Indochine -

Bay Pa-Ems's Roast Chicken

2009-07-13T10:02:00.003+01:00

Nusara Thaitawat put together a brilliant book on The Cuisine of Cambodia; the recipes brought to life with stunning photography by Somkid Chaijitvanit and Yingyong Un-anongrak.

It's unfortunately out of print but I managed to pick up a copy when I was last visiting Cambodia.

Cambodian cuisine is notoriously complex and if not complex then often more than a little adventurous: a Platter of Deep and Stir-Fried Insects for example - a mixture of water bugs, tarantulas, crickets and silkworm pupae. Or how about Porng Ang-Krang - sauteed Red Ants'Eggs). Not for the faint-hearted.

But here's a very simple recipe for an absolutely wonderful Cambodian roast chicken originating in the kitchen of the Bay Pa-Em restaurant just outside Kampong Speu. Mrs Sun Lorn's roast chicken is apparently one of the most famous chicken dishes in the country.

Take one whole chicken (without giblets), clean inside and out. Rub all over with a seasoning made up of 2tbs black pepper and 1tbsp salt and 6 cloves of garlic. I crush everything together in a mortar and spread it over the chicken as evenly as possible.

The traditional way of roasting chicken is in a pot over a charcoal fire with a couple of lumps placed on the pot lid to ensure even heating. But the dish works very well in an ordinary oven at around 180 degrees farenheit (170 if using a fan oven). 45 minutes per kilo plus 20mins. Then rest covered for 15 minutes before tucking in.

How simple is that? If you try it, let me know what you think.

Indochine the cookery site

2009-05-09T15:37:00.004+01:00

I came across another Indochine recently - a beautiful blog devoted to Asian cooking, specifically a fusion between Chinese and Indonesian cuisine. It has been put together and lovingly maintained by Rina Jun and reflects a range of original family recipes from her Northern Sumatran home. Many remind me of my own time spent in Cirebon, in central Indonesia. The site is well worth a visit if you like Asian food.

Vietnamese turned Venetian for Little Dorrit

2008-12-31T19:02:00.004Z

At the tail-end of 2008 many of you may have seen the BBC/Andrew Davies adaptation of Charles Dicken's Little Dorrit starring Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Mackenzie Crook (Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy)(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1178522/). A key scene is set in Mrs Merdle's Venice palazzo. For this scene, Hampton Court Palace was pressed into service as a suitable location and for the illumination - Indochine lanterns. Some additions were made to the lanterns to make them fit the style of the period - Venice circa 1825, but they lit up well and the director loved them.

It was a large scale BBC drama intended for international release so it should get a wider audience before long - If only we had managed a credit at the end.

These pics from the set will have to do.

Vietnamese silk laterns

2008-12-03T16:58:00.003Z

Still more people searching for silk laterns rather than lanterns. See earlier post on the subject of silk laterns

Two oriental lanterns won in September Draw

2008-09-09T16:37:00.004+01:00

The winners in the August draw (ending 1st September) were Emma Wallace from Orpington and Jaye Dixon from Botley. Both have won oriental silk lanterns from our stock range. The next round of the Prize Draw is now open and the closing date is the 1st October 2008.

On a related note, we've had quite a few people enter the draw having previously removed themselves from the mailing list. As email is the only way we contact winners this is probably not the best idea and certainly isn't in the spirit of the thing. As past entrants will no doubt testify, we don't use entrants email address for anything other than passing on news of the competition and any special offers we may be running at the time. If entrants remove themselves from our mailing list we cannot add them back in. Unless they opt back in we have no way of contacting them - the postal service isn't an option with 100s of entrants each month. So if you do enter, and we hope you do, please bear this in mind.

One final 'housekeeping' note, this is the last month we'll be giving away two lanterns. From October it will just be the one based on the random draw.

However, we will be introducing a poll which will provide an alternative opportunity to get hold of Indochine lanterns - more of which later.

Chinese Lanterns won in August 2008 prize draw

2008-08-03T09:28:00.003+01:00

The latest round ending 1st August was won by Kandy Jones from Gosport and Janet Sykes from Honley near Huddersfield. The latter won for being the first to enter choosing what subsequently proved to be the favourite choice in the round and the former for simply having her number come up in the random number draw after all duplicate and otherwise spoiled entries were removed from the tally. The next round in our free entry prize draw is already underway and the draw will take place on 1st September 2008.

Shed a little light on the matter.

2008-07-25T15:26:00.003+01:00

It's sometimes difficult to know what you're going to get when you buy from a web site. If you're a recent owner of an Indochine lantern, please spare a few moments to share your feedback with others who may be thinking of buying from us. It may be all the encouragement they need.

