Stomachs on legs are proud to present

Been fantasising lately about the killer Egg Sambal I used to get as a teen in Wellington (where Cuba St is to burning chilli & roti takeaways what Brick Lane is to tikka masala or vindaloo delites). Then I moved away and not sure what happened to that restaurant. Sounds like KK and Satay Kajang are the new kids on the block these days in Wellingtown.
For some reason Malaysia's erstwhile national dish, coconut rice, was never offered, but having heard about it from Han, I found a recipe online and will share it at the bottom of this post. I also took a recipe for dry egg sambal and beefed it up to approximate the nostalgic sambal I remember from my gory days, using onions, fresh tomatoes etc, and will post that soon. It worked. Yums!

Who better though to consult about the tang & the bang in Malaysian cuisine, than dj Han Baby?
Han Baby is well known in Auckland's shady ghetto-fabulous electro bass underworld as the ying to the Coco Solid pu-yangy, tuff on the outside but soft-hearted &creamy like coconut rice on the inside. He granted a rare interview divulging his fatty rice expertise.



What do real gangstas eat in KL?

Well, it's been years since i've been hustlin in KL, so i can't
really speak for the johnny-come-latelys, but back in the day, we
would eat anything. it kinda depends on the crew that you're bangin
with, really. as u know, malaysia is made up of 3 main races, the
malays, the chinese and the indians. so it goes with the turf, but a
multi-cultural OG like me run with all bangers. when i'm with my
malay boys, we're hitting the warongs (warong=malay for foodstall)
for satay (meat skewers, super delicious, but not like the ones u get
in western countries, it's smaller and grilled on charcoal before u,
and u have with peanut sauce) and ketupat (rice dumpling wrapped in
woven palm leaf pouch, very cute and kampong(village)-like, u also
have with peanut sauce). when i'm with my indian brothers, we're
kickin it at the local mamak (malay/indian mix foodstall) where u can
have all manner of rotis (roti=malaysian-style bread) with your
favourite curries. when i'm with my cousins, u can find us at 24-hour
yum chars talkin shit about other chinese families. it's totally ok
to cross turfs but u need to know people of the race turf so others
won't wanna pick a fight with u. the malays don't normally eat at
chinese establishments cos we eat pork and that's against islamic
beliefs.

Where can u get the best nasi lemak in Malaysia?

Boy, u got me thinkin. But my favourite has to be the joint in
senibong. senibong is a coastal village close to where i grew up in
johor bahru, by the straits looking onto singapore island. like most
coastal villages, there are many restaurants/collection of foodstalls
that are built on wood out to sea (can't remember word for it) where
u walk a length of wooden planks and eat out at sea. here u will find
cheap awesome food of all varieties. the straits is really dirty on
malaysian side so it's not really a tourist destination, only locals
go there. everytime i go back, i go with my best mate G to eat there.
they make the best nasi lemak i've ever tasted and so humble too. as
you're eating it, you're thinkin, "this must be what they serve in
heaven". you are high.

Here's a photo i found of us eating there, on the right is pot (G's
brother, G took the photo).



Does Nasi Lemak really mean rice with fat?

Literally, rice=nasi and lemak=fat (not verb, but actual food fat).
as u know, it's rice cooked in coconut milk, traditionally high in
fat, therefore, it's known affectionately as fatty rice.

Do u cook with that Belacan [shrimp paste] stuff in NZ?

Wow, how did you know about belacan? it's like the malaysian secret to
super awesome flavour. i must kill u.
ps. no i don't cos i'm too lame, but i frequent many places that do
in nz. pretty good too, i hook u up.

Where is the best malaysian food u have had in NZ?

Mang, ur asking some toughies. but i gotta go with kk on manukau road
in auckland. they cook awesome penang-style food (chinese). and when
you're there, u gotta order the kk special eggplant. it's eggplant
with (u guessed it!) belacan! best in nz i've had so by far. in fact,
i just had it the other day. this chick asked me out to dins and said
she wanted some malaysian, to which i replied, "are u coming on to me?"
ps. i didn't hear a "no".

