Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • Curry Laksa

    You didn’t think we forgot about cooking, did you?  We’ve eaten out a lot since we arrived here, but we’ve also been getting down with making our own food.  Malaysian culinary delights are no less impressive than the Indonesian ones.  We have loads of things to learn how to make, from Malay-inspired dishes like Asam Laksa and Nasi Kunyit to Chinese-inspired dishes like Char Kwey Teow, Bah Kut Teh and Mee Hokkien to Indian-inspired dishes like Roti Chanai, Idli,  and Murtabak.

    Here we give you Curry Laksa.  That’s actually what people call it, not just an English gloss.  It’s pretty much as close as you can get to a tri-cultural dish.  It takes Chinese noodles, Malay ingredients, and Indian flavors and mixes them all up.  It’s great.  The noodles are the hardest thing to find.  If you can’t find thick clear rice noodles (clear, not like Japanese udon), you can cheat and use spaghetti, either egg-based or semolina-based.  We’ve had it like that here, and you don’t miss a thing.

    Spice Paste
    8 shallots
    5 cloves garlic
    3 chilies
    5 Tbsp. curry powder
    1 tsp. shrimp paste (optional)
    1 cup water

    Soup
    5 Tbsp. vegetable oil
    2 cinnamon sticks
    10 curry leaves (dried are fine…available at Indian grocery stores)
    1 lb. chicken thighs, cut up but with bones in
    2 lemongrass stalks
    4 cups water
    1 tsp. palm sugar
    2 tsp. salt
    1 1/4 cups coconut milk
    1 block tofu, cut into 16 squares
    1/2 lb. green beans, sliced
    oil for deep frying

    Noodles and Garnishes
    1 lb. laksa noodles (big, thick, clear rice noodles..try a Chinese grocery store)
    3 cups bean sprouts
    fried shallots
    4 limes

    First, make the spice paste by grinding all the dry spice ingredients in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, then adding the water to make a runny paste  Next, deep fry the tofu in oil until nice and brown, then set aside to drain.

    Heat the veg. oil in a big wok.  Add the curry leaves and cinnamon and fry for several seconds until you can smell them.  Then add the spice paste (yes, with the water) and fry on low-medium heat for 15 minutes. The oil should start to separate near the end.  Then add the chicken and the lemongrass and continue to fry until the meat firms up, about 15 minutes more.  Add the water, salt, and sugar and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.  Add the coconut milk, fried tofu, and green beans and simmer for 10 minutes more (gently, don’t just boil away!).  Add more water if the soup starts to dry up.

    Blanch the bean sprouts in boiling water.  Cook the noodles until just al dente, then drain and cool with running water.  To serve, mix the sprouts and noodles and divide into four bowls.  Ladle the soup mix on top of the noodles, arranging chicken, tofu, and beans on top.  Sprinkle with fried shallots and garnish with quartered limes.

  • Why are those two men standing so close together?

    Yes, lots of politics these days.  I (TP) was flipping through my Economist magazine the other day at the gym when I noticed that there was a big black splotch in the middle of one of my headlines.  Printing error, I figured.  Then I looked at the opposite page and saw another big black splotch, this one strategically placed over the heads of two guys in military uniforms. As I looked harder, I realized that this was no printing error, this was a little bit of deliberate censorship.  The article was about gay men and women serving in the British military, and the picture was of navy gents kissing.  Apparently, this does not work in Malaysia, so they censored it by putting a big glob of black ink over their heads, so it looks like two headless men are standing really close together.  Come on, did they really think that readers wouldn’t figure out what’s really going on?  We’re not sure what the policy on homosexuality in Malaysia is.  Indonesia’s laws about homosexuality are simple and straightforward: homosexuality does not exist, so there’s no need to have any laws about it.  Here, we guess there is an army of censors sitting in some building near whatever entrepot is used by magazine importers, waiting to find offending material and dabble ink on it.

    Unlike Indonesia, in Malaysia there is still a good deal of active censorship of the media.  In Indonesia, you can find any viewpoint you like, and there are literally hundreds of daily newspapers available.  Not here, though, because it’s still a dictatorship.  It’s mostly self-censorship, though.  Members of the ruling coalition own every single newspaper of any significance and every local television station, so reporters don’t even try to release controversial stories.  The folks at MACEE report that they stopped getting the daily paper because it’s such a travesty. Strangely, the internet has no active regulations–you can look at whatever you want–but the government sometimes tries to regulate the physical property of critical web publications, such as the excellent online newspaper Malaysiakini.  Police will just confiscate computers and stuff.  When we got our internet we had to sign a document saying that we would not use our computer for subversive activities, and that means criticizing the government and all that jazz.  Due to some rather vague laws called the Internal Security Act of 1960, just about anything could be considered illegal.  So by dictatorship, we meant parliamentary democracy.

    (Oh and by the way, the article on gay and lesbian servicemen- and women in Britain made it clear that having openly gay soldiers has made not a lick of difference to the British military.  Soldiers of all sexual orientations are serving honorably in Iraq, and the military has been so pleased with their service that they are actively increasing their recruitment among the homosexual community in Britain. The US should freaking get with the program.)