My Cooking Confidential

Stay Cool on a Hot Day

2011-08-01T01:34:00.000-07:00

Most of my life, I live in a city with warm and humid climate, I am supposed to get used to hot and humid weather. But somehow my body does not seem willing to adapt to it. The combination of warm temperature and high humidity like now always make me all sweaty and cranky….

How can I stay cool on a hot day like this?

How about making cold dessert drinks?

In my country, we have so many popular drinks which are based on ice (in our language we call it Es) and can also be classified as desserts. Typical examples include es campur (mixed fruit ice drink), es cincau (grass jelly ice drink), es blewah (musk melon ice drink), es kelapa muda (young coconut ice drink), es alpukat (avocado juice), es cendol and many many more.

Here’s a few of most popular Indonesian Cold Dessert Drinks to stay cool on a hot day and also fit well for breaking the fast:

Es Kelapa Muda (Young Coconut Ice Drink)

If you travel to my country, you will find lots of coconut tree. We like to drink coconut water, and also make drinks called Es Kelapa Muda (Young Coconut Ice Drink) where we mix the slippery young coconut with the coconut water then add ice cubes and this is how we make the drink:

Ingredients

2 cups of young coconut water
1/2 cup young coconut flesh

How to prepare:

take the water from a fresh, young coconut
scrape slithers of coconut flesh
add the coconut flesh into the coconut water in a glass or right in the coconut shell and add some ice cubes

Es Kelapa Jeruk (Young Coconut in Orange Juice)

This drink is a combination of young coconut and orange juice. The slippery floating slivers of fresh coconut flesh will add textural dimension to the refreshing fresh orange juice, so yummy……

Ingredients

8 medium size oranges, squeeze to get the juice
1 cup fresh young coconut flesh
simple syrup (optional)
ice cubes

How to prepare:

Combine roughly 1 part fresh-squeeze orange juice with 1 part water.
Typically a few spoonfuls of simple syrup are added and let it drop to the bottom of the glass so that the sweetness can be adjusted with a little stirring (optional).
Add in the coconut flesh and ice cubes.

Es Blewah (Musk Melon Ice Drink)

picture from unique-of-images.blogspot.com

Musk melon prevents a heat related disorders and making it a great refresher and stimulator on a hot day. Its high water content helps to reduce body heat. This drink is very popular during fasting month.

Ingredients

250 gram ripe blewah (musk melon), cut into half, peel off the outer skin of the musk melon and sliver the flesh
800 ml water
200 ml red syrup
ice cubes

How to serve (for 4 glasses)

In a glass put the musk melon slices.
Add water and syrup and ice cubes.

Es Campur (Mixed Iced Fruit Drink)

picture from www.houseofannie.com

This special Es Campur or also known as Es Teler can be the ‘so called’ trademark for many of Indonesian Restaurants and Food-Stalls. It has a sweet and fruity taste with chunks of jack-fruit, avocado and young coconut pulp! The coconut juice combination will cool you down from the heat especially when this drink is consume during hot day under the sun!

Ingredients:

1 Young coconut flesh (spoon it)
1 Avocado, take out the flesh, cut into chunks or thinly sliced
10 pieces of Jack-fruits, seeded and thinly sliced
15 pieces buah Atap, sliced (buah Atap is the flesh of the young seeds of the mangrove plant Nypa fruticans. It is usually soaked in sugar syrup)
500 ml of simple syrup
5 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
crushed or shaved ice

Note: This dessert can be sweetened to taste, adding more, or less, of the milk mixture and the syrups.

Simple syrup:

400 ml coconut milk (or plain water)
100 gr sugar

How to prepare:

Add young coconut pulp, avocado, jack-fruit and buah Atap in a glass or in a bowl.
Add in simple syrup and sweetened condensed milk or according to your taste. Stir.
Top with crushed or shaved ice. Enjoy!

Es Cendol (Chendol Iced Drink)

picture from madeinindonesia-store.com

Es cendol is typical Indonesian drink made from rice flour served with coconut milk, sugar palm and ice cubes or shaved ice. While Indonesian people drink es cendol as a nice refreshment, a lot of Westerners like es cendol as dessert.

Ingredients for cendol

125 gr rice flour
50 gr sago flour
75 ml pandan leaves water (boil water with pandan leaves until it has green color)
450 ml water
salt as needed

Other ingredients

200 gram palm sugar, boil with 125 ml water until it dissolves. Strain the palm sugar water and boil again. Set aside.
500 ml coconut milk. Boil and set aside to cool.

How to make cendol

Mix rice flour and sago flour, then mix it with some of the water.
Boil the rest of the water, add green pandan leaves water and salt.
Put the flour mixtures into the boiled water.
Stir well and cook until it thickens (paste-like).
Drain with special cendol strain (usually the strainer has round holes), so when we press the cendol mixture it will go out of the strain as roundish short cendol.
Put these cendol directly into a bowl with water and ice in it.
Cendol will be solid and then drain them again. Set aside.

How to serve

Put some cendol into a tall glass, pour palm sugar syrup and coconut milk (separate layers). You can add shaved ice or just ice cubes.

References:

www.houseofannie.com
www.madeinindonesia-store.com
www.uniqueofimages.blogspot.com

Dessert First

2011-08-01T00:00:00.000-07:00

Unlike in most western countries, in my country it is not our custom to serve dessert after meal. Desserts or sweet dishes are regarded simply as snacks, to be eaten when and where you have the need for one.

Desserts also have a social function as well…….they are for serving to guest who drops in or comes visiting…….. they are for eating at any family gathering, formal or informal,…… and they are there too, simply as a self-indulgence, when you are having a cup of coffee or tea.

During fasting month like now, we even serve desserts first since it is best to start with something sweet and sweet dessert fits well as a starter to break the fast.

We have a comprehensive list of options for delicious sweet desserts . With abundant tropical produce such as coconuts, lots of Indonesian desserts use Santan or coconut milk.

Check out a few examples out of the so many ‘drool worthy’ Indonesian desserts to break the fast:

Bubur Pacar Cina (Tapioca Pearl Dessert)

This tapioca pearl dessert is very popular in Chinese community and its even called “Pacar Cina” which literally means “Chinese Lover”. Cooking this dessert is not difficult, but is quite tricky. They would turn soggy if overcooked, or else the middle part is not cooked through without enough cooking time

Kue Centik Manis (Pretty and Sweet Dessert)

Centik comes from the word Cantik which means pretty while manis means sweet. The name of this dessert literally means Pretty and Sweet which reflects the look and taste of it. It’s very easy to make, no steaming or baking process. Centik manis is also popular during Ramadan (fasting month) in Indonesia.

Kue Lapis Sagu (Layered Coconut Cake)

This cake with its mysterious layered structure is not as difficult to make as it looks.

And here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

180 gram glutinous rice flour
180 gram tapioca
400 gram sugar (or depends on the desired sweet level)
pinch of salt
900 ml coconut milk
5 sachet (40 gram) vanilla
a few drops of pink food coloring

Direction:

mix all ingredients except food coloring to abatter, divide into 2
dye one part with a few drops of pink food coloring
pre-heat a steamer and wrap the lid with a clean tea towel to capture the steam
spoon a thin layer of uncolored batter into a spring-form cake tin
steam for about 5 minutes it sets and looks shiny
add a thin layer of pink batter to the tin and steam again
continue the process alternately until all the batter is used up
the whole process may take up to 3 hours. the final layers may have to steam longer around 10 minutes
allow to cool completely before cutting into thin slices

Kolak Pisang (Banana sweet soup)

Kolak is an equivalent of sweet soup. The soup is made of palm sugar and coconut milk. To the soup we can banana or other ingredients such as jack fruit, pumpkin, or cassava. Could be served either warm or cold.

Kue Putu

Everybody will notice easily if a vendor of Kue Putu passes by. It is because he has a special whistle that toots along the way. Usually, the vendor bears two cabinets using yoke or rides a bicycle.

Kue Putu is a traditional cake made of rice flour with palm sugar filler. The taste is plain outside but sweet inside. Added with steamed grated coconut makes the taste richer. The color is white or green and the shape is like a cylinder.

Onde-Onde (Sesame balls filled with mung bean paste)

Onde-onde is one of traditional cakes in Indonesia, and particularly being famous in Mojokerto (East Java) since Majapahit era. We can find Onde-onde in traditional market or in some stores or even in fancy restaurants. Moreover, we can find this cake in China town in Indonesia or in every corner of the world.

References:

the real taste of Indonesia, a culinary journey – 100 unique family recipes – Hardie Grant Books, Australia
asiafinest.com
bandungholic.blogspot.com
indonesiantravelguide.com
sotokudus senayan

Green Green Snacks of Home

2011-03-10T22:07:00.000-08:00

I am feeling Green today…….

Remember the old popular song sung by Tom Jones named Green Green Grass of Home? Just like Tom Jones, today I am dreaming of the “Green Green Snacks of Home”

In my country, we have a habit of snacking….and we simply love snacking…. There is no specific timing for snacking, basically we snack all the time. Therefore we have so many traditional snacks which we call Jajanan Pasar

And some of the traditional snacks are ‘green snacks’ …..

Why green snacks?

call them ‘green’ snacks because they are literally green (in color)….NOT because they are made of environmental friendly ingredients.

But, wait a minute….in a way these ‘green snacks’ contain ‘green’ ingredients, literally as well as ‘environmentally’ and the ‘green ingredients’ are pandan leaves to get the ‘sweet fragrant aroma’ and/or suji leaves to get the ‘green’ color.

Nowadays, people are hardly making traditional snacks or cake using real pandan and/or suji’s leaves. Many, especially those who make traditional snacks for commercial, choose to use synthetic pandan paste or food coloring instead. It is more practical, of course.

During my childhood, I remember my Mom made the effort when she needed pandan aroma and/or suji ‘green’ color to make the green traditional snacks. She actually had this mortar and pestle made of heavy iron to pound the pandan and/or suji leaves to get the aroma and color she wanted.

Let’s Explore a Bit on Pandan and Suji Leaves

Pandan leaves are the leaves of the plant Pandanus amaryllifolius and are sometimes called fragrant screwpine. Fragrant pandanus leaves grow easily in tropical climates and are used widely in both savory and sweet dishes. These blade-like leaves grow up to about 50 cm in length but are often sold trimmed. They have a strong but very pleasant, almost woody perfume. To the Asian Chef, the pandan leaf perhaps what vanilla essence is to his/her Western counterpart. Cooks often add pandan leaves to the pot when cooking rice for their subtle, sweet fragrant – rice cooked this way tastes like it has been newly harvested.

Suji leaves are the leaves of Dracaena angustifolia Pleomele angustifolia, an annual plant which the leaves can be used for natural food coloring. Suji leaves give natural green color to foods but they don’t have sweet fragrant aroma like Pandan. The green color of suji is darker that of Pandan leaves

Pandan leaves are sometimes tied in a knot and simmered in a sweet dish to gently release its heavenly flavor. Their flavor can also be extracted by cooking whole sections of leaf in a savory dish and removing it after cooking.

Let’s Go Back to the Green Green Snacks of Home

During my childhood, my Mom often cooked me Indonesian traditional snacks and my favorites are the green ones. Now, there are so many great snacks around but I really miss the Green Green Snacks of Home so much today. These ‘green snacks’ are very tasty desserts and drinks – perfect for an unforgettable ‘snacking moment’.

In this post, I explain a bit and show the pictures of my five favorites green snacks and the top two include the recipes.

Klepon (sticky rice green dumpling)

Klepon (pronounced Klê-pon) is a traditional Indonesian rice cake, from Javanese cuisine. It is a boiled rice cake, stuffed with liquid gula jawa (palm sugar), and rolled in grated coconut. Klepon is green because it is flavored with a paste made from the pandan and/or suji leaves which are used widely in South East Asian cooking.

