It's always summer in Malaysia

by Lisa

Three and a half weeks and 16,000 miles later, I'm back. And way to go, Steph--posting twice in a month (and consecutively, at that!). Hmm, maybe we need to make it one of our resolutions to have a combined total of more than three posts per month...

With limited internet access overseas, I worked on this post offline. Jetlag is a good excuse to tidy up and upload this little guy.

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Oh, Malaysia. You are full of tasty food. I have stuffed myself on your laksa, curry, roti, wonton noodles, cendol, pulut, and gwei. (And even as I write this I haven't yet had Hainanese Chicken Rice or Hokkein Mee. Poor me, I know.)

Our family goes back every few years; my parents were born and raised here and all their family is still here. And even though I'm somewhat familiar with this place and sometimes even call it home, I have certainly spent only a small percentage of my life here. Yet now I see how deeply ingrained in me is the culture. In fact, I imagine it's quite possible that my love for food comes from my Malaysian blood. When someone asks where the post office is, my aunt responds, "Oh, it's by that good wonton noodle place." I laugh, because this is the place where locations that are stationary (the post office, the market, the travel agency) are posited in relation to tiny little food stands.

It's unfortunate that most of the things I've eaten or helped to cook here can't be reproduced the same back in California. I could tell you to ask your uncle to cut down some sugarcane in his backyard for you to chew on--but I'm afraid that would be less fruitful(!) for you than it was for me.

After cutting down some sugarcane and its purple cousin bamboo cane (used in teas), my uncle also uprooted a few cassava plants so that we could boil the roots to eat. This is the plant from which we get tapioca; it's similar to sweet potato (but chewier), and can be eaten savory (with soy sauce) or sweet (steamed with sugar and served with coconut milk).

Talk about do-it-yourself. Growing up, my mom--an excellent cook, I might add--often made nasi lemak (coconut rice) for us, and I knew I enjoyed the stuff. But what I didn't know was that coconut milk she used from the can was a substitute for the real stuff we couldn't get at home--the stuff that came squeezed through a cheesecloth straight from--well, almost straight from--the coconut. So, here, with a pandan leaf picked from the garden, tied into a knot, and thrown into the rice pot with a pinch of salt to bring the flavors out we were set.

But really, despite all this good food people here make, no one can beat the nonmanmade stuff. (God, you rule.) It is so much easier to bear the heat and humidity when you realize that if it weren't for the tropical weather, you would be without such delicious fruits. Soursop, mangostein (my favorite), durian (not exactly my favorite), custard apples, jackfruit and chempedak, water apples (as I call them, but in Malay they are jambu air - which means, literally, "guava water"). Sweet, juicy, flavorful, crunchy, different. I love them all. One that I tried for the first time is pink dragonfruit. The plant's flower blooms for only one night, and it almost comes to the size of a small soccer ball; they say the fruit will follow in about 30 days. My aunt has a plant in her garden and we were lucky to catch a whole bunch of them in bloom, right around nine in the evening.

The fruit inside is ridiculously hot pink; the unnatural color would probably give rise to hesitance to try it--the plant's mode of protection, probably, but don't believe it, because it is so divine. Almost like a cross between kiwi and papaya (a funny description, I admit), its mild, sweet taste that's not too sugary makes it dangerous: don't leave me in front of a plateful if you want some, too. (Sorry for all the run-ons, but, really, there's no place for pausing when I'm writing about pink dragonfruit.)

Lastly, I had my fill of kaya, a most amazing, heavenly coconut jam. Made from eggs, coconut milk, and sugar, it is slowly stirred for hours over low heat. My mom makes the best, but she never would give me the recipe, claiming that I didn't have time to do so much stirring. (It makes me wonder if she just wants to keep the family secrets from me.) Years ago, I had resolved to learn how to make it when I had the time. And after a few weeks of unwinding in Malaysia, new graduate that I am, it donned on me that this is the time! Being school- and jobless can't be too bad if it means I have time to make kaya! I'm not yet back at my own kitchen, but please, please, please don't let me get through the spring without finishing at least one pot. I promise to share.