Tamarind Water

2008-07-06T18:16:00.003+01:00

Sometimes called Tamarind purée. To make this soak a ping-pong ball sized piece of Tamarind pulp (with all it's seeds) in 120ml of hot water, or 3 tbsp in 225ml of hot water, until soft.Squeeze the pulp repeatedly with your fingers to dissolve it and then pour the lot into a strainer, forcing the liquid through with the back of a spoon. Discard the fibrous material and just use the thick liquid.

It's a right palaver but worth the effort for the taste it adds. But because it takes some effort, I tend to make up a whole 'brick' of the stuff in one go and use ice-cube freezer bags to store the surplus in the freezer for later.

Phad Thai recipe

2008-07-06T14:03:00.003+01:00

This Phad Thai (Phat Thai) recipe comes from one of my favourite books on asian cooking. It's South East Asian Food by Rosemary Brissenden. Elizabeth David, no less, is quoted as saying that it's "a book every serious cook should possess". A great recommendation.

The particular version in Brissenden's book is Sen Chan Phat Thai which owes it's name to the use of Chantaburi Noodles, but she suggests using Thai sen lek noodles, available as A Grade Banh Pho imported from Thailand and available in Asian speciality food shops. Noodles, either in soup or fried are the standard lunch dish of urban Thailand. Most are close to the Chinese prototypes from which they are derived. Phat Thai (Padh Thai) however, contains flavours that are characteristically Thai.

Ingredients
250g (9oz) narrow dried rice noodles
4 cloves of garlic
5 tbsp vegetable oil
4 large raw prawns, shelled de-veined but tails left on
3 shallots
1 tsp dried chilli flakes
100g (3 and a half oz) hard white beancurd, cut into very small dice
2 eggs
2 tbsp fish sauce
1-2 tbsp sugar
4 tbsp tamarind water
2 tbsp dried shrimp washed well and then ground
2 cups beansprouts, tailed and washed
half cup of Chinese leeks or garlic chives cut into 2.5cm / 1inch pieces
half a cup of roasted peanuts, very roughly ground.

Garnish
about 20 leaves of Indian or Asian Pennywort (bua bok; Centella Asiatica) oe 1-2 leaves of slightly bitter lettuce such as Italian endive or tree lettuce or mignonette lettuce.
half a cup of beansprouts
a few spring onion/scallion curls
half a cup of roasted and very roughly ground peanuts.
1 lime cut into wedges the Thai way.

As with most stir fried food you need to have all your ingredients prepared first. This fast paced cooking method doesn't allow for mid-term preparation. So have all your ingredients in separate little bowls arranged around the cooking area.

Soak the noodles in cold water for 30 minutes. Drain thoroughly then cut into manageable lengths with scissors (about 3 cuts across should be enough). Smash and chop 1 clove of garlic, heat 1 tbsp of oil in a wok on medium heat and fry until yellow. Add the fresh prawns and stir-fry unti they are cooked. Remove and keep warm. In a mortar or food processor attachment mash the rest of the garlic, the shallots and the chilli flakes into a fine paste.

From this point on the cooking will be more easily done in two batches in order to allow plenty of room in the wok for tossing.

Add two more tablespoons of oil to the wok and when it is hot put in half the garlic, chilli and shallot paste and stir-fry, turning constantly to avoid sticking and to ensure everything is well mixed and oiled. Push the noodles to one side of the wok. Add a little more oil if necessary, add half the beancurd and stir-fry for a minute. Push this aside in the pan also. Break one egg into the wok and pierce its yolk. When the egg starts to set on the bottom, stir and scramble it lightly with the edge of the spatula. return the noodles and the beancurd to the centre of the pan and continue stirring until everything is mixed together well.

Turning the heat down a little, add half the fish sauce, sugar and tamarind water and toss everything together until the sugar has dissolved. Add the dried shrimp, 1 cup of beansprouts and half of the chinese leaks. Taste and adjust the flavours to your liking then turn off the heat and stir in half a cup of the roasted peanuts.

Place in a bowl and keep aside while you cook a second batch. After doing this add the first batch to the pan for a final stir and warming, then dish everything up on to one side of a serving platter. Arrange the prawns on top or on the outer edge. Arrange the pennywort or bitter lettuce leaves, a handful of washed beansprouts, a few spring onion curls and the remainder of the roughly ground peanuts decoratively in separate mounds on the other side of the dish. Add attractively cut wedges of lime for individual diners to squeeze over the noodles to their taste and have on the table a bowl of fish sauce with finley sliced rounds of small red chillies in it (Nam Pla Phrik), one of the chilli flakes (Phrik Pon) and one of white sugar so that each person amy adjust the seasoning as desired.