Surprise, surprise I found one recipe of Klepon at the least expected website for this traditional Indonesian snack - it’s at www.nigella.com/recipes/ and klepon is called glutinous rice balls and this is the recipe:

Ingredients

150 ml pandanus juice
2 tbsp water
200 g palm sugar finely chopped
1/2 tsp salt
75 g grated coconut

Method:

Combine the glutinous rice flour , pandanus juice and water into a medium sized bowl kneading well to form a smooth pliable dough.Cover the dough with a damp towel to prevent it from drying out.
Bring a pan of water to boil , then lower the heat so that the water simmers gently.
Pinch out a dough about 2 cm across flatten it into a disc and drop it into the simmering water. When the disc is cooked and rises to the surface, lift it out with a slotted spoon , shake off the water and knead the cooked dough evenly back into the main dough. If dough seem too sticky , knead in another 1 to 2 tbsp glutinous flour.
Mix the salt and grated coconut together and place on a plate.
Pinch off small balls of dough the size of small limes ( 20 g each ) and roll them into your palms to form smooth balls. carefully make a small well in hte center of each ball and fill with 1 tbsp of the palm sugar .
Pinch the dough together to seal the palm sugar inside tightly, then roll the ball gently to smoothen and , as you make each one , drop it into the simmering water.
When the dough balls floats to the top , carefully remove them with a slotted spoon and allow the water to drain off.
Then roll the balls in the grated coconut to coat evenly. Transfer to a serving plate.

And this is the picture of Klepon which I saw from Nigela Lawson’s website:

Green Serabi

Serabi, surabi or called srabi is an Indonesian pancake drizzled by sweet syrupy sauce. It is made from rice flour and coconut milk or just plain shredded coconut as an emulsifier.

Each province in Indonesia has various serabi recipes corresponding to local tastes. Like in Bandung they sell serabi with chocolate or cheese or sweetened condensed milk and raisin as toppings.

But for me, the classic green serabi with sweet sauce is the best.

When browsing the internet, I found one recipe of green serabi with sweet sauce from www.belzyskitchen.blogspot.com. Here is the recipe with a bit modification:

Ingredients:

200 gram all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
300 cc coconut milk
50 cc natural green coloring made from suji leaves
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
Olive oil for brushing the pan

Sauce:

400 cc coconut milk
5 tablespoons of palm sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 pandan leaf, knotted

Methods:

Combine flour and baking powder then sift on a big bowl.
Whisk egg and salt until foamy.
Whisk in coconut milk and the green coloring until well combined.

For the serabi:

Gradually pour egg and coconut mixture into flour bowl, fold it until the batter is soft and lumps free.
Let it rest for 2 hours.
Brush serabi pan or a very small round pan with olive oil.
Heat it over low heat .
Once the pancake surface is pored then put the lid on.
Cook it until the pancake is set.

For the sauce:

In a saucepan, mix all ingredients and boil it until the palm sugar is melted.
Keep stirring to avoid coconut crumbled.
Serve the serabi with the sauce and this is the look of green serabi of the above recipe:

Green Cendol

Cendol is a traditional dessert drink originating from South East Asia which is popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Philippines and Thailand. There is popular belief that the name “cendol” is related to and originated from the word in Javanese, Sundanese and Indonesian language which means “bump” or “bulge” which refers to bumpy sensations of the green worm-like jelly passed through the mouth during drinking es cendol. This green cendol dessert drink is liked by many people including President Barak Obama as you can see from this picture:

Dadar Gulung (Indonesian Pancake with Coconut Filling)

Green Pandan Cake

Pandan cake is a light, fluffy cake of Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Philippines flavored with the juice of suji leaves. The cakes are light green in tone due to the chlorophyll in the leaf juice.

Wow………………how can you resist such sweet green temptations?

Just looking at the pictures of these green snacks, I get home sick and miss my childhood ‘green snacks’ so much that I am singing along with Tom Jones……..”Yes, they’ll all come to meet me, arms reaching, smiling sweetly …….It’s good to taste the green, green snacks of home…………….”

References:

Wikipedia
Nigela Lawson website
belzyskitchen’s blog

Pictures are from:

green.kompasiana.com
kesehatan.kompasiana.com
usahamakanan.com
resephidanganhijau-mikhlaskautsar.blogspot.com
resepmakananhalal.blogpot.com
ketela.wordpress.com
kaskus.us
flickr.com

Let's Roll Some 'Lemper'

2011-03-03T21:33:00.000-08:00

Lemper is an Indonesian dish made of sticky rice and chicken. The chicken is rolled inside the rice, in a fashion similar to egg roll. This is in turn rolled and wrapped inside a banana leaf or a plastic sheet to make a packet ready for serving.

Lemper also can be called ”Indonesian sushi roll”. A savory and delicious snack and sometimes good for breakfast too.

Some people cook Lemper by steaming or grilling after the Lemper are wrapped with banana leaves so that the fragrance of the leaves could be absorbed into the sticky rice. Lemper is one of the most popular ‘Jajanan Pasar’ in Indonesia (notes: ‘Jajanan’ means snacks and ‘Pasar’ means traditional market so it’s basically an Indonesian traditional snack).

Steamed Lemper (**)

Grilled Lemper (**)

Why Lemper?

I had been thinking of making Lemper for sometimes and have collected some recipes from different sources. I still regret it that I never learned how to make Lemper from my Mom as she made the best Lemper ever.

After studying the recipes, I decided to try the one which I thought closest to my Mom’s Lemper. And this is the recipe I chose to follow:

Ingredients:

250 gram sticky rice, rinsed and drained
400 ml water
50 gram cream coconut powder
salt
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
225 gram minced chicken
2 pandan leaves
3 Kafir lime leaves
1 teaspoon squized lime juice

Ingredients for the spice paste:

1 oinion, finely chopped
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 teaspoon shaved palm sugar or brown sugar
salt

* in the original recipe it uses 1 teaspoon of cumin in the ingredients for spice paste, but I skip the cumin coz my family don’t like it

The first time I tried making Lemper was on last February 3rd, during the holiday for Lunar New Year.

I managed to cook the sticky rice:

and the chicken filling ….. (note: I did not really mince the chicken , basically only it into small pieces)

When came the time to roll the Lemper……….that was a bit of disaster.

I have never learned before how to roll the sticky rice. I tried to figure it out myself but could not roll the sticky rice because my fingers got all sticky….even with the help of oil and the Lemper was breaking up.

After struggled trying to roll the sticky rice and the chicken filling, I knew that it must be something wrong with the technique. The taste was OK but the look was far from the Lemper I’ve known. Oh gosh, what should I do?

I remember I have ever seen another technique of making lemper in a cooking magazine. Instead of rolling the sticky rice, they used baking pan to form the lemper as shown in the following picture (**):

So I decided to make the most out of the mess I’ve made by putting the sticky rice and the chicken filling in a baking pan as follows:

First I brush the baking pan with oil
Put one layer (around 2 – 3 cm thick) of the sticky rice in the pan
Add a layer of the chicken meat on top of the sticky rice layer
Cover the chicken meat layer with another layer of sticky rice.

Since part of my sticky rice has been mixed with the chicken filling, I could not avoid having a little bit of the chicken pieces on the top of the sticky rice…which should not be!.

Definitely, the look of my Lemper was not good at all, but fortunately the taste was OK and that’s all the matter for first time trial.

When cut, my first time Lemper looked like this:

I promised myself that next time I will try making better Lemper not just in terms of the taste but also the appearance.

The second time I made Lemper Ayam was last week end. This time it was much better than the first, both in terms of the taste and the look.

I did not know the step by step of rolling the Lemper, so I just rely on my memory of how my Mom’s made Lemper many years ago. When trying the second time, I found out that to roll the sticky rice, I need the help of banana leaf or plastic wrap or plastic gloves to prevent the sticky rice get stuck on all over my fingers

And this was how I made Lemper the second time:

Place the sticky rice in a pan and add the water
Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes
Add half of the cream coconut and a pinch of salt and continue to cook over a low heat until the rice is tender
Spread the hot rice in a plate and allow to cool

Using a pestle and a mortar, pound all the spice ingredients into a smooth paste. Add in the pieces of pandan leaves

Gently fry the spice paste in the oil until fragrant

Add the minced chicken and Kafir line leaves, then stir in the remaining half of the coconut cream powder and a dash of water
Continue to stir fry until the chicken is cooked through and the mixture is dry
Season with salt and the squized lime juice
Remove from heat, discard the pandan and kafir line leaves and let the chicken mixture to cool
Brush a sheet of plastic wrap or aluminum foil with oil
Spoon heap of sticky rice onto the plastic wrap or aluminum foild and shape into rectangles

Spread some chicken filling along the center of each rice rectangle from end to end

Fold both sides of the rectangle rice towards each other lengthwise
Roll with our fingers (covered by plastic wrap or gloves) and shape it like this:

continue to fold one by one until you get a batch of Lemper

This is how the Lemper rolls should look when they are wrapped in banana leaves:

The banana leaves make a nice aroma. After that, you may steam or grill the Lemper. Many people said when Lemper rolls are wrapped with banana leaves and then steamed, it makes the Lemper can be kept longer (not easily get spoiled). Eating Lemper is very easy but making it is a different story. It takes a long time and our determination to cook it. But once you can cook good Lemper, it’s worth the effort.

My second daughter loves Lemper so much but she would only eat Lemper when it’s cooked by my Mom. She could even finish seven pieces of my Mom’s Lemper at one time. She would not eat Lemper unless it tastes exactly like the Lemper made by her grandma. That’s why when I tried cooking Lemper the first time, I tried hard to be as good as my Mom’s. Fortunately, the second trial was considered a success as she ate seven pieces of my Lemper too

References:

Wikipedia
MyKitchenProduce Blog
KitchenCake Blog
IndoChef Blog
Google Images for some pictures (**)

Yellow Rice, Food for Celebration

2011-02-10T00:33:00.000-08:00

Why Food for Celebration?

In my country, people usually make Yellow Rice in a cone-shape which called Tumpeng to celebrate important event. The philosophy of Tumpeng is related to the geographical condition of Indonesia, especially Java as fertile island with numerous mountains and volcanoes. Tumpeng dated back to ancient Indonesian tradition that revered mountains as the abode of ancestors and gods. The cone-shaped rice meant to mimics the holy mountain. The feast served as some kind of thanks giving for the abundance of harvest or any other blessings.

PhotofromKatalogMasakan

In gratitude ceremony (syukuran or slametan), after the people pray, the top of tumpeng is cut and delivered to the most important person. He or she may be the group leader, the oldest person, or the beloved one. Then, all people in the ceremony enjoy the tumpeng together. With tumpeng, people express the gratitude to God and appreciate togetherness and harmony. An annual ceremony involving tumpeng is commonly called ‘tumpengan’.

Photo:fromIndonesianstory.com

Surrounding Dishes

The cone shaped rice surrounded by assorted of Indonesian dishes, such as ayam panggang bumbu rujak (spicy chicken grill – please see my first post ‘This is the beginning’), urap (vegetables in spicy shredded coconut), empal gepuk (sweet and spicy fried beef), abon sapi (beef floss), semur (beef in sweet soy sauce), teri kacang (anchovy with peanuts), fried prawn, telur pindang (boiled marble egg), shredded omelette, tempe orek (sweet and dry fried tempeh), perkedel kentang (mashed potato fritters or potato croquette), perkedel jagung (corn fritters), sambal goreng ati (liver in chilli sauce), and many other dishes.

