by Laks Indrakaran

Tempoyak Pucuk Ubi

Tempoyak (fermented durian) is another unbelievably simple yet very delicious Malaysian/ Indonnesian dish. The ladies selling kampong vegetables at the market recommended using pucuk ubi (cassava/tapioca leaves) as the main ingredient for a vegan alternative. This is certainly a favourite considering that I have never ever taken a liking to durians and still haven’t.  Raw tempoyak is usually sold in our local markets and so I have not had the need ferment ripe durians. However, for those residing outside of these parts, and want to attempt it, the fermentation is incredibly simple, however, as it can be difficult to come by durian or tempoyak in most places, I may soon post a coconut alternative known as “masak lemak”. You will need mortar and pestle for this recipe and this is an oil-free vegan recipe. This recipe was written down under the tutelage of Kakak Is. I have hyperlinked photos in recipe.

Ingredients

  • 1 bundle of cassava leaves (tapioca leaves)
  • 1 cup of raw tempoyak
  • 3-4 cloves of garlic
  • 1-2 tiny red onions (I accidentally omitted the onions and it worked)
  • 1 tiny knob of ginger
  • 2-3 tiny knobs of fresh turmeric
  • 1 stalk of lemongrass
  • 1 sliver of galangal
  • 4 birds eye chili
  • 1 mug of water
  • Salt to taste

Instructions

  1. Boil cassava leaves in a pot for about 15-20 minutes until wilted and well-cooked.
  2. While leaves are boiling, add ginger, fresh turmeric, onions, birds eye chilies and garlic to the mortar and pound until it is a fine paste.
  3. Lightly pound lemongrass and galangal in mortar.
  4. Once leaves are cooked. drain water with sieve and set aside.
  5. Add a mug of water to pot or wok, along with raw tempoyak and all pounded ingredients.
  6. Mix all ingredients well.
  7. Leave ingredients to simmer on a medium-low heat.
  8. Once the sauce has thickened, add cassava leaves and mix well.
  9. Add a pinch of salt or as much as you like.
  10. Leave to simmer on low heat for another 5-10 minutes until sauce is thick and fragrant.
  11. Once thick and all ingredients are mixed well, remove and serve.

Laks Indrakaran

Kajang, Malaysia

by Laks Indrakaran

Curried Pumpkin

Curried pumpkin is yet another favourite swift and simple dish that Kakak Is prepares for lunch. I have tried my best to convey the recipe from her pithy instructions. These recipes are written as they were taught to me, hence, I have not experimented with omitting cooking oil. I will write more if and when I get the chance. This is a vegan recipe.

Ingredients

  • 1 small pumpkin (or a quarter of a big pumpkin). Remove seeds and cut unpeeled into large cubes. (I am tempted to experiment with seeds)
  • 2 medium diced red onions
  • 3 cloves of diced garlic
  • 4 teaspoons of mixed fenugreek
  • 1 tablespoon of curry powder (eye measure is best, you don’t want too much as it will obscure the natural sweet flavour of the pumpkin)
  • 1 tablespoon of chili powder (eye measure is best, you don’t want too much as it will obscure the natural sweet flavour of the pumpkin)
  • ½ teaspoon of turmeric powder (eye measure is best, you don’t want too much as it will obscure the natural sweet flavour of the pumpkin)
  • Fistful of dried chilies (or as little or much as you can handle)
  • Half a fistful of curry leaves

Instructions

  1. Heat a tiny drop of oil in pan and add cubed pumpkins over medium to low heat.
  2. Splash a bit of water to keep pumpkin from sticking to pan.
  3. Fry until dark bright orange and fragrant and remove from pan. Be sure to check if it is cooked.
  4. In the same heated pan with oil, fry red onions, garlic, curry leaves, mixed fenugreek and dried chilies over medium heat.
  5. Once fragrant and onions have browned thoroughly, add cooked pumpkin with curry powder, chili powder and turmeric.
  6. Mix all ingredients well. Ensure everything is coated well with spices.
  7. After a few minutes, once spices have heated through, remove and serve.

