Sanctuary from The Mad World
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what's for lunch. - Orson Welles

I know.. I know…. Corn chowder is best using fresh corn on the cob but as the weather gets cold and the corn disappearing, I do not hesitate to use canned corn (there is NO frozen corn here, strangely).

I combined the two recipes (one from Bittman and the other from Elise.com. I also liquefy the soup with a stab mixer. Somehow, I have visions of corn chowder in a smooth milky form rather than chunks. Maybe I confuse this soup with clam chowder. But I think it’s more satisfying that way and the sweetness from the corn really shines through. Please do as you like.

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My first encounter of this dish was in a Korean restaurant in Jakarta. Although it was strange, because it was essentially a luxurious instant noodle, we rather like its fiery broth and tasty topping. Furthermore, we do from time to time eat instant noodle with rice (talking about really evil food here).

The strange dish means army-based stew. The name explains the origin of the dish: during war times, when food was scarce, they were forced to use US-army ration left-over and mix them with traditional Korean stew. Poverty-based food, like any other in the world, eventually becomes somewhat of a comfort food for Korean.

We love to cook this thing on top of table-top, small, electric stove for authenticity.

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Servings:  two generous portions

A year ago, my sisters introduced me to a place in Toronto’s Koreatown which sells only one item. Various toppings (seafood, meat, vegetarian) are possible but the shop sells only sundubu, the Korean tofu stew (pictured on the right). Served with steamed, chewy, sticky rice, it was such a cheap thrill.

I was keen to replicate this dish using the recipe from Feast of Flavours from the Korean Kitchen.

This recipe is somewhat simpler and I’ve made it even simpler by eliminating a few steps to suit my lack of stone pots (I used the chinese claypots instead). I’ve seen others which call for the use of Korean anchovy stock. However, for me, the key is in the proper amount of water for the tofu and the eggs to dissolve in, resulting in thick and comforting stew.

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For true-blue Indonesians, life doesn’t get better than this: heap of steamed rice, fried tempe or soy-bean cake, a bowl of sayur asem (Indonesian sour tamarind soup). Maybe a piece of two of ayam kuning or tumeric fried chicken does make life better.

I made this dish to welcome my parents who, after traveling around Europe for 10 days with a steady diet of bad Chinese and ‘European’ food, quite appreciated it.

Sayur Asem recipe is combined and tweaked from here and here.

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I love thin coconut milk in soup, such as Lodeh, and miss it from time to time. This recipe from Lita is a favourite.

I think this is very similar to Lodeh and I can’t tell the difference. I tweak the ingredients from time to time to suit whatever I have in the kitchen but the base spice, which is spicy, salty, and sweet, remains.

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