What is the most gangsta-hot malaysian dish and what are the side effects?

Most malaysian dishes are hot to begin with, but u can always request
it to be made extra pedas (HOT!) and kick your party into overdrive.
side effects include driving your shit crazy and wishing u could live
life this much to the max all the time.

What wheels do gangsters drive in KL?

The last time i was back, the city was overrun by motorcycle gangs.
they be driving down the highway in the dozens, and i'm not talkin
harleys here, these are bad boy 120cc bikes terrorizing cars and
trucks and the like. these days though, u will probably find these
road warriors on a different highway, the information superhighway
(internet), such as u and your gang of misfits on your blog.
ps. everyone gets real flashy with their rides, but we're ghetto so
we just drive G's dad's car. whichever one has more petrol.

What is a hardcore malaysian diss?

"Pukimak" is a common malaysian one, it's means your mother's pussy,
kinda like "(fuck your) mother's pussy". the chinese say "kan ni na",
which literally means "fuck your mother's pussy". if you're in
berzerk mode, u say "cau cibai" (even the malays know this one),
which means "(your mother's) smelly cunt". seems like mums get a bit
of a beatdown in these parts eh.

What is the most common liquor in Malaysia for gangsters?

U know what, i can't stand drinkin beer in malaysia, but can't get
enough of it in nz. maybe it's the weather or somethin, but hard
liquor is the shit in malaysia. i love whiskey and johnny walker is
very popular. not just among the kids but also with business men at
karaoke bars. they be shy and shit but after a few drinks, they're
belting out their favourite ol-skool jams in front of everyone.
shameless.
ps. good luck with your cooking and all the best to your culinary
journey.

Warning - the language in this video is not safe for work, young children or your grandma.

After I ghost-ride the whip with my shorty post rap concert, I put on my candy bikini that reminds me of sweets from childhood. Apparantly this huge range of edible undergarments simply coined 'Candy' is huge and its all about the anacede.

check out the robot dancing at the end

I've been doing a bit of a dig around for Cambodian proverbs on poverty lately, but instead I found these

On Vegetarianism
"The pig dies because it is meat"

On Greed
"Regarding consumption of the food in this world, if you are not conscious of the amount you eat and eat wastefully without consideration for others, this will create conflict with relatives; when you die the fire will not be enough for a normal cremation (because relatives will not help build the funeral pyre). Overeating is poisonous because eating too much will make a stingy person of others, including relatives."

On Profundity
"Deep as the bottom of a plate."

On Treasures
"Do not keep tasty food for tomorrow; do not let an attractive wife walk behind you."

On Opportunism
"When the head is cooked, eat the head; when the tail is cooked, eat the tail."

On Remembering Our Natural State
"No matter how tasty it is when cooked, do not forget when it was raw; normally the cooked condition arises from exposure to heat; if there were no rawness, from where would you get the cooked condition."

Although not as much as these guys

But I have been cooking up a middle eastern desert storm lately

Last Friday I made this seriously labour intensive but very yummy chicken, mint, burghul and yoghurt soup with chili cumin sauce



Recipe from Gourmet Traveller but adapted by me

Chicken Stock
- a chicken carcass, a whole chicken or 2 chicken breasts or whatever
- onions say 2 chop in half skin on, it doesn't matter too much at this point
- celery stalks
- half a head of garlic
- 1 - 2 chilis halved lengthways
- 1 cinamon quill
- 1 - 2 cloves
- 1/2 a lemon
- water

Make stock or you can just get premade chicken stock and a flavour with the lemon, garlic, cinamon and cloves and chili and then poach a couple of breasts in the stock by bringing it up to boil adding the breast, put on a heavy lid, take off the heat and leave the breasts to cook for say 40 mins...
If making stock from scratch remember to start from cold water and wash chicken well to get a nice clear stock.

