No sooner had I published my Braised Pork Shoulder Article and Recipe than I came across a version done in the traditional style, with Pork Belly.

Happy days back then, but it is indeed correct that the traditional Pork Braised in Soy Sauce with Five Spice Powder, or Babi Kecap in Bahasa Indonesia, used pork belly.

I changed my recipe to use Pork Shoulder, albeit a fatty portion, out of guilt at the amount of fat in Pork Belly. Still, the writer makes a convincing argument that an occasional indulgence is OK.

What I especially like about her recipe is the inclusion of shiitake mushrooms. It adds a different texture to the dish, and rounds it off. An excellent idea that I will be adopting next time I cook this dish.

Usually on weeknights, I have a soft spot for quick and easy recipes. Not too many ingredients, not too much prep, easy cooking. Usually.

Since I cook because of the freedom of choice it gives me in terms of culinary indulgence, from time to time I get overwhelmed by that urge to cook purely for taste, never mind the effort.

So this week has seen me do somewhat long recipes on two days straight.

Monday, I cooked Lamb Shanks in Indian spices. If you have cooked Raan, North Indian Moghul style Roast Leg of Lamb, you will know the sort of dish.

This one started with an impulse buy in the supermarket – I saw a pack of 2 New Zealand lamb shanks and immediately thought of using them in this dish.

So, a lot of trimming of the shanks, preparation of marinade, frying the whole spices and masala, adding in the shanks, then transferring all to a casserole just large enough to hold the shanks.

I would have liked to have done 3 hours in the oven at 110°C / 230°F, but I started late because it was a busy day, and settled for 150°C / 300°F for 2 hours. Plus 10 minutes under the broiler.

This is not one of those stick it in the oven and leave it dishes. Since there is very little masala, it is fairly dry and does not even qualify as a braise. So, the shanks had to be turned after 45 minutes, 90 minutes, 2 hours then again after 5 minutes under the broiler, each time spooning some masala over the shanks.

It turned out well, served with rice, an Indian style tomato soup and a very un-Indian French beans sautéed in butter.

Tuesday, I decided to cook an Indonesian ox-tail soup. This one is a joy – it took much experimenting before I finally created a recipe I was happy with.

It does however have a number of steps that are there purely for taste and quality, at the expense of expediency. I first slowly bring the ox-tails to a boil in plain water, removing scum as it rises. Then that water gets discarded and the pot scrubbed off to remove any scum sticking to it.

I then start over, frying spices etc, until the water goes in again, then simmer for 2 hours. This too is not a leave it sort of dish. It does require periodic monitoring that it is at no more than a simmer. If you boil it with all the fat still there, it will become an oily emulsion, ie. ruined.

After 2 hours simmering, in go the vegetables, then simmer for another 30 minutes. Put the pot into a basin of water to cool it down. After 3 changes of water, it is cool enough to go in the fridge. That will allow the flavours to mature and the fat to solidify on the surface.

Today, Wednesday, I will de-fat the soup, re-heat it, season, garnish, and we will have it for dinner.

Quite a week. I also took all the requisite photos, and will be publishing the articles and recipes on my site in due course.

And was it all worth it? I reckon so. Easy stuff gets boring after a while.

Sometimes in your travels, you come across a great dish that you cannot forget. Trying to re-create it at home can be a challenge, but it is worth the effort.I first came across the dish on one of my regular business trips to Jakarta. Staying at a hotel that was popular with the locals and not tourists meant that the food there was pretty authentic. I quickly developed a selection of favourite dishes from the menu that became dinner must-haves.

One trip, I noticed the menu had changed and on it was Ikan Bakar Colo Colo. I decided to try it, and was struck by how simple it was and the great taste. They used a nice thick seabass fillet in that hotel, though they did say that restaurants outside would grill whole fish, rather than a single portion fillet. One of the things that made it special was the colo colo sauce, some call it a sambal, which because it was served in a small quantity, did not overwhelm the fish.

So, the dish went onto my list of must-haves. Some trips it was not so good, I suspect because the chef who got it onto the menu was the expert and if he was off, then another chefs efforts did not quite measure up.

Re-Creating The Recipe.

When I got back to Thailand, I searched the net and downloaded a recipe. I tried it as is, and it was a veritable disaster.

So, I had to content myself with having the dish whenever business took me to Jakarta. One day, waiting for a flight at an airport out in the provinces, I came across a cookbook at the airport bookstore. In it was a recipe for Ikan Bakar Colo Colo, so I bought the book on the spot.

Soon after, I tried the recipe as is. It was good, but not exactly what I had in the hotel. So, the next trip when I got to eat the dish, I made a careful comparison of ingredients and taste, to the best that one can tell by looking at and tasting the finished dish.

The difference came from the green chillies, which have a unique taste, addition of bird chillies which give a ‘kick’ to it, a little garlic and I believe the Indonesian kecap manis, or sweet soy sauce, which has a taste rather different from Chinese Sweet Soy Sauce.

And so, all set, I cooked the dish back in Thailand. It was wonderful!

As I no longer travel to Indonesia on business, I cannot readily get kecap manis, but I do intend to ask anyone who travels there to bring back a bottle.

Article / Recipe

It’s been a while since I made my version of a Dagwood Bumstead sandwich, and I missed that. Though, just like Dagwood, no 2 are ever the same!This time, one serving needed 3 slices of whole-wheat bread, toasted & buttered, 1 fried egg, 2 slices ham lightly browned, assorted salad leaves, 1 tomato sliced thinly, and mustard.

Lay 1 slice of bread down, add 1 layer salad leaves, 1 slice ham, dash of mustard, 2 slices tomato, 1 slice bread, 1 layer salad, 1 fried egg, 2 slices tomato, 1 slice ham, dash of mustard, 1 layer salad and top with 1 slice bread. There you have it, a triple-decker sandwich. Cut into 2 or 4 if you want easier handling. Add additional layers of salad if you wish, no hard and fast rules.

That was good to last till evening. For dinner, I still had 1 pack of the jumbo chicken legs left, so I did an Indonesian style Chicken Grilled with Chilli. I made sure to slide some of the paste under the skin, before grilling and basting with the rest. Served with rice and raw vegetables, Indonesian Nasi Ulam style, it made a great meal.

A famous dish for both Malaysia and Indonesia is Rendang, made from either beef or chicken. There are more beef recipes though, every state in Malaysia having its own take or three on this. So too the ubiquitous beef curry.

Being traditional dishes, the recipes usually call for “Beef”. No mention of cut, because when these dishes were created, beef in Asia was sold in local wet markets without distinguishing the cut. Just an assortment of slabs of meat on the table and you pointed to where you wanted the cut based primarily on how lean you wanted it to be, presence or absence of sinew and tendon, the colour, and of course how much you were willing to pay.

But today, with supermarkets packaging or butchering by cut, it makes sense to be a bit more discerning. I have started using top round for rendangs and beef curries. In both cases, a long simmer allows the top round cut to become really tender.

The bonus? Top (and bottom) round have a fuller flavour than loin cuts or rib cuts. You taste it very distinctly, and the spices you have used in the dish do not completely overwhelm the meat.

Try it and see, you’ll love it.

Indonesian Beef Rendang - Article + Recipe