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Monthly archives for April, 2012

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Buffalo shaped water caltrop (Krajab)

Apr17
2012 7 Comments Written by chefshane

Feeling horny? Then this is the food for you.
I'm not talking about Pfizer products, this has nothing to do with the loins and their wanton lusts.

There's actually an edible starchy underwater nut around that grows in the exact shape of a buffalo head, horns and all.
If you weren't told, you'd have no idea what to do with them, except perhaps paint disgruntled buffalo faces on them and tease your kids.

A couple of years ago when I lived in Phuket, mysterious signs would pop up randomly along major roads. The sign consisted of a sort of Buffalo horn shaped silhouette with an arrow.
I never saw any buffaloes. And I wondered that if there WERE buffaloes for sale, why drivers would stop in their car to buy one.
It seemed a bit far-fetched.

Then one of my staff showed up with a bag of 'krajab' and inducted me into the secret world of water caltrops.
The signs were actually 'krajab' vendors advertising their wares, using no language – just an image in the shape of these weird-looking things.

In English, krajab are called 'water caltrops', and although you can Google them by writing 'buffalo shaped water chestnuts', they aren't really water chestnuts at all.
These are the underwater 'fruits' of the water caltrop plant, and they get pulled out of the mud, cleaned, boiled then sold nice and fresh to eager Phuket residents.
In fact, all across Asia.

They're just as they look.
Hard, woody, impenetrable wee buffalo heads that have no apparent entry hole or edible bits.

These are actually a pretty ancient food.
They date back to prehistoric times when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
German cave-men (or whatever the politically correct word is for pre-historic humans from that part of Europe is) relied on these things as a major part of their diet.

In China they were used as religious offerings, so obviously quite highly regarded.
In Australia, Philistines that we are, the water caltrop is declared a noxious weed.

The nut inside is very starchy like an actual chestnut – not crunchy like a water chestnut. They're loaded with carbs and have a good taste and texture.
They're a popular snack in season, and in Phuket people nosh on them readily, cracking open the shells and digging out the woody interior.

In India the flesh from water caltrops is dried and pounded into a flour for use in cooking.
In Europe these wee critters were common until the late 1800s but now are very rare indeed. In Asia they are still popular, and found in lakes, canals, khlongs and ponds up to 5 metres deep.

They only grow underwater, held into the mud by fine roots. Their stem grows up to 14 feet long so they can be found up to a fair depth in rural areas.

Be careful if you find them yourself, and don't eat them raw.
Like water chestnuts (and most other water-plants) they can carry parasites that will make you sick. Intestinal flukes (wee flatworms) are possible if these aren't cooked.
They are usually boiled when you buy them, ready to eat, but no doubt people forage them also to save money or get some foraging thrills.

I don't know anyone myself who has been sick from these, and everyone used to eat them like crazy, so the sellers would seem to do a good job of preparing them.
The parasites are only on the outside, and boiling will kill them, rendering them harmless. 
Do you eat these? I'd love to hear from you about your experiences with them.

Posted in Gluten free, Vege & Vegan - Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Fried sun-dried snake meat, Siem Reap Cambodia

Apr14
2012 5 Comments Written by chefshane

Snake Meat on Tonle Sap Lake

One of my favourite Thai beer snacks is called "dad dieow" which is fried sun-dried meat.
It's like biltong or jerky, only fried, and it tastes all the better for doing so.
In Thailand it normally comes in two stock standard flavours - "Neua dad dieow" which is beef or "moo dad dieow" which is pork.
Thin strips of meat are marinated for a few hours, then dried in the hot sun for a day or two until semi leathery.
It's a real treat – crispy, chewy and delicious when briefly fried in hot oil with kaffir lime leaves.   

It's delicious all by itself with a frosty beer or two, and even better eaten with sticky rice.
I gnaw on the stuff until my poor, sensitive gums ache and bleed from the effort of chewing.
I'd never seen it made with snake meat before until I visited this local restaurant in Siem Reap's closest floating village.

