Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • Popiah

    Popiah are a very popular Malaysian dish, the local version of an eggroll.  However, unlike almost all
    eggrolls and lumpia (the Indonesian wrapped snack), popiah are usually not fried.  In that sense, they
    are more like Vietnamese spring rolls, and are a refreshing snack when you aren’t in the mood for
    something heavy and oily.  Of course, like Vietnamese spring rolls, popiah can be fried.  We never have
    had the fried kind, though, and the best popiah stands that we’ve seen do their briskest business with
    the non-fried kind.

    Let us emphasize, though, that they are not just Vietnamese spring rolls in Malaysia.  They differ in two
    ways.  To begin, the wrapping is different.  Popiah, like lumpia, have a wheat-flour and egg wrapper that
    has a different text and taste than rice-flour and no-egg Vietnamese spring roll wrappers.  More than
    that, the filling is different.  As far as we know, most Vietnamese spring rolls contain chicken or beef
    or shrimp or pork, rice vermicelli, and usually some sort of herb like spicy basil and/or mint.
    Sometimes they can have carrot and/or cucumber in them.  You serve them in a clear and sweet vinegar-
    peanut-chili dip.  Popiah are very different, beginning with a warm jicama-based filling and continuing
    with a thick soy and peanut sauce that is spread inside rather than served alongside as a dip.  In some
    versions, as you will see below, they also betray a silly British influence of mayonnaise.

    We’ll conclude with some etymology.  The word in Malay for jicama is sengkuang.  This, we believe, comes
    from singkamas, the Tagalog word, which in turn came from Spanish, jicama, which was appropriated from
    Nahuatl (a native Mexican language), which had the word xicama.  That’s some nice colonial food history
    for you.  Jicamas are native to Central America, but that has not stopped it from becoming an integral
    part of local cuisine.  For some reason, in Indonesia, we also have seen the word bangkuang in addition
    sengkuang.  We don’t know why this would be.

    Popiah: Basic Recipe

    20 popiah skins (or eggroll wrappers, if popiah skins are unavailable)

    1 large jicama root, at least 1 lb, peeled and shredded

    1 can bamboo shoots, chopped

    2 Tbsp. kecap manis

    1/2 tsp. salt

    3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced

    1/4 cup vegetable oil

    1 large carrot, julienned

    1 cucumber, peeled and seeded, julienned

    1 cup of shallots, thinly sliced and deep fried

    1/2 cup roasted salted peanuts, finely (but not too finely) chopped

    Popiah Sauce

    1/2 cup kecap manis

    6 cloves garlic, peeled

    2 Tbsp. salted peanuts

    4 large chilies (see note below)

    Optional Additions (see end of recipe below)

    1/2 lb boneless chicken (cut into strips), shrimp (peeled and deveined), or a mix of the two

    1 cup fresh crab meat

    1/2 cup mayonnaise (yes, mayonnaise)

    1 cup loosely chopped Boston (a.k.a. bibb or butter) lettuce

    For the basic recipe, start by heating the oil over low heat in a wok.  When hot, add the garlic and
    saute for a minute or so, making sure that the garlic does not brown.  Add the shredded jicama and the
    bamboo shoots and stir through, then add salt and stir through again.  Heat through until bubbly–if
    there’s not enough liquid, add a bit of water.  Cook, stirring occasionally, over low heat for about 20
    minutes.

    To make the sauce,
    boil the garlic in water for about one minute until hot and just starting to soften.
    This takes some of the edge off of the flavor.  In a food processor or with a mortar and pestle, mash the
    garlic with the peanuts until smooth.  Combine with the soy sauce and mix until smooth.  NOTE: You can
    make a spicy version of this by adding the four large chilies, stems removed, while mashing the garlic
    and peanuts.  A more authentically spicy version would also add a handful of Thai bird-eye chilies.  We
    have seen it served both in the phenomenally-spicy and the non-spicy versions, but our very spicy version
    is better for Western palates.