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While on the trip, I thought long and hard about what recipes I could share. But it's difficult, really a challenge. You have to come here yourself. So here's my best: --But first, for the non-food related item of this post. My adorable little niece. (Well, cousin's daughter, but it's all the same.)




Finally, the recipe--it's cheesy, I know. (First the sonnet, now this, you'll be thinking.)

Authentic Malaysian Food
Time: 2-4 weeks, more if you have it.

wonderful friends and/or family
less than a thousand U.S. dollars (for airfare)
a few ringgit (for food)

Take a flight to Kuala Lumpur and make sure you have wonderful people on the other end to take care of you. Add a few ringgit for meals at the best hawker centers. Enjoy!



Okay, okay, I'll throw in a real, albeit imprecise, recipe.

Coconut Rice

a few cups long-grained white rice (make more than you would per person if you were making regular rice; it's just so good)
1 can coconut milk water needed to bring rice to the right level (after addition of milk)
1 teaspoon salt
pandan leaves, if you have them; pandan essence can do the trick, too (both are optional)

We use the rice cooker. You can soak the rice for 30 minutes prior to cooking but it's not absolutely necessary. Throw in the can of coconut milk. Add a teaspoon or so of salt. I usually don't add enough, so, I guess, don't be afraid to add too much. Basically, add more than your instincts tell you--err, if you have instincts are normally good. Add pandan if you have it. Push the start button. Fluff with serving spoon when finished. Serve traditionally as nasi lemak with sambal, hardboiled eggs, ikan bilis, roasted peanuts, fried chicken, beef rendang, cucumbers, etc. Or, of course, there's nothing wrong with just eating it on its own.

winter break shenanigans

by Stephanie

Confession: I used to absolutely hate macaroni and cheese. It sounds terrible, I know. There are lots more worthy things in the world to hate, but until about 4 years ago, I absolutely hated the almost-universally loved childhood classic, mac 'n cheese. My theory is that my former distate for it either has to do with (a) my phobia of creamy white substances (more on this later) or (b) my weird need to be differentiated from my brother's food palette.

Did any of you experience a similar tension in your household? My brother and I had this intense desire to be stark opposites: he was a white sauce, mac 'n cheese kind of kid, and I was the red sauce, spaghetti side of the spectrum. I would not touch his stuff, and he absolutely refused to go near anything that was red (this also excluded chili and all other tomato products in addition to spaghetti sauce). I think we lived a ridiculous childhood, and I'm sure my mother put up with a lot.

I had to preface this post with that background because the other night my brother and I were wandering around the kitchen, wondering what to do with our hungry stomachs, and I suggested making the very food I detested all throughout my younger years. "Steph, don't you hate that stuff?" questioned my brother. "Then again, I'm not going to argue." We searched around the fridge for some cheese to use, and then he remembered. Mom had just bought a giant brick of Dubliner cheese the other day...perfect! He cooked up the pasta; I thickened some milk and butter with a little flour, then melted cheese into the mixture, tossed it with fusilli and called it a night.


steph's mac 'n cheese
8 oz. macaroni (or similar pasta)
2 tbs butter
2 tbs flour
2 c milk
2 1/2-3 c shredded cheese (mix them if you've got multiple kinds!)

Cook pasta in well-salted boiling water. Melt butter in a medium saucepan, add milk and then flour, stir. Cook until slightly thickened and bubbly; add cheese and stir until melted. Add in cooked macaroni and toss to coat.

Other things I've been up to:

zebra cake!



Okay, this has nothing to do with food, but my family dog-sat for this adorable Cavalier King Charles Spaniel--his name is Basil.


How proud of me are you?! Two posts in a month?! Lisa's in Malaysia right now, but I'm sure there will be gads of fun photos and food tidbits to share when she returns.

frying everything

by Stephanie

Oh Lisa, your lovely writing always make me want to post. (And a sonnet?! Oh my gosh! Such untapped talent! Reader, you may be reading the work of a future Poet Laureate.) Yes, we will be joint posting soon. And yes, I also have food stories to tell (although admittedly less than Lisa because I don't have daily access to a kitchen this year).

