ambal manis means "sweet sauce" in Bahasa Indonesia but such a simple name belies an amazing explosion of tastes.
Finely chopped chillies, onions, sugar, galangal and garlic are fried in vegetable oil to achieve a highly delectable balance of spiciness ad sweetness. Strictly speaking, sambal manis is a relish as it is a rather thick paste. It is much milder than its more famous cousin, sambal ulek, which is basically crushed chillies with some salt. S-s-spicy!
There is sometimes a confusion because another, very different condiment is called sambal ketchap manis. It is a mild soya sauce and tastes nothing like sambal manis.
I buy it ready made. The best one I found is from Koningsvogel of Rijswijk, Holland while the one by Conimex tastes quite vile.
hatever people can make out of what Nature gives us! Kapi shrimp paste represents a totally different approach to using seafood than crevettes mayonnaise. Here, weeny shrimp that otherwise would be too small to consume is fermented into a condiment. It has a solid homogeneous consistency and intense flavour.
It took me a while to get used to it. For someone brought up halfway between Moscow and Alaska, the heady smell of sun-rotten shrimp ground into paste was just too overpowering. Time heals everything, even aversion to exotic condiments. These days I add a wee dram even to some dishes that are not supposed to contain it, like Korean jaeyook bokkeum. It works amazingly good.
I call this shrimp paste by its Thai name kapi because I first encountered it in Thailand. It is called the same way in Laotian and Khmer but its native range actually spans from Southern China to Indonesia. In Malaysia it is called belacan, in Indonesia - terasi. They make an intensely fragrant sauce out of it, sambal belacan or sambal terasi that tastes amazing with squid (sambal cumi-cumi). The same thing is called nam phrik kapi (น้ำพริกกะปิ) in Thailand and used as a dip.
ruly, truly, one man's food, another man's poison. I remember how I scared my Moscow friends when I brought a bag of bean sprouts to fix some Chinese food for them. They decided they were in for a feast of creepy Asian worms.
Bean sprouts are widely used in Pacific Asian cuisines. They are known as moyashi (もやし) in Japan, dou ya (豆芽) in China, kongnamul (콩나물) in Korea, tauge in Indonesia (and Holland), thua ngok (ถั่วงอก) in Thailand. In Iran, they are traditionally prepared for the New Year's festival Navrooz. There they symbolize the power of new life.
In Thailand, folk wisdom has it that bean sprouts, when consumed raw, increase sexual drive. It come as no surprise if you consider all the life energy of enzymes and vitamines of freshly sprouting seeds!
I use them for a number of dishes: from Indonesian gado-gado to Chinese mapo-dofu. I can chew them raw much to the consternation of my friends. But I don't mind as it defo gives me a huge perk once in between the sheets! +wink wink+
his is what you can make with tempeh: gado-gado, a real Indonesian staple. It can be served as a main dish or a side. First time I tried it in the Sumatran hinterland. It dominated our lunch although there were many other dishes. The combination of crunchy, soft and chewy ingredients and the spicy-sweet aromatic sauce won me over in an instant. Once we stood up from the meal, the bill was served: 50 cent a head.
Gado-gado stands for "mix-mix" in Bahasa Indonesia so nearly anything goes into it. That said, certain things never do: e.g., tomatoes, croutons or ruccola. I prefer to improvise within the limits that Indonesian themselves find acceptable. This time I made it with
without straying a bit from authenticity. Indonesians put them all in gado-gado.
Normally gado-gado is drenched with peanut sauce but I also have it with just sambal manis, as on the picture. Instant peanut sauce, sambal pecel, as in the picture below is available in most ethnic groceries in Amsterdam but I yet have to track it down in London. You only need to dissolve it in hot water or coconut milk. I also add some crushed lemon grass, shredded kaffir lime leaves and galangal powder. Making your own is not complicated but you need to line up all the right ingredients. I will post the recipe when I get around to that (feel free to prod me!).
empeh is an Indonesian product made from soya beans. I first encountered it in Jakarta where my friend's cook fixed me a vegan dinner with meat replaced by fried tempeh. When raw, it smells yeasty and mushroomy and tastes bland and doughy. When cooked, it has a lovely meaty texture and a nutty flavour reminiscent of fried bacon. It is delicious with freshly made long-grain rice and sambal manis (mind you, it is NOT the same as sambal kecap manis, which is a sweetish soya sauce!) This is how I had it for the first time in a remote mountain village on a stopover during our 25-hour Trans-Sumatran Death Trip From Hell back in 2001. It took me some time to replicate that taste. There are a lot of tricks of trade that you need to know to fry your tempeh perfectly:
SMALL EVEN PIECES: Cut the tempeh loaf into even 3-4-mm cubes, this way they all will get cooked evenly.
CAST-IRON WOK: Heat very well a thick-bottomed pan/wok before adding oil. Cast-aluminium ware works just fine too. Heat is distributed evenly in cast-metal ware making sure that everything is cooked thoroughly and evenly.
HOT ODOURLESS OIL: Pour about 1.5 cm of non-smoking cooking oil (mustard rapeseed or grape seed oil is good, olive oil will NOT do) and wait until it gets hot. I normally wait until it just starts ever-so-lightly smoking.
AMPLE OIL: Don't save on oil, if you've poured too much you can always strain the tempehand cut the rest with a paper towel. If you don't put enough oil, you'll end up with a soggy, anaemic final product.
EXPOSE ALL PIECES TO OIL: Add the cut tempeh and make sure it gets all covered with hot oil immediately. This will form a crust on top of each tempeh cube that won't allow it to soak in too much oil.
KEEP STIRRING: Make sure the tempeh cubes get evenly fried on all sides.
MODERATE HEAT: The fire should be medium high. If it is too high, tempeh will burn, if it is too low, tempehwill absorb too much oil and end up greasy and soggy. All stoves vary, so experiment a bit to get the temperature just right.
DON'T OVERCOOK: Fry until crisp and dark golden brown, NOT dark brown. See the top picture, that's the colour you should aim for.
ADD FLAVOUR: A dash of fish sauce or shoyu for veg(etari)ans closer to the end adds a depth flavour and saltiness. Plain salt just makes it salty. Meh.
It comes out so good you can have it as a snack in its own right, or use it instead of meat in various dishes. Just remember it does not need any additional cooking. Also don't let it soak in sauces too long, as it will become soggy. Add before serving to already cooked dishes. The quickest yet supremely delicious dish you can make with tempeh is gado-gado.
The right kind of tempeh is hard to come by. A lot of truly weird stuff is marketed under that name. In London, where I live now, I saw what looks more like vacuum-packed goobers. At £4.65 for 100g, twice the price of Select Angus beef, it must be A-list celebrity goobers. The New Loon Moon Supermarket in Chinatown, however, carries the frozen variety of proper tempeh. Close, but no cigar. That's why I always bring back 2 or three fresh loaves from Amsterdam. Thanks to Holland's past colonial connections, even local chain supermarkets carry it there. Your best bet would be to ask around in your local Indonesian restaurants where they get hold of their tempeh. Or if you have a lot of free time on your hands, make it yourself from beans and tempeh starter available to order online.
"Increasing intercultural understanding through the appreciation of world cuisines." I hope that my blog will inspire people to open their minds and try other people's food where they live or travel.
ambal manis means "sweet sauce" in Bahasa Indonesia but such a simple name belies an amazing explosion of tastes.
Posts
