Feral Cooks

Good food shouldn't be tame

Gulai Kerang Kampak (Scallops Gulai)

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Scallops gulai is an intensely flavorful West Sumatran dish. The gulai, or curry sauce, is brightly flavorful and features Bumbu spice paste. If you’ve cooked and eaten Indonesian rendangs or curries, you’ll understand just by looking at the recipe just how delicious this dish is. If you haven’t had Indonesian food and you’re making this, you’re in for a treat.

Note that you can cook the gulai first and refrigerate it for a day to let the flavors intensify, before reheating it and adding the seared scallops before serving over rice.

What you’ll need for the scallops

  • 500g (about 1.25lbs large scallops, patted dry, with the white adductor (side) muscle removed
  • 2T neutral oil
  • 3 lemongrass sticks: ends trimmed, smashed, and each tied in a knot
  • 3 lime leaves
  • 400g (14 fl oz) coconut milk or coconut cream
  • 1T palm sugar, shaved, or light brown sugar
  • 1T tamarind paste

What you’ll need for the bumbu paste

  • 1t ground coriander
  • 1t ground cumin
  • 0.5t ground white pepper
  • 3 candlenuts or 5 blanched almonds (do NOT eat candlenuts raw; you’ll get an upset stomach)
  • 6 Asian red shallots, roughly chopped
  • 6 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
  • 2 Thai chilis, stemmed, seeded and chopped (leave in the seeds of one if you want a lot of heat)
  • 1-inch piece of ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 1t ground turmeric or a 1.5-inch piece turmeric, peeled and roughly chopped
  • 1t salt

What to do for the bumbu paste

Put all the bumbu ingredients in a small food processor and pulse them into a paste. Use a flexible spatula to scrape down the sides, as needed, as you make the paste. Set aside when done.

What to do for the scallops

If serving with rice, make your rice, however you do that.

Set your mis en place. Heat 1T of your oil in a wok or high-sided frypan. When the oil’s hot, add the bumbu paste, lemongrass and lime leaves. Stir fry the paste (add a little of the coconut milk if it’s too dry) until it is very fragrant and no longer raw.

Add the remining coconut milk, sugar and tamarind paste. Bring everything to a simmer and let it gently cook for about 5 minutes. Keep it to a low simmer and stir often so the coconut milk doesn’t separate. Give it a taste and make any spice/salt adjustments. At this point you could refrigerate the sauce overnight to let the flavors intensify, though it’s perfectly fine to proceed directly to the scallop preparation and serving.

Remove the lemongrass knots and let the sauce sit on a warm burner on your stove.

Pat the scallops dry with paper towels and drizzle them with the remaining oil. Season them with salt and pepper. Heat a heavy-bottomed frypan over high heat until it just gives off whisps of smoke. Sear the scallops for 1.5 minutes on one side, then flip them over with tongs (use a light touch) to sear the other side. Ensure they are cooked through, but don’t overcook them—it’s a fine line. Their internal temperature should reach 145 degrees F.

Now you’re ready to serve. Either drop the scallops into the sauce, and serve, or spoon the sauce over rice and place the scallops on top for a nice presentation—to me they look too nice to bury. Enjoy!

Parmesan Taralli

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Taralli are a type of flour-based breadstick twisted into a circle and cooked until crispy. There are many different kinds, and you can usually find them in the deli sections of higher-end grocery stores and co-ops. Our local Mississippi Market co-op has several varieties.

Taralli can be simply baked, boiled, then baked, or less commonly, fried. This recipe calls for a simple bake.

This recipe is based on what I now believe to be a partially flawed recipe by Claudia Fleming. I’ll note in the recipe where you’d need to add some water to get the dough to come together. Also note with the various rise times, preparation and baking, these take about 4 hours to make—though most of it is just rise time.

Regardless of the taralli recipe you use and how you cook them, they’re a nice snack when you want something different from crackers.


What you’ll need for the sponge

  • 0.5t sugar
  • 0.5t active dry yeast
  • 56g (6.5T) all-purpose flour

Taralli dough

  • 226g (1.5 cups + 2T) all-purpose flour
  • 40g Parmesan cheese, finely grated (I almost feel you could use double this amount for more flavor)
  • 1.5t ground black pepper (could be increased to 2t for more flavor)
  • 0.5t Diamond Crystal kosher salt
  • 0.25 cups + 1.5T dry white wine
  • 0.25 cups + 1T extra-virgin olive oil
  •  large egg-white, beaten

What to do

For the sponge: in a small bowl, dissolve the sugar in 3T of 105-degree F water. Mix in the yeast. Let the yeast activate over the next 10 minutes. Mix in the 56g of flour a little at a time until you basically have a small bowl of dough. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and put it in a warm place to rise for 1 hour. It should double in size.

When the sponge is nearly risen, start on the taralli dough. In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the flour, Parmesan, pepper and salt. Install the paddle attachment. With the mixer on “mix” gradually pour in the wine and olive oil.