Okay, so if you must know something about me, it's that I really like fried things. Can I emphasize this enough? Fried things are so good, so hot and crunchy and golden. I'm not sure where this affinity came from; I wouldn't say we ate a preponderance of fried things at home when I was little. That said, I've never been discouraged from eating lots of fried things (thanks for the everlasting search for the perfect fried chicken, Mom. I appreciate that a lot.) Sometimes it's hard being me in a health-crazed California. All the salad really gets to me sometimes.

Last night at my old apartment my friends Donna and Cindy decided to make samosas. They even made their own dough (courtesy of Manjula...you are awesome), and I was very proud. I didn't partake in the making of the little triangular pieces of goodness, but after dinner we were sitting around, eating cookies and I noticed that we had a lot of leftover oil from the samosas. What to do?

I decided in the spirit of my unabashed love for fried everything that we should fry the rest of the cookies. After I whipped up a quick batter, Donna also brought out all this candy she had been stashing, and so we fried that too. Basically, it was a mini-state fair in the Castle, and it was a very good night. Of particular note was the fried peanut butter cup...and the fried M&M's. Seriously!! Frying M&M's is such a joy. (A big plus is that some of the color starts to leak into the batter while coating them and then with the leftover batter you can make rainbow fritters/hush puppies! Am I obsessed?)


Fried things aren't particularly photogenic (probably the lack of color), but they are certainly tasty, especially with a scoop or two of vanilla ice cream. Moral of the story: don't be scared to fry things because otherwise you are just missing out on life. Moderation is key...every other day should do it. Kidding, maybe.

Fried dough batter*:
1 c. flour
2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
1 egg
3/4 c. milk
oil for frying

Combine the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. Combine the milk mixture with the flour mixture and stir. Coat fryable items of your choosing (we used Sandies cookies, the shortbread with the chocolate in the middle and several kinds of chocolate candy. This gets as good as you want it to be.) Heat oil in a skillet on medium heat; you know it is ready for frying when little bubbles form around a wooden chopstick inserted in the middle of the pan (credit to Mom for that trick). Fry on one side until golden, then flip; drain on paper towels. Eat until your stomach threatens mutiny.

*funny thing about this recipe: I tried to research online for batter recipes, and Epicurious was giving me a lot of trouble (i.e. they do not approve of such things by the noticeable lack of recipes on this topic on their site.) So this is from Emeril...your television personality may be more than slightly annoying, but you are superior to Epicurious in my book right now!

**the photo is beyond craptastic, I know. I took it with my camera phone because I didn't have my digital camera on me, and I could not let this event of monumental historical significance pass undocumented. One day I will embrace the whole food photography movement but until then...go fry things!

Finally

by Lisa

So my last post was about waiting. Waiting for Thanksgiving. Waiting for Steph and I to write our joint post about our lovely dinner party. (Way overdue by now; we're sorry.) But mostly, waiting for school to be over.

Well, now it's finally here. I. Am. Officially. Done. With. School. Forever. Until grad school, of course. As for the other things we've waited for, certainly Thanksgiving has come and gone. And after this, I'm going to start our joint post. We need to make up for all we owe to you, wonderful friends and readers, for this hiatus in writing.

The last few weeks have been filled with frantic thesis writing, but I've still managed to have some cooking adventures. I just haven't had time to write about it. But now I'm finally free! I wouldn't have expected to feel so overwhelmed by having so much to say about food, but I really do. That is, I really do feel overwhelmed... and of course, I do also have so much to say about food.

Where do I begin?

I could talk about how I ate eight (yes, eight!) of Maria's glorious banana cream pies. Well, they were more like little muffins, not really pies. Whew. But still. Maybe we shouldn't start there. How about this? I got this lovely (lovely!) spice set from India from my wonderful friends Brad and Carla. You can ask my roommates: I did a little dance around the kitchen when I opened the metal container.


