Posts Tagged ‘Food’
A proud bowl of Laksa
Have you noticed that sometimes youTube algorithm gets stuck and wants to show you a particular video. It happened with me recently and the video that kept popping up on my stream was, “How to make 8 Kinds of Laksa from Southeast Asia” by the Analytical Cook. South Asian food is complex and I have barely scratched the surface of this complex cuisine. The thought of grokking eight different kinds of a complex dish was overwhelming but at some point, I gave in and started watching.
A few minutes into the video, I realized that I have been growing “Laksa leaves” in my yard. I have known them as Vietnamese coriander or rau răm (persicaria odorata). They don’t look or taste anything like coriander, but the reason I had started growing them is because they had looked unfamiliar. I am a sucker for unfamiliar herbs. The reason they have continued growing is because of its nature, it is a hardy perennial spreader in the USDA hardiness zone 9-11. For the last two years, I have been using them somewhat haphazardly – they remind me of the pepperiness of the Indian paan leaves (piper betle).
The Analytical Cook was presenting how to consume the laksa leaves correctly and that too in huge amounts! In a Laksa curry, these leaves are foundational.
My rau răm was in desperate need of a trim and hence, I decided to make a bowl (or four) of laksa. I chose simplicity – tofu skin and tofu for protein. The laksa paste was prepared in Vitamix and contained lemongrass stem (homegrown), onion, ginger, and galangal in an oil base. For color, I decided to rely on turmeric, a subsequent splash of coconut milk gave the laksa a golden color. The broth was made by hot steeping ginger skin, laksa stem and leaves, muddled makrut lime leaves (also homegrown) and lemongrass leaves. For spiciness, I used my salt fermented habanero chili sauce (habanero/orange capsicum/celery). For the salt and sour, I added fish sauce and makrut lime juice. For the sweet, I added some jaggery, a highly prized date palm jaggery (khejur gud) from my hometown, an ingredient I use on special occasions. For toppings, I used store bought buna shimeji (brown beech mushrooms) and sugarsnap peas. And the final touch – a sprinkling of finely chopped laksa leaves.
You bet I was proud. Not because it tasted great – south Asian curries taste great by design. But because several of the ingredients were labor of love – the two dozen year old makrut lime tree that started its life in a small pot and now grows wild in the yard, the lemongrass bunch that I had propagated from a store bought one (and a clone is waiting in a glass jar on my window sill for the next planting), the rau răm that I had neglected the last two years, and the salt fermented chili sauce.
If, like me, you decide to make Laksa, don’t forget to read the Analytical Cook’s further analysis (link).
Experiencing a Laba porridge
Once again this year, I am hoping to celebrate cultural festivals around the world, via food. Last time I did this, it was 2023 and I was still grieving from the world wide impact of COVID. Back then, we were still eating meat intermittently (check out our celebration in honor of Mardi Gras). By no means have we gone vegetarian now, but animal meat consumption is minimal these days. We still have tinned sardines around for the days when quick access to high quality protein is required. Anchovies and nduja continue to flavors an occasional stew or pasta dish. This year, I have put myself up for a harder challenge, cooking vegetarian forward celebratory meals without going overboard on the joys of simple carbs.
For January, after some careful thinking, I decided to celebrate the Laba festival. Part of the selection process includes the learning about a new culture and custom. Part of it is finding a specific dish associated with the cultural celebration. This year the Laba festival coincided with India’s Republic Day (and my aunt-in-law’s birthday) and fell mid-week. Wikipedia notes that La is the twelfth month and Ba is the eight’s day and Laba is a knock on the door, announcing the upcoming Lunar New Year. On this day, it is customary to eat the Laba congee, also known as the “eight treasure congee”, a combination of grains (rice, millet, barley), beans (red, mung) and dry fruits (jujube, nuts, lotus seeds). I also read that the congee can be had sweet or savory. We make savory porridge five times a week, so I settled for sweet laba congee. I raided my pantry and concocted my congee mixture of purple rice, millet, white quinoa, hulled buckwheat groats, chana daal, and caviar lentils. I flavored it with bay leaf, walnuts, raisons, dried figs/apple/apricot/pear slices and dried mulberries. For sweetness, I added a hint of brown sugar.
