All about Shrimp Paste

All About Shrimp Paste

Until yesterday, I assumed shrimp paste was always this solid block of dried, salted processed shrimp. This is an essential ingredient in most Asian cooking - Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, etc.
Natalie tells me about this liquid product that she got called shrimp paste that prompted me to look about the varieties of Shrimp Paste.

My first hit was Wikipedia, that is such an useful resource, this is their piece on Shrimp Paste. Now, that I confirmed my hypothesis that shrimp paste varies somewhat depending on the country of origin, the issue still remained as the composition and texture, was there a more liquid version of shrimp paste?

Well, here is a little piece from another well illustrated food-blog, that also groups the varieties into a combined group. I suppose since this references us back to Wikipedia, that is really a good source on this.

Chayoti Squash and Kholrabi with Shrimp

A weekend trying several new vegetables - Kholrabi and Chayote Squash

In this recipe that I developed with these vegetables, Bengal meets Punjab in a subtle, spicy-sweet vegetable dish seasoned with shrimp. In coastal India and Asia, fish and seasoning with tiny shrimp, dried shrimp and shrimp paste takes the place of seasoning with chicken broth in American Cuisine.

Ganthgobi, Chayoti lau ar Chingri - Chaoyoti Squash, Kholrabi with Shrimp.

Ingredients

1 Kholrabi with leaves
1 medium sized Chayoti squash
2 tbsp mustard oil
1 tsp bengali 5-spice (panch phoron)
1 small onion finely chopped
1 tbsp grated ginger and garlic
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 green chillies
1 tomato
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp commericial mustard
2 tbsp grated coconut
1/2 cup large shelled shrimp
1/2 tsp ghee
2 cardamoms
2 cloves
1 small piece cinnamon

Method of Preparation

1. Remove the leaves from the kholrabi and chop finely.
2. Grate the kholrabi and the squash.
3. Heat the oil in a pan and add the 5-spice mix, when this begins to crackle add the onion, garlic and ginger.
4. Saute for 5 min and add the vegetables and leaves with theturmeric and slit chilies.
5. Cook on high for 5 minutes stirring well and then add in the salt and tomato with the mustard and cocconut and cook till the mixture is fairly dry.
6. Mix in the shrimp, cover and cook for 7 min on low heat.
7. Check the seasonings.
8. Heat the ghee and add the whole spices and cook for 2 min. Pour over the vegetable shrimp mixture and serve.

Myanmar - Characteristics of Cooking

Myanmar - Characteristics of cooking

Once again these curry classic countries are joined at the hip by common ingredients and similar spices. When we get to Burmese cooking we start seeing a richer cuisine. There is an increase love of non-vegetarian food especially chicken. We also get intoduced to lemon grass which is happily married to soy sauce and garlic.

Some of the websites that I liked were Myanmardotcom I am leaning towards the Burmese Roast Chicken, which is in the tradition of a pot roast. The others were not especially interesting, what I did like however was another composite site with a fair amount of links. I will decide what to make and post soon.

Taste of Asia -Vietnam and Malaysia

Vietnam and Malaysia - Day One of A taste of Asia

As promised today was indeed fun. I had a great group of diverse students - Benny, Ilma, Natalie, Adriana. Rochelle and Georgiana who was such a great help. We were really to start!







Malayasian noodles

Today we did the Vienamese Salad Rolls with two Dipping Sauces and Malaysian Curry Noodles.
Things were lively, and the rice paper wrappers sparked a lot of interest. I thought this was fun to have everyone see of pliable yet firm there were.

The recipe I used was the following.

Vietnamese Salad Rolls

For the Rolls

3-4 leaves Rommaine Lettuce
2 carrots
1 cup bean sprouts
1/2 cup chopped cilantro leaves
1/3 cup chopped leek chives
10-14 cooked large shrimp
1/2 cup sliced lean pork
10 Rice paper wrappers

Method of Preparation

1. Shred the lettuce and grate the carrots.
2. On a work surface spread out the lettuce, sprouts, cilantro, leek,
shrimp and pork in a single line.
3. Put some water in a large bowl and moisten the wrappers. You can
leave the wrappers in the bowl for 1.5 min till they are soft.
4. Place them on a flat surface and fill the center with a little of all the fillings. You want a well filled roll but also want enough room to wrap the edges.
5. To wrap the edges, fold the bottom flap, then the two sides and finally the top like an envolope. Serve immediately with the sauces or save covered with a moist towel or cloth.

Peanut - Hoisin Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup hoisin sauce
1/2 cup roasted unsalted peanuts
1 cup water

Method of preparation

1. Blend the peanuts with the water into a smooth paste.
2. Mix with the hoisin sauce and bring to a simmer for 5 min.
3. Cool and serve

Traditional Vietnamese Sauce

Ingredients

1/2 cup fish sauce
1 lime
1 tsp brown sugar
3 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
1 scallion
Carrots and Cilantro chopped for garnish

Method of Preparation

1. Mix the fish sauce with the lime juice and sugar.
2. Finely chop the garlic, chillies and scallion.
3. Let this mix for half an hour.
4. Mix in the cilantro and carrots.

Taste of Asia - Fall 2006

A taste of Asia

My upcomming class at WCC promises to be a lot of fun. There will be a lot of diversity in the cooking and food, since I will be doing food from various asian countries.

To try to look at the diversity of the food of the region, I am going to start with two classics from their respective countries. I will be doing Vietnamese rolls, to explore the crisp fresh aspects of this food, the nuances of using dipping sauces. A wonderful resource realated to this is Vietworld Kitchen. Although, I have to confess that Vietnamese is really more my brother's favorite than mine.

To contrast this, I will be doing Malaysian Chicken Rice, which looks at using curried spices, is more neareastern than far-eastern in approach. We will see how this works out. Yes, I love Malaysian food (did I say that I love food?). Rasa Malaysa is a great blog on Malaysian food and travel. Speaking of which I really need to get back in touch with Dawn who is now on her Malaysia stint.

Bhatura - Leavened Fried Bread

Anshul's Surprise Birthday Party!

Boy! It is exhausting to have the children around for a three day weekend. This weekend my cooking highlight was actually doing Anshul's suprise birthday party. The food turned out really great. I made Mutton Pulao/Birayani, on that note I often wonder what the major difference is between Birayani and Pulao. This is an interesting piece on the difference. I myself love this intensely satifying dish.
Other than that I had mixed dal ghugni, dahi vadas, chicken malai kababs, papri chaat, alu dum and luchis.
Something funny happened to the luchis, I left them outside to hide them from Anshul and what I ended up with was Bhaturas, which actually turned out to be a great hit.

Bhatura (Leavened Deep-Fried Bread)

Makes 14-18

2 cups white flour
1 cup semolina
2 tbsp ghee
1 tsp salt
1 cup yogurt
Extra flour for dusting
Oil for Frying

Method of Preparation

1. Mix together all the ingredients and extra water as needed to make a soft pliable dough.
2. Set the dough aside to rise for several hours.
3. Knead this again and then with the extra flour roll this into circles of about 4" diameter.
4. Heat the oil in the Karahai and gently fry till puffed and golden.
5. Serve hot with channa or Dal.