Monday = baozi night!

With the groceries I brought from San Diego, I decided to make some homemade baozi (hand-formed dumplings). Despite appearances, these didn't take that much time to make at all. Here are the ingredients:

For the filling:
1/2 lb. shrimp, peeled and chopped rather coarsely
1 small Taiwanese cabbage (about 1/2 lb.), shredded (you can substitute Western cabbage, but the filling will taste differently)
1/2 lb. garlic chives, chopped to 1/2 inch lengths.
3 T salt
2 T peanut oil
1 T oyster sauce
1-1/2 t soy sauce
1 T Shaoxing wine
1/2 t sesame oil

Generously sprinkle salt on the shredded cabbage and let rest for about 30 min. Then put the cabbage in some cheesecloth and squeeze out the excess moisture. Wash cabbage briefly to get rid of excess salt and drain. Preheat a wok; when the wok is hot, pour the peanut oil in. After that, put in the chopped shrimp; cook until the pieces barely turn pink. Add garlic chives and cabbage; stir-fry until chives are wilted. Add soy sauce, oyster sauce, and Shaoxing wine; cook until heated. Before taking it off the flame, sprinkle some sesame oil into the mixture. Stir well and put aside in a heat-resistant bowl.

For the wrapper dough:
2 C all-purpose flour
3/4 C boiling water

Gradually add water to flour, stirring to distribute water evenly. Turn flour-water mixture out onto a clean, flat surface and knead until smooth. The kneading should take about 5 min. or so to complete. After kneading, cover dough and let rest for 30 min.

Here is the filling mixture:


Prepare the wrapping. Take out the dough that has been resting and turn out onto clean, flat surface. Roll dough into a sausage shape about 2 inches in diameter. Cut into 24 equal pieces. Take one piece of dough (cover the other pieces to prevent them from drying out) and roll it into a round shape. Flatten the shape onto the surface. With a rolling pin, flatten the dough until it reaches to about 4-5 inches in diameter. Take the circle of dough, put a tablespoonful of filling into the center, and draw up the edges to the center, so that it forms a "treasure-bag" shape. Twist the edges to close the dumpling.

In a frying pan (preferably non-stick), heat up about 1 tablespoon of peanut oil. Place about eight baozi in the pan and fry briefly. Then, add about 1/2 C water and tightly cover pan. About 8-10 minutes later, the water will have evaporated and the dough should be frying. You want a golden surface on the bottom of these baozi. Carefully lift baozi (especially if you're using a regular frying pan) and serve immediately.

The completed baozi.

A glorious Thanksgiving weekend

I've just come back from the Thanksgiving weekend I had in San Diego, where I was born and raised, and where most of my family still lives. You should be aware of the following equation: Filipino family + holiday + son/daughter coming from a location more than 2 hrs. away = getting fed almost constantly for the entire weekend. That's pretty much true. Anyway, here's what was served in my folks' house in SD:


We had a smallish turkey - for about 15 people. And we had around 15 guests, so it was rather perfect. When I was really young, we would have many more than 15 guests, and the turkey would be a lot bigger. We'd also have leftovers up the ying-yang - it was so difficult to get rid of them! The one thing that I know I couldn't exactly reproduce on this table is not visible in this photo: my mother's gravy (giblets and neck meat included). It is the best! You'll have to take my word for it ;)

The day after, I decided to go to one of my favorite areas in SD: the Kearny Mesa area around Convoy St. Insiders know that this is where the top East Asian restaurants (Chinese, Japanese, Korean cuisines) are to be found. A sort of "Asian restaurant row", so to speak. As for me, I went to a Szechuan restaurant that was tucked away in a street some distance away from the main Convoy restaurant row called "Ba Ren", where I ordered the mabo tofu, of course. This version had that spicy and numbing flavor combination that is a must for this dish. A definite winner. I'll have to order the "water-boiled" dishes the next time around. I also did some Asian grocery shopping.

