If you’re serious about ethnic cooking, there comes a point where a mortar & pestle will become a critical part of your kitchen arsenal. The more you cook certain styles of food (Thai, Peranakan/Nyonya, Mexican, etc.), the more you will find that modern shortcuts – coffee grinders for spices, food processors for grinding pastes – remove a level of control in working ingredients and can actually negatively impact flavor.

Tossing spices and liquids into the Cuisinart is an afterthought. Pounding a rempah to be used in a curry is a deliberate act. You have to take the time to think about each ingredient as you add it to the mortar – you watch the texture change and smell the aroma develop as oils are released. With practice you learn how subtle changes in the way you pound and grind affect the final product.

I’ve been working without a decent mortar for a while now (my old one is garbage) and my frustration got the better of me. I finally found a granite mortar & pestle that I liked (not too deep and wide enough to be able to work with a decent amount of ingredients). I’ll go into more details about working with it in future posts – this post is about seasoning a new mortar.

Think of a granite mortar like a cast iron pan – you have to season it before you can use it. It’s not difficult  but it does take a little bit of time. The upside is that you get to spend a little time familiarizing yourself with the tool in the process.

Step 1

The first step is obvious – wash it out with plenty of water (like cast iron – NEVER use soap).

Step 2

Throw in a few cloves of garlic (peeled) and pound them into a paste. This is a good time to get a feel for how you are supposed to work with a mortar. Don’t start pounding the crap out of everything – you’ll have garlic everywhere – your hair, on your cabinets, floor, ceiling. Everywhere. Start off gentle. Hold the pestle at an angle and work your way around the bottom. Pay attention to the ingredient – it will tell you when to pound harder or more gently.

You are working toward a fine paste – get it up onto the sides of the mortar. You want to cover the entire inner surface. Once you have the whole surface covered – leave it. This sounds weird, but just let it sit on the counter (12-24 hours). You can cover it with plastic wrap to keep things out of it (and the aroma down), but leave it be.

Step 3

After the garlic as set for a while, wash the mortar and pestle again. Remember – water only. The garlic in mine had taken on a greenish hue. Don’t worry about it – just rinse it out really well. Now it’s time for rice. Take a little wet rice (uncooked) and add it to the mortar. Remember that part in step 2 where I said to be gentle? Now is where we see if you were paying attention. Gently begin to pound and grind the rice. If you’re careful you’ll only lose a few grains of rice. More likely you’ll lose quite a bit.

The idea is to work the wet rice into a fine paste, again coating the entire interior surface.

Take your time. Uncooked rice is hard, so it’s going to take a while to get it broken down. Don’t worry if you don’t feel like you’re doing it right. You get to do this again (and maybe again). Your first batch of rice will turn grey. What you’re doing here is grinding loose grit out of the mortar and the rice paste is picking it up.

Wash the mortar again (water only) and do another batch of rice. Repeat this process until the rice paste stays white. Remember this step, as this is how you will clean the mortar if you get food sticking to it or if you use a strong or heavily colored ingredient (like achiote).

Step 4

Getting closer. Rinse and dry the mortar, then add some coarse salt. I used sal grosso.

In this step you’re grinding – you want to work the salt around the mortar, grinding it as fine as possible.

Step 5

Rinse and dry the mortar again. Your mortar is now ready to use. You can grind a few other spices in at this point, but in my mind they don’t really stick around as “seasoning”.

These are white and black peppercorns. Remember that part about gentle? This is good practice for that. You need to coax the peppercorns to crack before you can really start working with them.

I’m not sure who had more fun at the first Si Fang Cai (Secret Supper) – me or the guests. The menu was based (mostly) on Asian hawker food – or “street” food.

The weather cooperated, allowing for drinks and cooking outdoors, before moving inside for an intimate dinner peppered with great conversation.

Hawker Menu

Cocktail
Basil Watermelon Caiparinha *

1st Course
Bulgogi Wan-ja with Tamarind Ssamjang (Korea)
Butabara Kushiyaki – Shio & Tare (Japan)
Xinjiang Chuanr (China)

2nd Course
Dan Dan Mein (China)

3rd Course
Gado Gado (Indonesia)

4th Course
Gang Ga-ree (Thailand)

Dessert
Turon w/Macapuno Fozen Custard (Philippines)

Beverages
Cha Yen (Thailand)

Beer
Tsingtao (China)
Chang, Singha (Thailand)
Kingfisher (India)
Kierin (Japan)

* The basil-watermelon caipirinha is from No Recipes.