I have been working on Indian food since the summer so this was such a treat. Yesterday I made chana masala (garbanzo bean curry) and yes, it tastes so much better when you add in the spices one at a time in whatever proportions your heart desires. Plus it's more fun that way.

Besides Chinese, I'm most often cooking Indian or Mexican. In the kitchen you'll often find me chopping onions, mincing garlic, dicing tomatoes, washing cilantro, using lemons, limes, cumin and other spices. Did you notice what I did? There is quite an overlap in the list of common ingredients! I was surprised, too. Well, a friend asked for my pico de gallo recipe so I've decided to post it, but to be honest, there really isn't a recipe to it. I think you'll like it best if you trust your instincts. (Just don't ever ever ever make it while you're mincing garlic for collard greens and in trying to be efficient and end up mincing garlic for both your pico and your greens because you don't want to have to wash the knife and board twice and then while you're waiting for the burner you accidently drop all your tomatoes in the bowl with too much garlic and then end up bringing your way-too-garlicky salsa to your professor's house for a party. No good, I tell you.)


This is all for now. But there's definitely more to come! Until then, enjoy the recipes. The pico makes a surprisingly Christmasy addition to any party, what with all its red and green. And it's very quick and easy.

Oh, wait! One more thing before the recipes. I wrote a sonnet, for my roommates, about our fridge. Here it is. And then, the recipes.

College Fridge

Our fridge, we find, is never full for long.
We cannot seem to keep ourselves away.
Upon return from school we form a throng
about the cage and hunt for food and play
by thinking ‘bout the matches we can make.
“Do you want ice cream with your apple pie?”
“Or how about some fruit with chocolate cake?”
There always seems to be a large supply
and so we find our joy in making things
that put together what we have inside,
to find surprises in whate’er that brings.
It worked for us until today we cried,
“Oh no! We really cannot go on in this way!”
“We’ve more ideas than food—it’s not okay!”

Chana masala

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium-sized yellow onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can garbanzo beans, rinsed and drained
1 medium tomato, diced
2-3 tablespoons curry powder or mixed Indian spices (cumin, coriander, clove, chili, fenugreek seeds, ginger, pepper, tumeric, etc.)
2-4 tablespoons of water
salt to taste
cilantro, lemons, tomatoes, onions for garnish

Heat oil on medium heat in skillet. Add onions and saute 5-8 minutes until translucent and fragrant. Add garlic and saute for another minute. Add garbanzo beans and saute until heated through. Add tomatoes and some water, cover skillet and lower heat. Allow mixture to cook for another 10-15 minutes, depending on how hungry you are. Garnish with chopped cilantro, slices of lemon, etc. and serve with hot naan or basmati rice. Serves 3 or 4.

Pico de gallo

3 medium-sized tomatoes, diced (I usually use Roma because they are firmer and easier to cut, but any will do)
1/2 white onion, minced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
1 jalepeno pepper (sometimes I use serrano if I want it extra spicy)
1 handful of cilantro leaves
1 lime (I like to use Meyer lemons if we have them from our tree)
pinch of kosher sea salt

Basically, it all goes together in a bowl. A few tips: you can seed the jalenpeno if you like it less spicy. After cutting the lime in half, first score it by using a knife to cut an 'x' so that it squeezes more easily. Add salt to taste, but also note that it helps with cut the pungency of the onions and the acidity of the tomatoes. Adjust the proportions to your taste. And it definitely improves upon sitting in the fridge. But it usually doesn't last that long at our place! Serve with tortilla chips.

Waiting

More on contradictions

by Lisa

I don't bake. But that's for another post. Because today (and a few weeks ago) I baked.

My roommate, Elizabeth, went to Apple Hill this weekend. When I got back from Chicago, I saw apples and pears everywhere. I mean, everywhere. On the dining table, on the counter. A whole drawer in the refrigerator had been emptied in order to be filled with pears. She promised she would make me applesauce (with the skins on, the way we both like it). So I knew I'd be enjoying something tasty soon. (--I thought you would like to know that I just restrained myself from making a pun on the "fruits of her labor.") But the memory of a recent and delicious pear crisp (thanks, Jennifer!) was plaguing me enough to impel me towards turning on the oven.


