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RE: Spanish Gastronomy
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: Spanish Gastronomy (in reply to BarkellWH)
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When it comes to seafood, one thing seems to lead to another. In addition to giant tiger prawns, I long ago discovered two other favorite dishes in Southeast Asia, primarily in Malaysia: Sting Ray ("Ikan pari" in Malay) and curry fish head ("gulai kepala ikan" in Malay).
Sting ray is one of the culinary wonders of the world. I tasted sting ray for the first time in 1983, shortly after arriving on assignment in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Previously, I had never thought of sting ray as edible, much less the delicacy it really is. It quickly became (and still is) my favorite sea food. I ate it frequently at sea food specialty restaurants in Malaysia and Singapore. Sting ray in Malaysia is prepared two different ways. The Malays grill it and the Chinese steam it. I much prefer the Malay style of grilled sting ray. The sting ray belongs to the shark family and has shark-like cartilage. The Malays grill the wings and serve them with chili sauce and other condiments. One just takes the beautiful white flesh of the wing off the cartilage and tastes the sweetest of sea foods.
When I was assigned to the American Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, twice I took leave for two weeks at a time to ramble about the Riau Archipelago, which begins just south of Singapore and runs more or less along the South China Sea side of Sumatra. I first went in 1997 and enjoyed it so much I went again in 1998. My Malay language ability was (and remains) very good, and the Malays of the Riau Archipelago are considered to speak the purest form of Malay, as they are the remnants of the Malays of Malacca, which in the 15th century was the main entrepot of the Eastern spice trade. In 1511 the Portuguese defeated them, and they retreated south to Johore, finally centering their court in the Riau Archipelago. I was anxious to hear what linguists consider a reasonably pure form of Malay.
I flew to Singapore and took a ferry to the island of Bintan, which begins the Riau Archipelago. After a few days in bintan, I paid Malay boatmen and fishermen to take me to several islands in their prahus. I spent a few days on Lingga and surrounding islands, finally ending up on Singkep, where I spent several days. In each place I got to know the owner of a kedai, an open air restaurant or stall (Riau lacks the modern restaurants of Singapore and Jakarta--for the most part one eats in what are known as "kedais," particularly in the southern part of the archipelago.)
In each place, I made a deal with the owner of the kedai that I would go to the fish market every morning to pick up the finest sting ray I could find from the catch that was brought in from the night's haul of fish, I would bring it to the kedai owner that morning, and he would prepare it for me when I showed up for dinner each evening at about 7:00 PM. I was in linguistic and culinary heaven, learning the Riau dialect of Malay and having Malay-style, grilled sting ray for dinner each evening. It doesn't get any better than that.
Curry fish head in both Malaysia and Singapore was originally brought to the Malay Peninsula by South Indian (Tamil) immigrants. The Malays and Chinese (including the Nyonya Chinese of Malacca and Penang) have created their own variations. Snapper is considered the finest fish in preparing curry fish head, and the sweetest, most tasty parts are the cheeks. And, of course, the curry adds the spice and zip. Really delicious. I consider Malaysia and Singapore to have the widest variety of delicious food of anywhere in the world. The ethnic groups--Malay, Chinese, and Indian--each have their own dishes, and each is influenced by the other groups' additions, styles of preparation, and sauces.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 16 2016 15:48:17
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Piwin
Posts: 3562
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: Spanish Gastronomy (in reply to Leñador)
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@estebana: I wouldn't want you to waste time writing down the recipe now since I won't be getting my hand on fresh fish in the foreseeable future. But I may take you up on that some day! In exchange I have a pretty good recipe for "rougail" if you like spicy food. It goes well with gilt-head bream or mahi-mahi if you're lucky enough to get your hands on one. At this point, it's probably in a box somewhere though...
@Lenador: I wouldn't lose to much sleep over it. I've been gobbling down those little suckers for years now so I'm a far worse person than you! 