Here’s where the original recipe went off the rails by calling for adding the risen sponge into the stand mixer bowl a little at a time. This is impossible. The sponge is a completely sticky, gooey mess, so if you try to add a little at a time, the sponge will be stuck on your spoon, fingers, the paddle attachment—everywhere but in the bowl. To avoid this, turn off the mixer and using a flexible spatula-scraper, scoop the sponge out of its bowl and into the stand-mixer bowl. Mix on medium speed for a minute before switching to the dough hook.

Here’s where the original recipe went off the rails again. At this point, the “dough” will be too dry for the flour and ingredients to coalesce. To rectify this, with the mixer running at medium, add 1T of water at a time until a cohesive dough forms. Once that happens, knead the dough at high speed for a couple of minutes until the dough is smooth. Put the dough ball into a large, oiled bowl, cover it with plastic wrap and set it in a warm spot in the kitchen for 1 hour.

Now it’s time to roll out and shape the taralli. Line a couple of sheet pans with parchment paper. Put the dough ball on a lightly-floured work surface and flatten it out with your hands until it’s about 0.75” thick. I had shaped mine into a rough rectangle, which worked well. Using a pizza cutter, cut the flattened dough into strips about 0.75” wide. One at a time, take each strip of dough and roll it between your hand and the work surface until it’s about as thick as a pencil. Cut the long roll into 4” lengths. Pinch the ends together to form a circular shape. Put the rings onto the parchment paper, spaced a bit apart. They’ll rise some before and during baking, but not too much. When all the taralli are formed and on the sheet pans, cover them with plastic wrap and let them proof for an hour in a warm part of the kitchen until they’re puffy.

With 15 minutes left in the final proofing, begin heating your oven to 350 degrees F. When the taralli are proofed and the oven has reached temperature, brush the taralli with the egg wash and put them in the oven. Bake for about 25 minutes, turning them 180 degrees in your oven about halfway through the baking time. When they’re just golden, turn off the oven and let them sit in there for another 30 minutes to dry. Be careful! They’re likely to still be really hot even 30 minutes after the oven’s off.

Your taralli should keep a week in a sealed container.

Shrimp Burgers

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These are absolutely delicious and well beyond Feral Cooks’ expectations.

There’s no special trick to these, other than ensuring some of the shrimp are finely minced, while others are a bit more chunky. The mixed levels of chop will make for a better textured burger.

Note that you could easily make these without the panko, though I recommend it, as it gives the burgers a good exterior-crunch. Also, make sure to use good-quality toasted burger buns for best results.

Last, cook to at least 145 degrees F at the interior of the burgers. This recipe makes four large burgers.

This sauce for the shrimp burgers is much better than store-bought tartar sauce, though home-made tartar sauce could work, too.

What you’ll need for the sauce

  • 0.5 cups mayo
  • 0.5 cups sour cream
  • 1t cilantro, minced
  • 2t siracha or similar hot sauce
  • 2t lemon juice
  • 0.5t salt
  • 1 garlic clove, minced

What you’ll need for the burgers

  • 1 slice fresh white bread
  • 1.5 lbs. fresh shrimp, peeled, deveined and tails removed
  • 0.25 cups mayonnaise
  • 2 scallions, thinly sliced
  • 2t fresh cilantro, chopped (use parsley if you have the “soap-flavor” gene)
  • 2t lemon or lime zest
  • 0.125t (1/8t) salt
  • 0.125t (1/8t) pepper
  • Pinch of cayenne pepper
  • Enough neutral oil to cover the bottom of the frypan you’re using
  • About 1 cup of panko

What to do for the sauce

Combine all ingredients in bowl and refrigerate until needed.

What to do for the shrimp burgers

Prepare your burger buns however you do that. Buttering the faces and grilling them is a great method.

Pulse the bread in a food processor into coarse crumbs and transfer to a large bowl. Clean out the food-processor bowl and pulse about 33% of the shrimp until finely minced. Add the remaining shrimp and pulse until coarsely chopped—there should be chunks of shrimp showing. Gently mix the shrimp and breadcrumbs in the large bowl.

Whisk the mayonnaise, scallions, cilantro lemon zest, salt, pepper, and cayenne together in a small bowl until uniform. Gently fold the mixture into the shrimp and breadcrumbs until just combined.

Spoon the shrimp mixture onto a sheet of wax paper, then divide it into 4 equal portions. With damp hands, form each portion into a 1-inch-thick patty. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze the patties for about 15-20 minutes to firm them up a bit.

Pour the panko into a shallow, rimmed plate. When the shrimp burgers are firmed, press each side of each patty into the panko. Each side should be evenly covered.

Add the oil to a nonstick or well-seasoned cast iron pan. Ensure there’s an even layer of oil across the bottom of the pan. Heat the pan until the oil shimmers or to 350 degrees (measure with an infrared thermometer—a relatively inexpensive kitchen must-have).

Carefully add each patty to the frypan and cook for about 4 – 5 minutes on each side, or until the panko is crispy AND the internal temperature of each burger is at least 145 degrees F.

Serve hot on burger buns with the shrimp-burger sauce you just made.