When do you want to futz with a recipe? Cucur Badak recipe, the 2024 edition
How recipes can evolve over time + 🌵 Tucson Festival of Books
Hello everyone,
A few quick notes first. If you’re in Arizona, I’ll be doing a demo and talk at the Tucson Festival of Books. 🌵It’s a big, fun, FREE event. Here’s where, when, and what to expect:
When: Sat, Mar 9, 2:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Where: Culinary Stage
Booksigning: Follows demo; the festival is showcasing Ever-Green Vietnamese!I’ll be offering folks a primer on how to incorporate more Viet-ish, plant-based meals into their diets. In the one hour, I’m hoping to cover simple techniques, essential advice, and a thoughtful approached to reimagining classic Viet dishes. Come for the abundance of tender herbs and fresh vegetables and stay as you discover healthy, inspiring dishes.
If you already have Ever-Green Vietnamese and would like a signed bookplate, email me. And, please take moment to leave a positive review at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, indie shops, or wherever you made the purchase.
Onwards to the dumpling discoveries!
Every once in a while, someone shares that they never follow recipes. It usually happens after I tell them that I develop recipes and write cookbooks for a living. Are they trying to disappear me? We’ve only just met! If they’re signaling their cooking chops, I want a dinner invitation! Alas, the invite never materializes.
I write recipe-filled books because I adore and respect good recipes. When I was growing up and new to America, cookbooks opened up a world of unknowns and helped me cozy up to them. For instance, I learned about foreign cultures through the Time Life World of Food series. From Irene Kuo’s The Keys to Chinese Cooking, I visualized how to “swiftly stir-fry” and “velvet” proteins even before I practiced the techniques. Julia Child, Jacques Pepin, and others taught me discipline and patience.
If I didn’t follow their recipe and advice, how would I have learned the culinary foundations? How would I know when it’s ok to break the rules?
A solid, well-written recipe is like a good kitchen friend. It sets you straight, gives you room to push back sometimes, and helps you right your wrongs.
By the time you see a recipe in one of my books, they’re pretty tight — tested multiple times by me, at least one recipe tester, and then again, if we’re photographing beauty shots, which usually accounts for 60 to 70% of the full manuscript. Even so, after publication, when I’m using a recipe from one of my books, I review it to see if there is room for improvement.
How spot on was I? Have my tastes changed? Should the recipe evolve to match current ingredients and lifestyles?
This past week, my curiosity led to two (2) batches of cucur badak, the Malaysian sweet potato dumpling recipe that involved me cracking two teeth as I mentioned in my last post. I wanted answers to the following:
Managing the dough moisture was a problem in 2009. How can I make less wet dough? And, can I do it easily (or, why would do it)?
I don’t have grated frozen coconut handy and don’t want to go to an Asian market. Can I substitute dried coconut?
Is a vegan filling doable and tasty? How well can vegetables mimic the piscine quality of dried shrimp?
I went at it and the results is an updated recipe that enables you to:
Make cucur badak pescatarian or vegan.
Create a delicately crisper exterior.
Use supermarket coconut.
I managed to push the limits of the recipe but it also reminded me that certain things in the kitchen remain tried, true and solid. Below are my recipe development notes, the recipe with how-to process shots, and a downloadable recipe PDF.
Whether or not you make the dumpling, I hope my experience helps you to tinker with recipes to make them your own.