@Ruphus: never having been a fan of lobster, I've never tried to cook it. Is it thrown straight into boiling water? In the case of sea snails, of which I've eaten a LOT (probably my favorite kind of seafood), they are put into cold salt water, that you gradually heat up to boiling point. As the heat rises gradually, the animal's death is relatively painless (relatively...). Though I suppose that's not nearly as bad as my eating live oysters or at times sardines.. It's an interesting topic this one and I don't really know where to draw the line. We known that plants recoil when harmed. Some argue that this should be considered "pain" and the debate as to whether it is just a "mechanical" reaction or something more is limited by the fact that we just don't know much about what sentience is, how it arises and how it works. It boils down to (I'm boiling "down" the water now  ) the issue of the "Turing test" that we discussed in another thread. One assumption is that such animals suffer less than we would, though given the little we actually know, who's to say they don't suffer more..Anyways, a topic for another thread but an interesting one!
Back to Spain: a Catalan escalivada is an easy-to-make yet delicious alternative to a salad.
On a side note, as a French person in Spain, I'm having a hard time with the bread here. I've found that even in panaderias, it is stale and on the whole tasteless. For some reason, I thought they would have some bread similar to what the Italians make. God was I dissapointed. If anyone knows of any good kinds of Spanish bread that isn't drenched in oil, I'm all ears.
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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Date Mar. 16 2016 19:11:01
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: Spanish Gastronomy (in reply to Leñador)
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quote:
Oh wait yeah, I eat escargot all the time, damn, I'm getting worse! Lol
And they taste deliciously rich in lemon, garlic, and butter sauce, too.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 16 2016 19:57:54
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Spanish Gastronomy (in reply to Leñador)
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Hey Lenny,
Glad to see that we gormandize on a similar note. :0)
Hi Piwin,
It really is a very interessting and difficult topic.
Don´t want to spoil this thread more than I´ve already done, but should we ever discuss pros & cons of consumption / treshhold here I´ll be in. (Certainly not, because everything was being clear to me, but rather to the contrary.)
Recently there was a scientific feature on plants sensibility. There was differing electrical conductivity to be measured after having touched plants, as well as evading movement to be seen. And I only thought like: "Oh no; not this one too!"
For animal protein I definitly hope for an industrial solution that allows us to come up to our anthropological state.
-
Regarding lobster, I thought the same thing like you. No big deal of a flavour.
Bread
Mentioned it before, how it sucks to have no choice here.
There is a bakery in the capitol once grounded by a German where they produce varieties that ressemble original samples. (In fact their seasonal Christmas stollen for one is amazingly close to the real thing.) However, prices are beyond believe, and yours truly is living too far away from there anyway.
I heard a German baker once say like: "With the level of bread making the state of civilisation can be made out".
And it seems to me that there could be something too it.
Cultures who never came beyond mere flat cakes (often sans yeast or leaven even) apparently tend to not have been of too much ingenuity in general.
They keep on eating (and living) same stuff and recipe for centuries without anyone being curious enough to explore new shores.
Unfortunately, for bread sorts so delicious that you find yourself almost unable to stop yourself eating, you need to search the ambience in Germany today.
Vast of bakeries having ressorted to either warming up premade stuff or using industrial backing mixtures.
On top there have come up nasty routines like adding keratin (which until the nineties used to be human hair from Chinese haridresser´s shops -believe it or not) or dusting bread with gipsum for a "crisp" crust without needing to invest into sufficient heat (which may explain in above post mentioned mouth-cutting experience). Further needless darkening through caramel coleur which turns cancerogene from baking.
But if you find a classical bakery in Germany chances are high for a truly delicious experience. And better take twice or triple the quantity, before coming back for more. ;O/
- And bring me a loaf too, please, when at it!
I could kill for an original French baguette too. Or for Danish chispbread ... And hail to those who have access to a ciabatta role. >sigh and drool!<
Ruphus
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Date Mar. 17 2016 9:19:09
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