Because of its festivities and celebrative value, up until now tumpeng sometimes used as Indonesian counterpart of birthday cake. And like birthday cake it is decorated in different beautiful designs as you can see in the following pictures:

Photo: fromSendokGarpu.com

Photo:fromPondokMuaraTumpeng

Photo:fromAlleyKitchen

I found a classic recipe of Indonesian Yellow Rice in a book named Authentic Recipes from Indonesia by Holzen and Arsana as follows:

Ingredients

2 teaspoons ground tumeric
60 ml water
300 gram uncooked rice, washed and drained
375 ml thin coconut milk
125 ml chicken stock or 1 chicken cube dissolved in 125 ml warm water
1 salam or pandan leaf
1 stalk lemongrass, thick bottom part only, outer layer discarded, inner part bruised
2 cm galangal, peeled and slice
Salt

How to prepare:

Dissolve the ground tumeric in water
Combine the rice, tumeric juice, coconut milk, chicken stock, salam or pandan leaf, lemongrass, galangal and salt in a pot and bring to a boil over high heat
Reduce the heat to medium and simmer covered until the liquid is absorbed 10-15 minutes until the rice is dry and fluffy
Remove from heat and mix well. Alternatively cook the rice and ingredients in rice cooker
Discard the salam or pandan leaf, lemongrass and galangal
Pressed the cooked yellow rice into a cone shape and decorate with the accompaniments on the sides, if desired

Serve the rice with the accompaniments on the side

This is the look of the authentic Indonesian Festive Yellow Rice:

Photo:fromHolzenandArsana

So far, in my cooking journey I have never tried to cook yellow rice. Judging from the recipe and the look, it must be very time consuming and complicated.

But one day, when I mentioned that I wanted to learn how to cook yellow rice, my second daughter taught me a secret on how to cook yellow rice in a more practical and easy way. She learned this secret when she was studying in Singapore a few years ago.

I ‘ve tried it out and I like the result. The taste of this quick and easy yellow rice was as good as the authentic one. But the big difference lies on the surrounding dishes which accompanied the yellow rice or the design.

A Quick and Easy Version of Cooking Yellow Rice

Ingredients:

300 gram uncooked rice, wash and drain
1 pack of Indofood Bumbu Soto Ayam (ready-made seasoning for Soto Ayam = Indonesian Chicken Soup)
1 pack of Kara Coconut Cream dissolve in 375 ml water
1 chicken cube, crumbled and dissolved in 125 ml water
1 salam or pandan leaf

How to prepare:

Dissolve the coconut cream in the water to become coconut milk, set aside
Crumble the chicken cube and dissolve in 125 ml water to make the chicken stock, set aside
Stir fry the Indofood Seasoning Paste for a minute or until fragrant
Add the chicken stock
Pour in coconut milk and stir until well blended
Combine the rice, seasoned coconut milk, and pandan leaf in an automatic rice cooker.
Before turn on the button of the rice cooker, mix well the rice and seasoned coconut milk
Turn on the rice cooker and cook the seasoned rice until the button is off automatically
When the on button is off, leave the rice covered in the rice cooker for about 15-20 minutes until the rice is dry and fluffy
Remove from the rice cooker and stir well
Discard the pandan leaf
Form into a cone and decorate with the surrounding dishes (note: to form a sturdy and smooth cone shape some people mix regular rice with glutinous rice with 50:50 composition).

When I made the yellow rice, it was not for celebration so I used only regular rice and did not decorate it and here is the look of my simple humble Yellow Rice:

References:

Authentic Recipes from Indonesia by Holzen and Arsana
Katalogmasakan.com
Indonesianstory.com
Alleykitchen.com
Sendokgarpu.com

Chili, a HOT commodity

2011-02-08T22:16:00.000-08:00

The title of this post is not pun intended. In-deed, recently chili has become a HOT commodity in my country both literally and figuratively. Since the end of 2010, the price of chili has gone through the roof. Reaching an impressive IDR 100,000 (US $ 11.1) per kilogram, or five times its normal price and more than the price of chicken meat, it has truly become a hot commodity on dining table and in kitchens of most people in my country.

In less than one week, I already noticed more than 3 articles about this ‘hot commodity’ on headlines of Jakarta Post, one of the local newspapers. Both newspapers and social networking sites have been flooded with ironic messages and posts about chilies. Let me quote some interesting statements:

‘Asnidar is willing to sacrifice her family’s meat consumption in order to keep chili on the table. Chili is our staple food, not rice or meat, she said.’

‘Housewife Desi Octaviani said her family had replaced the hot flavor of chili with pepper’

‘The chili shortage hit lovers of fried snacks particularly hard. On a good day, fried snack vendors are generous in handing out fresh chilies as a complement. Now for 10 pieces of fried-snacks, the vendors only give 3 pieces of chili, tiny ones, told by office worker Rachmadin.’

‘Adisya said that the food at her favorite restaurants had dulled although it still contained chili. The taste is less spicy because they put more tomotoes in it.’

‘Rising chili prices have given us a chance to explore other Indonesian flavors, wrote Bondan Winarno, culinary expert.’

‘In Banyumas, Central Java, food traders tried their best to provide the usual menu at the same price. “We feel sorry for our customers because we cannot provide sambal (chili paste) for them,” Sumini said’.

People in Indonesia hardly go without eating fiery dishes during mealtimes. The hottest condiment known as ‘sambal’ or chili paste is a must-have accompaniment for every meal.

Life without sambal would be so plain for me and I think also for millions of other Indonesians. Imagine life for Koreans without kimchi, Americans without hamburger or Mexicans without tortillas. That is how it has felt for a large number of people in my country over the past few weeks.

Now let’s take a closer look at Indonesia’s treasure chest of Sambals:

Sambal is served as a condiment and as an ingredient for a variety of dishes. It is sometimes a substitute for fresh chilies. It can be extremely spicy for the uninitiated. It is common to find bowls of different sambals on the dining table in Indonesian homes.

Some popular Indonesian sambals include sambal terasi (shrimp paste sambal), sambal bajak, sambal mangga (green mango sambal), sambal ijo (green sambal), sambal balado, sambal kecap (sweet soy sauce sambal), sambal setan, sambal Taliwang, sambal matah and many more.

Sambal Terasi

A common Indonesian style of sambal. Terasi (shrimp paste) is similar to the Malaysian Belacan, but with a stronger flavor since terasi is a more condensed shrimp paste than belacan.

Sambal Bajak

Chili (or another kind of red pepper) fried with oil, garlic, terasi, candlenuts and other condiments

Sambal mangga

Freshly ground Sambal Terasi with shredded young mango; this is a good accompaniment to seafood.

Sambal ijo

A specialty of the Padang area from Indonesia, the sambal is green, made of green tomatoes, green chilli, and spices. The sambal is stir fried.

Sambal Balado

This is the Padang style of Sambal. Red chili pepper is blended together with garlic, shallot, tomato, salt and lemon or lime juice, then sauteed with oil.

Sambal Kecap Manis

Indonesian sweet soy sauce, chili, shallots and lime it has a chiefly sweet taste, as said by the Indonesian word ‘manis’ which means ‘sweet’.

Sambal Setan

A very hot sambal with Madame Jeanette peppers (red brownish, very sharp). The name literally means “Devil’s Sauce”.

Sambal Taliwang

This variant is native to Taliwang, a village near Mataram, Lombok Island, and is made from naga jolokia pepper grown specially in Lombok mixed with garlic and Lombok shrimp paste. It is served as condiments to ayam bakar Taliwang (Taliwang grilled chikcen)

Sambal matah

Raw Shallot & Lemongrass Sambal of Bali origin. It contains a lot of finely chopped shallots, chopped bird’s eye chilli, shrimp paste (terasi), with a dash of lemon.

There are still many other types of sambals ….. but for today, let me close this post by quoting Bondan Winarno, a culinary expert who asked people to look at the brighter side: ‘Rising chili prices have given us a chance to explore other Indonesian flavors. There are other hot flavors such as pepper, andaliman (szechuan peppercorn) and ginger’.

So perhaps it isn’t the end of the world after all for all lovers of chili in Indonesia.

New Year's Day

2011-01-17T21:27:00.000-08:00

New Year 2011 is here. For some people New Year is no more than a change of a calendar while for some others the New Year symbolizes of a better tomorrow.

And every new year many people make resolutions to change something they believe are negative or set new goals or to live healthier, to learn new things, to lose weight ……you name it.

I respect those who make new year resolution but for myself I agree with a quote (Anonymous) I found in About.com: A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other.

For me, the New Year is like the New Year wish of Edith Lovejoy Pierce:

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called “Opportunity” and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.

And here is the first post of my Blog in 2011…….

I know that we have left the old year and entered a new year but for some of us the memories of 2010 are still there in our minds and hearts. And for me, one of my bitter sweet memories of 2010 was our new years eve dinner.

Before New Years Eve (NYE) I have made plan to cook a special dinner for my family. But in life sometimes things don’t go as we planned and this happened to my NYE family dinner.

On the last week of 2010, I still had to work and took care of lots of thing at the office related to ‘closing the book’. I did not have enough time to do proper shopping. I only managed to do last minute shopping on my way home from the office on the last day of 2010. To my disappointment, some important and necessary ingredients needed to cook my NYE dinner were not available at the store where I shopped.

Guess what happened to my NYE dinner:

My plan was to have cantaloupe in the blanket (prosciutto wrapped canteloupe) for starter, spaghetti aglio e olio with bacon and chili for the main course and caramelized banana split with ice cream for dessert but I ended up with a quite different menu:

For starter, I cooked ‘Angeun Kacang Beureum’ (Spicy Red Kidney Bean Soup), a local dish from West Java instead of cantaloupe in the blanket since I could not find the canteloupe but found a can of red kidney beans in my kitchen cabinet.

Ingredients:

1 can of red kidney beans (around 400 grams)
1 liter water
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 big onion, coarsely sliced
1 tablespoon tamarind juice
½ teaspoon dried shrimp paste, roasted
pinch of salt
1 tablespoon palm sugar, shaved
2 cm galangal, sliced
2 salam leaves
1 tomato, diced into cubes
1 spring onion, cut into 2 cm
5 bird’s eye chilies

How to make:

Cook the beef in 1 liter water until tender
Add in all ingredients except tomato and spring onion and cook over low heat until the red kidney beans softened and the soup is thickened
Add spring onions and tomato and cook for a few minutes
Remove from heat
Place in a bowl and serve immediately

For the main course, instead of cooking Spaghetti Aglio e Olio with Bacon and Chili as planned, I ended up buying a RTE (ready-to-eat) Chicken Rotisserie coz I simply did not have the energy to prepare the spaghetti. Fortunately, I could get the recipe of the chicken rotisserie from the store who sold it.

Ingredients:

1 whole fryer chicken
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tablespoon honey
2 tablespoon lime juice
2 tablespoons rosemary leaves
seasoned salt to taste

How to make:

Combine all ingredients, except the chicken of course, in a saucepan over medium heat.
Mix until honey is completely melted and mixture is smooth.
Clean and prepare chicken for rotisserie.
Baste chicken with sauce and place on rotisserie on preheated grill.
Cook for about 45 to 50 minutes at a temperature around 200 degrees Celcius basting occasionally with sauce.
When done remove from grill and wrap tightly in foil.
Let sit for about 15 minutes, then serve.

The only dish that I prepared inline with my plan was the dessert – Caramelized Banana Split with Ice Cream:

Ingredients:

1 banana (I used the big banana called ‘pisang tanduk’ or literally is translated ‘horn banana’). According to Wikipedia it’s called Musa African Rhino Horn, a cultivar of genus Musa found in Africa. It produces rhino tusk-shaped edible bananas.

50 gram unsalted butter
30 gram brown sugar or shaved palm sugar

How to make:

Peel the banana
Cut the banana into 2 parts
Each part is then cut lengthwise into 2 parts

Melt butter in the pan
Fry the banana and caramelized with brown sugar

Serve with ice cream

So that was my NYE dinner menu……and let me close this post by quoting G.K Chesterton: the object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.

