Though I love to eat, I don’t normally disclose what really whets my appetite – for the fear of revealing too much about my deeper self, my inner desire, my intimate lust. After all, “We are what we eat”, are we not? I have heard about some freaks people who claim that they can tell how good one is in bed just by what one eats. Oh yeah! So, to cut the carrot short, I won’t pretend to be surprised if they can rate my performance by the brand of meehoon (rice noodle) I have in my pantry! Rate all they want, I won’t wound their stomach or get angry. I promise.
But then, let me just quote Edrick’s latest favorite expression to show you what I think about my fear of revealing too much, “Oh foooeeeyyy!”
There is an adage in Bahasa Malaysia:
“Kalau takut dilambung ombak, jangan berumah di tepi pantai.”
(It literally means, that if you are afraid of being thrown about by waves, do not build your home on a shore.)
To this blog of mine, where I house my stories and my thoughts, the web is an unimaginably big ocean. And unfortunately fortunately to my limited knowledge, I am the only subject known to me well. No, not just well. I know me best. I know me the wellest! Therefore, my front door is where the water is and I am testing it all the time when I write about myself. I don’t just write. I reveal. I open myself up to your judgement. But then, judge all you want. Criticize to your heart’s content. I know I’ll bypass all your judgement and criticism with a byword: “If you be yourself, no one can tell you you’re doing it wrongly.”
Anyway, it wasn’t a part of my plan to sound philosophical today. I was going to show you this:
Oh yeah, if this is any indication of what I like and what I’m like… I like it hot, baby. And I am like… ooohhh hot hot hot!
Since I had run out of the liquid Vietnamese Mắm Tép, yesterday I finally opened the block of Malaysian belacan I successfully smuggled through Domodedovo Airport in November. Two months and 60 degrees Celcius later, my mind just could not shake the craving off. I was on a mission to stink the whole house. I started with the sambal. As a preventative measure against poison-gas emission, and for preservation, I cut it up in cubes, store them in a glass container and into the freezer it went. Such dangerous item this belacan is, it has to be handled with care. This is how the belacan cubes look now, frozen, ready for my Sambal Belacan.
Oh yeah, the stinkier the better!
(Oh, just remembered that I haven’t labeled the jar. I hope Mr. Johnson wouldn’t mistake them as chocolates – as I don’t normally keep chocolates in the freezer. And that is because I have a much bigger and more powerful freezer in the backyard! It’s a solar-powered seasonal -25°Celcius open freezer.)
And here’s the whole dish for you to judge me by:
Yes, the gold/silver dead object you see on my plate is the tail of a very unlucky fish. I bought a Russian (lightly) salted dried fish last week in the hope that it would taste similar to the Malaysian Ikan Masin/Kering. Fish is fish and salt is salt you know. Salt is salty and fish is… uh, fishy. How wrong can one go? In Sakhalin, Vladivostok or Moscow, what’s fishy will smell. You can dry ’em, you can smother tomato sauce all over ’em, you can hide ’em, you can can ’em, and you can even can’t ’em if you can. A fishy affair, though has nothing to do with fish, will inescapably smell.
Well, back to the fish. The verdict is… “Pretty Darn Close”! I had a tough time, however, trying to gut the fish. It’s tough enough doing it when the fish is fresh. Tougher when it’s tough. But I am not complaining. What I did was, I basically just cut the whole middle section out with a pair of kitchen scissors. (I know I am grossing you wayyy out, Neil!)
The fish tastes like a cross between a salted dried and a fermented fish (pekasam), though the meat is a bit harder and firmer than the real McCoy. I suppose I can, for next time, fry the poor fish and then soak it in lime juice with some chopped shallots and chilies for a good half day or so. See if I can restrain myself that long. Or will I go all soft, fermented and as fishy as a fishy affair can be. We’ll see.
All said and revealed, and after all the discursive paragraphs above, here’s what I originally had in mind for this post:
When I was a little girl, I remember, my Mom used to do this everytime she made sambal with her Lesung Batu. I now call it Nasi Lesung. While she never had a name for this special ‘dish’, the intention was clear. To clean the lesung, and not to waste any remaining sambal sticking to it. She would put a scoop or two of just-cooked rice into the mortar and gently rub the pestle around, ‘cleaning’ the lesung in the process by mixing the rice with the sambal. There is this distinctively fresh taste to the mix, so to speak.
