I've only had Surinamese food once or twice, on visits to the Netherlands, but it has the potential to be my favorite cuisine. I fear that more frequent access may knock it down a few rungs in my ethnic pantheon; e.g: I used to be obsessed with Ethiopian food, but this was due to its scarceness where I lived. After repeated exposure, I still love Ethiopian food, but it's no longer my favorite food. (Though a few years in Glasgow has put it on the endangered species list, as the only Ethiopian restauraunts in the UK are in London).Anyway, the last time I was in Den Haag I found an Asian grocery and stocked up on jars of Surinamese pastes (and some Indonesian stuff too). Most of these are extremely spicy - so much that I think you might be supposed to use them as a concentrate, diluted ... I don't know. My favorite (that I've tried so far) is Moksi Patoe Tempeh Sambal, which has little chunks of tempeh in an insanely hot (yet sweet) gravy.
I often make pizzas with this as the sauce, which can be quite scorching. Tonight I decided to alter an earlier experiment where I added a small amount of this paste to Indian samosas.
First I made some dough - I actually did this on Sunday - and following the doughmaster's advice, I let it age a few days. Actually, I was just too lazy to use it on Sunday after it had risen, and yesterday my partner made dinner ... so it sat in the bowl, slightly fermenting and developing a nice odor.
I rolled out the dough and stuck a dollop of tempeh sambal in the middle, as seen on the right. Then I folded them over and made little pierogie-samosa-empanada structures, moistening the dough a bit at the seam. The little black spots you see aren't mouse droppings but rather roasted barley seeds, as the dough mixture was about 65% white, 25% barleyflour, and a bit of wholemeal (to use up a bag). I put a small amount of shredded red Leicester cheese in each one, but not enough to make them too cheesy.I expected these to be pretty disgusting. My initial plan was to bake 'em, maybe brushed with a coating of soymilk, but then I thought "Fuck it, this is Scotland" and threw them in the deep fryer (well, a saucepan with some oil in it).
I hate deep frying at home; I swear that everything in my flat is coated with an invisible layer of grease now; I need to take a shower.
But ... these are awesome.
I will feel disgusting for the next two days, and I have probably taken some years off my life. But these taste fantastic, like Hot Pockets of Surinamese gruel.
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