Simply Having Wonderful Christmastime

2010-12-29T20:48:00.000-08:00

I am sure you all know that Wonderful Christmastime is a 1979 Christmas song by Paul McCartney. It enjoys significant Christmas time popularity around the world. McCartney recorded the song entirely on his own during the sessions for his solo project McCartney II.

This post is not to discuss about this song but I think ‘Simply Having Wonderful Christmas Time’ is just what we need during this time of the year. Most of us have a busy and demanding life and it is often hard to find the time to really appreciate the importance of capturing the Christmas Spirit.

Why Wonderful Christmas Time?

Christmas is a season of joy and peace, sharing and giving. A period to to show love and spend time with our loved ones.

For me, one particularly wonderful thing about Christmas was that I had the opportunity of cooking dishes that we, Indonesian don’t normally cook at any other time of the year.

In addition to that, this year I could plan and prepare a special Christmas menu for my family:

my version of smoked turkey salad complete with the salad dressing
my version of pigs in the blanket (bacon wrapped sausages)
my version of mighty meaty meatloaf complete with its glazing and sauce
my version of baked pumpkin
seedless grapes
Christmas cup cakes

I spent FIVE hours working in the kitchen to cook and ‘create’ my version of all these Christmas dishes myself except the cup cakes (I bought them in one of the famous cup cake stores in Jakarta) and the seedless grapes.

Here I would like to share with you my special Christmas dishes:

My Smoked Turkey Salad

Ingredients

2 big red tomatoes, deseeded and thickly sliced, length-wise
2 red bell peppers, deseeded and thickly sliced, length-wise
250 grams lettuce, coarsely chopped
one whole big onion, thinly sliced, rounded
200 grams smoked turkey, thinly sliced

The Salad Dressing:

1/2 cup of olive oil
3 lemons, cut into half, squeezed to get the juice
Pour the lemon juice into the olive oil
Stir well to combine
Add salt and pepper

My Pigs in the Blanket

Ingredients:

12 cocktail pork sausages
6 slices streaky bacon

Preparation:

Heat the oven to 180C/Gas 5
Using the back of a knife stretch each bacon slice then cut into 2 equal pieces.
Tightly wrap each sausage with a piece of bacon.
Use tooth pick to secure the wrapping
Lay side by side on a baking tray.
Cook in the preheated oven for 30 mins or until crisp and golden.

My Baked Pumpkin

Ingredients:

500 gram pumpkin flesh
3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons of All Purpose Seasoning (Note: All Purpose Seasoning contains 1 teaspoon dried leaf basil, crumbled, 1 teaspoon ground mace, 1 teaspoon dried marjoram,1 teaspoon ground cloves, 1 teaspoon dried leaf thyme, crumbled, 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg, 1 teaspoon leaf oregano, crumbled, 1 teaspoon black pepper, 1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes, 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper, 1 teaspoon savory)

How to make:

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/gas 5.
Cut the lid off the pumpkin
Scoop out the seeds with a spoon
Coarsely chop the pumpkin flesh
In a baking pan , pour in a splash of olive oil, then add the chopped pumpkin
Add in the All Purpose Seasoning
Bake the pumpkin for 10 minutes or so until the pumpkin has softened.

My Mighty Meaty Meatloaf

Ingredients:

3 tablespoons of extra Virgin olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley
3 tablespoons minced garlic
salt
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 kg of ground beef
2 eggs
1/2 cup full cream milk
3 tablespoons of barbeque sauce (I use Delmonte)
2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
2/3 cup fine dried bread crumbs

The Glaze:

1/2 cup barbeque sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons Worchestershire sauce
1 tablespoon hot chili sauce (optional)

Step by Step of Making Meatloaf:

Position rack in center of oven and preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celcius
Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.
Add the onion, parsley, garlic, salt, basil, thyme, and black pepper.
Cook, stirring, until the onions are soft and lightly golden, about 6 minutes.

Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
In a large mixing bowl, put the ground beef and smoothen with wooden spoon or with clean hands. Be sure to wash up afterward.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the eggs , full cream milk, barbeque sauce, dried basil, thyme, and Worcestershire sauce, and whisk to combine.

Add the egg mixture to the meat mixture along with the cooled vegetables and bread crumbs.
Mix with your hands or a wooden spoon until thoroughly combined.

Transfer the mixture to a aluminum foil and using your fingers form into a loaf
Using the wooden spoon, smooth the top into a rounded loaf shape. Wash hands again.

To make the glaze, combine the barbeque sauce, brown sugar, Worcestershire, and hot chili sauce, if desired, in a small bowl.
Stir to blend

Spread the mixture evenly over the top of the meatloaf.

Bake the meatloaf for 45 minutes to 1 hour .

To make the meatloaf sauce:

using oven mitts or pot holders, carefully tilt the meatloaf pan away from you and drain off the excess grease from the pan and move it into a sauce pan
Add in 3 tablespoons barbeque sauce
Add in 2 tablespoons of Worchestershire sauce
Cook and stir well for around 2 minutes

It turned out that the FIVE hours labor of LOVE spent in the kitchen was so fruitful. All my special Christmas dishes were successfully done as planned. My family members loved and enjoyed all of them, they even finished EVERYTHING!

And while we were busy eating our Christmas meal, the youngest member of our family, Miu Miu, came to join us as our very special Miss Santa …….

I felt exactly like the McCartney’s song….the mood is right, the spirits up, were here tonight, and that’s enough …….. simply having wonderful Christmas time.

Christmas, the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

2010-12-22T19:47:00.000-08:00

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year is a popular Christmas song written in 1963 by Eddie Pola and George Wyle. It was recorded and released that year by pop singer Andy Williams or his first Christmas album, The Andy Williams Christmas Album.

BUT according to a Psychology Today article, some 45% of us are not thinking it is the most wonderful time of the year, as the old Andy Williams song goes. Sadly, to some people the “most wonderful time of the year” has become the most stressful time of the year due to over commercialization of the Christmas holiday.

Whether or not you are religious, Christmas is a beautiful time meant to be enjoyed by everyone. Let’s try to focus on the original message of Christmas: love and joy – things we all strive for – by appreciating the most important aspect of Christmas, which is time spent with our loved ones. I believe that the things that matter most are things that money cannot buy.

Every country and culture across the world has its own way of celebrating Christmas. One factor that unites Christmas celebrations everywhere is that they are undoubtedly a family affair

How about Christmas in my country?

Though we live in a part of the world that doesn’t see snow, located far from Santa’s radar where the majority of the population would find trees in the living room illogical, Christmas remains one of the the most sought after holidays in Indonesia.

Christmas trees adorned with decorations and even fake snow have been erected, and Santa Clauses appear in many shopping malls in the city presenting a Christmas ambiance.

Similar to other countries, what makes Christmas a special celebration in my country is its focus on family and togetherness. Spend time with the entire family in the kitchen surely will be a wonderful time. It certainly does not matter how big, small, fancy or not, the kitchen is. As long as it is filled with love, it will draw our loved ones in.

Kitchen is the LOVE center of any home

The kitchen is the perfect place for making memories. When we spend time cooking and enjoying meals with our family, we create happy memories that will be cherished forever.

You are lucky if you can cook the best Christmas meals with every member of the family sitting at the dining table for a memorable dinner.

The benefits of preparing and enjoying food as a family are clear. We save money and eat healthier meals. We create opportunities to connect and communicate with our family. And most importantly, we show love for our family when we spend time cooking and eating with them.

Christmas is all about nostalgia and memories. Many of us have traditions that go back years, if not generations. What foods must be on the table every single year? No matter where you live or how old you are, Christmas from your childhood have a special glow about them. And food always plays a part in these memories.

It’s important to have your own family traditions. A tradition doesn’t have to be fancy, complicated or expensive; it just has to be memorable. That’s what the holidays are all about

Here are traditional Christmas foods in my country:

Pork satay

Brenebon (Red kidney bean soup with garlic and ribs)

Layer Cake

Klapertart

Kaastengel

Nanas Tart

Get together with our loved ones with such delicious traditional Christmas foods on the table, surely we will agree with Andy Williams that Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year.

MeatLoaf – I’d Do Anything for Love

2010-12-15T02:20:00.000-08:00

Hey, in a few days we are going to celebrate Christmas again …how time flies. I start thinking 'what to cook for Christmas dinner?

My second daughter has been ‘nagging’ me to cook ‘Frog Chicken’ (please see my earlier post on ‘Frog chicken or ayam kodok’) for our Christmas dinner this year. But so far I have not got the time yet to practice on how to debone the chicken – the hard part of cooking ‘Frog Chicken’ so how can I cook ‘frog chicken’ for our Christmas dinner….?

Again my daughter came with an idea. She said ‘why don’t you just cook Meatloaf so you don’t have to trouble yourself to debone the chicken’

Well, good idea….I can cook Meatloaf.

As always, when I want to cook or write something, I go to my best friend ‘Google’ for advice. This time when I visited Google and without thinking I typed ‘Meat Loaf’, it came out ‘Meat Loaf – I’d Do Anything for Love’ (But I won’t Do That). Apparently, it‘s a song composed and written by Jim Steinman, and recorded by Meat Loaf, an American Rock Musician and Actor.

Well, although it was a mistake but this finding has given me a kind of a sign that Meatloaf is the best choice for our Christmas dinner this year …as the song said ‘Id Do Anything for Love = cooking Meatloaf for my family’ but I won’t do That = no need to go through the trouble to debone a chicken’

More about Meatloaf (not Meat Loaf)

Meatloaf is a dish of ground meat formed into a loaf shape and baked or smoked. The loaf shape is formed by either cooking it in a loaf pan, or forming it by hand on a flat baking pan. It is usually made from ground beef, although lamb, pork, veal, venison, and poultry or a combination are also used.

Many meatloaf recipes are interchangeable with meatball recipes, the distinction coming from shape and from the accompaniments or choice of sauce. Sometimes tomato paste or ketchup is in the meat and baked along with the meat.

Meatloaf is a versatile dish. The ground meat may be mixed with a binder such as eggs and breadcrumbs, small pieces of bread soaked in milk (or red wine or another liquid), or wheat germ, finely ground almonds, or oatmeal, to make it more dough-like.

Salt, spices and herbs (such as parsley), as well as chopped vegetables (such as onions, green peppers and celery), may also be added.

Some recipes add strips of bacon on top. Meatloaves may be filled with eggs, cheese, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, or a combination of these ingredients.

Some meatloaves can be made by adding meat and sometimes also eggs to a meatloaf mix before baking.

This my version of meatloaf recipe:

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 large onions, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon tomato paste
2 cups (150 gram) breadcrumbs
1 cup (60 ml) red wine
500 gram minced beef
250 gram minced veal
250 gram minced pork
15 gram finely chopped parsley
1 teasppon chopped fresh thyme
2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons Worchestershire sauce
2 eggs, lightly beaten

How to make:

Heat olive oil in a frying pan over medium heat, add the onion and cook for a few minutes or until soft and golden
Stir in the garlic and tomato paste and continue cooking for 5 minutes
Remove from heat and allow to cool
Place the breadcrumbs in a bowl and pour the wine over them
Stir to combine and leave to soak
Combine the beef, veal, and pork mince, parsley, thyme, sage, nutmeg, Worchestershire sauce and onion mixture in a large bowl
Add the egg and combine thoroughly, but avoid squeezing the meat
Add the breadcrumbs mixture, season and mix well until well combined
Pack this mixture into a 10-inch loaf pan to mold the shape of the meatloaf
Brush the top of the meatloaf with the remaining oil
Bake the meatloaf in the oven (pre heat at 180 degree Celcius) for 45 - 60 minutes or until cooked through (when tested with a skewer, the juice should run clear and the laof should be firm to the touch).