As I mentioned, fried sun-dried meat kills my teeth and gums…but I'm addicted anyway.
It's a bit like Italian pugliese bread.
You come off second best with torn gums and an ache that punishes you for hours. But still you crave more, like some sort of orthodontic masochist.
dried snake meat
I had no idea what this was at first, and it intrigued me.
I eventually asked, and was thrilled to find it was sun dried snake meat. I probed further and found that it was prepared exactly the same way as the pork and beef. Marinated, hung, and dried. 
Then deep-fried last minute and eaten with icy cold beer.
I had to try it.

I could go all cliché and say that snake meat tastes like chicken.
It does actually have a very subtle taste of its own, and a decidedly different texture. 
To confound the less adventurous, I'd say that it's more similar to frog or iguana.
Snake meat is white and it toughens easily.
It needs a light touch when cooking, or alternatively long slow moist cooking to tenderise.

Sun dried snake meat is "ngoo dad dieow" in my very rusty Thai. I don't know the Khmer name.
I was so impressed that it inspired me to try a crocodile version which turned out great.

I found this dried snake meat hanging from a houseboat restaurant near the river mouth on the lake. They also had excellent live fish and some more normal offerings too. If you're in Siem Reap, do pay a visit as it's just 17km from town by car, and a fantastic day trip.

You'll see lots of playful kids going about their daily lives, and hard-working vendors paddling fiercely from customer to customer.
I suppose if your house is floating on a river and it's an effort to get out, then the market will tend to sell more by paddling up to your front door


If you'd like to see another way to serve snake, check out this Thai tom yum snake recipe from Chiang Khong, Thailand .
I documented the process as it was cooked at home, in a local Northern style.
Unlike the more standard restaurant preparations, this was a very "rustic" recipe.
The snake was charred over glowing embers, skinned, gutted, chopped and then braised with tom  yum spices.
I was really impressed with a hauntingly delicious spice called prickly ash or "makem" which is a citrus-scented relative of Sichuan pepper.
 
Every story needs a happy ending, and ours was when the coconut boat floated up and hovered beneath us, waiting for us to relent and buy some.
We did.
Young coconut juice is incredibly healthy. 
It's cheap, tasty and refreshing, the juice inside rehydrates you much faster than those evil, sugary energy drinks.
In wars, disasters and remote locations it saves lives, as it's the only thing other than blood which be used for emergency transfusions.
Definitely grab a coconut to drink if you see one. You'll be an instant convert.snake meat
Thanks for visiting chef-a-gogo. If you enjoyed the site, please spread the word and share with friends.
Leave me a comment too.
If you've tried snake before,  what was your take on it? How did it taste? Would you eat it again?
If you haven't tried snake before, how do you feel about it now? Would you give it a go, or is it permanently off your menu?
Over to you.
Posted in Asian Hawker & Street food, Cambodia, Exotic meats & ingredients - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

North Thai snake recipe: Tom Yum with prickly ash & ram leaf

Apr14
2012 9 Comments Written by chefshane

Wakey wakey, hands off snakey!

That's how the old saying went when I was a youngster, but I never used to heed it.
I'll admit (unlike most males) that I'm now a master in the art of 'handling snakey'.
Two years ago this old dog learned a few new tricks in Southeast Asia to throw in the snake-handling repertoire bag.
And I mean that in the most decent and innocent way.

It started off with a trip to the market at Baan Kiang where the family I was staying with found a few interesting things for sale. They were keen to show off some local dishes – the type of thing they ate every few months and for special occasions or family get-togethers.
We couldn't take the whole market home, so we settled for a sturdy looking snake in a wee metal cage, some live eels and a couple of 'Maang Da' water beetles for a dip.
A few mushrooms of the 'hedt xkhun' variety also got to accompany us back for the trip home.


