Tom Pepinsky

Author: tompepinsky

  • Sayur Asem

    We made this traditional West Javanese soup recipe the other day, and it’s so easy and quick.  The only trick is to find the ingredients. The name means "sour vegetables."

    (Please excuse the formatting.  Typepad has changed its interface and we haven’t figured out how to do single-spacing yet.)

    4 cups chicken or beef stock;        1/4 cup tamarind water;             1 tsp. palm sugar;          7 shallots;           chopped 3 cloves garlic;           chopped 1 inch galangal, peeled;                 3 chilies, chopped;           10 melinjo fruits, cut in half;                      1 chayote squash, peeled and cut into 1/2 inch dice;                      1 cup halved green beans;                1 large carrot, peeled and cut into rounds;                 2 ears of corn on the cob, cut into 1-inch-wide rounds;                1/4 cup unsalted peanuts;           salt to taste

    Make a spice paste out of the peppers, garlic, shallots, and galangal in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle. Heat stock and tamarind water to a boil. Add spice paste and all of the rest of the ingredients except for the salt, bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes or so until the vegetables are tender but not mushy. Add salt to taste, and serve.

    NB: According to our dictionary, "melinjo fruit" means "melinjo fruit." Small Japanese eggplants are a good substitute, although we know that they must exist somewhere in the states because I (TP) had them once at a restaurant in Providence. Chayote and palm sugar can be found at a Hispanic grocery store. Tamarind pulp–for the tamarind water (see below)–and galangal can be found in most South Asian grocery stores.

    NB(2): To make tamarind water, take 1 part tamarind pulp and soak in 2 parts water for 15 minutes or so. Drain the solids and it’s ready to use.

  • Regular Bread, Hummus, Olive Oil

    Last night we went with some friends to the Marriott for their all-you-can-eat dinner buffet.  Yes, that Marriott.  However, you would not believe the level of security at this place now.  You can’t even drive within 100 yards of the lobby, and there were two security checks between the taxi and the front door, including metal detectors.  They do not mess around here.  By the way, the Jakarta Marriott is absolutely gorgeous.  Certainly among the more stylish, sheeshie, lavish, extravagant, whatever hotels we’ve ever seen.

    The buffet itself was great, like a big Vegas-style extravaganza, but instead of a section that says "Oriental," they have a section that says "Western."  They had separate stations for Japanese (sushi, including my (TP) favorite, raw octopus, which I thought was mushrooms until JM pointed out the suckers), Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian food, and all of it was very good.  We think that the secret is that the Marriott, like the few good buffets you’ll ever go to, only makes very small quantities of any one dish at a time, which is far more labor intensive (and hence expensive) but means that you’re not eating half-warmed-over lasagna from a vat.  Apparently buffets are all the rage among wealthy Indonesians, and all the big hotels have them.  If you’ve ever been to one of the giant buffets in the big resort casinos in Vegas, it’s like that.

    We also heard–but will not confirm this because we don’t want to get too excited–that the Mandarin Oriental Jakarta has a dessert-only buffet.  Given that the Mandarin Oriental is probably nicer than the Marriott, and that this alleged dessert-buffet would only cost 8 dollars a person, this could be deadly.

    Our beverage for the evening was a giant iced tea with a big old slice of pineapple in it.  Delicious.  Indonesian iced tea is wonderful to begin with…real strong brewed tea, ice cold, and you add a simple syrup that comes in a separate mini-pitcher.  Sometimes you can get iced lemon tea, which is a specialty, and comes with a lime as a garnish but lemon juice in the tea itself.  JM is working on a recipe for all of you back home.