![]() Some of them may be dyed a deep pink color, but the reddish-dark brown blocks in white wrappers from Malaysia work best and are most authentic for the recipes in this book. There are Malaysian ( belachan), Indonesian ( trassi), Thai ( kapi), Vietnamese ( mam ruoc), and Filipino ( bagoong) varieties. In Asian groceries, it is easy to find different styles of shrimp paste, each one from a different country you can also buy it online. When it is present in a curry, stir-fry, or condiment, the shrimp paste will act as a hidden ingredient you taste only a unique complexity and depth unlike anything else you’ve ever experienced, a wow factor that leaves the palate yearning for more. The flavor of shrimp paste is a little bit of many things: salty, slightly bitter, roasted, and fermented. Don’t let the pungent smell deter you, as the smell dissipates during cooking. The complex, savory taste that shrimp paste brings is unparalleled in the world of global cuisine. The shrimp paste, or belachan (pronounced buh-LAH-chan and sometimes spelled blachenor or blachan) is packaged with the family’s brand and sold to market vendors for resale to consumers, or to middlemen and distributors. Finally, the paste is pressed into round or rectangular shapes and left under the sun to dry before it is packed. The crushing and drying is repeated from time to time until the shrimp is disintegrated and becomes a dense, dark reddish-brown paste. They are then crushed into a paste and fermented in large wooden trays for two weeks. Once dried, the tiny shrimps are mixed with salt and sun dried again for eight hours. ![]() They are first rinsed in sea water and placed on stretched mats or large wooden trays to dry under the tropical sun. The larger shrimp or little fishes are thrown back, and the geragau that remain are destined to become shrimp paste, a distinctive smoky and salty ingredient that offers complexity and depth to any dish. There, fishermen are often seen wading in deep water in search of geragau, tiny shrimp that are caught at high tide. Making shrimp paste is one such example, a tradition that is especially robust and still mostly done by fishing families in villages along the coast of the Straits of Malacca and the islands of Pangkor and Penang. Throughout the islands and coasts of Southeast Asia, the old tradition of fermenting the bounty of the seas has allowed people to survive year-round on their seasonal catches. ![]()
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