Comments on: Umami From the Oceans of Asia

By: Sherri

Sherri — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:32:22 +0000

Thanks Barbara! I’m going back to the smaller Asian store to see if I can find a few unami ingredients you taught us about.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 17:56:17 +0000

The pink white shriveled kind are the ones you want to use!

The odor you smelled likely came from several sources: fermented fish products, dried fish products and fermented vegetables or tofu/beans and the like. Those scents are strong, and take getting used to. Me–they don’t bother me at all anymore, but I used to lead tours of a local supermarket sized Asian grocery in Maryland, and lots of Americans were put off by the smells.

Stick with the smaller, friendlier market and build a rapport with the shop owners and workers. You will find, that if you get someone with good language skills, you can go far by asking how to cook with an ingredient, or what they personally use this sort of tofu or vegetable with.

The lady who owns the local market and I have long conversations about cooking and share recipes all the time. She has taught me invaluable tips. Also–you may find customers willing to strike up conversations about food as well in the smaller stores. You can learn a lot that way.

Then, after you have learned the ropes at the smaller store, go back to the big place and don’t worry about the hoots. You will see familiar stuff from the smaller store, but lots more that is unfamiliar–and lots that is utterly cool, too! It is fun to shop in one of those big places–especially in their produce department, but it can be overwhelming at first.

By: Sherri

Sherri — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 15:35:20 +0000

What do the dried shrimp you’re talking about look like? I’ve seen two different-looking kinds here, but they’re both found in the Hispanic/Mexican sections in my area.

One is little pink/white, shriveled, mini-versions of what looks like boiled shrimp.

The other look like full-sized, maroon/brown with their shells on. They remind me of when we were kids and collected what we called locusts, but were actually cicada shells.

Would either of those kinds of dried shrimps work for your kind of cooking? Or do the dried shrimp have to come from the Asian markets? We have Asian ‘areas’ that carry lots of sauces and canned items, but to get anything beyond that, we have to go to the Asian market. We have two nearby: one is small and friendly, but the larger one has an odor that most westerners aren’t used to, and some of the employees ‘hooted’ at me (I don’t know why they’d do that if I was a potential cash customer, I swear I tried not to wrinkle my nose).

By: Barbara

Barbara — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 22:09:02 +0000

Thank for adding that, Shirley–it helps to hear from people with personal experience in Malaysian/Singaporan food, because I have so little.

Big dollups of shrimp paste so strong that they stink up metal pans sound hardcore scary!

I hope that the chicken tastes good after all of that!

By: Shirley

Shirley — Fri, 13 Jan 2006 08:18:55 +0000

Hi Barbara,
The grey shrimp paste you mentioned is also used in shrimp paste chicken, a common dish here in Singapore & Malaysia, where a good dollop of it is added to marinate chicken (along with cornstarch and other ingredients), which is later deep fried. The more “stinking” shrimp paste is locally called “belachan”. There are two versions of belachan – dark brown, sold in rectangular blocks and pinkish, usually sold in circular chunks. Both are suppose to add flavour and depth to local dishes. I know of households who have a dedicated frying pan to pan fry the belachan before they add it to the main dish. The smell really sticks to cookware and it can stick up the whole house for days! Shirley