Farmersgirl Kitchen

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Satay Kajang with Peanut Sauce

In 1983 we set off on the holiday of a lifetime, three weeks in Malaysia. We visited my sister-in-law who was teaching English in Taiping, this was fantastic as she knew how to get around, could speak the language and took us to eat in some fantastic places. Highlights of our culinary adventure were Roti Canai (pancake with curry sauce) for breakfast, a steamboat (stock bubbling in a pot over a charcoal burner, with seafood and vegetables you cook in it yourself) in a Chinese Malay restaurant, chilli crabs burning our fingers and lips on Pankor island and Nasi Goreng (fired rice) eaten cold as a picnic in the jungle national park, Taman Negara.

One of the first meals we ate out in Taiping was Satay, cooked at an open air street stall and charged by the stick! I'd never seen anything like it (remember it was 1983) and it tasted so good. Inevitably I came home with a cook book "Traditional Malaysian Cuisine".

I used it quite a lot when I returned home although many of the ingredients were still difficult to find. I was pleased when I saw that Chris from Cooking Around the World had chosen Malaysia as the country for Bloggers around the World this month, as it made me dig out this book and revisit this recipe:

Satay Kajang

1.5kg chicken fillet

1tsp cumin

1/2tsp powdered cinnamon

8 shallots

1tsp coriander

2.5cm piece of fresh turmeric or 1tsp dried turmeric

1tsp sugar

1 stalk lemongrass

2tbsp roasted peanuts

Salt to taste

2tbsp oil

1. Cube the chicken meat, drain and put aside.

2. grind coriander, cumin, turmeric, peanuts, salt and sugar. Mix this with the powdered cinnamon, diced shallots and 1tbsp oil.

3. Marinade the chicken in this mixture.

4. Using wooden skewers soaked for at least an hour in cold water, skewer 5 pieces of chicken on each skewer.

5. Grill over burning coals or under a hot grill, constantly sprinkling oil on the meat using crushed lemongrass.

6. Turn over and continue grilling until the chicken is cooked.

7. Serve with peanut sauce.

Peanut Sauce

300g roasted peanuts

2.5cm piece of ginger

3tbsp pounded chillies

2 stalks lemongrass

1tbsp sugar

1 mild onion

1/2 cup tamarind juice (I used Tamarind sauce)

Salt to taste

1. Grind the peanuts. put aside.

2. Grind lemongrass and ginger until fine.

3. Slice onion and stir fry until soft

4. Add in ground chillies and other ground ingredients

5. Add in the tamarind juice and lastly peanuts, sugar and salt. Simmer until the gravy thickens.

6. To serve, arrange a few sticks of satay on a plate and serve with a bowl of peanut sauce, cucumber and sliced onion. Satay also goes very well with rice.

Pounded chillies, marinating chicken, tamarind sauce and peanut sauce.

I fried off some of the onions from the marinade before adding the rice, then double the volume of stock to rice. This made a tasty savoury pilaff to accompany the satay. It didn't disappoint, the flavours and textures compliment each other perfectly. If you haven't tried making Satay yourself, I hope you can see that it's really not too difficult and have a go!

Posted with Blogsy

Labels: bloggers around the world, Chicken, ginger chillies, peanut, rice, satay

Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Romanian Sweet and Sour Eggplant - Street Food!

STREET FOOD

I had never heard of Susan Feniger until I was asked if I would like to review her book, Street Food. It turns out that she is one of the original Food Network cooking stars. Susan opened her first solo restaurant, STREET, in Los Angeles in 2009 and in this book she shares 83 of her favourite recipes adapted for home cooks.

What does Street Food mean to you? I was fairly horrified realise, how few street food opportunities we have locally, perhaps it’s just the very rural area that I live in and a climate that doesn’t encourage outdoor eating! Thinking about my own memories of street food, they do seem to be from holidays in the sun, I remember eating crepes in France, at 12 years old , and roast chicken never tasted better than the pollo roti eaten on a Spanish beach, but when I think of street food, it is the food we ate in Malaysia, we ate from street stalls almost every day for three weeks.

With my sister-in-law, eating Satay in Taiping, Malaysia

This is a book for the adventurous cook. Someone who is willing to seek out unusual ingredients and try new techniques, not the comfortable, recognisable classics with a twist that many chefs produce. You may recognise a few of the dishes, like Thai Drunken Shrimp with Rice Noodles, but there are many more that I had certainly never heard of; "Any one for Tatsutage Fried Chicken with Spicy Yuzu Mayonnaise?"

The book has a well written introduction, where Susan Feniger talks about her love of Street Food and how she wants to re-create the ‘magical’ street experience. There is also a useful chapter called ‘Organizing the World’s Kitchen’, which takes the reader through the myriad of ingredients and explains which ingredient goes into which category:

THE SALTS; THE SOURS; THE SWEETS; THE HOT AND SPICY and THE MELLOWERS AND COOLERS.

