Re Ketjap pizza [Was: Re[2]: MDDM Ch. 23 Summary, Notes]

[Otto]

Given the opening of the novel & the time of the year this is a very
appropriate thread! My websearch delivered masses of Dutch websites which
make you go hungry immediately. Maybe our heroes have used "Ketjap Asin" for
the pizza which is a salty sauce without sugar in it:

"In Nederland kennen ze sojasaus traditioneel door de Indonesische keuken
als ketjap, en dan vooral als ketjap manis, de meest geliefde zoete
variëteit. Bij de Indonesiër en de ouderwetse Chinees staan die op tafel. In
de keuken gebruiken ze eerder de zoute ketjap, ketjap asin, wat gewoon
dezelfde industriële saus is, maar dan zonder suiker."

Saying that in the Netherlands Manis, the "loved sweet variety" is on the
table during the meal to be added according to your individual taste while
Asin prefereably will be used in the kitchen in preparing the meal. I think
this could be what Dixon "discovers" (79) and offers as a substitute later
for tomatoes (235), but maybe it's intended to be left indeterminate.

David's recipe is for "Ketjap Manis," the sweet soy sauce.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~margjos/nlketjap.htm from
http://www.xs4all.nl/~margjos/sftxtfr.htm (with lots of other recipes too)
Bottles of both varieties to be seen here are actually standing on my desk,
but I use other brands like "Conimex" too.
http://www.hollandbymail.nl/hbmcom/conimex_list.html
(10 $ shipping to the US)

Ketjap Sojasaus
Ketjap Asin Licht zoute sojasaus
--light salty soy sauce
Ketjap Manis Zoete sojasaus
--sweet soy sauce
Ketjap Pekal Donkere sojasaus
--dark soy sauce
http://www.quanjer.nl/indonesie/alfabetische_woordenlijst.htm

Anchovy and Tomato Pizza from pizzatherapy.com
http://pizzatherapy.com/anchovies.htm

Kind of interesting too, the Japanese Pizza Page:
http://www.chachich.com/mdchachi/jpizza.html

Otto

>
> Howdy
>
> Well, I made the ketjap pizza.
>
> I used David Morris's ketjap recipe, which you recall is brown sugar,
> soy sauce, mollases, cilantro, black pepper. I substituted a small
> amount of ginger for the galangal, which is a medicinal root with a
> mild flavor somehow related to ginger. I got some good stilton and
> anchovies. I used a small unflavored-and-oh-so-convenient premade pizza
> shell, as i normally do.
>
> The ketjap was thin and watery, like worchestershire sauce. It tened to
> migrate down through the little pricks in the bread and form a
> blackened crust of burnt molasses on the underside. The stilton melted
> and disintegrated into a puddle of oil and curds. As I like anchovies I
> really piled 'em on, even though only one or two is usually enough to
> "contaminate" an entire pie, according to my wife. The mould of the
> stilton and the high reek of the fish combine in a nice way. The soy
> and sugar ketjap was an all-but-irrelevant annoyance.  The "first
> British pizza is edible, but certainly isn't pizza as we know it. My
> ten year old son, who is game to try almost any strange food, at a
> small canape-sized sliver, said "that's peculiar", and stopped there. I
> ate the whole pie myself. It was easy on the old innards, but I did
> have vivid dreams involving eight hitch-hiking elephants and a
> percussion band. Could this be the famous the Welsh Rarebit effect?
> Echoes of the Octuple Glouchester? You tell me...
>
> DM's ketjap recipe is almost certainly not what P has in mind here. It
> does not have a viscous consistency, and its flavor is not especially
> exotic.  Jbor's sweet chili and tomato paste mix would have worked
> better, I think.
>
> I think the result would more than qualify as Vile. FWIW.
>
> Your man on the front lines of culinary conflict,
> Mark
>
>