak fruit! It has a very strong sweet smell that permeates everything around it, but it's quite the tasty fella Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Because we have a new maid, we've lately been getting coconut roti and pol sambol for breakfast every now and then.
Pol sambol is a favorite of mine. It's basically coconut, green chillies, red chilli powder, Maldive fish flakes, lime juice, shallots, and salt ground together. According to an uncle of Fahim's, it should be too hot for me to be able to handle. I couldn't tell - I was too busy eating it.
The coconut rotis are a basic roti mix with a bunch of coconut in them, then shaped into rounds about 6" in diameter and about 1/4" thick.
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Pol sambol is usually served at room temperature. It can be served with rice, roti, hoppers, egg hoppers, string hoppers, bread, or just about anything else that Sri Lankans eat with the exception of dessert. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Hoppers are crepe-like. The batter is poured into a round-bottom pan and some of the dough is allowed to collect in the bottom of the pan. That thicker dough bit is about 3-4" in diameter and about 1/8" thick. The rest of the hopper curves upward and is paper thin.
Egg hoppers are the same, but an egg is put in the bottom and cooked.
String hoppers are a different beast entirely, and I'm really not sure why they have hoppers in the name. It's a dough made from flour, salt, and boiling water (which changes the texture of the mixture), it's then pressed out of a device so that it's sorta like spaghettini in thickness & shape, but dropped in a circle grouping of strands onto a flat basket sorta thing. It's then steamed.
The disc of string hoppers ends up being about 4" in diameter and about 1/4" thick.
Fahim can eat 5-8 string hoppers for breakfast - just for perspective.
I'll get pictures one of these days...
Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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So*. A cousin of Fahim's, who, for some reason I'm not aware of, really seems to like me, recently gave Fahim's father a cookbook to give to me.
The problem is that I don't know if it's give to me to borrow and then he has to return it, or give to me to keep permanently. No one else knows, either.
It's a problem because this cookbook is fantastic! Authentic recipes - the real deal. Published in 1968, it's 450 pages of instructions on how to clean this, how to do this, how to make that. Pure, beautiful, glorious, delightful infodump.
It includes recipes - 510 of them - on things I've had here but didn't have a clue what went into them - like kiri dodol, muscat... Recipes for things I could have guessed at but wouldn't necessarily have come close, like potato fudge, thalaguli, mulligatawny the real version not the adulterated western version... Three distinct recipes for snake gourd, for example.
It has a pretty good glossary and a sucky table of contents & index, but given the recipes, I don't care.
I don't want to give it back. Ever. I hope it's mine. Posts: 8355 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Okay. Set the date. We're game.![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
Okay, so kos is the same as jak, but still. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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