Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [22]
Chop together in a food processor the shallots, chiles, nuts, ginger, sesame seeds, sugar, black pepper, shrimp paste, coriander, white pepper, cumin, nutmeg, salt, and lime leaf until finely minced. Scrape out into a medium bowl.
Without washing the food processor, plop the fish and shrimp into it. If either the fish or shrimp has been frozen and thawed, blot well on paper towels to remove lingering moisture before putting in the processor. Using quick pulses, mince the mixture evenly, but do not let it turn into a paste. Scrape into the bowl of spice paste. Stir together thoroughly, then mix in the coconut oil and lime juice. Add enough coconut milk to make a very moist but not soupy mixture. Switch to your fingers and knead the sate mixture for about 30 seconds. (The mixture can be made to this point up to a day ahead, then covered and refrigerated.)
Fire up a grill to medium-high heat.
Wrap the fish mixture around the lemongrass skewers shortly before you plan to grill the sate. (It may split and fall off if formed more than a hour before grilling.) Wet your hands with cold water, then form a ball with a rounded tablespoon of the fish mixture. Holding a skewer with the notched portion upright, balance the ball on top of the skewer, then start pulling the mixture down the skewer, using your thumb and the two fingers closest to it. Turn the skewer slowly as you pull the mixture down, winding it around the top 3 to 4 inches of the skewer and tapering it as you reach the lower handle portion of the skewer. It should look in shape a bit like a miniature corn dog. Place on an oiled plastic-wrap- or Silpat-covered baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining fish mixture and skewers, wetting your fingers again before forming each one, to avoid sticking. Cover and refrigerate for about 15 minutes.
Transfer each of the sates to a well-oiled cooking grate with their lemongrass handles away from, or off of, the heat. Grill for 4 to 5 minutes, turning the sate on all sides. Using the lemongrass brush, baste each skewer lightly with oil on all sides, and grill for about two minutes more, until cooked through with some nicely browned edges. Serve immediately.
AUSTRALIA
THE ALARM CLOCK JARS US AWAKE RUDELY EARLY ON our first full day in Australia. It’s a Saturday, the only day of the week when the Barossa Valley farmers market opens its stalls for trade in the small town of Angaston, near the center of the famed wine region. An expat American couple active in the market, Thalassa Skinner and Tony Bogar, tell Bill, “As long as you don’t encounter any problems on the highway, you can get here from your Adelaide hotel in just over an hour.” Bill laughs, because there’s an obvious problem before we even leave our room: Australians are lefties, ignoring the consensus among most of the world’s population that cars belong on the right side of the road.
The quaint custom, inherited from the idiosyncratic British, requires us to allow more than ample time for the trip. Bill takes the wheel because he has experience driving on the left, even when perfectly sober. He only dimly remembers the last occasion, however, and in every instance in the past the cars felt American because the driver’s seat was on the left. Not so in our rental car here, where the wheel is on the locally proper and (for most people) safer right side. He takes off slowly, looking for a quiet street to practice shifting the manual transmission with his left hand. When that proves possible, Bill hits the highway, where the difficulties begin. He keeps reflexively flicking the lever on the left of the steering column to indicate lane changes, as you would in an American car, but instead turns on the windshield wipers, as though he’s battling a private rainstorm on this sunny spring day. Despite the frenzied flapping of blades at the worst possible moments, he avoids mishaps and we arrive safely and on time. Cheryl