I wish I had dried jujube, but I didn’t. It isn’t uncommon to find fresh jujube here in California. Maybe I will dry some for the next Laba congee. I also didn’t have un-popped lotus seeds in the pantry, a common Chinese stew ingredient. I had only the popped ones, a common Indian snack. I wish I had a reference for what it should have tasted like. Dishes like congee are often simple dishes that evoke a sense of comfort that I associate with mom’s cooking. To me, Laba congee was just a variation on the 250+ wholesome porridges that I make every year – this one had more ingredients than most and I am sure my gut loved it.
The closest cultural porridge for me is the Bengali khichudi. It is made with hulled split mung beans that are dry roasted and an heirloom rice called Gobindbhog (food for Lord Krishna). The combination of pungent mustard oil and umami ghee lends a unique flavor to the dish. The spiciness often comes from generous amounts of black pepper and ginger. It is often finished with Bengali garam masala (made from warming spices like cinnamon, green cardamom, and cloves) and eaten with fried pappadams and a sweet tomato chutney (sour desi tomatoes and sweet dates). For me, the taste of khichudi is the taste of winter. Mom would make khichudi often during our short winters. During the season, dad would request this warming dish every week. For mom, it was a fuss free meal unlike typical multi-coarse Bengali meals. As kids, we loved it because it didn’t require us to wrangle the fish bones, a skill one eventually acquires with practice.
Take the greens by the stalk
We have consumed more greens in last two years than we ate the entire last two decades. I have our CSA (Live Earth Farm) to thank for that. Red beets come with lively green tops. Baby carrots come with leggy green tops. The turnips come with eager green leaves. The fennels come with delicate frond wings. Then there are just the greens on stalks – the rainbow chard and the spinach and the collard greens and the lacinato kale and the russian red kale and the winterbor kale. And of course there are herbs – the cilantro, the parsley, the rosemary, the scallions and the basil. These are not your anemic slim bunches that you get at the grocery store. The leeks come whole i.e. twice the greens of your grocery store bought ones. And finally, the heads, the salads, the radicchio etc.
There is no way you can waste them. These are no faceless farmers from another continent. They are located in Freedom, just a hop, skip and jump away. The food is grown on a land that I call home and I am convinced that small scale organic farming is backbreaking labor of love.
So, I have been cooking these greens in all possible ways. The unexpected greens from the carrots, turnips, fennel and beets, the stalky greens, the heads of greens, the herbs. And the greens don’t just stop with CSA – the real backyard giveth onion weeds, the oregano buds, the mint, the sorrels, the lemongrass, the makrut lime leaves, the fig leaves, and the bay leaves. Sometimes there are microgreens in a box by the window.
… and it has been exhausting. Like I have been running a marathon. All the cleaning, chopping, drying, freezing, pureeing, powdering, …
Read the rest of this entry »I too like to take the scenic route when I cook!
When I took a whiff of Matsutake mushrooms at Signona’s, I knew that I would have to make Matsutake Gohan. My version has Minnesota Lake wild rice, the ghost varietal, matsutake mushrooms, pearl couscous, pine nuts, dried tomatoes, salt fermented plums, green Szechuan peppercorn, black cardamom, bay leaf, cinnamon leaf and leeks. This meal was in honor of the Day of the Dead, a tradition I have adopted to honor those who are are no longer with me today. The first to pass away was my grandad, in fact, it was many decades ago this day. I was still a child then. He used to write long letters to me and might have played a strong hand in nurturing my contemplative nature.
The phrase “I Like to Take the Scenic Route When I Cook” is the title of a November 2025 newsletter from Yotam Ottolenghi. My cooking style has been described as my love language. I don’t see it that way but I didn’t have words to describe it until I came across Ottolenghi’s Nov newsletter. And then it clicked. I too prefer the scenic route when I cook. In any month, there is at least one day when I would just like to open a can of sardines and a bottle of wine for dinner. But most times, food is a journey, sometimes an hour, sometimes a day or three, and sometimes, a few seasons.
Here are some of the journeys I undertook with this dish.
Read the rest of this entry »The tug of duduk
I have loved the haunting sound of duduk for over a decade now. And it all started with a simple sleep app that played music in a loop. Along with other pleasing natural sounds, it also had duduk music. First the word got my attention. When you say the word out, it sounds like the vocalization of your heartbeat. There was no coming back once I heard the music, it is visceral and soulful and it lingers. I wonder if we really understand why music has the potential of transcending distances – the distance of time, space and culture. Perhaps it is because wind carries the music and wind connects all of us on this planet.
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Locomotoring 