A very common ingredient in Malay and Indonesian cooking, candlenuts are often ground and used to thicken and enrich curries and stews. What are Candlenuts? Candlenuts are known as Buah Keras in Malay and Kemiri in Indonesian. They are a…
Fresh coconut milk is always best but many of us outside of Asia, unfortunately, do not have this luxury. As with any ingredient, get the best that you can afford, the same goes for coconut milk. Get the one that…
Dried limes, whether brown or black are a very popular ingredient throughout the Middle East and have various names, depending on where you are or where the limes are from. Interestingly, all the Arabic names refer to them as lemons,…
Niter Kibbeh, the Ethiopian Spiced Butter, (Tegelese Tesmi) in Eritrean, has, over the years, become an indispensable ingredient in my kitchen, just as it is in much of East Africa. It has an incredible depth of flavour that imparts an…
Green papaya is just the younger, unripe version of the orange fleshed variety that you are probably used to. Unless you have a good Thai or South East Asian supplier nearby, a green papaya is not going to be easy to come…
Palm sugar is brown in colour and comes from the sap of the flowers of palm trees. The sap is boiled to remove as much moisture as possible to produce a thick, sticky syrup, which is further reduced to a more concentrated…