I was in two minds as to what we could achieve with the snake, but K. Boonchuay was in no doubt as to the future of this tasty reptile. It was going to be a pot of exotic but very tasty soup. Snake Tom Yum.
First he had to be dispatched.
There was no Chinese-style display of writhing serpents squirting blood and angst here though. No monkey-brain tragedy, and no stick-poking of the hapless animal.
It was all pretty swift and painless.
Unfortunately PETA will have to wait until I get around to the Rooster larb post before dressing up as chickens and harassing me with placards outside the hotel. (Oops – Sorry PETA – lost the rooster-killing pics in a laptop theft back in Krabi. Oh well.)
Back to 'the death of a snake"…..
He was inside the burlap sack coiled up in peace when he got to 'slither along the great ground in the sky'
BOOF! on the head with a massive smack of the bag, and he was sent to wiggle on his belly in a better place.
His death came instantly. The same way he does to mice, and apparently humans, if you believe what you see on TV and at the movies. All pretty humane really.
The next step was a virtual cremation over a pyre of sticks and wood from the garden.
This wasn't about spiritual purification or some vague and archaic ritual. The skin is charred to make it easier to remove and to give the snake some taste from the wood. It also firms up the meat and semi cooks it to make the next step easier.

It looked like Salem Town Square during the witch hunts for a wee while, our charred serpent held aloft above the flames and moved around constantly for even cooking.
The charring and barbecuing took around 10 minutes all up.


After my snake had swelled and puffed up in size a bit, it was time to give it a good going over with a knife, scraping the scales off and removing them,It's a little bit like scaling a fish.

Next step: Scrape the meat clean, pull the skin back and take care of the head http://bit.ly/9vyfK6  :-) (No dirty remarks please. Especially from the British!) 
Just chop through it and discard it. You don't eat the head.
Split the skin around the neck, pull it open and split down the skin through the belly.

The insides of the snake are also very tasty – so not much gets thrown away.
The only exception; the main gut sac or intestine needs to be split open and the insides removed before cooking.
It's the long bloated thingy. Not a technical description but it's important to note that I'm a chef and a traveller, not a biologist or a vet.
At High School we dissected frogs and I found that a bit grim at the time. I couldn't see the point back then.
Look at me now. If I had listened, I could have blogged about the cooking of snake guts far more knowledgeably.


After we have Mr. Anaconda nicely dissected, it's time to cut the medium rare critter into more manageable bits and put him into the pot with some water, and then wander over to the laptop to look up a snake recipe. Oh – there's one just below..
We're making 'snake tom yum' which bears no resemblance to the 'standard tom yum' that gets wheeled out at most hotels' first crack at a Thai food promotion.
This one has no galangal root, no fresh chilli, and no strong lemony scent.


I was deeply impressed by the aroma and depth of flavour in this Northern adaptation of snake tom yum.
The flavours infused into the broth were from Vietnamese mint (pak faai in Thai, or 'rau ram' in Vietnamese) combined with garlic, darkly-toasted dry red chilli crushed into brown aromatic flakes, and toasted dried prickly ash.
The snake gets simmered gently with crushed twisted lemongrass, a knorr stock cube and a dozen double kaffir lime leaves torn and thrown in to infuse.
A little salt brings out the flavour, and the snake needs 30-45 minutes to cook through.

Tom Yum snake recipe.

  • Snake – whole 1kg
  • Water – 3 litres
  • Knorr chicken stock cube
  • Lemongrass stalk, 1 each crushed and tied into a knot
  • Salt flakes – 2 dsp – 30g
  • Ajinomoto 'umami' 1/3 tsp or MSG (optional)
  • Kaffir lime leaves, – 12 double ones, torn
  • Garlic – fresh
  • Prickly ash or sichuan pepper, toastedy
  • Vietnamese mint
  • Roasted or fried garlic
  • Spring onion, chopped 2 each
  • Coriander, fresh, chopped 1/2 cup

