Where is Malaysia?

Tonight was Malaysian cooking using the care package that Lisa sent us. It was filled with a number of Malaysian ingredients.

Never having been to Malaysia, or had Malaysia food, or even knowing where Malaysia is (somewhere over there, you know, by Indonesia or someplace, here, you look it up) I approached the ingredients with trepidation but full of resolve.

The menu was:

• Prawn crackers
• Ginger scented coconut rice
• Shrimp sambal udang
• Onde onde

The prawn crackers were these translucent disks about the size of a quarter that you fry. When you fry them they puff up white and crispy.

They’re sort of like shrimp pork rinds. I just cooked up a few, because they are a bit odd. Debbie crunched one up and said, “we need more of these,” and she cranked up the skillet and fried up a bowlful. Like pork rinds, if you have a taste for shrimp, they’re addictive.

Next was the shrimp in a sambal udang sauce. The sauce for the shrimp contained tamarind. I had a big ol’ block of tamarind which you mix about 1 to 4 with water to make a tamarind juice.

The tamarind paste has pulp and seeds and so you soak it in water and then strain out all the solid bits. Lime juice is suggested as a substitute for tamarind. I’d buy that, it does have a limey flavor.

I took a big spoonful of the sambal paste that Lisa sent and cooked it for a bit in oil until it was really fragrant.

Then in went the tamarind and some water and I cooked it down until it was thick. The shrimp went in next for just a few minutes until they were pink.

Was this good? If I could find Malaysia I’d go there just eat this. It was splendid. Spicy, but not hot. Fragrant with garlic. Sour with the tamarind. Just layers and layers of flavor.

The rice was cooked with half coconut milk and half water. Plus a big chunk of ginger. It was good, but the shrimp sauce tended to overwhelm it.

Dessert was onde onde, just like Mom used to make! Seriously, I’d never heard of onde onde until I asked Lisa what we were supposed to do with pandan and palm sugar.

Onde onde is glutinous rice flour made into a soft dough, rolled into a small ball filled with palm sugar, boiled, and then rolled in coconut flakes.

Does that sound odd? Well, just to top things off it includes pandan (screwpine leaves steeped in water) which turns it a bright green.

That’s green all right. Here’s the palm sugar that goes in the middle.

Then you roll them into a ball and boil them.

And finally roll them in coconut flakes.

And what did they taste like? Well, they were ok. But I couldn’t help thinking, deep fry this, roll it in sugar, and you’d have a real treat!

Owen was ever hopeful.

But he did not get any onde onde.