Wednesday, May 12, 2004

Received an email from my Mat Salleh friend in the UK.... This Mat Salleh is more then a friend... Let call it a foster brother... He refer himself as Paken and I guess he got use to this name when he was wondering in Indonesia... Padang to be specific... where he live at a PakAji's resident, whose charming wife would sometime cook for this white man and according to him by chance he introduced the baked beans in tomatoes sauce,the breakfast beans that we normally take with eggs sunny side up... that are common where the west was once the master of the land they colonized.... With toasted bread and black coffee, it makes great breakfast.... So he got a few tins of these baked beans and introduce it to PakAji's wife..MakAji, another western dish, that not only look tempting but as well good to taste... Moreover it is a simple dish that could be set up in mere minutes.... MakAji was delighted and indeed happy but then according to my friend Paken... this baked beans in tomatoes sauce are hard to find in Padang... So it look like that MakAji had to find another ways to make this wonderful new dish, so she decided to experiment with the local beans and eventually... Voila, she got it and named this new wonder food as, a special delicacies... 'Kacang tomato Pakken' after the Mat salleh that introduce this special to the PakAji's family.... What started as a canned baked beans now has became a know special in Padang.... Thanks to Paken... The crazy mat salleh that went to Padang in search of knowledge,stayed there for a year or so and in the process introduced this wonder food to the PakAji charming wife, MakAji..... Recently after a lapse of years, Paken decided to pay a visit to his foster uncle PakAji in Padang and to his surprise found a new brand baked beans being sold in the market in Padang and this can food stuff is branded as 'Pakens baked beans special'...Well so the story goes.... So what are you going to have for breakfast tomorrow.... Me..Surely baked beans with two eggs, fried sunny side up and perhaps some sausages and two pieces of toasted bread with my usual black coffee.... Tempting is it not!!.... I am hungry already thinking of this wonder breakfast of baked beans..... Well Paken would be smiling reading this and I guess his breakfast would be the same as mine tomorrow morning... Baked Beans... Well it is an easy breakfast to do,just open a can of baked Beans, fry your egg as you like, placed it nicely on a plate, scoop a couple of spoonful of those steamy baked beans, put it beside those sunny side up eggs,and voila...Your breakfast is ready to enjoy....With toast and a cup of black coffee... You should be enjoying this wonderful breakfast.... That is the story of Paken in Padang... It is a sorts of a true story but some of it I just make it up.... to make this story more interesting..... When you are next in Padang,Indonesia... Look for the MakAji baked beans... Who knows you might find some.... The Indonesian are good with beans.... They invented the nutritious Tempe from Soya bean... now eaten by million all over the world... My grand children love those tempe... So have a Good Breakfast of this Baked beans.... come tomorrow morning... Have a nice day.... Enjoy.....

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