Maritime Southeast Asia · Volume 49, The Monopoly, the Monsoon Line and a Border Still Drawn
Kohu-kohu
Ambon
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Researched
- No outside sources linked
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Ambon. A mixed salad of raw and blanched vegetables, grated coconut and fish, eaten daily and at weddings alike, with real household variation this chapter has kept rather than flattened.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. 30 minutes.
Ingredients
- 350 g steamed skipjack tuna, flaked
- 250 g cucumber, cut into 1cm cubes
- 200 g beansprouts, blanched briefly
- 20 sprigs basil
- 5 lengths long bean, cut into 0.5cm pieces
- ½ half-mature coconut, coarsely grated
- 5 shallots
- 3 red chillies
- 1 tsp shrimp paste (terasi)
- to taste lime juice, salt
Method
- Salt the cucumber lightly and leave to soften and release liquid, then drain.
- Grind the shallot, chilli, shrimp paste, a little lime juice and salt to a paste.
- Mix the grated coconut with the paste and squeeze firmly to remove excess liquid.
- Fold the flaked skipjack tuna, cucumber, beansprouts, long bean, basil, salt and a final squeeze of lime through the seasoned coconut.
- Serve fresh, without further cooking. For the simpler, everyday version, drop the fish entirely and lean on the coconut, vegetables and basil alone: this is a genuine household variation, not a lesser one.
What a modern chef changes
Texture given the same attention as flavour.
Rung 5.
Method
- Toast the grated coconut lightly in a dry pan before dressing it, a small departure from tradition that deepens its flavour without changing the dish's fundamentally raw, fresh character.
- Dehydrate a portion of the long bean and beansprout at low heat, folding the crisp pieces through at the very end alongside the fresh ones for a genuine textural contrast within the same salad.
- Serve the fish separately, dressed at the table, for a version where the coconut salad and the fish stay distinct until the diner combines them, rather than being folded together in advance.