Once chicken is cooked shred it and put aside. Strain the stock if it is a bit scumy.

Now make the chili sauce
30 gms of dried chilis deseeded and then hydrated in water (be careful and don't touch your eyes or anything when doing this)
Pulse the hydrated chilis with 3 cloves of garlic, 1/2 cup of olive oil, 1 tsp each of ground corriander seed and cumin and a big pinch of salt.

Assemblage of Soup
Pulse/ Blitz 2 tbspns/ big gulp of olive oil, 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic and 2 tspns of dried mint (or fresh) into a paste
Soak 100 gms of burghul (cracked wheat) in water until soft
Combine 500 gms of plain yoghurt, 1 beaten egg and 1 tbspn of cornflour in a little bowl
Fry onion paste until fragrant 5 mins or so and add stock (around 4 - 5 cups of stock) bring to the boil then simmer
Once simmering add your yoghurt mixture slowly while stirring and let simmer for 10 mins (do not boil)
Add burghul, salt to taste, squeeze of lemon juice and shredded chicken
Garnish with shredded fresh mint and some thinly sliced chili (optional)


Then Abla Amad's lamb shanks with chickpeas and rice



Recipe - inspired by Abla made tastier by me

Soak 1/2 cup of chickpeas overnight
In a heavey based pot fry lamb shanks until brown on the outside
Add some onion, leek and garlic (1 onion, a leek or more and a good amount of garlic 4 cloves perhaps) and fry until soft
Cover with some chicken stock and add chickpeas, bring to the boil and then simmer on low heat for 1 - 2 hours
Add rice maybe 1 - 2 cups depending on how many people you want to feed, add salt, 1 teaspoon of ground cumin, 1/2 tspn fresh ground pepper and 1/2 tsp of allspice (plus a bit more)
With the lid on continue to simmer until rice is cooked
Stir through some butter (optional)
Serve with yoghurt and the chili sauce you made for the soup

You can add carrots at the onion stage and lentils at the rice stage also


Later on this week I made zucchini fritters from recipe in newly acquired Greg Malouf's Saha book accompanied by babaganoush, tabouleh and humus.



And then I also made some felafels to freeze as quick study dinners. I can give you the recipes if you like

My job would be easier if I could get hold of an Ol'eb Felafeler - a felafel maker in plain English.

I had a look around on the web for one and found this gold felafel maker - for the arab who has everything



If this is too flashy for your liking you can instead go to the Jerusalem Depot online and pick up a plain stainless steel one, along with a pair of "down with the people" rootsy Biblical Sandals - it all adds to the authenticity you know. Although you probably couldn't wear them when making felafels if you owned the souless monster that is the Felafel Robot, safety factor aside, mass produced felafels and biblical sandals just don't go together .

It feels only like yesterday that I was six years old and learning how to cream butter and sugar, making piklets and heating the gem iron for the ginger gems that we would eat every Sunday afternoon (the first photo is my family's original 50 years plus GG iron).

Who would have thought that it would lead to thermal circulators, pacojets, tapioca maltodextrin, sous vide feijoas, porcini powder, (not all on the same plate mind you) super talented French chefs, most excellent food writers and a little bit of travel in between.

Big props to Mum and Grandma of course.











































































































If you click on the images for a closer view, don't feel repulsed by my photobucket username, the site chose the name (hock_bucket) for me, nice huh?

Today's issue of the New York Times has a style section about various foodstuffs, worth your perusal. You might need to join the site as a member to read the articles (it's free).

