Green Papaya Salad, Laos Version/ Salad Pepaya Muda khas Laos

I looove this salade, as much as i love Indonesian asinan (veggies/fruit condiment) or rujak (fruit salad). I prefer the laos version over its neighbours, as i feel it has more 'body'. This is my own version with the ingredients that i could find in my pantry.

Ingredients:

Crab Paste

• 3 cups of frozen green papaya (store bought, you can of course find it fresh, you will just have to slice it yourself using julienne peeler)
• 2 carrots julienne sliced
• 1 tomato, cut in wedges
• Juice of 1 green lemon

Sauce

• 1 tsp Crab Paste (you can use shrimp paste just to replace it)
• 3 tbs tamarind juice 
• 1 tbs palm sugar
• Chilies
• 1 garlic
• Fish Sauce (i only use 1 tsp to add more taste)

Method:

1. Mix the green papaya, carrots, tomatoes and lemon juice
2. Mix and grind the sauce ingredients,
3. Pour the sauce over salad. Mix well.
4. Serve

Bahasa Indonesia
Bahan 1:

• 3 cup pepaya muda diiris julien
• 2 wortel diiris julien
• 1 buah tomat, dibelah 4
• Jus dari 1 buah jeruk nipis

Bahan 2:

• 1 sdt pasta kepiting, atau bisa diganti terasi.
• 3 sdm air asam jawa
• 1 sdm gula palem
• Cabai 
• 1 bawang putih
• Saos ikan (saya hanya menggunakan seperlunya saja untuk rasa)

Cara:

1. Campur bahan 1
2. Campur bahan 2 dan ulek.
3. Campur bahan 2 ke dalam bahan 1 dengan baik.
4. Hidangkan.

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Papaya Salad Revisited

I think i have already told you a story about a laotian restaurant in Paris which serves the best papay salad in town, that I couldn't figure out what the ingredients are. All i know is that they put a small crab alike in the dish. Well this kind of crab does not live in the sea, but in the paddy field... i used to play with them, long long time ago, when i was just 3-4, in a neighbourhood of the central Jakarta. Nowadays it is impossible to play with this small crab, there is no more empty land in the crowded but chic neighbourhood that my family had not lived there since ages !!!

Well, forget about the crab, i don't know where to find them in Paris (or even if i live in Jakarta). The most important thing is that the ability to make a young papaya salad, just like they have in the restaurant.

My friend sugest me to add shrimp paste to the regular recipe (fish sauce + palm sugar + garlic + lemon + chili + dried small shrimps). And i do a little bit of research on the net, and decided to put a little bit of tamarind. And voilààààà.... i made it... (to bad that i put too much carrot compared to the papaya slices). But it is still acceptable!!!

Love this new recipe so much!

PS: crazy silly me.... i browsed my old blog , and i found the same ingrendients there for the same som tam (papaya salad)... i must have forgotton this recipe, and tried just any normal recipes proposed by the net, and i did not like them...but it seemed that i got stuck with them..crazy!

UPDATE 8/2012

Okay, i now notice that Lao papaya salad is a little bit different than its counterpart in Thailand (or maybe in Vietnam). After numerous video on the net about making papaya salad, i now make my own conclusion:
Lao's is using a black fermented paste from fish, with a little crab (still alive inside it). And i think.. (please correct me), using a little bit of oyster sauce beside the shrimp paste.

I just notice these differences when i went to a lao restaurant that i visit several times during hte past 1 year, and then i asked for the same papay as my opening dish. The waiter who happened to be the owner, responded ,"Which version do you want, Thai or Lao?" I chosed Lao's totally. But i did not really ask him the different between the two. Then when the plate came in front of me, i noticed that the sauce was darker and thicker than i had ever noticed. So i made a little bit of researche on the net....

Above is the picture of  my home made papaya salad. And i can tell you it tasted just the same as the one that i had in the Lao restaurant that i told you. And as usual, if i cracked a recipe, i turned into a very happy person :)) Click this link below to see a video about the papaya salad!!