And this, ladies, gentlemen and notsogentlemen… is to die for. I am not equipped with a term in any languages I speak to explain why this is worth flying 8157km home for (or driving around in a city of close to 15m people looking for sambal-material megahot chilies for). So I won’t waste my your time trying to cook up any description. Well, maybe it is just my excuse to cut this short, so I can run downstairs to enjoy my cucumber sticks with sambal dip-dip lunch. It’s for you to judge.
Judge away!
Postlude:
By the way, if you ask me what my favorite cooking smell is, my answer will be:
Freshwater fish (in this picture it is Trout) rubbed with salt and turmeric powder, fried on a woodfire stove. What can beat that? Signing off, a homesick kampung girl having a fishy affair in her kitchen in a mega city of Moscow. I kan fishy!
Glossary for Neil:
ikan = fish
I kan fishy? = Aren’t I fishy?
.
Yes Enida, wes mangan.mangan sego with iwak goreng.;-))
Like you, i too still like to make the nasi koret.Sengaja tinggalkan sambal buat nasi koret.When i was growing up, i too like to berebut nasi koret with my siblings.Sometimes, dok pesan kat my mom, buat nasik koret banyak ya.hehehehe
Part yang best nya. Sambal belacan jgn di ingat chocolate.
Waduh! waduh! kok sedep bangat nye lihet…. sambel nyeh!.
Salut! lesung is the best tool!
It sure is the best tool, Nik! Jamie Oliver pun cannot live without his lesung batu dah now. Hah powerful tak powerful lesung mak kita! 🙂
Nigella Lawson pun dah berjangkit.
kila tabik dengan intan – tukang masak exotic tegar
Kak Ila,
Siap ada TEGAR tu yang mahal tu. Tekak kampung Ketumbit ni memang mahal!
Julia Child may have approved! Did you get to see Julie/Julia over in Russia? It’s a wonderful movie about a writer and her fascination with the early years of Julia’s career. Thanks for sharing!
The Julie/Julia movie was playing here, Neil. (It’s the one with Merryl Streep, right?) But I wasn’t interested until now that you mentioned it. Hmmm I will check if it’s still playing. I hope I am not too late. Thank you for the recommendation! 🙂
syioknyaaaaa
pedas masam sambal belacan
ada pulak ikan masin
sinseng lengan sambil makan
sampai tak sedar pinggan licin
Enida, your nasi lesung reminds me of my mom’s nasi koret.Being Javanese,and am pround to be one, my grasp of the language is only limited to understanding the language.Suruh cakap, berterabur macam my students cakap English.
Anyway,Koret (koor-ret) is a Javanese word which means you scoop bagi licin anything from a container so that you don’t waste it.What my mom used to do was to put a few senduks of hot rice in the kuali after she scooped out all the sambal tumis.After that makan with fried egg and sliced cucumber.Memang heaven.If you like nasi lesung, try nasi koret sambal tumis!
Oh Sophia!
Nasi Koret is actually another one of my Mom’s MUST’s! Memang tabiat dia takkan membazir makanan. So I actually do know Nasi Koret very very well, then, and very very early in my life as well. And I, fortunately, memang mengikut perangai my Mom. Sometimes memang sengaja tinggalkan sesenduk dua sambal tumis dalam kuali, or sesudu dua sambal belacan or sambal tempoyak dalam lesung and stuff the kuali/lesung with rice enough for a plate! Pastu berebut dengan my sisters and brothers! And that berebut is the best part! Pehhhh! Wes mangan? Teheeeheehee! 🙂
pakanla akak membaca entry ni dekat pukul 2 pagi, kalau tidak….tetapi, terima kasihlah untuk idea lunch esok 🙂
You’re most welcome, Ida! 🙂
Ni lah dia makanan orang miskin yang orang kaya tak tau akan kelazatannya! Hehe. I remember makan nasi dengan ikan kering or ikan pekasam, sambal and ulam petik kat tepi perigi. Pastu kalau tak ada kuah, hah… minyak bekas goreng ikan tu tadi hendaklah di recycle menjadi kuah buat perasa and penyedap nasi, ya cik-cik dan puan-puan sekalian. Dijamin nasi tidak akan melekat di jari anda oleh kerana dua sebab:
1. Minyak bekas goreng ikan tersebut menjadi pelincir.
2. Nasi tidak sempat melekat di jari kerana telah dijilat licin oleh anda yang kenyamanan.
Hah memang puashati, malah lebih daripada itu.
The best food in the world Enida is a plate of steaming hot rice with ikan masin, sambal belacan with timun or kacang botol and sambal or sambal tempoyak. Wooo hooo, memang tak hingat dunia.
Best best best.
Bukan sahaja tak ingat dunia, Wiz. Malah tak ingat akhirat! 🙂