    To construct, take a popiah skin and place it on a place.  Smear on about a teaspoon of the sauce.  Top
    with a small bit of carrots and cucumber, then sprinkle on about a half-teaspoon of chopped peanuts and
    shallots each.  Add a tablespoon of the warm jicama filling and roll up like a burrito.  Serve
    immediately with extra sauce for dipping.

    This is the basic version that we normally get.  You can also get something called salad popiah.  To make
    salad popiah, remove the carrots and replace with a bit of crab meat and lettuce, and smear on a bit of
    mayonnaise in addition to the popiah sauce.  We know that this sounds kinda gross, but really, it’s
    actually quite tasty, even if you leave the crab meat out.  There is also a version that has a bit of
    meat in it.  To make this, decrease the jicama by half, and add chicken/shrimp/both to the garlic first
    after it been frying, and then cook until done, and then add the jicama and bamboo shoots and proceed as
    before.

  • Managed Floats

    The big news in the financial markets, of course, is that Chinese has moved from a pegged exchange rate to a managed floating exchange rate.  OK, first, EVERYBODY PANIC.  Now that that’s out of our system, let’s be clear that a managed float is a peg that the government allows to fluctuate a little bit.  When push comes to shove, it is a peg.  In the event of speculative pressure against the yuan, the People’s Bank of China (their central bank, their Fed) will defend it just like they defend a hard peg.  In fact, the tools for managing a managed float vs. a peg (or a currency board or whatever) is precisely the same.  And while the PBC has announced that it has moved to a managed float against an "undisclosed basket of currencies", this reminds me of SE Asia before the Asian Financial Crisis, where this "basket of currencies" was composed of the 99% dollars.  I again think that people just like the term "managed float" instead of "peg" because they think that "float" sounds good.  This is a strategy on the part of the Chinese to buy a little time.

    From the prospects of the US, there has been a little bit of an appreciation of the yuan, but not much.  There will not be much of an effect on either countries in the short term.  In the long term, this could signal changes to come, which would be more important.  I think that the conservative and liberal consensus on this one is that this is not enough of a revalution to solve any of the problems that the US has been, perhaps correctly, complaining about with regards to China.  There is also the nagging problem of what would happen if China actually let the yuan float, something which some rogue economists–mostly liberals, but some conservatives who are not in policy positions too–seem to believe could be tough for the US.

    What has been lost in the brouhaha is that Malaysia also un-pegged its currency and moved to a managed float at the same time.  Again, EVERYBODY PANIC. This is a fascinating development.  People have been wondering when Malaysia was going to un-peg its currency (until yesterday, RM3.8 = US$1), which was pegged on September 1, 1998 along with the imposition of capital controls as a way to get out of the Asian Financial Crisis.  The plan looks to have been on the drawing board for some time, but still, the co-incidence of Malaysia’s decision to un-peg with China’s decision–like, three hours later–suggests something that students of international economics rarely discuss.  Why would China’s decision affect Malaysia’s decision?  Do we often find such regional contagion in exchange rate policy decisions?  One idea is that Malaysia and China might be export competitors in certain sectors.  If the Chinese allow dollar-denominated price of their goods move up, then Malaysia can do the same thing, with the effect that their competing dollar-denominated exports get just a little bit more expensive as well.  There might be a decision that they can offset the implicit increased revenue from a Chinese appreciation (because more people would by Malaysian exports) by greater revenue from higher prices that do not drive all of their customers away.  But really, I have no idea.

    The ringgit has appreciated in the past day from 3.8 to the dollar to 3.775 or so.  It’s only a bit of an appreciation, but our purchasing power here just declined a little bit.  And lest you Americans reading this think that this makes no difference to you, you might be interested to know that Malaysia is the US’s 10th largest trading partner.  Semi-conductors and microchips just got that much more expensive for you.

    While I have not been following developments in China, the Malaysian financial markets demonstrate how close a managed peg is to a real peg.  Currency traders and investors moved into Malaysia en masse, pushing pressure on the ringgit up to what should have been about 3.6 to the dollar, by most estimates.  Bank Negara Malaysia (the central bank here) intervened to keep the ringgit lower, just like it would have done with a secular increase in capital flowing to Malaysia under a hard peg.  So you see, not much of a difference at all.