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Rujak Bali

Rujak is generally an Indonesian word for fruits salad, with spicy palm sugar sauce. In most parts of Indonesia, we use crushed peanuts as part of the sauce's ingredients. But in this recipe, there is no peanut at all and it has shrimp paste (terasi) inside , and I was really wondering if it is very typical of Bali's rujak that the sauce is without sauce. It is too late to call home now, to ask my mom (she is balinese) about it, well anyway, I still enjoy the taste, although I prefer the sauce with peanuts, of course!

I added dry shrimp and dried chili inside, and for fruits, i used pamelo (jeruk bali), pineapple, but i was so wrong to use green papaya because you really have to use ripe papaya for this kind of sauce (however green papaya for the peanut rujak, tastes very good).

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Kumquat Salsa and Photo Experiments

I am still in the mood for trying fellow bloger's recipe, and I tried the Salsa Recipe from Cookingetcetera, as I bought kumquat yesterday, and were not sure if I liked to eat it just like that (too sour for God's sake). This is a very easy and original recipe that I am sure I will not be the only who who appreciate it.

By the way, bellow are the photos from my photo experiments. My one third French- one third gorilla and one third Kingkong husband (thank goodness for the gorilla part who makes him a very good looking species hahah) bought a low quality second hand studio flash light. He had already bought a set of low quality photo studio lightning (again second hand), but it is quite difficult to set them altogether in our small apartment. I am a big fan of the last item accquitted, for the result and for the practical reason: it is easy to use, and it is not space consuming. I used my G10 canon. I said: Finish with his Canon SLR, I want to do it on my own and getting familiar with my stupid camera that I have been having for quite awhile but rarely being used – Yeah G10 is rather so so. After that, I retouched a little bit with lightroom program, like I always do, and then GIMP program.


So what do you think?

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Indochina Food

One of the best things about the net is that i can always follow other people's food blogs, and then I go drooling in front of the monitor screen caused by the beautiful pictures posted therein, and then I can follow their recipes.

This blog from Ravenous Couple is one of the ones that i often follow. I am a big fan of Indochina food (fortunately there are so many indochina communities in France, so i wont have problems finding ingredients or restaurating if i need to), and their blog expand my view about Vietnamese dish in general. I followed their Bo Loc Lac and Ga Kho recipes. Two thumbs up for their easy to follow recipes.

Bo Loc Lac

Ga Kho

Anyway, here are the pictures of sea food salad à la Thai. I used frozen agrume (citrus) cocktail ready package from Picard so that i wouldn't have problems cutting all of the citrus fruit to make the salad. I made the same salad long time ago, the basic vinaigrette (sauce) consists of the following ingredients:

• crushed palm sugar
• 2 tbs fish sauce
• ½ brown (palm sugar) crushed
• 2 tbs green lemon juice

Main ingredients:

• cooked (or grilled) seafoods such as calamari/shrimps/salmon
• citrus fruits in dices

Additional Ingredients:

• crushed peanuts/cashew nuts
• coriander leaves
• sliced chillies (optional)
• sliced red onion/shallots

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Kimchi

Back to Korean food.... yes, i am amazed with this country, thanks to their food (okay i am also amazed with their liking of plastic surgery, hehe).I made Kimchi last week, based on Maangchi recipe. I did not use oyster (not the season yet in France), thus i used half block of maggie beef stock (crushed) that i added to the chili paste.
The result is de-li-ci-ous! Mr. Gorilla told me that Korean Chilli powder smells very good, it gives a very good appetite if combine with the smell of just cooked rice. I could not agree more!

Hansa hamida Maangchi (she is my héroïne!).

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Minced Beef Salad à la Thailand

I have been dreaming to go to Thailand and the rest of Indochina, and while enjoying my stay there, i would indulge my tongue with the best local food, surrounded by smiley people (as i was told by friends). Yeah, because in Indonesia, people have becoming too materialistic, you don't get that sincere smile like you used too 10 years ago.

