Reminiscence of Malaysian street food [1]

NASI LEMAK

I travelled to Malaysia last year, where I had a great food experience. I was looking at the photos I took then, and thought I should share some of the food I had over there. Here's a snipet of some of the food I had in Georgetown in Penang.

I will start with with Nasi Lemak, the national dish of Malaysia. As we were walking to town from our Hotel to town, we had the incredible luck to pass a (weekly!) craft market where one stall was local women had made food to sell for charity. So we were very glad to be served home made Nasi Lemak! the tasty cold dish was excellent and so fresh!

For the whole holiday, I had been looking for any opportunity to find some roti canai, an ossession of mine, since I have heard that it is the same bread used in Thailand to make the banana pancake (see previous blog post).
The dish is a roti bread served hot with curries for breakfast and originates from India and can be found everywhere in Malaysia. We ate the best one at a little cafe in the Little India quarter.

The Roti Canai was perfect (sorry, I started eating it before I took the photo, I could not resist...):

And it was served with a selection of six beautiful curries!
I also took the photos of the'making of' since making the Roti itself is an magic art and requireexperience and skills:

I could not resist and ordered other breads, like roti tissue (ahem, this one got eaten before it could be photographed but you can see what it looks like here), Dhosa:

And all the breads were the best I've had during the whole trip. Unforunately, I was too full to be able to taste one of the puri bread from the mountain that had just been produced:

That day, when I found that little Indian cafe the breads were so good, that I almost fainted, like the Imam!
To be followed...

Restaurant review: Zouk in Manchester,UK

Two new restaurants sprung up across from work, and as you can imagine, I went to have a look as soon as I could. The first time around, one of the restaurants was not yet open (Zouk), but my curiosity got me to ask what type of food it would be, and it seemed to be Indian/mediterranean which intrigued me no end. My first impression was good: a big open kitchen in the entrance, a great spacious, high ceiling restaurant space with big windows.
The front of the restaurant is very discrete though and it is not visible from the main road.

Anyway, I went for lunch as soon as I could with a friend.

The first impression is shaped by the open kitchen, the high ceiling and spaciousness (but not agoraphobic)

The staff is welcoming and very pleasant.

and right in front of you, the kitchen, pristine, all open, the kitchen:

And right in front of the entrance, the bread is prepared and cooked, wow!!! they have a traditionnal type of oven, and it means the bread is freshly cooked for you:

The first time I came, I ordered some chicken livers, and they were absolutely gorgeous, greatly cooked, melting in the mouth. The Kulcha bread (a flat sesame bread) was warm and tasty. I ordered also to share some king prawns kebabs, and a lamb grill including kofte, cutlet, all excellent.

The following time, I must say I almost ordered the sheep brain and the lamb trotters, but I left it for my next visit and had the lamb Nahari instead, a very tender piece of lamb cooked slowly for a long time, in a great tomato based sauce. this Lahore originating dish was served with separate little pots of garam masala, fresh herbs, fresh chillis and fresh grated chilis to sprinkle on top of it, and it was absolutely gorgeous. Even when you order the popadums, they have cumin in them, and are superbly crispy.

The menu contains unusual Indian and Middle Eastern dishes, and the staff is truly international (Iranian, Pakistani, Nepalese,...), both in the kitchen and out.

The strong points of the restaurant are definitely the freshness of the food, the originality of the menu and the open kitchen.

Also even on a weekend night, the music is not too loud, and although it is quite busy, the high ceiling give a great impression of space.

I sent a few people there, and they were all rather impressed. So yes if you can, definitely pay Zouk a visit!

Now you will ask, where are the pictures of the food?
Hum yes especially because it does look very good... Well everytime I went to eat there, I did not have my camera with me (yes yes, always carry your camera I know!), and I had to come back especially to take the photos one, when I did not have enough time for a full sit down meal.
Hopefully next time I will have my camera and will take advantage of the great natural light coming in through the huge window...

Lamb Handi and mango lassi

A few years ago, I tried the lamb handi for the first time in an Indian retaurant on the curry mile (Rusholme in Manchester, where Indian restaurants stretch on a mile of road, on both sides!). It dawned on me it was the best Indian Curry i'd ever had. BUT, never ever I tasted it that way again. So I decided that the best way to taste it again was to try and reproduce it at home. What got me in this curry is a particular and perfect tanginess, where I recognised fresh ginger, cardamon, tomatoes and tamarind (and maybe lime?).
To start it off, I looked on the internet for handi, and I hardly found anything. I used as a base the cooking method found in a recipe called mutton handi althought it missed the ingredients I had guessed.

