Malaysia - Ping Coombes

By: Mr Robot

Having already had Ping Coombes' food on one of her Laksa nights, it was inevitable that I'd buy her Malaysia book at the first opportunity, but if there'd been any doubt, two minutes leafing through it in Waterstones sealed the deal. It looks beautiful and has a vast number of recipes that are truly compelling in that they look both instantly appealing and highly achievable. Always assuming one is as highly skilled as me of course. Ahem.

In just a couple of weeks the book had already become a favourite. Idle browsing all too easily turns into a shopping list but that can only ever be a good thing. I probably bought more lemongrass and turmeric in the first fortnight than in my entire pre-Ping life. Again, this is a good thing.

So first up, and I guess predictably, we hit the Beef Rendang. Now, we've had a fair few Rendangs over the years, all of it cooked by people who do so for a living. So the fact that Ping's Rendang - as done by Cpt Ignoramus here - is without doubt the finest we've ever had, by a mile, should tell you all you need to know. It was truly outstanding.


I think the heat distinguishes it: the chilli is almost fierce as a deep, rich background which marries so well to sweet, fragrant coconut, lemongrass and kaffir lime.

And it's not a speedy dish: Ping demands tough, slow meat and it'll take a good 2 to 2 1/2 hours to do it justice.

I've always thought there's too much of the "quick and easy..." kicking around these days anyway.

Anyhoo Ping's Rendang needs devotion and love, but repays it tenfold.

From there I moved to a snack-food double feature. There was Lor Bak, pork spring rolls flavoured with five-spice, and Murtabak, a flaky bread (intriguingly made with condensed milk) stuffed with lightly curried minced lamb, and fried.

To be honest, the Murtabak was a bit of a faff - not least because it wanted to be bathed in oil all night long. Well, yes, who wouldn't, but does the dearest heart who completes your soul do that for you?

Exactly.

Plus, I didn't really achieve the hoped-for flakiness, which I put down to one or more of a) oil too hot / not hot enough, b) too much / little kneading and c) flakiness of my own.

Nonetheless as a crisp outside, gooey inside, meat-n-fats-n-carbs affair it's hard to fault and I sincerely hope to one day arrange for them to coincide with a stinking hangover.


It'll be awesome.




The Lor Bak we were already familiar with since they came as a side with Ping's Laksa and we absolutely loved them.

The recipe in the book didn't disappoint one jot, and they were so good I made a second batch a day or so later.

The fact that most of those were given away to friends says much about my great heart, and tiny brain.




Then came the other inevitability, which was the Laksa itself. To be completely honest it was a bit...off, though I have no doubt that was down to me (after all, what are the odds!).

Or rather, I blame Sainsbury's.



When Ping was in charge I raved about the intense but balanced fish note. Well, when I was driving that balance was off.

The base paste calls for  both dried shrimp, and two tablespoons of shrimp paste, which struck me as quite a lot at the time. In the eating it was just too fishy for comfort, and that shrimp paste overpowered the rest of the dish.


I strongly suspect that foil packet of supermarket shrimp paste (two tablespoons was basically the entire thing) was not what Ping had in mind.

Either that or I didn't cook the paste out long enough.

In some ways though, I'm quite glad it turned out that way.  It's been a good and rare experience of having a dish as it absolutely should be, and then failing to reproduce it myself.


An excellent demonstration of why the author has her authority.




Finally (so far) I had a bash at the Captain's Chicken Curry. I don't know why but the name made me sceptical - perhaps it sounds a little contrived - but I had some chicken to use up, so why not?

One reason why not, which gave me genuine pause for thought, was the use of 20 (yes twenty) Kashmiri chillies. Since the already pokey Rendang used 15 I feared it'd be a bit too much, and Mrs Robot might hiccup herself into total shutdown.

Well I needn't have feared - it's an absolutely stunning dish. Yes it's hot but again so perfectly balanced, this time given a real edge by a good dose of tamarind contrasting with the coconut milk, while the chicken itself is brilliantly smokey thanks to marinading in turmeric before frying.

Unforgivably, I failed to get any pictures. It just smelled so amazing, from the first minute of cooking, I didn't even think about the camera. That's how good it is.

In fact I think might even be better than the Rendang. Mrs Robot isn't sure and now demands both together for a proper comparison. I can't wait to do it.

There are so many more things I want to do from this book. We've had so much great and exciting stuff already, and t's a book that gives pleasure equally in the reading and the using. For me that's about as good as it gets.

All images (c) PP Gettins

Laksa Mondays

By: Mr Robot

Back in the early years of this millennium, you could find me in Bath's Green Park Tavern pretty much any day of the week because it was
a) close to home,
b) even closer to the office, and
c) a proper pub complete with open fire and sticky-toffee carpet.