And this was the result:

To help you get an idea on making meatloaf, I found very good pictures of the step by step from preparation to cooked meatloaf in Wikipedia as follows:

Step 1: Mix the minced beef, veal and pork

Step 2: Add in the chopped onion, garlic and other ingredients

Step 3: Add in the eggs

Step 4: Add in the breadcrumbs

Step 5: Shape the meat mixture into a rounded loaf shape

Step 6: Bake in the oven for 45 - 60 minutes

Step 7: Slice and serve
.

Bali, the Paradise to Eat, Pray, Love

2010-12-07T22:38:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Bali!

Bali was the last location (after Italy and India) for the shooting of “Eat, Pray, Love” (EPL) a major Hollywood motion picture starring Oscar winner Julia Roberts, based on a best-selling travel and personal growth memoir of Elizabeth Gilbert. The story is about a year of change in Gilbert’s life, from divorce and depression in America, to pleasure in Italy, finding God in an India and Love in Bali.

During the shooting, Eat Pray Love fever swept over Bali. One restaurant (Naughty Nuri’s) has come up with a quirky “Eat Pay Leave” T-shirt using the same font and print as appears on the cover of the best-selling book.

One Ubud institution has remained relatively EPL-free, though not entirely by choice. Ubud Writers and Readers Festival founder Janet de Neefe says that they've invited Elizabeth Gilbert several times but conflicts have prevented her from attending. This year's seventh festival, running from October 6-10, has no explicitly EPL-themed events, though de Neefe, a restaurateur and cookbook author, says, "We do explore eating with culinary programs, and praying, including a program with a healer, and, of course, love and romance are central to literature."

With a land area of only 2,174 square miles, Bali sits in the middle of the Indonesian archipelago. Despite its small size, the island has great diversity - the beaches on the circumference, the inland artistic/cultural center in Ubud, the northern volcanic chain, as well as the beach development around the airport and the one major city of Denpasar.

There are many things famous from Bali, the beaches, the temples and also the Balinese people. But one thing you will not forget is the traditional Balinese foods. Like many other places in Indonesia, Bali has wide range of traditional foods, made from traditional ingredients, bringing you a delight taste as one of culture of Indonesia.

The Food of Bali

The staple food of Bali is white, polished rice. Nowadays cooked rice (nasi) is of the fast growing "green-revolution" variety found everywhere in Asia. The traditional Balinese rice (beras Bali) tastes better, but is restricted to a few areas and is now mainly used as a ritual food.

Though they form a major part of the diet, vegetables are considered low-status; high status foods are rice and meat. Because it expensive, however, meat is reserved for ritual occasions. Surprisingly, fish plays a relatively minor role as a source of protein. Though the seas surrounding Bali are rich, the Balinese are not avid fishermen, as the sea is considered dangerous and impure.

Snacking as a Way of Life

Although they eat meals only twice a day, the Balinese are always snacking. Women rush from the family compound into the street the minute a passing food vendor twangs the metal chime on his push cart; men stop off at their local waning shop for a coffee on the way home from the paddy fields, while school children cannot resist crisp fried crackers (krupuk) or a plate of rujak, sliced sour fruit with a sweet and pungent sauce. There are innumerable options for a quick snack: salted peanuts, huge savoury rempeyek or rice-flour biscuits with peanuts, id cakes, sweetbread rolls, candies, krupuk and many more…...

Balinese Traditional Foods

The famous traditional Balinese foods are made from chikcen, pork and duck. It is hard to find beef menu here since cow is a symbol of holiest animal in Bali. The traditional foods are all served with steam rice and some with vegetables. Most of Balinese food are made for ceremonies, but since everyone wants to taste, the foods are easily to found either in small Warungs or restaurants.

Ayam Betutu

Ayam Betutu is a famous Balinese dish of steamed or roasted chicken. It is a popular dish because it is highly seasoned and spiced. An even spicier version is available using extra-spicy sauce made from uncooked (raw) onion slices mixed with red chili peppers and coconut oil.

It can be found in the menu of luxury hotels or restaurants in Bali as well as in traditional 'warung makan' (food stall). It takes at least 24 hours to cook. Many travelers from other regions of Indonesia brought Betutu dishes as Balinese-gift for their families.

Babi Guling

Babi Guling or roasted Suckling Pig is a whole pig rubbed down and stuffed with bumbu bali or a mixture of chopped Balinese spices including shallots, garlic, ginger, turmeric, galangal, pepper coriander, candlenuts, chilies, and lemongrass before being roasted over an open fire for up to 5 hours. The pig is continuously turned slowly to ensure even cooking so that the meat ends up tender and juicy.

And the must-visit babi guling place in Bali is Ibu Oka’s in Ubud (which was recommended and featured by Anthony Bourdain in his show ‘No Reservation (running on cable on the Travel & Living Channel or Discovery Channel).

I have never failed to go there if I’m in the area as it’s rated best in Bali, based on word-of-mouth reviews. Even the locals flock there to get their hands on some porky goodness. in fact, when asked, most of the balinese folks will mention Ibu Oka as being the best there is.

A portion of Nasi Babi Guling Special consists of steaming hot rice, with a huge chunk of tender, succulent, melt in your mouth pork, along with its crunchy skin with other accompanying side dishes on a wax paper lined wicker basket. The flesh is so tender that it can be pulled from the bone and made all the more tasty and flavorful by the secret blend of Balinese spices. Definitely one of the best meals in Bali.

Bebek Bengil (Dirty Duck)

Wonder what “Dirty Duck” in Ubud Bali is? For tourists who are visiting the beautiful island of Indonesia, Bali, should not miss to eat “Dirty Duck”. “Dirty Duck” (famously known as “Bebek Bengil”) is actually a restaurant name in Ubud, Bali. It is very well-known for its crispy fried duck served with Indonesian vegetables and delicate sambal (chili). How does “Bebek Bengil” taste? Tasty, yummy, crispy, delicious and mouth-watering! Well at least that’s the comments from our people who recently visited Bali and tried the food.

Many said “Bebek Bengil” actually came from a secret family recipe, but they eventually shared it. The mystery behind the crispiness of the ducks is that they are marinated for 36 long hours in Indonesian herbs and spices including bay leaves, lime, ginger, galangal, coriander. Why take such long 36 hours? Well, that’s part of the secrets. Once marinated, they are steamed and then deep-fried in palm oil to get the crispy touch, then voila! The famous Bebek Bengil crispy duck is born.

Lawar

Lawar is very famous in Bali, with chopped of meat, vegetable, spices and coconut mixed together

Nasi Campur Bali

Nasi Campur means Mix Rice in English. Nasi Campur is one of Balinese famous food and it is easy to find everywhere. It contains a bowl of steamed rice, mix with tofu (tahu) tempe, chicken, beef , fish, peanuts and a wide selection of cooked vegetables including water spinach (kangkung) and string beans sometimes cooked with garlic and chili. Hot sambal might be added to the side of the plate, so treat any red sauce with care. Newcomers to Bali can get a decent idea of what nasi campur is like by visiting Warung Made which does a good one for IDR 25,000 (around US $ 3).

Sate lilit

Sate lilit is always connected to Bali religious ceremonies because there’s a great philosophy behind sate lilit. Lilit came from the word “kilit” or “iket” which means string or connected which means the Balinese people expect to be united forever and cannot be separated by any kind of challenge.

References:

- 99Bali.com
- The Food of Bali by Heinz von Holzen and Lother Arsana
- Baliguide.com
- Jakarta Post

Frog Chicken for Christmas?

2010-12-03T00:05:00.000-08:00

Christmas is approaching.....let's get yourself in the Christmas mood, take out your apron and try making special dish for Christmas dinner.

Christmas dinner is always a challenge, especially if you have a big family or if you want to invite over all your best friends. You don’t have to cook sophisticated recipes to impress everybody. If you really want an authentic American Christmas dinner, you would serve roast turkey and/or ham, not chicken.

In my country we have a unique dish named ‘Ayam Kodok’ which literally can be translated as Frog Chicken. I don’t exactly know why it is named Frog Chicken, I guess probably because the chicken looks like a big frog. Frog Chicken is stuffed chicken like stuffed turkey served in the American celebration of Thanksgiving Day.

What is Frog Chicken?

Ayam Kodok or Frog Chicken is basically a deboned chicken stuffed with a kind of meatloaf and hard boiled eggs placed alongside the meatloaf. The meatloaf was a combination of the ground chicken meat itself with liver pate, several slices of bread soaked in milk, some ground pork (for those who can eat it), nutmeg, salt, pepper, sugar and a little bit of sweet soy sauce. To stuff the chicken is almost like stuffing a turkey except in here we have to stitch up the skin back to enclosed the stuffing inside.

Since Indonesia is like a melting pot of different cultures, don’t be amazed that this dish is a marriage between Dutch, Indonesian and Chinese influences!

I’ve never cooked Ayam Kodok in my life. To me, deboning chicken with a sharp knife is quite intimidating. But one day I have to overcome my fear and try to do it myself. As for now, let’s learn together the step by step on how to make the delicious Ayam Kodok.

After studying different recipes of Ayam Kodok, I found the best step by step recipe complete with pictures in Nova Tabloid as follows:

Main Ingredient:

1 - 1.5 kg fresh whole chicken with good skin condition

Ingredients for Stuffing

200 gram minced beef
200 gram minced chicken
2 chicken livers, boiled and mashed
2 eggs, beaten
3 tablespoons fried shallots
Pinch of salt
Pepper to taste
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 hard boiled eggs
2 slices of plain bread, shredded, soaked in 100 ml milk

Ingredients for the spread-mix

3 tablespoons melted butter
2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce
2 teaspoons Worchester sauce
Mix well all the above ingredients to spread on the chicken skin before and while it is baked.

Ingredients for the Sauce

2 onions, chopped (half for brown sauce and half for white sauce)
4 tablespoon of margarine or butter (2 tbsp for brown and 2 tbsp for white sauce)
2 tablespoons of flour (1 tbsp for brown and 1 tbsp for white sauce)
1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce
1 tablepoon worchestershire sauce
200 ml chicken stock (for brown sauce)
200 ml milk (for white sauce)
100 ml cream (for white sauce)
Salt, pepper and nutmeg to taste

Step by step to make the Frog Chicken

Step 1

Cut the bone in area of the chicken belly with small sharp knife

Step 2

Release the skin of the chicken breast and its surrounding by pushing and pressing using index finger

Step 3

Release the skin of the chicken back using the same technique and cut the meat in that area.

Once the skin was off of the chicken, it’s rubbed with a juice of quarter of lime. Lime helped the skin to be crispy and to have a crackly texture.

Step 4

Cut the meat of the chicken thigh, break the join and remove the bone.

Step 5

Cut the bone of the chicken shoulder, and release the skin in that area by using index finger

Step 6

Release the bones of the chicken breast

Step 7 and 8

Mix all the ingredients for stuffing except the hard boiled eggs.
Put the mixture in a tri-angle plastic bag.

Stuff 1/3 of the stuffing-mix into the chicken thorax cavity.
Insert the hard boiled eggs and then stuff the rest of the mixture

Step 9

Stitch up the chicken skin using needle and thread and make sure the stuffing will not leak out.