Last night, I went to the same area with a couple of really good friends from high school to eat at a Korean BBQ restaurant called Boo Cho. Unlike the restaurant in Oxnard, this place uses real charcoal for their tabletop grills, which really makes a difference in taste. This place did not disappoint. My friends had ordered lightly salted beef fillet and marinated short rib (kalbi, remember?); I ordered the samgyeopsal (literally "three-layered skin/flesh"), a term used for pork belly. The pork used this time around was from a special, rather luxurious breed known as Berkshire (or in Japanese, kurobuta). This pig has extremely balanced proportions of meat and fat in the belly, and everywhere else while we're at it. I'm definitely going back to that place.


The panchan at the Boo Cho Korean BBQ restaurant in San Diego.


Holding a crispy slice of Berkshire samgyeopsal. You can see the grill in the center of the table.

Portret gamelan dan tarian

Or "Photos of gamelan and dance" for you English-speaking folk. Anyway, I was just running around like crazy today, and yet I hardly did any research. It happens sometimes. For those of you who are still unsure of what a "gamelan" is, I've provided another post with more interesting photos - hurrah! (If you're curious as to how exactly I got involved in Indonesian performing arts, that's a topic for another post.) Let's start off with a couple of Balinese dance photos.


Here I am, dancing the role of Jauk Manis. The jauk is a sort of guardian spirit for the barong, the protector of all Balinese villages who takes on several different animal forms. Indeed, even though this character looks menacing (with the leery smile, googly eyes, and wavering fingernails), he likes to have fun while walking through the forest. The costume itself is a marvel - it takes me at least 25-30 minutes to put it on, and that's rushing it. And yes, it's extremely warm inside the costume. However, once you get into the dance, you don't notice how hot you get until you take the costume off. Almost like a trance.


Another shot of me, this time in one of my more mischievous poses in the Jauk Manis character. Actually, this character is allowed to perform improvised gestures and movements at times. By the same token, the embodiment of this role is accomplished only by the dancer's movements - you can't change the expression on a mask. However, a dancer with the most desirable (and elusive) quality called taksu ('divine inspiration') can project a mask with a palette of emotions, even though its face is certainly static.

OK, now onto the gamelan part:


This is the Javanese gamelan ensemble (the set of instruments carries the name Kyai Selamet - "The Honorable Auspicious One") at UC Santa Barbara during a midday concert. I'm in the middle playing the drum, or kendhang.


Closer view of me playing kendhang. Unlike Western classical orchestras, which have visible conductors, the drummer controls the tempo and dynamics of the music using only audible signals. This is one of the most difficult things to convey to many students who have had (Western) classical training.

Well, another lecture finished ;)

How's your hyeomit?

Here's the Indonesian conversation group, grilling our own food (pork and hyeomit - beef tongue!) on the table. Cool, huh? From left to right: Sabrina, Brent, Joseph, and Mara.


This particular restaurant serves a lot of panchan (side dishes to be eaten with rice - the Korean version of nggado). The panchan include kimchee, k'ongnamul (boiled bean sprouts with sesame oil and soy sauce dressing), jeon (egg pancake), miyeok namul (simmered seaweed with sesame and oil soy sauce dressing), kamja jorim (soy & vinegar simmered potatoes), and more. This is why you shouldn't order too much in a Korean restaurant.


Here I am, preparing to grill a couple of slices of beef tongue, which is on a plate on the right side of the photo. I have some slices on the grill, on the left. For those who wince at the thought of eating beef tongue, it's very tasty - trust me! Joseph ate a slice, and he said, "This is the most ironic thing I've ever eaten - but it's pretty tasty." Enough said. Get some beef tongue. Grill it on your table. You'll thank me later.

My take on mabo tofu

I decided to make some mabo tofu one evening, but I realized that I didn't have any ground beef or pork, so I had to use some dry-fried shrimp that I had in the freezer. "Gasp", goes the Szechuan gourmet ;) Anyway, to speed up the defrosting process, I put a number of shrimp in a mixture of Shaoxing wine and cold water, enough to cover the shrimp. I then proceeded to consult the mabo tofu recipe from Fuschia Dunlop's "Land of Plenty" (2001) since it looked to be the most straightforward version. I've adapted the recipe to the ingredients I had around - good cooks have to be resourceful by nature, you know.

