![\"Duck](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/20220927_200020.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBut we’re getting ahead of ourselves… this is Indonesian food, so obviously the FIRST thing we need to do is make a spice paste.<\/p>\n
This was similar to the other Indonesian pastes we’ve made, but definitely the most complex so far.\u00a0 It included shallots, shrimp paste, cinnamon, cloves, coconut milk, coriander seed, garlic, lemongrass, nutmeg, cumin seed, cardamom, galangal, tamarind paste, and white pepper. Once it was ground up, it ALSO needed to be fried for a bit.<\/p>\n The smell was, once again, fantastic.\u00a0 We smeared this all over the duck and left it to marinate overnight.\u00a0 \u00a0 Once the duck was marinated, the cooking process was simplicity itself – wrap in aluminum foil, and slow roast at low temperature for three hours.\u00a0 You hold back a little bit of the paste to mix with coconut milk and spinach to make a sauce.<\/p>\n But spinach sauce does not by itself a vegetable dish make, so let’s turn to our second dish for this meal – water spinach with hot and sour dressing.\u00a0 Water spinach is something we’ve seen before on this blog – cooked with fermented red bean curd, we used it in our Chinese meal from the costal southeast<\/a>.<\/p>\n In this case, however, we’re going to be cooking it with… wait for it…<\/p>\n A spice paste!\u00a0 But not a super complicated one this time.\u00a0 Just chills, garlic, shrimp paste, salt, and peanut oil.<\/p>\n The spice paste gets fried for a bit.<\/p>\n And then you cook the water spinach until it wilts and toss in some lime juice at the last minute.<\/p>\n At this point, it’s time to pull the duck breasts out of their little foil saunas.<\/p>\n Look at all that tasty flavor.\u00a0 Let’s get this on the table.<\/p>\n And there we are.\u00a0 Not a lot of drama for the writeup this time, just duck with spices and veg with spices.<\/p>\n But let’s not bury the lede here – the duck was\u00a0so damn tasty.<\/em> Slow cooking made the duck just melt, and the spice blend was utterly magical.\u00a0 The water spinach held up nicely to the assertive duck as well.\u00a0 This was a GREAT meal, and Indonesia is definitely high on our list of favorite countries so far.<\/p>\n But we’re moving on now, to either Iran, or.. we may finally loop back around to hit the country we’ve missed.\u00a0 Do you remember which one that was?\u00a0 It will be on the quiz…<\/p>\n Recipes: One more Indonesian meal to go, this one from the smaller island of Bali.\u00a0 Although it’s taken a little bit longer to do this write up, we actually managed to make all three Indonesian meals in the space of a … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>
\nWhere the cassava leaves from Sumatra were probably ground a bit too fine, I suspect this Spinach was actually supposed to be chopped a bit finer.\u00a0 Oh well.<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nStill, the little chopper is earning it’s keep this week.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nBalinese Duck Breasts (The recipe we made was from Sri Owen’s “Indonesian Kitchen<\/a>“, but this one<\/a> seems reasonably similar.)
\nWater Spinach with Hot and Sour Dressing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"