Banana Flower recipe

2008-07-06T11:00:00.006+01:00

Variously described as Banana Flower or Banana Blossom, this salad recipe comes from the Cuisine of Cambodia by Nusara Thaitawat a beautifully presented book with stunning photography by Somkid Chaijitvanit and Yingyong Un-anongrak. Unfortunately it's currently out of print, otherwise I'd post link to buy it.

Nhoam Tra - Yaung Chek Banana Flower Salad

Ingredients
200g of banana flower/blossom, thinly sliced
100g cabbage and/or carrot, grated (optional)
100g of shredded pre-cooked chicken (boiled)
a third of a cup of dried shrimps, soaked, drained and pounded coarsely*
a third of a cup of peanuts, roasted, skinned and pounded coarsely
half a cup of Chi (chee)

Dressing
2tbsp Fish sauce
2tbsp sugar
1 and a half tbsp lime juice
1-2 birds-eye chillies

The Chi mentioned in the ingredients list is a mix of five herbs: Chi Ang-Kam (mint), Chi Ta-Puo (a.k.a. Ma-Luong), Chi Neang Vorng (basil) Chi Saing-Hum (a.k.a. Porng-Tea-Kaun) and Chi Ma-Hao (Pennywort/Fishwort), with the mint and Basil being the most important. Which is lucky as the other three can still be a little difficult to track down outside Asia. Although they are increasingly available in Asian speciality stores. Ideally you would mix equal quantities of the five with the basil and mint being left whole while the longer leaves are included chopped. Pictures of the various salad herbs can be found at satrey khmer.

Discard the hard pink outer cover of the Banana Blossom. Slice the blossom horizontally into thin strips and then immediately rinse in diluted lime juice to prevent them turning black. The pollen will usually float to the surface and should be spooned out and discarded.

The addition of grated carrot or cabbage is not absolutely authentic but many Cambodian families and restaurants do add it to give a splash of extra colour to the dish.

Toss the banana blossom, cabbage/carrot and dried shrimps, roasted peanuts and Chi together and add the dressing immediately before serving.

To make the dressing pound the garlic and chili with a pestle and mortar. If you like it hot add two or more chillies, then the fish sauce, sugar and lime juice.

*Dried shrimps, a core ingredient, must always be washed and soaked for about 15 minutes before being ground in either a clay mortar or electric mixer.

July 2008 Prize Draw

2008-07-02T09:39:00.006+01:00

Winners in the latest round of the Indochine silk lantern draw ending 1st July 2008 were Melanie Daniels from Doncaster and Victor Curtis from Dulcote. 556 people entered the draw and no one left empty handed; everyone entering was offered a 20% discount voucher off all our stock lanterns.

Silk Latern?

2008-06-08T20:23:00.003+01:00

What hope is there of anyone finding our lantern site if they key in Silk Latern into the search engine query box instead of Silk Lantern. Just a little, it would appear. Indochine was recently found on page 3 of a search on Yahoo for Silk Laterns but disappeared completely if the searcher insisted on being shown only those results that included the exact term Silk Laterns. In future we may have to create anagrams of all the site content. Narks Lintels anyone?

Results for Prize Draw June 2008

2008-05-31T18:10:00.003+01:00

Jax Williams and Maria Lewis join the list of past winners.

The prize draw ending 1st June 2008 was won by Jax Williams from Little Torrington, Exeter and Maria Lewis from Allerton, Bradford. The former won for being the first to enter choosing what subsequently proved to be the favourite choice in the round and the latter for simply having her number come up in the random number draw after all duplicate and otherwise spoiled entries were removed from the tally.

The next round starts immediately and the draw will take place on the 1st July 2008. So if you haven't entered before here's your chance to win a lantern from Indochine's stock range of shapes and colours. And if you have entered before, feel free to have another go. The last round attracted 235 entries so the odds aren't that bad.

A History of Laos

2008-05-16T17:16:00.006+01:00

Martin Stuart Fox

'The author is an Australian who covered the second Indochina War as a foreign correspondent. Insight into what really went on from an inside point of view.' Jan Lander

A Dragon Apparent: Travels in Cambodia

2008-05-16T16:42:00.007+01:00

Norman Lewis

"This was a very interesting read... back to the times before commercialism took over these areas. Extremely readable and made me want to find out more" Jan Lander