Sadly those days are long gone and the GPT has since been reinvented several times - most recently as a moderately swish (ie. clean) Smokehouse.

 It's a shameful admission that until recently I'd never actually had a Laksa. Not even made one of the sundry Nigel Slaters that are kicking around the house. But in menu or cookbook, whenever I think of it - and I do, often - there's always sometime a bit more exciting, so I do or have that instead.

Not least because I sort of thought I sort of knew that Laksa's a kind of coconutty, noodly soup, so what's there to get excited about? Which is monumentally stupid because Ohn No Khao Swe is also a coconutty noodly soup, and almost the best thing in the world. So I'm a buffoon.

Anyhoo, when word reached the Robot mailbox that Masterchef winner and pride of Bath, Ping Coombs ,was doing a Laksa pop-up at the GPT Smokehouse, we had to go.

Did I mention the lovely tables?
We spent a long time looking at them

The set-up was a good one, I think: fixed Laksa for the main course but with a few options around as starters/sides and puddings.

As already noted, Laksa in itself doesn't really make me gasp but I was interested to find out about the sides, (streetfoody stuff I hoped - win) and anyway if you're going to do the thing, this seemed like an excellent place to start.

How right I was.

It's not in my nature to be mean (honestly, no matter what you may hear) but I have to say the service was somewhat creaky. Talking to the staff afterwards, they freely admitted they'd been taken by surprise at the popularity of the event. Which is kind of daft on one level (Ping!), but also disarmingly sweet.

So seating was kind of chaotic ("just find a place - it'll be ok") but luckily we'd run into some of the nice people from the Pig Guide so we had strength in numbers.

I'm sure that, had it been just two Robots, there'd have been a lot of anxious whirring and some burnt diodes in the social-acceptibility networks. As it was, we were ok with chums.

The wait, it is true, was a tad lengthy, and some people got a bit grumpy. Personally I'm more forgiving of a pop-up; in this situation it's not the "professional" environment I'd expect from a regular night in a full-time establishment. In some ways it feels almost closer to a dinner party, even if I am paying to attend. Certainly I have a great deal more sympathy for (and identify with) the poor bugger in the kitchen. I don't know, maybe that's patronising, but I hope it's kind.

In any case, the ready supply of Exmoor ale and good company meant timing wasn't really an issue. Had it been just the two of us, there may well have been phone fiddling, thumb twiddling and eventually bickering and bitterness, but that's just us.

When the food showed up, it was a real joy.

Great sadness that the pork-scratchingy thing had sold out was balanced by the truly brilliant porky-rolly thing that was so intensely flavoured yet comfortingly tender it was little short of addictive.

Porky-Rolly Joy. As stolen by Evil Wife

I honestly can't convey how good this was. I know that's my failing and I should try harder, but it's late. When I make it myself, I'll wax more lyrical. Promise.

Mrs R had been hesitant about the prawn and chive fritters, until she tasted them. The texture was akin to onion bhaji (was it gram flour? I've no idea, but it was soft and nutty inside, which you can already imagine alongside sweetness of prawn lumps and oniony freshness so I need say no more).

Needless to say I had no such doubts, and hope to be rewarded for my faith in due course.

Oh ye of fritter faith...

The laksa itself as the main course really stood up, for me. Yes it was rich and fragrant, which I'd expected. I hadn't anticipated the strength of fish sauce*, or how well it would harmonise with everything else.

As we've recounted at length, fish sauce and all its ilk has been something of a learning curve. A couple of years ago, I'd have been actively put off by the very thing I'm praising now, because truly the fish sauciness made the dish for me.

That's the way (a-ha, a-ha) I laks....sorry

(*I can't say for sure it was actually fish sauce - it might have been mashed dried shrimps or something else I can't bear to think about. It was that surprisingly strong element, though, that both stood out in itself and enhanced everything else).

Delicious tender pork, prawny prawn, soft egg and softer noodles were all lovely, but oh that soupy sauce.




It's fair to say Mrs Robot wasn't quite as enchanted as I, but it's also fair to say she's both weird and wrong.

We didn't make it to pudding, which is a shame because there was some coconutty (possibly noodly) thing that really appealed to me.

But last orders was looming and by the time we noticed we were pretty much the last people standing - however unsteadily.

What was a real delight, though, was that Ping made the effort to come out and talk to every table, and gave everyone a good amount of time to boot.

We caught the end of that as we came in, when she was seeing to the earlier sitting whilst trying to set up for us lot.  At the end of the evening she was clearly knackered but still charming, and cheerfully willing to spend plenty of time with her punters.

There's an argument that, since she's trading on her TV success, we should expect nothing less - but I've seen enough great and not-so-great (frankly rubbish) behaviour to really appreciate the time and attention she gave us.

She even gave me the recipe for the amazing porky-rolly thing.

But I'm damned if I'm telling you.

All images (c) P P Gettins