Continuing from Part 1 of our dinner at Akane Sushi in Los Altos.
Our final piece of nigiri sushi was aji or Spanish Mackerel. The aji have been marinated to lessen the fishiness but preserve the texture.
Tag Archives: Soup
Es Campur
What do you think of eating or drinking on a hot day? A tall glass of iced tea? Some ice cream? In Hawaii, we do shave ice – I like mine with ice cream on the bottom.
The countries of Southeast Asia have taken cold treats to the next level. Aside from ais kacang and cendol from Malaysia, you also have halo halo from the Philippines and es campur from Indonesia.
This dessert contains palm fruit, jackfruit, syrup, young coconut, avocado, condensed milk and ice. Very nice, very cooling, and very quickly eaten!
Aloha, Nate
Bouillabaisse
We were at the Saratoga Farmer’s Market the other day and stopped by at the Mission Fish vendor. They specialize in fish caught fresh in the Monterey Bay and always have a good selection. They’ll even clean and fillet the fish for you for free. The fish heads and bones they package up for sale, and that’s what we came home with.
We took those fish head and bones and put them in a large stock pot, tossed in some shrimp shells, and added the mirepoix – onions, celery, and carrots – a cup of dry white wine, a quarter of a lemon, some whole peppercorns, a bay leaf, and some herbs de Provence, then covered with water. Brought it to a boil, then simmered for 1 hour before straining out the liquid.
Hearts, eyes, and frog eggs
Our Vietnamese neighbor’s son was having a birthday party, and we were invited to come over and join in the celebration. Even after stuffing ourselves with all the amazing salads, rolls, noodles, and fried chicken, we couldn’t say no to dessert – a lovely bowl of hearts, eyes, and frog eggs.
No, there aren’t really animal parts in this dessert. It’s actually made up of hearts of palm, dragon eyes (longan fruit), and what Annie calls “frog eggs” or biji selasih, (otherwise known as the seed of Holy Basil), swimming in a cold, sweet syrup.
It was so good, I had seconds, and thirds, and took home a container full to enjoy the day after. 🙂
I wish I knew where they got the Holy Basil seeds. I’ve only seen them sold in the Asian grocery as a drink. I wonder if the Indian store has them.
Aloha, Nate