Despite their materialistic brain and attitude, i would prepare 10 millions forgiveness for my own country. A country where in the past, all the south east Asian kingdoms would dream of having an ally with, but now is drowning in poverty, degradation of moral, attacked by terrorists and natural disaster. A country which capital was being exploded by 3 bombs yesterday. ....Suicide bomb by terrorist.

Again..... and there was this moment of silent of me, in the morning just after i found out about the tragedy through my friends' statuses in facebook. How? Why?...... Bastards!!!!

But as far as i know, the Indonesians are strong, they will get by and survive like it was never happened. Turn out the following day (today), all the malls in Jakarta are already full again, because of this is a long weekend. Experts predict that we will get on our feet again, and the stock exchange will not be strongly effected as it is still closed until Tuesday.

I am really sorry for the victims. I remember that my junior high school friend was one of them years ago, at the same hotel which they bombed yesterday. I did not know him that well, but i read from a newspaper that he had to reschedule his wedding which was supposed to take place 15 days from the explosion day. I think he postponed it during a year, for his recovery and all of the plastic surgeries, but now they have a twin boy-girl. Don't we all believe that good things come to those who wait?

Okay, back to food and recipe....this is a recipe that i made the day after my birthday. As usual, i forgot to post it. The original recipe is using minced duck meat (i did not have any thus i replace it with minced beef meat). To celebrate my birthday, Gorilla and I went to Paris to see the tropical carnival of Paris, where later on that day, they announced that Indonesian delegation won for the best decorated truck. Then he bought me a netbook, which i have been longing for quite a long time, as my birthday presents (this guy gave up giving surprise presents, for the stupid reasons that it did not work well). Then to finish the day, we went to our fav. Thai restaurant, and he ordered this duck salad, which tastes like heaven. I found the recipe in the Thai recipe book that he gave me also for my last year birthday (Laap Pet,Thaïlande Saveurs du bout du monde, Michael Lafon,2007)

LAAP PET
Ingredients:

• 1 tbs Thailand uncooked rice
• 200 gr minced meat
• 2 tbs of green lemon juice
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 1 lemon grass, take the hard skin out (outer leaf), sliced thinly the white part.
• 2 big shallots
• 2 leaves of kaffir, chopped
• 3 white onions, sliced
• 3 Asian chillies, sliced thinly
• 1 tbs mint leaves (i used dry simply because i did not have the fresh one)

Ingredients:

1. Heat a pan, add 1 tbs of cooking oil, and add the rice, cook until they turn golden brown. Using your mortar, grind them until smooth.
2. In the same pan, cook the meat, lemon juice and fish sauce, until the meat is dry.
3. In a serving bowl, mix all of the ingredients before serving.

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Gado-gado, The Famous Indonesian Mixed Salad

It has been awhile, again?! Yes again. Have been busy with life outside blogging, but not outside the internet. I just realized that i have so many food pictures which recipe i have not yet posted. That i am not sure that i still store the modified recipes in my head, as i never really follow the original recipes.

Okay, lets see...if i can still call back what i made... as i have made 2 gado-gado recipes for the past one month. Gado-gado is typical Indonesian food, which means mix. It is kind of salad with mixed veggies, depending to your own taste. Every house has its own recipe, but they always use peanuts as the main ingredients. I used peanut butter as ingredients because i am too lazy using the real peanuts, breaking up the skins, it hurts!

What makes it so special about gado-gado, like i implicitly said, is the sauce, of course, while you can use your fave veggies to be mixed. You can use blanched water spinach, spinach, sliced cauliflower, cut Asian long beans, sprouts, batavia, sweet corns, boiled eggs, etc.

Almost everybody in Indonesia loves Gado-gado, thus it is a very common food that you can find everywhere, while in Indonesia, they have their own local name to call it with several modifications of ingredients for the sauce of course (kupat tahu in Bandung, tipat tahu in Bali, Karedok- Sundanese and Pecel for the Javanese for other modification of gado-gado).