Method

  1. Kill the snake and char over an open fire until the skin is lightly charred and the size increased by around 25% to 40%
  2. Scrape the scales off the snake with a fish scaler or the blade of a knife
  3. Cut off the head and discard it. Gut the snake, and split the intestine and discard the contents
  4. Cut the snake into lengths that are easy to cook and handle
  5. Put into a pot with the water, stock cube, lemongrass, salt, 'umami' and torn kaffir lime leaves.
  6. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for around 35 minutes.
  7. Toast the prickly ash or Sichuan pepper in a spoon over a gas flame until aromatic and starting to smoke.Grind to a fine powder.
  8. Pound the garlic to a paste. Add the Sichuan pepper or prickly ash powder.
  9. When the snake is cooked, remove it from the soup and drain it.
  10. Season the soup with toasted red chilli flakes, and the Vietnamese mint and sichuan pepper/prickly ash mix.
  11. Adjust the seasoning with salt if needed.
  12. Heat a wok with a little oil and stir fry the snake for a minute or two, tossing the fried garlic, the spring onion and the coriander through.
  13. Add back into the soup and serve.
  14. To make this into a truly awesome dish, it would be a great idea to put on a pair of fresh food handling gloves and remove the snake meat from the bones before adding it back
  15. *Truly local; Split the snakes bile sac open and stir it into the soup. This adds a bitter element to it which doesn't taste too bad.
I enjoyed mine "sans bile sac", and left only a stack of bones to show for it.
A really nice tom yum with a very different character, and if you aren't into the snake – or can't get one, then it would be fine with fish or game bird too.

Posted in Exotic meats & ingredients, Northern Thai - Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Com Hen The poetic clam & rice dish of Hue

Apr13
2012 7 Comments Written by chefshane

Time for some room temperature rice with tiny shellfish.

It was day 2 of our two day trip to Hue. 
Unfortunately we wouldn't get to actually consume all of the food we saw over the three days but we were going to have a good try at it.
Some dishes just had to be on the 'must consume' list though, and Com Hen was one of those items.

Do a Google search for Com Hen and one could be forgiven for thinking that this was some type of divine offering – a culinary Excalibur that was thrust out of the Perfumed River on a rare bowl that only the truly worthy could grapple from the wrist of the gargoyle guarding it.

Apparently this classic creation is a careful balance of flavours and textures, of warm and cold temperatures swirling together like DNA threads cavorting magically to create an ethereal infusion of taste and timeless elegance.

Local authorities would pour our their hearts about the deliciousness of com hen, and of the good people of Hue and their dedication to making sure that not a grain of rice was wasted. And how amusing, touching and heartwarming those tales are.
My story is a tad less romantic and covers the nuts and bolts of eating lukewarm rice and seafood at a riverbank eatery.

Two wee nuggets of truth that fall from between the poorly bundled prose when Googling Com Hen would be:

  1. There IS a certain level of admiration earned simply from the work of preparing this dish. You cannot help but appreciate the huge effort involved in cleaning the shellfish and parting the microscopic meat from their shells

    and
     

  2. This dish (as well as being wholly virtuous, historical and perfect in all ways) is cheap and inexpensive. This is a huge part of its appeal.

So, without further ado, THIS is the dish.

Colourful, tasty, fast and fresh, Com Hen is a rice dish served at room temperature with tiny (almost microscopic!) local shellfish and a few other things thrown in as texture.

Chilli, garlic, fish sauce, shrimp paste, pork skin, herbs, peanut flavoured our version with a little banana flower, lotus stalk and cherry tomato.

There is a wee street along the river in Hue city where you'll find a string of local com hen shacks. There's plenty of other places too, but these are apparently the Holy Grail of com hen joints. Plus, you can see the water.

Budget around $1 for a bowl of this stuff. If you're not an aficionado of the rich purple fermented shrimp paste, let them know ahead. If language is a problem, just point at it, red-faced and hysterical, shaking your head violently, waving your hand in a gesture of rejection whilst shouting "COM, COM COM!"

Likewise, chilli is pretty optional – just be aware that Hue people like their spicy food so if you need it mild, watch carefully.

After you get your colourful bowl of rice and toppings, mix it together so you get a combination of flavours and feelings with each mouthful.
It is quite intricately seasoned, so settle back and enjoy it with a beer.

In short, a nice, tasty snack.
It will definitely get character from the location and the specific seasoning, so for a first time, go somewhere famous for making it and enjoy it with a view of the river

Posted in Fish & Seafood, Vietnam - Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
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