Here are the ingredients:

1 block tofu, cut into 1-in. cubes
2 1/2 T doubanjian (Szechuan chili bean paste)
1/2 C peanut oil
1 T dousi (fermented black beans)
1-2 t ground chili pepper (I used Korean gochugaru - sacrilege!)
1 C chicken stock
1 t white sugar
2 t light soy sauce
salt to taste
cornstarch mixture with 4 T cornstarch :: 6 T cold water
1/2 t ground roasted Szechuan pepper (also known as huajiao).

Plus the shrimp...

Put the tofu into a pot of gently simmering water, lightly salted if you wish. In a wok, heat up the oil until smoking, then add the shrimp; cook until fragrant. Then add doubanjian and heat until fragrant. After that, add dousi and chili powder.


Here is the mixture with the shrimp, oil, doubanjian, dousi, and gochugaru chili powder. Fry until fragrant. Meanwhile, drain the tofu. Add the chicken stock, sugar, and soy sauce to the wok and heat until simmering. Gradually add the tofu, making sure that it doesn't break once it's in the wok.


The tofu gets added. Simmer for 5 minutes so that the flavor can penetrate the tofu.


After 5 minutes of simmering, add the cornstarch mixture a little bit at a time, until the tofu becomes glossy with the sauce. You should not overthicken the sauce. Then, sprinkle the huajiao over the top of the mabo tofu. Eat with plenty of steamed rice.

Well, how did this turn out? It wasn't as spicy or "fragrantly numbing" (ma la) as it should be. I think I need to get another brand of doubanjian and add more Szechuan pepper the next time. A caveat: if you haven't tasted the "fragrant numbing" (ma) sensation provided by Szechuan pepper, you should take a grain of the pepper, chew it once or twice, and spit it out. In a couple of moments, you will feel a strange numbing sensation with a citrus-like fragrance. Do not be alarmed - this is what you want.

Hope you enjoy making this.

Still not working...

My connection, that is - arrgh again! Anyway, I'm here on campus, still working on the transcription. It's going to be a very, very long process. Tonight, I'm going down to Oxnard to meet some friends to practice our Indonesian - guess where? If you said "an Indonesian/Malaysian restaurant", good guess, but wrong! We're actually going to meet at a Korean BBQ restaurant - go figure. Added bonus - I can practice my too-polite Korean. I mean, I at least know how to order things in a restaurant, heh heh. I'll take some photos tonight and have them up soon (I hope).

Arrgh!

Well, my connection at home isn't working today, so I can't do much right now.

Anyway, rehearsal was really good last night. We played that spiritual piece, and it sounded quite mysterious on the instruments here. The notation, though, had people in stitches. Usually, notation for Javanese gamelan looks like this - for you number-phobes out there, you might want to go to another site for now ;) (Yes, we "play-by-number", so to speak.) It's not code, I swear!

-3-2 -3-2 3132 -1-(6)

And so on...

But the notation for the special piece (from the Sekaten repertoire) looks like this:

311 311 3231 <6>, 636 525 535 (5)

Commas and bracketed numbers? What has the world come to? ;)

Anyway, I promise I'll get some photos soon.

But I did make that pot of coffee today - yay!

And it was great. I recently got this bag of New Mexico Pinon coffee, a mix of roasted coffee beans and pinon pine nuts. Plenty of coffee beans, and yet I'm still looking for the pinon nuts - oh well. Anyway, tonight I have (yet) another rehearsal for the UCSB Javanese gamelan - we might try out a more spiritual piece today, one that's played only once every year in the court centers of Yogyakarta and Solo (also known as Surakarta). I'll probably put up some photos as well.