What is common about gado-gado is that you eat it with rice cake. (lontong or ketupat). As usual, i am also too lazy to follow the real complicated rice cake recipe, thus i just boil a bag of instant rice for an hour (until they fill the bag tightly), and cool it in the fridge for 1 hour to make it hard.

Gado-gado Version 1.0 (inspiration from Masakan Indonesia, Gramedia 2008)

• 2 tbs peanut butter (smooth)
• 1 tps shrimp paste
• 1 tps palm sugar
• 3 chillies
• a pinch of tamarin
• 5 tbs warm water

Directions:

1. Using your mortar, grind all of the ingredients except water. You can add water occasionally if you think that it is too thick (according to your taste, and it depends on your peanut butter.
2. In a big bowl, mix the peanut sauce and the veggies, fried shallots, boiled eggs.

Gado-gado Version 2.0 (inspiration from the net, sorry, i printed this 3 years ago, without the source)

• 2 tbs peanut butter (smooth)
• 250 ml coconut milk
• 1 lemon grass, bruised
• 2 kaffir leaves
• 1 tomatoes chopped
• Indonesian sweet soja sauce
• 3 sliced chillies
• 2 sliced shallots
• 1 crushed garlic
• 1 tps kencur (indonesian galange)
• salt
• cooking oil

Directions:
In your pan, heat the oil, and saute the chillies, shallots, garlic. Add the rest of the ingredients until the tomatoes are melting (tenderly cooked).
In a big bowl, mix the peanut sauce and the veggies, fried shallots, boiled eggs.

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Shrimp and Algae Salad à la Japanese

The idea was taken from Maraboutchef, sushis et compagnie 2001.But since some of the ingredients I don't really have, such as green algae, I decided to use the me hijiki algae. And I also added avocado fruit, and altered almost all of the measurement. Well, it is not that I want to brag about what I made, but it tastes sooo good, that I finished my portion, within 5 minutes. Hehe...

Ingredients:

• 300 gr cooked medium shrimps, (I used frozen package)
• 1 avocado fruit, peeled, slice
• ½ cucumber, cut length in two, discard seed using a spoon, sliced thinly, and sprinkle salt, set aside for 15 minutes. And wash it under running tap, and drain well.
• 100 gr me hijiki algae, soak with hot water, drain.

Sauce, in a small pot, boil the following:

• 60 ml Rice vinegar
• 2 tbs kikoman sauce soja
• ½ dashi powder
• ½ tps ginger powder
• 2 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs mirin

Direction:

1. Combine the algae and shrimp in a big salad bowl, pour the sauce, set aside for 15 minutes.
2. Add the cucumber and avocado, mix well, serve.

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Rujak Serut

Rujak Serut is one of the best Indonesian traditional salad (rujak) dessert made of grated (serut) fruits. Originally it uses red sweet potato as one of the elements, but since i did not have it, i replaced it with carrot. You can actually use any young acid fruits as the basic ingredients. I tried to make it as simple as it can be, because i am a lazy bum.

RUJAK SERUT
Fruit:

• 1 or 2 medium Carrot, julienned.
• a bunch of young papaya, julienned.
• 50 gr of pineapple, cut in bits

sauce:

• 3 ground chillies
• 3 tbs of nuts
• 2 cups of water
• 1 palm sugar
• 1 tps shrimp paste

Directions:

1. Boil the water, shrimp paste, palm sugar, chillies and nuts until the sugar dissolved, switched off the gaz.
2. Add the fruit, covered, set aside.
3. Cool in the fridge.

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Shrimps and Lemon Grass Salad

One evening, Nawel, an Algerian mate from school who is very interested in international cuisine, called and we talked about bla bla bla (mostly our effort to find a good decent job, hehehe)...and she closed the conversation by asking me a recipe of Thailand shrimp salad, that our Thailand class mate once made her. She said that she was trying to make it but the taste was just not the same. So i ran through my Thai cook books, and voilà i found it... and scanned it directly to her email.