"Bertolli makes 5,000 pounds of fresh sausage a week. Today he’s scaled it down, using a Biro tabletop grinder to turn 10 pounds of cold butt and belly into ribbons. Coolness is key, he says: “If meat is at 30 to 32 degrees when it’s mixed, it favors the extraction of protein,” which is needed to bind the ingredients. (For more explanation, see the chapter on sausage making in Bertolli’s book “Cooking by Hand.”) Common problems with grinding meat at home are that the blades aren’t sharp enough and the meat is too warm. “Then you get what we call a smear,” he says. “It’s greasy, crumbly, doesn’t bind.”"

Watch Paul Bertolli
stuff salumi here. Since I am in Deutschland I am really thinking I ought to get a sausage stuffer and explore the world of sausage making... though to the idea of working with intestines in their raw form ... i can only say YUMUCK.

Other items in today's NYTimes:
- 'That's Amari'- a column about Italian digestive liqueurs.

- 'Passing the Bucket'- short piece about sawara wood buckets (cost $160 smackeroos) used to keep ice at its perfect consistency in Tokyo's snootiest bars.



- Grill Seekers
- a piece about all the latest BBQ gadgetry including the latest Viking r2d2-esque kamado-style ceramic lined BBQ:

Matterhorn Top of the World



April 2007


Matterhorn is releasing the panthers again after being named one of the Top Bars in the World. The Wellington bar of iniquity was judged Number 5 in Bartender magazines inaugural World’s Top 20 Bars in the World.

The only New Zealand bar to be recognised by an international panel of judges and mixxologists. The judges, two of whom placed Matterhorn in the Top Spot, commented that ‘It’s a bastion of creativity and bar culture in NZ and has led the way for many years”.

The number one spot for the Top Bar awards in the world went to Milk & Honey in London, followed Salvatore at Fifty, London; The American Bar, London; Bayswater Brasserie, Sydney and our very own Matterhorn, Wellington.

In 2006, Matterhorn was crowned Best Bar in New Zealand and won Best Drink Selection at the inaugural New Zealand Bar Awards, also judged by Bartender magazine.

Founded in 1963 by Swiss immigrants as a coffee house, Matterhorn was taken over by the current owners ten years ago. Hidden down a long corridor in Cuba Street, Matterhorn prides itself as a 'regulars’ restaurant, cocktail bar and day café with a vibe that is loved by both locals and travellers who can seek out a good thing.

Well we've given up waiting for Jo-jo, J-Lo, Jenny from the Block (pictured below), writer, chef and photoshop wizard extraodinaire to join up and do a post. But to no avail. He's a shy wee thing. We do however occasionally recieve emails from him which creatively outline his worldview on food, New Zealand and MSG. The man is an artist...or maybe he's just French

J-Lo


If New Zealand was colonised by the French


Jo jo says "If New Zeland had become French as supposed, there would be no mint with lamb but only thyme, kick ass raw milk cheese and no canned asparagus"

Embryonic Campaign to Free MSG from Unnecessary Demonisation and Take It's Rightful Place as the World's Leading Food Seasoning


If you would like to purchase a FREE MSG t-shirt, this can be arranged - leave a comment and we'll see whether J-Lo will oblige

So, I now find myself further and further west - this time Dubai. The disneyland for adults, where all things artificial can be found, if not valmorphanized from sand, then transplanted from Germany, UK, France, Russia, Philippines, India, and yes even little old New Zealand.

In fact I found myself watching a polynesian folk band with accompaning dance troupe this evening. Transporting us all by Air Polynesia to the many destinations of the Pacific. Now being a young Kiwi man, I couldn't help but have a good old yarn with the performers. It had been a while since I had been greeted with such a phresh-as accent. Even my dear friends Maytel and Hock are eclipsed in comparison. So as I listened to Harry from South Auckland, strum away some bar chords, I was to learn that one of the dancers, a Rarotongan New Zealander, hailed from Brotown's finest Morningside. She, being a worldly 18 year old, was discovered at a hangi where she was performing in a dance-off; Morningside Next Top Model, or something to that effect. The other dancer hailed from Flaxmere, near Hastings. Both towns renowned for their cosmopolitan lifestyles.