The Killing Fields [1984] 15 DVD

2008-05-13T16:42:00.004+01:00

This harrowing but rewarding 1984 drama concerns the real-life relationship between New York Times reporter Sidney Schanberg and his Cambodian assistant Dith Pran (Haing S. Ngor), the latter left at the mercy of the Khmer Rouge after Schanberg--who chose to stay after American evacuation but was booted out--failed to get him safe passage. Filmmaker Roland Joff³, previously a documentarist, made his feature debut with this account of Dith's rocky survival in the ensuing madness of the Khmer Rouge's genocidal campaign. The script of The Killing Fields spends some time with Schanberg's feelings of guilt after the fact, but most of the movie is a shattering re-creation of hell on Earth. The late Haing S. Ngor--a real-life doctor who had never acted before and who lived through the events depicted by Joff³--is outstanding, and he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Oscars also went to cinematographer Chris Menges and editor Jim Clark. --Tom Keogh

Apocalypse Now (redux) DVD

2008-05-13T16:39:00.003+01:00

Following the example set by his old pals Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola has revisited a classic that no one ever thought needed enhancement and produced Apocalypse Now Redux, a remastered and extended version of his hallucinogenic Vietnam nightmare that adds some 50 minutes of extra material. On the plus side, certain extended sequences--such as Kilgore's bombing-cum-surfing raid and the final battle of nerves between Martin Sheen and Marlon Brando--add greater depth to our appreciation of the film. On the debit side, the lengthy French plantation interlude and the squalid fate of the Playboy bunnies simply underscore what we already know about war and hell and the depressing futility of it all.

Cyclo [1996] 18 VHS

2008-05-13T16:33:00.005+01:00

The Cyclo Boy lives honestly and works hard to survive in the backstreets of Ho Chi Minh City. His life takes a downturn when he is mugged and drawn into the world of organised crime. Vietnamese dialogue with subtitles.

"Taxi Driver meets the most amazing colourist painting."

Buy from Amazon, Cyclo new and used from £7.00

Three Seasons [1999] VHS

2008-05-13T16:28:00.004+01:00

Through the lives of four ordinary people, the hopes and fears of a nation are highlighted emphasising the differences between the old traditions and modern American influences in the 'new' Vietnam. Vietnamese dialogue, English subtitles..

Derailed in Uncle Ho's Victory Garden - Tim Page cover

2008-05-13T16:16:00.004+01:00

Tim Page

Follows Page's odyssey - 20 years after the liberation of Vietnam - through the land that dominated his life as a war photographer. His job used to be to record the horror, now he can tell of the country's supreme beauty, and mourn the agony of the killing fields.

The Mekong

2008-05-13T16:13:00.001+01:00

Milton Osborne

The Mekong is one of the world's great rivers, and by far the largest in Southeast Asia. Empires have risen and fallen in the lands through which the Mekong flows and it has been linked to remarkable adventure and exploration as well as war and massacre. Now that Indochina is at peace, new dangers threaten the river's future.

Colloquial Cambodian

2008-05-13T16:11:00.000+01:00

David Smyth

A guide to contemporary Cambodian with easy-to-follow lessons. The book contains an English-Cambodian and Cambodian-English glossary.

The Magic of the Mekong

2008-05-13T16:08:00.001+01:00

Julie Sarasin (Photographer)

This is a 5000-kilometre photographic odyssey along one of the world's greatest rivers, stretching from the plateau of Tibet to the South China Sea. The author shares with readers her experiences of the extremes of acommodation, weather and environment and the physical demands of travelling in the region. Two hundred and thirty colour photographs capture the diverse panorama of life in six nations.

Culture Shock! Vietnam

2008-05-13T16:06:00.001+01:00

Claire Ellis

A look at the customs, etiquette, culture and traditions of Vietnam for those visiting the country. A new title from the CULTURE SHOCK! series.

Red Lights and Green Lizards: a Cambodian adventure

2008-05-13T16:03:00.001+01:00

Liz Anderson

Having spent several months in Cambodia I wanted to read an up to date account of other peoples' experiences in this fascinating country. I was most pleased to find this book: an account of a doctor couple's two year period as volunteers with VSO in the early 90s. Most other literature on Cambodia relates to the Pol Pot regime and the immediate aftermath. Liz Anderson, a GP, and her gynecologist husband were not quite ready to retire and wanted a change for their last few years as practising doctors. So they contacted VSO and were offered a two year placement in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh. The book follows the author's experiences of her time as a doctor in PP, and recounts the highs and the lows experienced. From the day she started right up until their leaving party it's all chronicled and well-written. It also includes an excellent chapter on the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge explaining the main points well without going into too much political detail. Very easy to understand! The book was sad, amusing and most informative and left me feeling very envious of the Andersons, as they achieved so much in terms of friendships with fellow expats, colleagues, locals and patients, and their achievements as doctors were amazing, yet the author was most modest about them. I would recommend this book to anyone and is a must if you are interested in the Cambodian way of life, or you're interested in being an overseas volunteer whether or not be in the field of medicine. A most refreshing change from the usual tourist guidebook and the Khmer Rouge era of the late 70's. (Steve Simmons)