Around the World in 80 Dinners - Bill Jamison [54]
Sprinkle with chile to taste, then cover evenly with about one-quarter of the kecap manis mixture. Cook about a minute so the sauce can caramelize in a few spots, then turn over again, using the spatula to once more nudge it back into a loose cake form.
Spoon one-quarter of the eggs over the cake. The eggs will begin to set immediately, so use the spatula to nudge all the mixture back into cake form again. Turn over and continue cooking until the egg mixture has set. The cake will look a bit like a dark mini-frittata. Slide out onto a plate. Wipe out the hot wok carefully and repeat with oil and ingredients until all four cakes are complete. Top each “carrot” cake with a sprinkle of scallions and serve right away, offering more chile or soy sauce on the side if you wish.
THAILAND
“WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT A PICNIC SUPPER?” Vithi asks Bill.
Bill had been hoping for a more rousing way to kick off our first night in Thailand—maybe something like a curry feast at a special restaurant known only to local connoisseurs—but it seems rude to say so to a volunteer guide we’ve just met. Going with the flow, Bill replies, “Sure, great idea.”
Before we left home, a Thai chef and friend put us in touch with Vithi, an art professor at Chiang Mai University who is a friend of hers. “He’ll be very helpful,” she said, “if he has time for it, because Vithi is an expert on Thai culinary traditions, ingredients, and techniques. He also did undergraduate and graduate work in the Los Angeles area for seven years, so he speaks perfect English and knows American institutions and customs.”
Bill called him at home, as our friend suggested, and Vithi said, “My schedule looks fairly open during your time in Chiang Mai. I’ll put together a plan of activities and take you around whenever I can,” which turns out to be most of the time. He appeared a perfect match for us, at least before the picnic proposal.
Vithi extracts his car from the crammed parking lot of our downtown chain hotel, the Royal Princess, and the three of us take off to buy some provisions, the only thing he explains in advance about what we’re doing. The first stop is a supermarket with a surprisingly large wine department, where Bill chooses a couple of bottles of a Languedoc red from the extensive selection of French, Australian, and Chilean imports. Vithi leads us through a few aisles in search of snacks to eat with the wine, saying, “Expats love the variety in this place, both local and international. Check out the different kinds of Cheerios, more than I ever saw in Los Angeles.”
“Wow!” Cheryl exclaims. “Six types. I wouldn’t want any of them here or at home, but I’m amazed to find so many choices.”
Two aisles over, Vithi says, “Here we go,” picking up a package of sausage. “This is a Chiang Mai specialty made with fermented pork.” Then, commenting, “We must have this,” he grabs a plastic tray of ingredients for meang kum. (Note that we give the Latin alphabet spelling of some dish names, though you seldom find these in Thailand, where the names usually appear only in Indic-style Thai script except on tourist menus that take the extra step of providing translations into English and other languages. No telling what a menu would call meang kum in English, perhaps Lots of Goodies Wrapped in a Strange Leaf with a Tamarind Dipping Sauce.)
Vithi drives us next to a nearby neighborhood open-air market, a place so unused to Western visitors that everyone stares at us. He gets a kilo of sticky rice—the style favored in the north—that the vendor scoops up hot from a bamboo steamer three feet in diameter. With us in tow, Vithi hops from there to a stand with prepared curries, picking out a traditional version combining bitter and herbaceous greens, spooned like everything else into its own plastic sack. Then he’s on to a stall featuring steamed vegetables tied in pretty bundles. “What do you want?” Vithi asks Cheryl.
“The young eggplants look good, and so do the cucumbers.”
“Okay, we’ll get them with several