Very funny, the day that she called, i went to Paris in the afternoon, and treat Mr. Gorilla in our favorite Laotian Restaurant which serves the salad, and i order exactly the same ensalada :)

Here is my own version of recipe, it was lack of many spare parts. as i had not yet gone to do groceries ...

Sauce

In a small bowl, mix the following:

• 1 or 2 tbs of (green) citron juice
• 1 shallots, minced
• 1 tsp of fish sauce
• 2 tsp white sugar
• 1 tbs of spring onion (thinly sliced)

In a big salad bowl, combine the sauce with the following ingredients, and then set it aside for 5 minutes before serving:

• 2 carrots julienne sliced
• 400 gr of big shrimps, 2 minutes boiled in boiling water, discard heads, tails
• 2 tsp of Thai sweet sour sauce (or any industrial sweet spicy-chilly sauces will do, hehe)
• 1 lemon grass, discard the hard part (outer leaf) trim the lower part of the stalk, and slice thinly the bottom white part only

Serve by sprinkling:

• coriander leaves
• sliced chillies

Other ingredients that i don't have but you may use to optimise your salad:

• Salad and mint leaves
• Thai industrial dry squid which has sweet salty taste, very flat form (I don't know the name for this product and unfortunately I don't have the picture either).
• Sliced onion
• cashew nuts
  

Note:

• you can replace the shrimps with squid or jelly fish

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Laph Pa (Raw Salmon Salad)

Well, eating raw fish is not the monopoly of the french neither the japs. The Laos seem to like it too, and the proof is the raw salmon salad (Laph Pa). It is very refreshing, and does not smell something fishy at all! The original recipe can be found on Les Meilleures Recettes Du Monde publicated by Orphie, it sometimes does not explain the quantity of ingredients to be used. But it does not really matter..in Indonesia it is the same condition as well.

Ingredients:

• 1 can of banana blossom, drain the water, cut the blossom in thin pieces
• 200 gr of fresh salmon, cut into thin pieces
  
• 2 lemons
• 1 tbs fish sauce
• 2 green chillies
• 10 mint leaves
• coriander leaves
• chives
• 1 lemon grass
• 1tsp sugar
  

Method:

1. Marinate the banana blossom with lemon juice for 30 minutes, drain the juice out. Do the same thing with the salmon.
2. Blend (or slice thinly) the mints, chillies, coriander, chives.
3. In a salad bowl, combine all of the ingredients.
4. Serve

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Young Papaya Salad Laos Version Revisited

Guilty pleasure! Eat this and try not to talk or even kiss your lover afterwards..guaranty, a big spar will take place right after..hehe.. Nah, actually the dish is not even worst than the green stinky bean and co, but the garlic and the shrimp paste stay in your mouth until you brush your teeth. But anyway, same as stinky beans, they are worth to be tried!! I got the recipe from a Laotian cookbook in French (Orphie Collection - Les Meilleures recettes du monde). I add pinaples in it, and omit the lemon juice since i have no spare in the fridge.

Ingredients:

• ½ green papaya
• 1 carrots
• 1 tomatoes
  
• 2 chillies
• 3 slices of pinapple
• a pinch of tamarind
• salt
• sugar
• 1 tsp of shrimp paste
• 1 grab of dried small shrimp
• 2 tbs of fish sauce

Methods:

1. Cut the papaya, carrots with julienne style, cut the pineapple in thin bits, while thin slices for the tomatoes, and mashed them coarsely using a mortar, set aside.
2. Using the same mortar, mashed the garlics, shrimp paste, sugar, chilies, tamarind, dried shrimps all together.
3. In a big bowl, combine the fruits and the spice, add the fish sauce.
4. You can serve this meal as a side dish of rice meal (just like we do..but I bet it feels a bit weird for most of Indonesian to eat sweet fruits altogether with their rice, but I am getting used to it).

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