 

Laks Indrakaran

Kajang, Malaysia

by Laks Indrakaran

Tempeh

Tempeh is the Indonesian answer to Chinese tofu. I had asked Kakak Is to teach me her recipe for preparing sambal tempeh and have tried my best to convey in writing. I have also included a recipe for Kakak Is’s tempeh kukus (steamed tempeh) (see below). If tempeh is not easy to come by, you could very easily use firm tofu as an alternative. In fact sambal could be used as a base for cooking any vegetables. I have tried and liked sambal terong (aubergines) and sambal labu (pumpkin). You merely have to fry/cook the vegetables first and add it to the sauce later. Sambal is truly a simple fragrant dish. Preparation and cooking took 30-40 minutes  but I am sure with practice one could whip up a sambal in 20 mins.

You will need a mortar and pestle for this recipe. If not you will have to improvise, you could lightly blend ingredients using a food processor or hand blender, but you’ll want the ingredients to be fairly coarse. I am hoping to experiment preparing this dish without using oil, if you’ve been succesful, please share. This is a vegan recipe. I have uploaded step by step photos for the sambal on postimage.

Kakak Is’s Sambal Tempeh
Ingredients
Instructions
  1. Fry cubed tempeh thoroughly until crispy yellow-brown. Remove from pan and set aside.
  2. Add the garlic, onions, candlenuts and diced chillies to the mortar and carefully pound until all ingredients have turned into a coarse paste. Feel free to add more red chillies.
  3. Heat pan and empty pounded ingredients from mortar, crushed lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and galangal into pan and fry on a medium low heat.
  4. Keep frying until fragrant and splash a bit of water to keep ingredients from sticking to pan. But not too much as it should be a dry dish.
  5. As the ingredients appear cooked and fragrant, add the fried tempeh and heat through.
  6. Add sugar and salt to taste. This is ussualy a spicy-sweet dish, so you would add more sugar.
  7. After several minutes when ingredients have coooked, remove from pan and serve. I normally have it with Thai Fragrant Rice cooked with pandan leaves and coconut milk
Kakak Is’s Tempeh Kukus (Steamed Tempeh)
Ingredients
  • 1 block of tempeh (or tofu)
  • 2-3 tiny red onions
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 1 red chili diced
  • Thai Basil
Instructions
  1. Pound all ingredients in mortar with pestle until it turns into paste
  2. We ussualy ladle paste into banana leaves and fully wrap to make little parcels. I am not sure what would be an alternative
  3. Place parcels in a steamer and steam for about 15-20 mins. Don’t leave it for too long as it will turn to watery though I didnt mind it.
  4. Remove from steamer and serve. I normally have it with Thai Fragrant Rice cooked with Pandan leaves and coconut milk but I have also had it with fluffy brown rice and really liked it.

 

Laks Indrakaran

Kajang, Malaysia.

 

by Laks Indrakaran

Absolute Nothingness: An Interview with Joel Biroco

During a gloomy winters evening in 2010, I met Joel Biroco at his flat in East London and  have remained friends till this very day. I spent a great deal of time with Joel, discussing the Yijing, Daoism, Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta among thousands of other things.

I can vividly recall all the time spent drinking pots of exotic loose-leaf teas in his garden overlooking the unobstructed horizon, spotting geese flying in chevron, watching out for the neighbors cat at sunset while trying to identify the stars and constellations. Trudging round Walthamstow Reservoir and Epping Forest looking for banded demoiselles , little white egrets and cormorants, while lugging a heavy rucksack filled to bursting with an assortment of lager and stout tins and burning through a large pouch of Golden Virginia. Meeting mutual friends at charming old London pubs trying to keep abreast of the many interesting conversations to the point of forgetting our surroundings and being embarrassingly chucked out at closing time (they still let us back in the next time! occasionally with friendly reminders but to very little avail!). In the last year we spent good amount of time going on pub crawls in Bloomsbury, Soho and several parts of sub-urban East London whilst making interesting friends along the way or being told historical facts about the area. It is impossible to condense or eloquently express the details of my formative years spent in such lively good company and so I will leave it here for now.