Anyway, I took my fourth Korean test today - I'm expecting that I've aced it. Hmm... I've also done some data transcribing of some Balinese. It just takes a looong time. And Balinese is one of those languages where the pronunciation of consonants is a bit more "subtle" than in languages like English or German. The consonants are like those in other Western Austronesian languages like Tagalog. (BTW, don't get me started on people mispronouncing that name as "tag a log" - it's definitely not that. It should be [ta.GA:.lohg], with stress and length on the second syllable - minor rant...) Anyway, when I hear foreigners try to pronounce Tagalog words, there's usually something disconcerting with their consonants and stress. Tagalog consonants do not have that much "aspiration", or that puff of air that accompanies the p's, t's, and k's that are in the beginning of words like 'pie', 'tie', and 'kite'. It's a similar situation with Balinese consonants, perhaps even more so.

Anyhow, how's your aspiration :)?

Never did make that coffee today...

Oh well, I'll do it tomorrow morning. Tonight is another gamelan rehearsal, this time gamelan degung from Sunda (the western part of Java).

Coffee-driven gamelan!

Had a rather good rehearsal tonight with the UCSB Javanese Gamelan. We started a bit late, but then, that would be the standard m.o. in Java. Anyway, we played a couple of zany pieces - the one that is really stuck in my mind now is called "Kopi Susu" (Coffee With Milk), a modern piece written by Pak Cokro, a venerated composer who just turned 100 (Javanese?) years (yes, he's still kicking). This has got to be the craziest piece I've heard in all my years playing. Lots of pitch 4's - a very dark pitch in Javanese gamelan. Also, the words go something like "Kopi susu, paling enake gulane batu..." [Coffee with milk is at its most delicious with rock sugar...] The most random lyrics, I tell you. Hmm, that reminds me: I think I'll make a good pot of coffee tomorrow.

A Pictoral Intro to Balinese Dance

Here I am, dancing the Topeng Dalem at the Santa Barbara Multicultural Dance and Music Festival, August 2004. Topeng means 'mask', or more precisely, 'something that covers' (from the root tup 'to close'). In Bali, it mostly refers to a drama danced by a single dancer who dons various masks that represent abstract character types rather than specific characters - specific names and references are given during the drama's exposition. Topeng Dalem portrays a refined king, and the dance is quite calm in nature, even with its rather (musically) strong climax. (Thanks to Jim Belesley for the photo.)

Language classes

I have a minor issue with most language classes. I find that most of the talk that goes on in these classes is only relevant to the classroom, with little practical use. For example, this term I'm taking a beginning Korean class. I finding it quite simple, since 1) I'm a linguistics guy and 2) I took Japanese (which is structurally very similar) a long time ago. However, I feel as though I wouldn't be prepared at all if you placed me in the middle of Seoul, left to my own devices to get food, accommodation, and so on. Sure, I could say what my major, school year, and class schedule are -- but to ask for a train ticket, no way man!

I found myself in this very same position four years ago in Kyoto, Japan. Luckily, I was able to read the menus and order food, even in places that had no English menus, since I (still) enjoy reading cookbooks and other books related to food, especially those written in other languages. (Gokuro sama deshita, Ryouri no Tetsujin!) But I was at a loss when I tried to buy a special "hikari" shinkansen ticket from Kyoto to Narita via Tokyo... This was even more frustrating since I was traveling with five other friends who couldn't speak or read any Japanese at all.

Anyway, my Indonesian learning experience was really different in this regard. The textbook did not only have "classroom" and "cafe" conversations; it also had conversations about more practical things like "renting an apartment", "at the train station", "riding the bus/taxi/becak", and so on. I really liked those lessons...

Welcome to "Gongs and Tongs"

Hi and welcome to the "Gongs and Tongs" blog. Why the title? Well, let me give you some background info. I'm currently a grad student (fifth year) in the Linguistics department at UC Santa Barbara. Great department, nice place. Anyway, I've been studying Balinese and Javanese performing arts for over 10 years, hence the "Gongs". I'm also an avid cook (I specialize in mostly Asian cuisine), hence the "Tongs". I'll post some pictures of my food when the opportunities arise. I hope to inspire some of you out there to either cook or play gamelan (or most preferably both), so onward!