This was a beautiful, light wheat free breakfast rice pancake enjoyed at one of our favourite breakfast spots in Bali, Yellow Cafe 2019 Best “blooming breakfast in Penestanan village in Ubud.
The homemade palm nectar and freshly grated coconut and bananas and berries are a sensational combination.
This version of the famous Hokkien Har Mee, spicy Malaysian prawn and pork soup, was inspired by our daughter’s recent visit to have Laksa at Abel’s Komi Tiam in Canberra.
Stuck here in Sydney, with a couple of pork short ribs in the freezer, I googled around for a recipe to use the ribs and come close to an almost irreplaceable Abel’s Mum’s Laksa experience.
I read with interest about all the different versions of street hawker soups …which brought back great memories of our trip to Malaysia many moons ago.
The solution came forward in the form of a combination of recipes and my decision to just buy a good ready-made curry paste to start off the process. I bought this and other ingredients at a new Asian supermarket Summit at Bondi Junction
The great thing about this recipe is that it’s easy to make and you can pre-prepare most of it and just repeat and assemble at the end.
The other inspiration was this article in The Guardian Use your Noodle By Yottam Ottolenghi
The end result, somewhere between a laksa and a har Mee was just the soupy Asian fix we were looking for, and I got to use up the pork short ribs!
This recipe will serve 3-4 people.
Ingredients:
Method:
1. Cut pork ribs into single pieces in between the ribs, set aside
2. Peel and remove veins from prawns, reserving heads and shells.
3. Heat 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil in a large stock pot or casserole, add half the curry paste (reserve the rest for later). Stir fry curry paste until dark and fragrant, add prawn heads and shells (not the prawns!). Stir fry until prawn heads turn pink.
4. Add pork ribs, rock sugar and salt and cook turning until ribs are covered in curry paste and meat is sealed.
5. Pour in all the water if you can and bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer for 1.5 hours, checking from time to time to skim off impurities and oil from pork ribs. Check to see park is fall of the bone tender, add more water along the way to ensure you have enough soup for all your diners. (End result should be about 2 litres of delicious soup stock.)
6. After about an hour, hard boil your eggs, blanch your green vegees and set aside, blanch Hokkien noodles and vermicelli noodles, chop herbs, wash bean sprouts …so you have all your ingredients ready to go.
7. After an hour and a half of simmering…..Strain soup stock into a large bowl through a fine sieve or strainer. Remove pork ribs from sieve and set aside to cool in a bowl.
8. I then strained the stock one more time through a fine sieve, but that’s not totally necessary.
9. Clean stockpot or casserole dish. Pour stock back into the pot and place on stove ready to heat up and pour into your bowls.
10. In a small non-stick pan, add the other 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, heat, then add all the rest of the curry paste. Once the curry paste is dark and fragrant and the oil is separating from it, place half of it into a small sambal dish. Add the prawns to the remaining paste and oil in the pan and fry until prawns turn pink and paste is nicely coating the prawns.
11. Heat the soup stock until simmering and add vietnamese mint leaves, tofu puffs to warm up….Quickly reheat ingredients in microwave if needed, an assemble bowls.
12. In large soup serving bowls, arrange your ingredients starting with equal amounts of Hokkien and vermicelli noodles sitting side by side, top with warmed pork, green, prawns, bean sprouts, heated up tofu puffs and halved boiled eggs.
13. Remove vietnamese leaves from stock if using, then ladle soup over bowls until just under the brim of ingredients.
13. Sprinkle with herbs and crispy shallots and serve piping hot with the sambal on the side for those who want an extra chilli kick.
Discovered this new Asian supermarket called Summit in EastGate Shopping Centre at Bondi Junction today. Could have spent hours browsing the colourful aisles and fridges packed with intriguing ingredients.
Ingredients for all sorts of Asian cuisines including Chinese, Malaysian, Indonesian, Indian and Japanese!
Bought everything I needed for my Hokkien Har Mee/Laksa inspired bowls for dinner tonight.
Will be going back for a planned exploration excursion!!
Here are some pics:
A lovely Easter holiday at Pearl Beach, one of our favourite Sydney getaways. Lazy beach days as summer turns to autumn here, walks, swims and a book fair to keep us all stocked up for reading. Blissful family time and healthy grazing and feasting as well.
Here are some photos of our some of our lunches so far. Promise to post recipes in weeks to come.
It was lovely to drop back in to Hujan Locale in Ubud for a family lunch last Sunday. With the mix of colonial and Asian touches of decore, the backdrop of a traditional Balinese family compound and sunlight and beautiful breeze streaming in to the upper dining room, it is still a beautiful space made even better with their delectable cocktails and food.
True to Will Meryck style, the menu featured fresh seasonal Indonesian ingredients and at Hujan Locale, the menu ranges across specialities from various regions, with strong nods to Malaysian and Chinese flavours and styles.
The style is certainly more Pan Asian but the focus is on great Indonesian ingredients and is very different menu to that at Nusantara., so is a very good option as a contrast.
We began with the superb slipper lobster dumplings in a tangy tomato sauce.
The Crispy While Fish (Tilapia River Fish) served with a green papaya salad., lettuce leaves, and a tangy tamarind sauce …which followed was stunning in its presentation and deep fried in a way which separates the bones from the fillet making it easy to share and enjoy. The combination of the crispy fish, the sauce, papaya salad wrapped in lettuce leaves was delicious.
We tried the light vegetable curry cooked in a mild coconut sauce with yellow rice. Lovely as a side and/or a vegetarian option.
We finished our lavish lunch with the spectacular whole pig hock cooked in a sweet “Babi Kecap” style sauce, with steamed buns, cucumber and spring onions. The expertly deboned and shredded the pork at the table adding a sense of theatre to the occasion.
Definitely another High Five for Hujan Locale at Ubud. Here’s a link to my first review 7 years ago when it was just a new kid on the block.
The shiny new Night Rooster by the Locavore Group is easy to pass by without noticing but once you are through the door you could be in a New York style speakeasy. A projector throwing up a slideshow of evocative words and images on the smoky glass front is the only hint of the adventure that awaits inside.
Now situated at 5 Jalan Gootama, just down from Jalan Raya Ubud, the new shiny Night Rooster is decked out with plush seating, bookcases with an artistic assortment of paraphernalia and a great looking bar. With skylights reminiscent of Bali villa roofs and a mirrored ceiling the ambience is inviting and interesting.
You could be anywhere in the world here, and the new updated version is a step up from the original version of Night Rooster as you will see if you compare the two!
As are the famous Night Rooster cocktails featuring local ingredients which tantalise the sense with taste, smell and stunning presentation. Old favourites such as The Ashes are joined by newer creations including
The new Night Rooster is the perfect pre-cursor to dinner at one of the great restaurants nearby like Nusantara, Hujan Locale and Melting Wok. I would of course say Locavore too, but they are about to turn into Herbivore whilst the new LocavoreNXT is created.