A beautiful book on Indonesian cookery: I was sent a review copy of chef @laraleefood’s cracker of a first book, #CoconutAndSambal, with a fascinating mix of all the traditional recipes you want – from gado gado, chicken satay – through to rarer dishes and inspired new ideas., like peanut banana icecream, and the vanilla’ish #pandanleaf flavour in a layer cake. Inside with the book were these #rempeyek crackers that the great talent @sriowen taught Lara how to make, with rice flour, peanuts and #daunjerukpurut leaves ( #makrutlimeleaves, what we used to call kaffir lime leaf). Delicious.
????????
The book is solid, @bloomsburycooks have one dazzling bound and booted gem here, and I hope it gets the reception it deserves. A combination of Lara’s own travel photography (great work) and bright snappy pics by @louisehagger, and the talented @alexanderbreeze’s colourful styling, are given a sharp look with @hyperkitstudio’s design.
????????
Indonesian food is a complex cuisine that arguably isn’t know well in Britain: I remember it much more from growing up in Melbourne Australia. Now Wikipedia lists a whopping 440 individual dishes in Indonesian cooking that are either, all or part, as having defined local characteristics that have grown through indigenous cooking and unique ingredients together with a mixture of immigration, colonial occupation by the Dutch, and simple inventiveness. In London in the 1980s I used to go to Melati in Peter Street Soho (gone), Garuda (gone) in Southhampton Row, though still haven’t got to the legendary Nancy Lam @nancylams Enak Enak in Battersea. In the 90s as a squeaky pup, the lovely Sri & Roger Owen would invite me to dinner at their house, feel lucky to have eaten home-cooked Indonesia’s cooking for the first time.
????????
One thing that struck me was that so much Indonesian cooking is enjoyed in very public settings and how strange it is right now to see people enjoying food together, even in a book.
????????
