We had another south-east Asian dinner party the other day, hungry as we were for the soul-warming tastes from this part of the world. We were long due for this reprise. But the occasion was also an excuse for a féte to introduce new friends, especially a couple, journalist Elisabeth Eaves and her diplomat boyfriend Leslie who are newly arrived to Paris. The timing was doubly good since this also coincided on the eve of Canadian Thanksgiving, an event we've often neglected being so far away from our native land, but nonetheless a lovely and important time in that it acknowledges the bounties of the harvest season, something which all of us regardless of culture and country can celebrate.
We served a mixture of Indonesian, Malaysian, and Thai dishes. The Indonesian dish, always a crowd pleaser -- and now a speciality of Toby's -- was a tangy Beef Redang which we slow cooked in an unbeatable gravy of coconut milk, lemon grass, fresh red chilies, tamarind juice, ginger and garlic. The best recipe we've found is in Sri Owen's Classic Asian Cookbook, the "Beef Rendang Dry Fried" version.
Other dishes included a Rujak, a Malaysian spicy fruit salad and a Steamed Acorn Squash with Onion Malay Jam, a recipeI snipped from a cooking magazine which featured dishes that travelled with their Malay traders to places like Sri Lanka and South Africa, where they use pumpkin instead. This was also an homage to our unconventional Thanksgiving dinner.
I served two of my own adaptations as well. A stir fry of Eggplant, Dried Shitaki Chinese Mushrooms, and Red Peppers flavoured with fresh red chilies, ginger, and kecap manis -- an Indonesian sweet, viscous soy sauce that has a wonderful taste. However, the recipe my friend Pamela asked for was my adaptation of a Thai Coconut Cream of Spinach garnished with hard-boil eggs, cilantro, and crispy garlic chips, a dish I once had in a small village north of Chiang Rai, cooked for me by the mother of my driver back when I was still living in Singapore and often visiting Thailand for business. Here is the recipe, which I had to improvise, straining to re-create and remember many years later. Regardless of its authenticity, it's very tasty and a good vegetarian dish to offer guests .
Ingredients
- 1 medium onion or 3-4 shallots
- 3-4 cloves of garlic
- A large handful of cilantro
- 3-4 tablespoons of fresh ginger grated
- 4-6 tablespoons of Red Thai Curry Paste
- 1 stalk of lemon grass (optional)
- Pinch of salt
- 4-6 cups Frozen Spinach, or double that if using fresh spinach
- 1 can of Coconut Cream or Extrait de Coco de Lait. (Regular coconut will suffice but it's not as tasty.)
To Garnish- 4 hard boiled eggs**
- Chopped Cilantro
- Juice of 1 lime to taste
- 20+ Thin slices of garlic fried golden
* In Paris, you can get these at the wonderful Tang Freres in the 13th or in the Asian super-marches in Belville.
** To cook perfect hard-boil eggs -- vibrantly golden, moist, and not overcooked with green rings around the edges -- we use Alice Water's fail-safe technique: Bring some water to a vigorous boil, and then immerse the eggs using a slotted spoon, cooking them for no more than 8 minutes. Make sure to put the timer on! Then cool them under running cold water or in an iced plunge bath.
Process
If you have a blender, make into a paste the first ingredients: onion, garlic, ginger, cilantro, curry paste, lemon grass. To blend smoothly, just add a few tablespoons of water and oil. The blender really works the best consistency-wise. However, if you don't have a blender, finely chop the ingredients or use a mortar and pestal, which is the traditional way -- what I saw the mother of my driver do on the floor of her outdoor kitchen -- but this is harder work!
The next step is to fry the paste or chopped ingredients in a heavy saucepan in a few tablespoons of vegetable oil until soft. Add the spinach. I just put it in frozen because I can't be bothered to defrost it before hand, but it will be faster if already thawed and drained.
As things cook, stir the spinach and blend with spice mixture as it thaws and releases water. This can take 15-20 minutes if frozen. After it has thawed and mixed well, add the coconut milk and blend until smooth. Cook for an extra 10-15 minutes. Taste for seasoning and serve in a nice bowl.
Before serving, stir in the lime juice. To garnish, cut the hard boiled eggs in half and place on top of the spinach with a handful of cilantro and slivers of red pepper or fresh red chili peppers and the garlic chips.
- Nicole
Posted by nicole at November 3, 2004 11:03 PM