So I made a pear crisp. I looked up some recipes; most of the ones available were for apple crisps and had way too much sugar. One called for vanilla, and I figured, why not replace that with rum? -- both have alcohol that cooks off to leave a good flavor. And besides, I needed to give myself more motivation to actually bake. I also compensated for my aversion to baking by not measuring. I realize that that makes it difficult for a food blogger to share recipes, but I'll try my best.

A few weeks ago when I made banana bread, I surprised not only myself, but also my roommates. I'm spooning out sugar into the bowl (not a measuring cup) and my roommates standing by are worried. ("You're not measuring?" one of them pipes up. "Oh no," says the other.) I get into my younger-sibling-poutiness and say, "I want to be good at baking, I do! I just... I just don't try hard enough!" Sarah and Maria try to be empathetic. "Me, too," Maria offers, nodding her head with understanding, "but not really..." Ah, well. I guess it's the youngest-sibling part of me that notices something needs to change but doesn't want to make the change.

Anyway, the bread turned out pretty well. Moist, banana-y. The way my mom makes it.



Pear Crisp

Pears:
6-8 pears, cored and sliced thinly
a few tablespoons of white sugar, depending on taste (apples require more)
1 tablespoon flour 1 tablespoon (or more to taste) of cinnamon
2 tablespoon of dark rum (optional)
a few tablespoons of water

Topping:
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened

Mix sliced pears in bowl with white sugar, flour, cinnamon, and rum. Lay mixture on bottom of greased 13 x 9 pan. Add a few tablespoons of water over pears.

Mix oats, flour, and brown sugar. Cut butter into dry ingredients to make a crumbly mixture. Spread evenly over pears in pan. Bake at 350-365 for 40 minutes or until pears are done.


Sarah's Banana Bread

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup each white and brown sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 ripe bananas, mashed
3/4 cup each regular and self-rising flour
pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4-1 cup chopped walnuts

Cream butter and sugars. Mix in the rest of the ingredients and pour into a loaf pan that has been greased and floured. Bake at 375. for 50 minutes

contradictions

by Stephanie

I do not sit well with contradictions. What this means: I am one of those people who tends to make discrete categories. I am also one of those people who freaks out when things don't fit into my discrete categories. Honestly, if I'm going to the trouble of making discrete categories, you (insert element here) should fit! Because I am a thorough person, and the world should be nice and neat. (My room is not an excellent example of this principle.)

So since I've come into my own at Berkeley, I've definitely become more aware of my preferences regarding food, and they've definitely grown more upscale since high school. Some foodie interests include absolutely anything produced by Cheeseboard , Peet's coffee (Mocha Java, thank you Lisa), chic cupcakes from Love at First Bite. I disdain things like "secret sauce"; that stuff is usually trashy. What can I say; my palate is continually refined by the wonderous paradise that is Berkeley.

But this is the weird part; this is the part that creates unrest and tension within myself. Sometimes I have cravings for the most terrible things, awful non-ritzy things like Jack in the Box tacos, a bowl of Cheerios with whole milk, Planters cheez balls (apparently these things are discontinued...ugh). I feel as though these urges are so contrary to my passion for the gourmet, so I usually try to ignore them or satiate them quickly so I can continue on my way to food actualization. (I don't know if that is an actual state that one can reach, but I can hope.)

Two days ago, we had these for lunch at the house:


You know what you're looking at? Happy face fries. That's right; these things are the most processed potato product you can get. The exterior is hopelessly greasy and crispy; the inside warm and mealy. They really are your ideal fried potato product, but LOOK AT THEM! They're the most low-brow food item to ever exist. And somehow I enjoy them as much as my 70% Scharffen Berger chocolate bar. I try to make this work in my mind, but it doesn't. I think I'm learning to be okay with that because I might kill myself otherwise. Also, it's kind of fun and freeing to let contradictions be. It means that I am letting go and refusing to let my control impulses get the best of me.