So here's what I concocted in my kitchen:

Ingredients for 4
- 1 kg of lamb with bones
- 2 large onions
- 1 bunch of fresh mint leaves or a big spoon of dried mint
- 2 tsp mustard oil (or vegetable oil)
- 2 pieces of green cardamom)
- 2 pieces of black cardamom: I did not have any when I made the recipe....
- 2 pieces of cinnamon (or 1 tsp of powder)
- 1 thumb of fresh ginger
- 3 garlic cloves (remove the germ)
- vegetable oil
- fresh coriander leaves (cilantro)
- 2 tsp garam masala powder
- 1tsp chili powder or 2 fresh chilis or chili flakes, or chili oil... to taste
- 1/2tsp tamarind
- 2tsp turmeric powder
- 1tsp coriander powder
- 1 can chopped tomatoes (fresh tomatoes in season)
- salt to taste
- 1 small pinch of salt

Marinate the washed, dried lamb with the salt, the mustard oil, the turmeric powder, the chili powder and the coriander powder for 2 hours.

In a blender, place the onions onions, the garam masalas, the fresh coriander leaves, the mint mint leaves, the ginger and the garlic cloves and blend not too finely.Heat some vegetable oil in a wok.
Add in the blended mixture and saute for 5 mins.
Add the marinated lamb pieces. Cook for 10 mins.
Add a pinch of salt, turmeric and chilly powder.
Add water tomatoes and tamarind and cover cook till the sauce is dense and lamb pieces are tender.Garnish with freshly cut coriander leaves. Serve hot with plain rice, roti or paratha.
I really enjoyed this dish. It was not exactly exactly as I remembered it, but still, I will do it again and will strive to perfection!! and I'll add some fresh lime...

Serve with a mango lassi:

In a blender, mix 500g yoghurt, 1 ball vanilla ice cream, 1fresh mango peeled and boned, 3 or 4 ice cubes, and adjust the texture with water and serve quickly to keep it fresh. It is great to calm the fire of Indian dishes.
Bon apetit!

Source: inspired from the handi mutton recipe on http://food.sify.com/

Pomegranate Raita

I've always been fond of raita, and I am obsessed with Pomegranate at the moment. I spotted this recipe on the BBC and thought I'd give it a go. The ingredients are very easy to find, fresh, and the recipe is incredibly easy as well as healthy. You can use the raita as a dip or as a side dish or salad.

You can either buy ready pomegranate seeds, or do it yourself: once you learn how to, it does not take that much time, and has the benefit to be fresher.

It tastes very fresh and could well help you to calm down theses curry burning sensations....

Ingredients
- 200g Greek yoghurt (I always use total yoghurt)
- ½ cucumber, grated, excess water drained away
- 1 pomegranate
- 1 tsp sugar
- salt, to taste
- handful chopped fresh coriander leaves

Preparation
Beat the yoghurt so that it becomes fluffy-ish
Grate the peeled cucumber and carrors. Make sure you squeeze the water out of the cucumber by pressing it in your hands.

Now add all the ingredients in the yoghurt

Mix together, then place in the fridge for a bit, it's ready to eat!
Bon apetit!


Source: BBC program Indian made easy

Streetfood: voted best.....

,...by me

The banana pancake, a must of thai street food! The best pancakes we found (come on, of course we tried a few!!!) were made by Indian and Bangladeshi people in the street (always with mobile kitchens of course..). The pancake originates from India but spread all over Asia under different disguise. I found it in malaysia as Roti Canai, served for breakfast and with curries, but no banana in sight. It's amazing to see how different Thai and Malay foods are considering they are neighbours...

Some observations: no banana tastes or behaves like these in Europe, there is quite a lot of fats used to make them (I absolutely can't care they are too superlicious), and they are soft and crunchy at the same time owwww!. Ah, and I miss street food so much.

All is left to me in Europe is to look at this video I made when I was in Chiang Mai over, and over, and over again....

So watch out, I might try to cook it sometimes..