Saturday 20 January 2007

Copycat cuisine Part II: A Little Kraut Goes a Long Way



Let me clarify a few things here.. When I say "copycat", it doesn't mean that the recipes in this blog that are not labelled "copycats" are my concoctions.. ;-) It's just that given my proclivity to experimentation or simply my mood-driven cooking, most dishes I turn out eventually do not resemble the recipes I'd intended to follow. This is often due to the substitution or blatant omission of certain ingredients, and this in turn has a variety of reasons - can't find them here, don't have them on me and must at all costs make the dish NOW, or I just don't like them and think the dish would fare better without them. Isn't that what enjoying food is about anyway? :)

So, having bought a whole cabbage for my Sayur Lodeh the other day, and having used only a third of it, I was stuck with the other 2/3 without a prior Plan B and C. I had already thought of making Okonomiyaki, a Japanese stuffed pancake, but that would also require just a third of the cabbage. I was in the mood for something spicy and colourful, so took a peek at Naughty Curry. The fact that they had a cabbage listing totally won me over, so here is my adaptation of their Sunset Cabbage Strips!

Confession time - I didn't have urad dal and curry leaves on me, so I did without them. Instead I sprinkled chopped coriander leaves when the dish was done. I liked the dish all the same!

Variations: This is already a variation. :) Wouldn't dare to tamper further with it.

Body Count: 0

6 comments:

Rasa Malaysia said...

Oh wow Shilpa, I just saw that you are in France...very cool. Is it hard to find Asian Ingredients in France? Choc and Zucchini told me there is no Malaysian restaurants in Paris.

Shilpa said...

Hi RM, I do believe there are Malaysian restaurants in Paris, they're just usually Malaysian-Thai or Malaysian-Vietnamese. In fact, I've even eaten at one called "Le Sarawan" (111 av Ivry 75013 PARIS) ages ago, which wasn't too bad.

No, I'm quite lucky, can find most Asian ingredients here, even cincalok! :)

Anonymous said...

Is that really sauerkraut or just cabbage ? I don't really like the german version of cabbage. But other cabbage, I'm all for it!

Shilpa said...

Hi tigerfish (sorry I haven't replied your e-mail yet!!)! No, it's just ordinary cabbage, cooked with peas and spices. I just wanted to use the word "Kraut" (German for "cabbage") instead of cabbage, so pardon me for the confusion. Sauerkraut ("sour cabbage") would be too mushy to look like this! :)

Melting Wok said...

shilpa, am so glad you fully utilised your cabbage hehe, I tend to have the same problem, just want a variety of things, but do not want a lot of one thing. Very creative ah u :)

Shilpa said...

Hi again MW! Yeah, I need variety, too, but if I can't make something in small amounts, I freeze part of it! :) Advantage of that is that I don't need to cook sometimes, just thaw something from the freezer!