However my time has not been simply occupied by conversations with my fellow suburban compatriots. Earlier in the week, I found myself eating white asparagus, kartoffelsalat, lieberkase and sauerkraut and drinking 1 litre steins of Maibock a rye-based beer from Bavaria. Yes that time of year had once again arrived, Bavarian Maifest. Some good old-fashioned knee-slapping drinking, Munchen-style, complete with kitschy Bavarian singers - lulling you away to the uber-sweet melodies of the Black Forest. After the third stein I completely forgot I was living in an Islamic nation, which is devoid of any forest. Such is the magic of Dubai, in creating such illusions and fantasies in a way that not even Walt Disney himself could beat.

However, my experience of listening to a troupe of Filipino singers sing the songs of Tuscany and Umbria whilst dining in an Italian trattoria and hitting the slopes of one of the world's largest indoor slopes, where temperatures outside reach 50 degrees, whilst inside they are minus 10 - took this illusion a little too far (Just like Disney did with Tim Allen in the Shaggy Dog).

So there it is, Dubai, ruled by a conservative minority - (many of which drink various fine wines from plastic pepsi cups in restaurants), yet dominated by people from a multitude of countries, many of which frankly couldn't give a toss about the local culture and decide to implant their own into the vast desert landscape. And to hell if a few innocent camels die in the name of lush fresh white powder snow!

Okay so Maytel has been hassling me to post something, even though ive been busy :-/ So here's a start, Dave Chappelle and food/difference between juice and drink... enjoy :)

My favourite sandwiches

- lamb shwarma from the middle eastern cafe on Albert St, Auckland
- felafel sandwich
- zucchini fritter sandwich Victoria markets Melbourne
- smoked chicken on vogels with coriander pesto and tomato relish
- Vietnamese banh mii


It's hard to believe that some places in the world are still sandwich-less. When Hock first arrived in Cambodia, one day he was making himself a sandwich and his Khmer chefs gathered around and asked "what is that?"
"This my little chef's is what I like to call a sandwich"

It's all relative though, I've never had a Philly Cheese-steak sandwich :( or a Maine lobster roll.





Online Videos by Veoh.com

Controversial Japanese art director Nagi Noda started my interest in the visceral gothic qualities of food with a shoot she did for LaForet in Harajuku. She imitated a black & white photo by putting flour in the western models' hair and skin, staining their nails and clothes with black squid ink and so on.
She definitely has a knack with making food gothic -

At her Horror Caf exhibition she had Dead Body Cake with Blood. Awwwwesome.

See this album cover art below for which she won an award in '03: the pasta swells to puffy cake-like dimensions because (according to her concept) the spit of the singer lands on it.
(I wonder if Nagi baked the cake herself? silly question... she is a sort of young female Jeff Koons of Japanese advertising ... but supposedly she appropriates a lot of ideas from art students and so on)




Noda's concept for Yuki video clip & posters:

"When Yuki was singing, all of her feelings and prayers started to come out. When she sang some more, a little bit of spit started to come out. As she sang even more, more spit started to come out and when her spit hit withered flowers, the flowers started to move. When it fell onto a plate of dried pasta, it turned it into good tasting pasta. I left some dishes unwashed, but the spit cleaned them up for me. When a bear tried to drink water from a vessel, his mouth couldn't reach the water. The bear stood there helplessly, but Yuki's spit increased the volume of water and he was saved."

Part Two:

A Nagi Noda-esque fish egg photo shoot.
Nothing says 'I care' like wrapping a kewpie doll in fish eggs.

Check out this guy's Calcu-eater
blog.

If you are someone who bothers to click the links, you might have seen those super Kyupi Tarako commercials I linked to from an earlier post (the one about stir-frying with mayo)...

Calcu-eater recreated those kewpie matroushka aliens with fresh Tara-eggs (Tara means cod), then sent postcards to his mates with the photos.