Tie the chicken legs and wings with cotton thread in such a way to secure the ‘frog chicken’ position.
Punch the surface of chicken skin with needle to make sure it will not erupt when steamed. Steam the chicken for 1 hour. The reason for steaming was to ensure that the stuffing was partially done because we didn’t want to bake this too long. Baking too long would make the chicken too dry.
Remove from steamer, smear the chicken skin with the spread-mix
Bake in oven at 170 degree Celsius for 1 hour
While the chicken is in Oven, from time to time smear the chicken skin with the spread-mix

To make the Sauce

The brown sauce

Heat margarine or butter in a sauce pan on medium heat
Stir fry the onion until fragrant
Add in the flour, stir well until thickened.
Pour in the chicken stock slowly while continue stirring
Add in the sweet soy sauce, worchestershire sauce, salt, pepper and ground nutmeg
Cook through until boiling
Remove from heat

The white sauce

Heat margarine or butter in a sauce pan on medium heat
Stir fry the onion until fragrant
Add in the flour, stir well until thickened
Pour in the milk slowly while continue stirring
Add the cream, mix well
Add salt, pepper, and nutmeg
Cook through until boiling
Remove from heat

After all the above is done, serve the Frog Chicken with baked potatoes, the brown and white sauces plus steamed vegetables.

And this is the interior look of Ayam Kodok when cut

References:

Tabloid Nova
Rumahmakanmurni

Chicken Run

2010-12-01T00:00:00.000-08:00

The title of this post is not mine. I borrow it from a 2000 British stop-motion animation made by the Aardman Animation studios, the production studio of the Oscar-winning Wallace and Gromit films.

The film centers around a band of chickens, who seek a smooth-talking Rhode Island Red named Rocky as their only hope to escape from their certain death when the owners of their farm decide to move from selling eggs to selling chicken pot pies.

Why Chicken?

If there is one word that describes chicken, it is versatility. Roasted, broiled, grilled or poached, and combined with a wide range of herbs and spices, chicken makes a delicious, flavorful and nutritious meal. It is no wonder chicken is the world’s primary source of animal protein and a healthy alternative to red meat. It is available to enjoy throughout the year.

Very Good Source of Protein

Chicken is rated as a very good source of protein, providing 67.6% of the daily value for protein in 4 ounces. People who are meat eaters, but are looking for ways to reduce the amount of fat in their meals, can try eating more chicken. The leanest part of the chicken is the chicken breast, which has less than half the fat of a trimmed Choice grade T-bone steak and chicken is best skinned before cooking.

Chicken is a very popular food in Indonesia as well as throughout the world. And no wonder since it is delicious, nutritious and can be prepared a multitude of ways. From fried chicken to barbequed chicken to chicken satay to homemade chicken soup, chicken is appreciated and valued by people of all ages as well as by diverse cultural culinary traditions.

In Latin, the scientific name for chicken is Gallus domesticus.

How to select and store chicken

When purchasing whole chickens, look for ones that have a solid and plump shape with a rounded breast. Whether purchasing a whole chicken or chicken parts, the chicken should feel pliable when gently pressed, and it should not have an “off” smell. Do not buy chicken if the sell-by date on the label has already expired.

The color of the chicken’s skin, white or yellow, does not have any bearing on its nutritional value. Regardless of color, the skin should be opaque and not spotted.

Chicken should be stored in the coldest section of your refrigerator. If the store packaging is intact and secure, store it this way since this will reduce the amount of handling. If the packaging is not secure, and it seems as if the chicken liquids will leak, rewrap it securely before storing. This is very important to make sure that the chicken does not contaminate other foods in the refrigerator. Refrigerated raw chicken can keep for two to three days.

Indonesian Chicken Cuisine

Indonesian cuisine is one of the most vibrant and colourful cuisines in the world, full of intense flavour and varied textures. It’s as diverse as the Indonesian culture, with culinary influences from China, Europe and India.

Recipes for Indonesian-Inspired-Spicy-Chicken are easily made in any kitchen, by any level of cook and guaranteed to awaken your tastebud and spice up your life!

Mixed-Spicy-Shredded Chicken (Ayam Suwir Bumbu Rujak)

Ingredients

400 gram boneless, skinless chicken breast roasted for 10 minutes or until done. When cool, shred the meat by hand into fine strips
200 ml coconut milk

Ingredients for the spice paste

10 finger-length chilies, chopped
5 bird’s eye chilies, chopped
1 teaspoon of roasted shrimp paste
20 gram palm sugar or brown sugar
1 teaspoon tamarind paste

Put all ingredients in a mortar and using pestle, grind into spice paste

How to make:

In a saucepan, combine the shredded chicken with the spice paste and mix well
Add in the coconut milk
Cook on medium heat until the coconut milk is evaporated
Stir well until the shredded chicken is dry
Remove from heat

Serve warm with rice

Galangal Fried Chicken (Ayam Goreng Lengkuas)

Ingredients:

1 kg whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces
4 tablespoons shredded galangal
2 salam leaves or bay leaves as substitute
1 stalk lemon grass, bruised
Oil for deep-frying

Ingredients for the Spices paste:

3 cloves garlic
5 shallots
3 candlenuts, roasted
1 teaspoon tamarind paste
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
Salt and sugar to taste

Put all the ingredients in a mortar and using pestle grind into spice paste

How to make:

Combine chicken with ground spices and shredded galangal and mix thoroughly.
Heat oil in wok – or use a frying pan and fry the chicken.
Add salam leaves and lemon grass.
Cover the wok and fry over low heat, adding a little water if necessary.
Cook the chicken until golden brown, then drain.

Authentic Indonesian Chicken Satay (Sate Ayam)

Ingredients:

7 Shallots
10 candle nuts, roasted
8 cloves of garlic
Bamboo skewers (as needed)
3 kg chicken meat (cut into 2 cm cubes)
60 ml oil
Salt (as needed)
2 cups (500ml) Indonesian sweet soy sauce
2 red chili peppers
16 bird’s eye chilies (optional)
1kg roasted peanuts (ground to a paste)
60ml lime juice

How to make:

Grind shallot, garlic, candle nut, red chili pepper, and bird’s eye chilies to a fine paste.
Heat oil in a saucepan then sauté the paste until lightly brown.
Add ground peanuts, 1 cup sweet soy sauce, salt and water.
Mix well and slowly bring to a boil.
Remove saucepan from heat and add lime juice.
Cool to room temperature.
Impale chicken pieces on bamboo skewers until 3/4 full.
Marinate chicken satay for at least 2 hours with a quarter of the peanut sauce and 1 cup of sweet soy sauce.
Sprinkle salt on satay before grilling.
Grill satay for 10-15 minutes, turning occasionally
Serve with the peanut sauce and rice-cake (lontong)
Garnish with cucumber & sliced shallots

Spicy Chicken Soup (Soto Ayam)

Ingredients :

+/- 250 g chicken breast
3 tablespoons sliced onion
3 tablespoons sliced celery
1 stalk lemon grass, bruised
2 kaffir lime leaves
2000 ml water
2 tablespoons oil

Spices :

4 tablespoons sliced shallots
2 tablespoons sliced garlic
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon sliced turmeric
6 roasted candlenuts
1 teaspoon sliced ginger
1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Accompaniments :

3 hard boiled eggs, sliced
250 g vermicelli, soaked in hot water
100 g bean sprouts, blanched
1 lime, sliced
Fried sliced shallots, potato chips, sweet soy sauce

Sambal :

10 red chilies, boiled
1 teaspoon salt

How to make :

boil the chicken breast until tender, take the chicken breast out. Deep fry until golden and cut into small pieces.
Keep boiling the chicken stock until the stock remains 1000 ml.
Blend all spices into a paste. Saute the paste with oil, add lemon grass, kaffir lime leaves until fragrant.
Remove into the stockpot and continue boiling until well cooked.

How to Serve :

arrange in a bowl : chicken vermicelli, bean sprouts, green onion, celery and eggs.
Pour-in the hot soto soup, put on top the potato chips, sprinkle with fried shallots.
Serve with soy sauce, sambal and sliced lime.
To make sambal : boil 10 red chilies add salt then blend.

References:

WHFoods
ResepMasakanIndonesia
Selera Nusantara

FreshFish and FatCat

2010-11-30T18:04:00.000-08:00

Saturday is my cooking day. It is the day when I usually try out different recipes. One of the interesting recipes I tried was the famously hot and spicy Manado (also known as Minahasa) cuisine called Cakalang Rabe Rica which can be translated to ‘Hot Spicy Shredded Tuna’.

Why Manado?

As the chili lover, I cannot resist to try hot spicy recipes. Since I started my cooking journey, I have tried cooking many hot spicy recipes from different areas in Indonesia but so far have not tried any recipe of Manado cuisine which are known to be bloody hot and spicy.

Manado is the capital of the North Sulawesi province of Indonesia. It is located at the Bay of Manado, and is surrounded by a mountainous area and is famous for its Bunaken Sea Garden, one of the most beautiful sea gardens in the world. And this is the picture of Bunaken:

Why tuna?

Manado is famous with its cakalang fish which is also known as flying fish. Cakalang is from the same family (Scombridae) with tuna fish.

Tuna fish are truly a nutrient-dense food. An excellent source of high quality protein, tuna are rich in a variety of important nutrients including the minerals selenium, magnesium, and potassium; the B vitamins niacin, B1 and B6; and perhaps most important, the beneficial omega-3 essential fatty acids .

Speaking of tuna, guess who’s waiting faithfully in the kitchen when I was busy preparing to cook the Hot Spicy Shredded Tuna?

It was Miu Miu…our beloved FatCat (note: her weight is 6 kg).

Yeah, Miu Miu was there with me in the kitchen, waiting patiently hoping to get a little bite of her favorite fish (note: her favorite cat food is chicken and tuna).

By the way, I just found out that there’s a difference between ‘cat tuna’ and ‘people tuna’. The cat version has all the necessary ingredients added to it to make it healthy for the cat to eat it. Giving ‘people tuna’ to cat as a very rare treat will be okay, but not as part of cat’s daily diet. Why? Human-grade tuna can be high in phosphorous and other metals that could harm a cat if fed regularly.

Well, enough about Miu Miu the FatCat and let’s go back to my cooking Hot Spicy Shredded Tuna or ‘Tuna Rabe Rica’.

Here is my version of Tuna Rabe Rica

Ingredients :

500 gram fresh tuna fish meat (the original recipe used smoked Cakalang fish)

Grill the tuna meat until dry, then shredded

10 Kaffir lime leaves, take out the hard part, thinly sliced
2 cm ginger, bruised
2 cm galangal, bruised
5 stalks of lemongrass, take only the white part, bruised
5 pandan leaves, tie into a knot
2 teaspoon of lime juice
10 tablespoons vegetable oil

Grind the following spice ingredients into a paste:

20 finger-length red chili peppers, chopped
10 red bird’s eye chilies, chopped
20 shallots or 3 big size onions, chopped
salt and pepper
1 teaspoon brown sugar (optional)

How to make:

Heat the oil on medium heat
Stir fry the spice paste
Add in the Kaffir lime leaves, lemon grass, ginger, galangal, pandan leaves and stir fry until fragrant
Add in the shredded tuna meat, stir and mix well with the spice
Add in the lime juice, salt, pepper and sugar (if used)
Continue to stir fry around 10 – 15 minutes until the tuna is really mix well with the spice
Remove from heat
Discard the pandan leaves, galangal, ginger and lemon grass

Serve warm with rice

Cook Chili When It Rains

2010-11-22T18:02:00.000-08:00

Rainy days are here again in the city where I live. As a person who grew up in the tropics, I adored the rain. Normally, we have two seasons: the dry and wet season. This year we had very short dry season so by now, the weather has been so wet and chilly.

We can have a bright sunshine in the morning but suddenly comes the thick dark cloud followed by lighting, thunder and heavy rain or we can have gloomy cloudy sky with the rain showers all day.

And when rain falls heavily for a few hours or showers down all day, this is what will happen in the city:

When you live in a city like Jakarta, it's either you become bitter or better.... let's choose to become better.

Rainy day holds one certainty in the realm of food – Chili. One spoonful of the spicy stew can warm the body from the inside out.

Chili is a must-have rainy-day-dish, enjoyed equally at a cook-out or dinner party – and especially as leftovers. The one great thing about Chili is the recipe is really kind of a guideline and we can change it depending on our tastes.