Gyrus, whom I met through Joel on a few occasions in the pub, has recently published a very good interview with Joel on his  recently resurrected blog Dreamflesh. I cannot recommend it enough. Both Gyrus and Joel have carried out a remarkably refreshing discussion on Advaita non-duality, philosophy, psychology and the occult. I was barely able to read the interview sat-down due to over-excitement and unavoidable nostalgia. I need not say more, read it for yourself.

https://dreamflesh.com/interview/absolutely-nothing-joel-biroco/

Laks Indrakaran

Kajang, Malaysia.

by Laks Indrakaran

Idle

If I had all the money I’d spent on drink, I’d spend it on drink. – Sir Henry from Sir Henry at Rawlinson End

I figured a brief explanation is in order due to the prolonged inactivity on this so-called journal. Since my last post, I have arrived in Malaysia on the ominous Friday the 13th at Midnight. I had hoped to immediately set-off on adventures around South East Asia without really considering the reality of my non-existent bank account.

Having spent all my savings on drink during my final two months in London, I haven’t even enough to make it to the adjacent town. However, this has been an opportunity to remain idle and rest. Being mostly inactive, there has been little to write about. I spend most of my days idling, reading, walking, haphazardly planting and gardening, and entertaining our three cats. I was hoping to stay off the internet and computer more than I currently am but I am sure this won’t last for long as I have very little reason to go online these days.

The urge to write this post was also partially to justify my in-activeness as not just laziness  or defeatist but largely due to not knowing how to move forward. In the last few days I have come to see this situation as potentially an opportunity to just do nothing. My teacher had emphasised constantly “When you don’t know what to do, best to Do Nothing”. If I remember correctly he was echoing WuWei 無爲, a tenet that is primarily advocated in the Daodejing 道德經, Zhuangzi 莊子 and the Yijing 易經.

I have made a start on the titles listed below. I believe they are good books to have during this forced but much welcomed idleness. Books that requires the reader to reflect for a good duration of time and with little distraction. I’d be very happy to correspond with anyone who knows better or want to discuss these titles. My contact details here.

I believe Nietzsche had expressed a dimension of WuWei (Do Nothing) very well. I have quoted the aphorism below. I had mostly misunderstood Nietzsche (assuming he was a nihilist) until a friend linked me to an illuminating article.

On the hygiene of the “weak.”- Everything done in weakness fails. Moral: do nothing. Only there is the hitch that precisely the strength to suspend activity, not to react, is sickest of all under the influence of weakness: one never reacts more quickly and blindly than when one should not react at all.-A strong nature manifests itself by waiting and postponing any reaction: it is as much characterised by a certain adiaphoria as weakness is by an involuntary counter-movement and the suddenness and inevitability of “action.”- The will is weak and the prescription to avoid stupidities would be to have a strong will and to do nothing.- Contradictio.- A kind of self-destruction; the instinct of preservation is compromised.- The weak harm themselves.- That is the type of decadence.- In fact, we find a tremendous amount of reflection about practices that would lead to impassibility. The instinct is on the right track insofar as doing nothing is more expedient than doing something.- All the practices of the orders, the solitary philosophers, the fakirs are inspired by the right value standard that a certain kind of man cannot benefit himself more than by preventing himself as much as possible from acting.- Means of relief: absolute obedience, machinelike activity, avoidance of people and things that would demand instant decisions and actions. – Will To Power.

Laks Indrakaran

Kajang, Malaysia

by Laks Indrakaran

The Musing of One Who is Uncertain

This is largely an endeavor to stay off social media and the internet as much as possible. I decided to set up this simple blog as a way of keeping myself on the internet without having to subscribe to all sorts distracting means of modern communication yet within reach of all who I consider my dear friends that I met during my 8-9 years of residing in London, United Kingdom.

The title The Uncertain is simply because I am truly in a position of uncertainty and this offers a chance to reflect and write about the situations and lessons that unfold from here on. My flight to leave the United Kingdom permanently, is on the 3rd of January, 2017 and am uncertain if I’ll ever return or where I will be residing on a permanent basis. Regardless of where I end up, I do invite you all to visit me and if I have the space Ill be willing to accommodate all of you whom I have met.

If you are interested in my musing about my interests in relation to the situations I find myself in or my drunken rants, then please do visit here when you find the time and feel free to comment or share your views. I am hoping to be able to stay in touch with you all and it is, as I have said to you all on several occasions in my last two months, a great sense of loss in having to be apart from you all.

I highly encourage my friends to get a Protonmail.ch email account through which we could communicate with end-to-end encryption keeping out surveillance. I can be reached on laksi@ theuncertain.net.

Laks Indrakaran