Monday, May 07, 2007

Rempah for Baba

Have been doing the regular dishes plus some interesting new recipes that I am tweaking, and will adding to this site in a later date, but haven't had the time nor the engery to blog as the weather gets nicer and the kids are insisting that we go and play outside. Even when we had that batch of bad weather, the little ones are saying "Mommy, play park, paaalease!" Thank god for quick and easy casserole recipes. We have also been bbq-ing quite often too, even when the flurries fall relentlessly onto the grill...

Made another batch of rempah for moi, and it's once again a little varied from the last batch. Unlike the rempah for indonesian cooking, this malay word rempah commonly used in Singapore and Malaysia to refer to a ground paste of different spices and condoments usually consisting of fresh and dried chillies, garlic, shallots, belacan, kunyit, etc. This grounded paste is then sauteed at high heat and used in different recipes as the base for curries, mee rebus, laksa, etc.

Living at the mercy of what's available at the asian market has become a regular battle of finding the right ingredient for recipes. However, it has also given me a lot of freedom in coming up with variations to different recipes. Substituting ingredients has been fun, but I have to start jotting down notes on my culinary adventures, a habit I have not mastered. So, back to the rempah. Since I could only find frozen red chillies this time, I decided to mix a batch of red chillies with some mini, birds-eye, thai hot chillies. Found some nice-looking shallots at Wholefoods last weekend, and used that with some frozen galangal. The proportions were varied this time around too, so it came out extra spicy, especially when I cooked it and send the chillie aroma up my nose! Cleared my sinus immediately and initiated a series of coughs besides. This leathal mix will be consumed in small quantities, I am sure. I didn't think Baba could tolerate the heat. But he did!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I see that you are finally putting your mortar and pestle to good use there! GS