As with any curry, there are a million variations for Jalfrezi (a curry of Pakistani origin). The one consistent factor is onions, tomatoes, peppers and various spices fried in oil. Originally developed as a way to cook leftover meats, the sauce tends to be drier than other curries.

I’m not posting a recipe, as a quick Google search will give you hundreds. Don’t be afraid to experiment with the combinations and proportions of spices – this is a simple, fast and very forgiving dish.

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So I had a coconut – don’t ask me why. Now what? First thing is to crack it open and drink the water. Remember, the liquid inside a coconut is coconut water – not coconut milk (Too Much Information: Coconut water is the endosperm (albumin) of the coconut – think of it as the white of an egg, but tastier).

Next is to extract the meat. I took the hard way – I whacked it hard enough to loosen a good bit of the flesh, so I pried it out and peeled away the hard skin with a paring knife (There are easier ways – put it into a 300 degree oven for 10-15 minutes and the flesh will pull away from the shell…). Grating the flesh gives you a few options, including making coconut milk – not as hard as you might think.

Coconut Milk
Mix the grated coconut with a couple of cups hot water and let it soak for about 10 minutes. Squeeze through a strainer or cotton towel and you have thick milk. Set it aside. Repeat the above and you will get – that’s right – thin milk. These can be used separately or combined to vary the richness of your dishes.

So I made coconut milk, right? Well, no. While making fresh coconut milk is easy and the end result is really good, I was getting pretty tired of screwing around with this coconut. I was hungry, impatient, had a good can of Thai coconut milk on hand.

Time to cook.

Onions, galangal and scallions

Curry
Curries are amazingly simple dishes to cook. They invite experimentation and even if you don’t have everything you need, they’re pretty hard to screw up (just use common sense – don’t substitute Tic-tacs for garlic – stuff like that). So is this Indian, Thai, Malaysian, Indonesian, Sri Lankan, British? Depends. Sometimes it depends on what you add to the dish. Sometimes it depends on what you decide it is.

The ingredient list is pretty simple, as you can see, nothing is set in stone – I’m not even including measurements (OK, I’ll come back and do it later…):

• 1 onion, peeled, quartered and sliced
• 1 inch pc of minced galangal (has lots of names: blue ginger, ka, etc. Related to ginger, but doesn’t really taste anything like it. But you can substitute ginger here, especially if you’re going for spicy)
• 1 clove minced garlic
• 1-1/2 tsp curry paste or powder (either one, variations abound – I tend to use Madras curry and go a bit heavy on it)
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1 tsp Turmeric
• 1 14 oz can tomatoes (diced or crushed – canned seemed to work better, but anything will do)
• 1-2 green chilies, seeded & chopped (again, use your imagination and suit to your palate – I used sambal oelek this time – Indonesian chili paste)
• 1 can coconut milk (you can use half and half, or heavy cream if you’d like. Again, it’s up to you)
• 1/2 cup Water
• Salt (to taste)
• Protein (I really like to use shrimp, but chicken, fish, goat, anything with some semblance of a face will do. You could use vegetables as well. )

Mise for the coconut curry…

Start by sauteing the aromatics (onions, galangal, garlic, chilis) in a bit of oil. After a few minutes, add the spices. Cook a few more minutes, until the spices become fragrant. Add water and tomatoes. Simmer for about 10 minutes to blend the flavors.

Next, add the coconut milk, and simmer for about 5 more minutes. If you’re making ahead (a good idea, as it gives the flavors time to balance) – STOP NOW. Cool it down and refrigerate. Don’t add your protein until you’ve brought it up to temperature again and are getting ready to serve.

I had a pound of shrimp on hand (Atlanta Farmers Market – $4.50/lb for large, head-off – woot!). Just toss ‘em in and let them cook for about 2-3 minutes – you don’t want to over cook here. (Obviously, this needs to be modified if you’re using chicken, or any other meat that doesn’t cook in 2-3 minutes. Par-cook them before adding to the sauce. Same goes for vegetables.) Season with salt to taste and serve over rice (jasmine, basmati – same no rule principle applies). If you want a bit more color and aroma, add some julienned kafir lime leaves in the last phase of cooking. Garnish on the side with whatever you like – diced raw tomatoes, minced hard boiled eggs, lime wedges, additional sambal – or nothing at all. Simple.