Cyclist's Palsy and Rempeyek!

Well, after a week of no cycling, my left hand is no better at doing up zips, or typing this blog than it was before, but at least now I know why - don't you just love the power of the internet!  A cycling friend called Ed informed me that I am suffering with cyclist's palsy (also know as handlebar palsy), a common condition in road cyclists covering long distances.  It is described as a nerve injury that causes persistent weakness and clumsiness of the hand and thumb, and may cause difficulty with fine finger movements such as operating a computer keyboard or playing the piano (so now I know why I can't play the piano!!).
Unfortunately there is no cure, but the nerve should regenerate itself and the function of the muscles will be restored within 3 months - a little longer than I had hoped!
One thing it does point out to me though is that my new bike was possibly not set up properly for me, as I had cycled Lands End to John O'Groats on my old bike with no hand problems at all - a lesson to be learnt here I feel.

Luckily I can still cook with a dodgy hand (don't ask me to ice a cake though!), so I have been experimenting with recipes of foods we had whilst cycling through Thailand and Malaysia.  When you are cycling between 80-110 miles a day your body just craves sugar for energy, so most of the day is spent taking in jellies, sweets and sweet drinks.  I also used Cliff Shot Bloks, that are like a gel but in a jelly - easier to eat while on the move, and actually quite tasty.  So by the time you get to late afternoon the thought of any more sweet foods is just too much, what you really fancy then is something savoury, and having sweated heavily all day, something salty.
Whilst cycling through Vietnam in December, I would visit local shops and buy random foods that I didn't recognise and insist on all my fellow cyclists trying them - sometimes they were delicious, sometimes they were disgusting, but it was great fun to try so many unusual ingredients.  On this trip, fellow cyclist Ray decided he would do the same to me, and in the first place we stopped near a lake he bought Rempeyek - biscuits made with anchovies and peanuts - this was early in the morning and none of us really fancied the look of them, and then we tried them - they were delicious and from that moment we were hooked, we had them every day!  Helmi, our local driver told us they were a local biscuit, so I asked him for a recipe.  This is as near as I can get with the ingredients not being quite the same over here and the translation difficult!

Rempeyek

Makes around 12

100 g rice flour
3/4 tsp ground cumin
3/4 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
500 ml coconut milk
10-12 anchovies
75 g peanuts
300-400 ml groundnut oil

• Place the rice flour into a bowl and mix in the spices and fennel seeds.
• Pour in the coconut milk and beat to give a runny batter, the consistency of single cream.
• Roughly chop half the anchovies and cut the remaining half into thin strips.  Stir the chopped anchovies into the batter.
• Heat the oil in a frying pan until hot.  Spoon desert spoonfuls of the batter into the pan, spreading it into a circle, to make it as thin as possible.  Place an strip of anchovy and a few peanuts in the centre of each one.
• Cook for 5-6 minutes, until just starting to turn golden at the edges.  Remove with a slotted spoon and place on a rack to drain and crisp up, then place on kitchen paper to take off any excess oil.

These are best eaten freshly made!