The Contents are divided into:

Starters and Small Bites including Coconut Curry Caramel Corn, Spiced Millet Puffs and Lamb Meatballs with Date and Carob Molasses

Salads including Heirloom tomatoes with black garlic and basil vinaigrette, Baby Beet Salad with Kumquat, Mint and Coriander and Indian Puffed Rice Salad

Vegetables and Grains includes Cactus Relleno with corn and Arbol Salso, Romanian Sweet and Sour Eggplant, Cheese Grits with Three Pepper Relish

Land and Sea including Picadillo Chilli Dog with Mustard and Relish, Uruguay Chivito Steak and Fried Egg Sandwich, Malaysian Black Pepper Clams

Curry & Tofu & Noodles including Coconut Curried Mussels with smoky Chorizo, Chilled Soba Noodles with Spicy Orange Sesame and Tofu, Anatolian Ravioli with Chickpeas, Feta and Brown Butter

Chutneys & Pickles & other condiments including Tamarind Date Chutney, Japanese Pickled Vegetable Ribbons, Jamaican Ginger Hot Sauce

Basic Spice Mixes and Pastes including African Spice Mix, Thai Curry paste, Tamarind Puree

Sweets including Danish Black Licorice and Cherry Biscotti with Buttermilk Koldskal, Croatian Sour Apple Fritters, Turkish Doughnuts with Rose Hip Jam

Elixirs & Tonics & Lhassis including Canton Ginger Kick, Honeydew Cucumber Cooler, Salted Lhassi with Cumin and Mint.

In addition to the recipes there are four Travelogues, taking you in words and pictures to Vietnam, India, Turkey and Mongolia. Susan Feniger summons up the sights, sounds, smells and particularly the tastes of the places she visits and the food she eats. I enjoyed reading these sections, they help to contextualise the culture and landscape of the original recipes.

Pros

I enjoyed the variety of the recipes and found the different techniques and ingredients really inspirational. I can see this book being a jumping off point for all kinds of cooking experimentation.
The photographs are clear and the recipes well laid out.
There are useful hints and tips, with photographs introducing particular ingredients and, sometimes, offering alternatives

Cons

There are no metric ingredients measures and no conversion chart, as with many US publications.
Some of the ingredients would be extremely difficult to source e.g. Cactus Paddles!!!

Romanian Sweet and Sour Eggplant

Makes 4 Cups

Serves 4-6

Here is what Susan says about this recipe: There’s a very traditional dish made in home kitchens all throughout Romania and south eastern Europe that’s typically called “eggplant salad”. I toyed with different ways to highlight the key flavours of the original recipes which seems underplayed. I like to make a green salad with watercress, olive oil and lemon, top it with a scoop of this sweet and sour eggplant, and serve it with a slice of toasted sourdough bread topped with goat’s cheese and roasted red peppers.

2 large eggplants (aubergines) about 2lb

3 tbsp plus ½ teaspoon kosher salt (rock salt)

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

10 cloves of garlic

2 bunches of scallions (spring onions), white and green parts, roughly chopped (1/4 cup)

½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Canola oil

1 (14 oz) can whole peeled tomatoes, drained and roughly chopped

¾ cup cider vinegar

½ cup packed dark brown sugar

Cut off and discard both ends of each eggplant, and cut them lengthwise into ¼ inch thick slices. Lay the slices out on a baking sheet, and sprinkle both sides with the 3 tablespoons of salt. Set aside for 20 minutes so that he salt will draw out some of the water from the eggplant. Then pat the eggplant dry with a dish towel.

Put the olive oil, garlic, scallions, parsley, cayenne and remaining ½ teaspoon salt in a food processor,and puree until a smooth paste forms (it will resemble pesto). Spread liberally all over both sides of the eggplant slices.

In a large sauté pan set over medium-high heat, heat 2 tbsp canola oil. Add enough eggplant slices to cover the bottom of the pan, and cook until they are browned on both sides and cooked through, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Transfer the eggplant to a platter or plate. Repeat this process with the remaining eggplant slices, adding 2 tablespoon oil for each batch. Cut the cooked eggplant into 1 inch wide strips.

In a saucepan set over medium heat, combine the tomatoes, vinegar and brown sugar. Stew for 12 minutes or until the tomatoes begin breaking down. Add the eggplant strips and stir together. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 8 to 10 minutes until most of the liquid has been cooked off. Remove from the heat and serve or chill. This dish may be served warm or cold.

We enjoyed the Romanian Sweet and Sour Eggplant, it's bursting with flavour and can be made ahead. There is nothing particularly daunting about the recipe as long as you have a food processor to make the 'pesto'. I think it would be a great dish to include in a tapas/mezze style meal.

I doubt if I would have picked up this book in a book shop, but I would really have been missing out on an enjoyable reading experience and an excellent cookbook. It is some time since I have felt inspired to take a cookbook to bed to read, high praise indeed! I would recommend it to anyone who wants to try some new flavours and and regain their cooking mojo! Be inspired to try some STREET FOOD.

Street Food by Susan Feniger with Kajsa Alger and Liz Lachman

Published by Random House, USA

Distributed by Grantham Book Services for Publishers Group UK

RRP £18.99, available at popular online book store for £12.15

Thanks for to PGUK for the opportunity to review this book

Labels: Aubergine, Cook book review, garlic, Malaysia, parsley, Romanian Sweet and Sour Eggplant, satay, Street Food, Susan Feniger, tomato

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Farmersgirl Kitchen

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

Satay Kajang with Peanut Sauce

Tuesday, 23 October 2012

Romanian Sweet and Sour Eggplant - Street Food!

STREET FOOD

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Romanian Sweet and Sour Eggplant

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