One of my favorite Chili dishes is Chili con Carne coz its sooo tasty, hot, healthy and easy to make! It’s best to enjoy during the rainy days like now.

You can have Chili either on its own, with rice, potatoes, pasta, nachos ….you name it!

What is Chili con Carne?

Chili con Carne (literally “Chili with meat”, often known simply as chili) is a spicy stew. The name “chili con carne” is taken from Spanish which means “peppers with meat.” Traditional versions are made, minimally, from chili peppers, garlic, onion and cumin, along with chopped or ground beef. Beans and tomatoes are frequently included. Variations, both geographic and personal, may involve different types of meat as well as a variety of other ingredients.

It can be found worldwide in local variations and also in certain American-style fast-food restaurants. The variant recipes provoke disputes among aficionados, and the dish is used as an ingredient in a number of other foods.

My Version of Chili con Carne

Ingredients:

500 gram ground/minced beef
1 Large onion chopped
2-3 Cloves of Garlic
250 ml beef stock
1 tin of red kidney beans, drained and rinsed. This is the kind of red kidney beans I use

7 fresh jalapeno chili peppers, coarsely sliced. Why seven? no special reason, I just like it (in my country jalapeno pepper is called cabe gendot)

for the tomatoes, we can use chopped fresh tomatoes (400 gram) or canned tomato paste (around 100 gram).

For the seasoning:

1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon oregano flakes
1 teaspoon ground allspice
Brown sugar to taste (optional)
Pinch of salt and pepper

notes: in the original recipe, it uses 1 teaspoon of ground cumin but in my recipe I skip the cumin.

How to make:

Heat a small frying pan over medium heat and dry-fry the allspice, chili and paprika for 1 minute or until fragrant. Remove from pan.
Heat the oil in large skillet over medium heat and cook the onion for 2-3 minutes or until soft.
Add the garlic, fresh jalapeno and cook for 1 minute.
Add the ground/ minced beef and cook over high heat for 4-5 minutes or until browned, breaking up the lumps with a fork.
Add the tomatoes, red kidney beans, stock, oregano, sugar and spices.
Reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally for around 1 hour or until reduced and thickened
Season with salt and pepper
Remove from heat Serve warm in a serving bowl

Or add the Chili on top of fried potato wedges

How do you take your chili? With beans? Without? With meat? Without? Please Share your favorites in the comments.

The Touch of Mother’s Love

2010-11-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

All of us must have different experiences with Mother’s love. I know I have. They run like threads through my childhood. And it was my Mom’s love that made me took the first step of my cooking journey hence this blog as it was her who taught me to enjoy home meals.

Looking back to that childhood moment, feeling of warm and joy rise even now to meet me. I always felt safe and loved whenever I enjoyed my Mom’s cooking.

During my childhood, our country had for some years been struggling through economic difficulties. My father had meager salary and grocery money was scarce. We were fortunate that my Mom was excellent in managing the little money we had so that none of us, her children, felt the difficult situation. She was also a great cook. She knew how to prepare very simple dish in a way that made it seem like rare delicacy

One of the dishes my Mom often cooked for us during that difficult time was Vegetable Scramble Eggs or locally is called ‘Orak Arik’ which means scrambled. Orak Arik is a popular Javanese cooking. It was a very simple dish, the main ingredients were just vegetables and eggs. But it was the touch of my Mom’s love which made this simple dish into something special for us.

Here is the original of my Mom’s recipe of Orak Arik

Ingredients:

1/4 of medium size white cabbage, shredded
100 gram carrots, grated coarsely
2 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
4 shallots, finely sliced
2 eggs
1 chicken cube, crushed into powder form
Pinch of salt and pepper
Vegetable oil

How to make:

Heat the oil in wok on medium heat
Stir fry the onion and garlic until fragrant
Add in the white cabbage and carrots
Continue to stir fry until the vegetables are tender-crisp

Make a well in the center of the vegetables and drizzle in a teaspoon of oil before cracking the eggs into it

Stir to scramble the eggs and combine with the vegetables

Add the crushed chicken powder, stir and mix well
Add salt and pepper, continue stirring for a few minutes
Remove from heat
Serve warm

Meet the Meatballs

2010-11-08T00:33:00.000-08:00

For quite sometimes, the noodle lover in my family has been nagging me to cook her spaghetti with meatballs. So far I have cooked different spaghetti dishes such as spaghetti Bolognese, spaghetti with tuna and chili, spaghetti with mushroom and tomato, spaghetti olio e aglio plus bacon an chili, spaghetti Carbonara and even classic lasagna but never have I tried spaghetti with meatballs.

Last night when I turned on my TV and watched one of my favorite channels the TLC (Travel Living Channel), it was showing the famous Take Home Chef program. It was already almost the end of the show and I only watched the part where Curtis Stone showed how to cook the pasta until ‘al dente’. Then he put butter on a pan, melt it on medium heat, and then add the pasta (spaghetti) into the melted butter and toss them with fork. He then showed how to serve the pasta by rolling the spaghetti with a fork and put them on a plate and add the sauce. It just so happened that Curtis was cooking spaghetti with meatballs

After watching the Take Home Chef program that night I decided to cook spaghetti with meatballs the next day. Since I missed the part where Curtis cooked the meatballs I had no idea how to cook them so I browsed through my cooking book collections and found a recipe called ‘Fusilli con Polpettine’ or Fusilli with meatballs in one of the Periplus Mini Cookbooks . At least I could try this recipe.

As always, before I try out a new recipe, I like to do a little desk research and this time I did my research on ‘Polpette’

Why Polpette?

Polpette is the Italian name for meatballs. They are in many ways a holdover from an earlier time, when refrigeration was not as dependable as it is today and trimmings and leftover meats had to be dealt with quickly or they would spoil. Polpette, are true home cooking of the sort you are unlikely to encounter in any but the most mom-and-pop type trattorias that cater to a local clientele. Nor are you likely to be served them if you are invited to someone’s house, unless you are considered family.

A pity, in some ways, because meatballs are easy to make, flavorful, and delightfully moist and tender too. One thing that may come to a surprise to people living outside the Peninsula is that in Italy they’re generally served as a second course, with a salad or vegetable; spinach and beet greens are especially popular in Tuscany.

One general note on technique: Italians often use bread — not bread crumbs — in meatballs: Take day-old Italian bread, trim away the crust, soak the bread for several minutes in milk, and squeeze most of it out. You don’t want it dribbling-soaked, just well moist. Mix the soaked bread into the ground meat.

And here is my version of Spaghetti with Meatballs or Spaghetti con Polpettine

Ingredients:

250 gram spaghetti
250 gram minced beef
50 gram bread crumbs
20 gram freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg, beaten
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
Rind and juice of half lemon
Salt and pepper
2 tablespoons seasoned flour
Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
20 gram butter

Ingredients for the sauce:

100 gram tomato paste or puree
125 ml beef stock
125 ml red wine
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 teaspoon oregano powder
Salt and pepper

How to make:

Peel the onion and chop very finely
Using your fingers combine the minced beef, bread crumbs, Parmesan cheese, chopped onion, egg, lemon rind and juice, salt and pepper in a large bowl.
Roll tablespoonful of the mixture into balls then roll the balls in the seasoned flour

Heat the oil in a large pan and the fry the meatballs in batches until golden
Remove from pan, drain on paper towels and set aside.

Drain excess oil and juices from pan

To make the sauce:

Combine tomato paste / puree, beef stock, wine, oregano, garlic, salt and pepper in pan and bring to the boil.
Reduce the heat and return the meatballs to the pan
Simmer for 15-20 minutes

Meanwhile, add the spaghetti to a large pan of rapidly boiling water and cook until ‘al dente’ then drain.
Put the butter on another pan and melt it on medium heat
Add the spaghetti on the melted butter and toss it with a fork
Roll the spaghetti using the fork and place them on the serving plate
Add the sauce with the meatballs around the spaghetti

When I serve this spaghetti with meatballs to the noodle lover, she was very happy.

Frying the Fritters Family

2010-10-15T03:31:00.000-07:00

One saturday, when I was busy in the kitchen, my second daughter came in ’to help me’ by tasting whatever I had been cooking. She knows that when I was busy cooking, it means not long after that I would be busy writing my blog. And this time she even helped me with the title of this post ‘Frying the Fritters Family’ and …..also suggested to try to read it 10 times faster

Why fritters?

We have so many different types of fritters in this country and basically almost any type of food can be turned into fritters: banana, jackfruit, breadfruit (sukun), noodle, vegetables, tofu, shrimp, tempeh, sweet potato, button mushroom, spaghetti, cassava, corn.. ….you name it.

And we call all these different fritters ‘gorengan’ which literally means ‘fried foods’. Yes, they are all deep fried and most Indonesians love ‘gorengan’. The most famost ‘gorengan’ is the one sold by street hawkers.

We have a quite unique habit of eating fritters. We usually eat fritter with green bird eye chilies (= cabe rawit) by taking a bite of the fritter and then a bite of the chili. We eat fritters as snack at any time of the day and the best way to eat them is when you get together with friends. In the office where I work, we often buy ‘gorengan’ from street hawkers outside the office building and eat them together during afternoon coffee break. I can say this is typical Indonesian or at least Asian habit since most of our Western expatriate colleagues are amazed on how we love snacking and even some of them say that we snack all the time.

Back to one saturday in my kitchen, I tried to fry different fritters that day and let’s meet some members of the Fritters Family:

Corn Fritters

Ingredients:

250 gram corn kernels, boil in water until soft, drained
50 gram shrimp, chopped
50 gram of all purpose flour
1 tablespoon of chopped coriander leaves
salt and pepper
2 eggs, beaten

How to make:

Put the boiled corn kernels in a bowl
Add in the chopped shrimp, coriander leaves and flour, mix until blended well
Add salt and pepper
Add the beaten egg, stir and mix well
Drop batter by rounded tablespoonfuls, and fry, in batches, 5 minutes or until golden brown
Drain fritters on paper towels
Serve warm with bird eye chilies

Mushroom Fritters

Ingredients:

200 gram button mushroom, clean with paper towel to remove the dirt, cut each into half
50 gram of all purpose flour
10 gram of corn flour (optional, to make the fritters more crispy)
Pinch of salt and pepper
2 eggs, beaten

How to make:

Put the mushrooms in a bowl
Add in the all purpose flour, make sure all mushrooms are covered
Add in the corn flour, salt and pepper and mix well
Pour in the beaten eggs until well coated
Deep fry in batches in a frying pan or wok on medium heat until golden brown
Remove from heat, drain fritters on paper towels
Serve warm

Noodle Fritters

Ingredients:

100 gram dry noodle
500 ml water
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 stalks of spring onion, thinly sliced
1 egg
salt and pepper

How to make:

Boil the water in a sauce pan on medium heat
Add in the noodle in boiling water for a few minutes until soft but still firm
Remove the noodle from the pan, set aside
Beat the egg
Add in the garlic, spring onion, salt and pepper and mix well
Pour in the egg mix to the noodle, mix well
Drop batter by rounded tablespoonfuls, and fry, in batches, 5 minutes or until golden brown.
Drain fritters on paper towels
Serve warm with bird eye chilies

Spaghetti Fritters

Ingredients:

1/2 of onion, chopped
3 tablespoons of flour
200 ml milk
3 sheets of bacon or smoke beef, cut into 2 and thinly sliced
100 gram grated parmesan cheese
50 gram spaghetti, boiled until soft, cut into small pieces
salt and pepper
1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
50 gram unsalted butter
100 gram bread crumbs
3 eggs, beaten

How to make:

Melt the butter in a pan on medium heat
Stir fry the onion until fragrant, add in the flour, stir well
Pour in the milk slowly and stir until well blended
Add in the bacon / smoke beef, spaghetti, salt, pepper, nutmeg, stir well until the mix becomes thick dough
Set aside to cool down
Take spoonful of dough and form into a ball shape, one by one until finish
Roll the spaghetti ball one by one on bread crumb
Dip the spaghetti ball one by one into the beaten eggs
Roll again on the bread crumb
Deep fry in batches in a frying pan or wok on medium heat until golden brown
Remove from heat, drain the spaghetti balls on paper towels
Serve warm

Prawn Fritters

Ingredients:

500 ml water
250 gram unpeeled, medium-size fresh shrimp
100 gram all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Pinch of salt and pepper
2 large eggs
1 medium onion, minced
100 gram mix of carrots, white cabbage and spring onion, finely sliced
4 garlic cloves, minced
Vegetable oil

How to make:

Bring the water to a boil; add shrimp, and cook 3 to 5 minutes or just until shrimp turn pink.
Drain and rinse with cold water. Chill.
Devein the shrimp
Beat the eggs, flour, salt, pepper and baking powder until smooth.
Stir in shrimp, onion, garlic and mix vegetables.
Cover and chill 2 hours.
Pour oil to a depth of 10 cm into a frying pan or wok on high heat
Drop batter by rounded tablespoonfuls, and fry, in batches, 5 minutes or until golden.
Drain fritters on paper towels
Serve warm with bird eye chilies

Tempeh fritters

Ingredients:

200 gram tempeh, slice thinly (5 mm)
200 gram flour
250 ml water
2 stalks of spring onion, finely sliced
Vegetable Oil

Ingredients for spice paste

grind all ingredients in a mortar until smooth
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 shallots, finely sliced
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
2 candle nuts
1 cm roasted turmeric

How to make:

Mix well the flour, water, spice paste, spring onion, salt
Dip the tempeh into the batter
Deep fry in batches in vegetable oil on high heat for just 2-3 minutes
Serve warm with bird eye chilies

A Kick in the Mouth

2010-09-21T03:52:00.000-07:00

When I got the idea for the title of this post ‘A Kick in the Mouth’ I was not aware at all that that it was the title of the eight single by Surrey-based-rock-band Reuben released in June 2005.

As a researcher, I have the habit of conducting ‘little research’ on whatever topic comes to my mind. When I googled ‘A kick in the mouth’, I found out about Reuben. But this post has nothing to do with Reuben whatsoever.

I am still very much consistent with the theme of my blog on cooking, recipes and foods. The title of this post is simply refecting the dish I am writing about.

Through this post I would like to invite all my readers whereever you are to ‘visit my dangerously beautiful country’ Indonesia and try one of the dangerously delicious dishes’.

When you travel around the Indonesian archipelago which consist of more than 17,000 islands, each island, or in some cases towns, have their own special dish that sets them aside from the others.

One of the many interesting islands in Indonesia is Lombok island. Proximity to Bali is Lombok’s blessing, and its curse. While only 25 miles separate the two islands, they are in fact worlds apart.

Indeed, overzealous tourism officials notwithstanding, Lombok is not “an unspoiled Bali,” or “Bali’s sister island.” Lombok is not Bali at all, and that is precisely its charm. Lombok means “chili,” and the cuisine definitely had a kick.

Lombok’s people are 85% Sasak, culturally and linguistically closely related to the Balinese, but unlike Bali’s Hindu they are Muslims. A notable non-orthodox Islamic group found only on Lombok are the Wektu Telu (“Three Prayers”), who as the name suggests pray only three times daily, instead of the five times required in the Quran.

The most-developed center of tourism is Senggigi spread in a 30-kilometer strip along the coastal road north of Mataram, while backpackers congregate in the Gili islands off the west coast.

Other popular tourist destinations include Kuta (distinctly different from Kuta, Bali) where surfing is considered some of the best in the world by leading surfing magazines. The Kuta area is also famous for its beautiful, untouched beaches.

A tour to Lombok, will not be complete without tasting the local Taliwang Chicken or Ayam Taliwang — to explore the mystery of its flavor. This typical Lombok dish is a favorite among both locals and visitors to the island. In Mataram, the provincial capital, it can be found at various eateries from sidewalk food stalls to restaurants in star-rated hotels.

At first glance, Taliwang Chicken looks almost like the common grilled or fried chicken, simply covered with a spicy relish. Only after tasting it can we discern the difference.

The meat is well done and very soft in texture. Both hot and spicy, it has the aroma of terasi (shrimp paste), which prompts us to savor every mouthful. It tastes hot and deeply piquant – it really gives you ‘A Kick in the Mouth’

The name Taliwang Chicken is derived from Karang Taliwang, a subdistrict in Mataram where the recipe for this regional specialty has its roots. The late H. Abdul Hamid is recognized for creating the Ayam Taliwang recipe in 1970. The ingredients for this chicken are only chili, garlic and terasi, but the method of preparation and the proportions of these condiments are different.

As to the mystery of Taliwang Chicken’s delectable flavor, this concerned the choice of meat as well as the cooking process. One restaurant only uses three-month-old free-range chickens, because the meat becomes tough if the chicken is older and “breaks” if it is younger. After the fowl is cleaned and grilled until it is half done, the meat is tenderized with a pestle and dipped into hot cooking oil for several seconds. It is immersed into the spicy sauce before it is grilled or fried until well done.

Ayam Taliwang carries the unique flavor of Lombok, so people from other regions come here to try Lombok’s specialty. They will also get an impression of the place.

Taliwang Chicken is even more appetizing when accompanied with local side dishes such as plecing kangkung (water spinach with tomato-chili relish, bean sprout, shreded coconut and fried peanut). Priced at Rp 15,000-25,000 (around US $ 1.5 -2.5) for a full portion. Ayam Taliwang can be found in nearly all eateries in Mataram.

This is the recipe of Ayam Taliwang I found from one of tourism websites:

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, butterflied and flattened
100 ml vegetables oil
1 lime, squeeze to get the juice
Finely pestle the following ingredients into a spice-paste:
14 dried red chili
12 shallots
8 clove garlic
100 gr tomatoes
2 teaspoons fried shrimp paste
2 teaspoons salt
25 gram palm sugar
5 cm Kencur (lesser galangal)

How to:

Heat oil and sauté the spice paste until fragrant. Remove from pan
Add lime juice to spices paste, mix well
Baste the chicken with the spice paste until whole chicken covered
Bring to 180 degree Celcius oven for 1 hour.
Turn over and baste again with the spice paste once. Remove from oven.
Grill chicken slowly on charcoal until half dry

Serve with Rice and Plecing Kangkung.

My Version of Ayam Taliwang

When I cook chicken, I prefer to cook the boneless skinless chicken breast. The recipe I use was an adaptation from a recipe I found in one of popular cooking magazines in Indonesia named Sedap. And here is my version of Ayam Taliwang:

300 gram boneless, skinless chicken breast
1 lime, squeeze to get around 1-2 teaspoons juice
150 ml coconut milk
1 teaspoon shaved palm sugar
vegetable oil
pinch of salt

Finely pestle the following ingredients into spice-paste

6 red chilies, roasted
6 shallots, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3 candle nuts, fried without oil
1 teaspoon of roasted shrimp paste

How to:

Rub the chicken breast with lime juice and salt, grill on charcoal or electrical or gas grill until half-cook
Heat oil in a pan and sauté the spice paste until fragrant
Pour in the coconut milk, salt and palm sugar, cook and stir until boiled
Add the chicken breast
Cook on low heat until the liquid is thickened and becomes gravy sauce
Remove the chicken from pan, baste with the gravy sauce
Grill slowly on charcoal or electrical or gas grill, turn around several times
Serve warm with rice and it surely will give you ‘A Kick in the Mouth’

References:

 WhyGoIndonesia

 Wikipedia

 Indonesiaforyou.com

 Sedap magazine

Cooking Without a Recipe

2010-09-14T00:53:00.000-07:00

I love cooking on Saturday morning. Saturday is usually the one day of the week I can do whatever I want, so they’re pretty laid back and slow.

One Saturday, I didn’t want to go out and I didn’t feel like cooking anything in particular so I wandered into the kitchen and took stock of my resources. As I have the habit of shopping either on Saturday or Sunday afternoon, so by Saturday morning, my resources for the week are usually at the minimum level.

So I put on my adventuring mode and try off-road with what I have in my kitchen. Improvising is really the most natural way to cook. That’s how I develop my skill in cooking without a recipe or to cook from what I have, rather than get what I need to cook.

Cooking without a recipe gives me a chance to experiment with new spices, flavors, aromas, and really make my cooking unique and original.

‘Things from my Kitchen’ Dishes

These dishes were cooked with whatever I have left in my kitchen on one Saturday morning!

What did I find?

In my fridge I found a small bunch of choysum, white cabbage, green onion, carrots and bird-eye chilies; a small bowl of left-over beef rendang (Indonesian beef stew), around 300 grams of cold cooked rice ; 5 slices of bacon; some eggs and a bottle of oyster sauce.

Then I checked my kitchen cabinet and found 1 pack of dry noodles (300 grams), all purpose flour, some cloves of garlic, onions, standard cooking stuffs like salt, pepper, brown sugar, beef powder, chicken powder, cooking oil and a jar of ready-made fried shallots.

I even found a jar of Thai dry-chili-shrimp-paste which I got from my Thai friend (this is one of my magic ingredients for cooking fried rice).

One common thing in my family is all of us love chili. Half of the family members are noodle lovers and the other half are rice lovers. That’s why as long as I have stock of noodles, rice and chili in my kitchen, I think we can survive.

Now, what should I cook for our breakfast on one Saturday morning with all these ingredients?

First of all, what should I do with the noodles. The easiest way to cook noodles is fried noodle. OK, let’s make fried noodles.

My free style Fried Noodles

The ingredients are dry noodles, finely chopped garlic, finely sliced green onion, finely cut bird eye chilies, choysum cut into 2 cm length, finely sliced white cabbage, sliced button mushroom, finely chopped bacon, meat balls, 1 egg, 2 – 3 tablespoons of oyster sauce and cooking oil.

This is the process of making the fried noodles:

Cook the noodles in boiling water for a few minutes until soft but still firm (in cooking pasta it is called al dente)

Remove from the water and pour a little bit of cooking oil.
Stir fry the garlic in a wok on high heat until fragrant
Quickly add the chilies, white cabbage, mushroom and meat ball
Add the egg, stir until the egg is well cooked and dry
Add the noodle, then the choysum. Pour in the oyster sauce
Continue to stir fry for a few minutes until all the ingredients mix well with the noodles
Add the green onion and further stir fry for 30 seconds
Remove from heat. Serve it warm.

The look of the fried noodle may not be that appealing but the taste was yummy and that’s all the matter.

One dish is done but I still have one little problem. Since the ingredients for fried noodle like the bacon, meat ball and the veggies were only available in small amount, I could not fried all the 300 gram noodles so I still have around 100 gram of cooked noodles left.

What should I do with these cooked noodles?

Hey, I got an idea.

How about Free Style Noodle Fritters?

The ingredients are 100 grams cooked noodles, coarsely grated carrot, finely sliced white cabbage, finely chopped bacon, chicken powder, 2 eggs, 3 tablespoons of all purpose flour, salt and pepper, cooking oil.

This is the process of making the Noodle Fritters

Put the flour into a bowl. Add beaten eggs, beat the mix until smooth.
Add the noodles, carrot, white cabbage, green onion and a little bit of sliced bacon
Add chicken powder, salt and pepper, stir to combine
Deep fry tablespoons of the mixtures in hot oil
Turn fritters and cook on the other side
Remove from heat and place on paper towel to absorb the excess oil
Serve warm as appetizer or snack

Now, for the rice lovers in my family, the easiest way is to cook them fried rice. But I did not have any meat or chicken or bacon left, even no more chilies. How should I cook the fried rice?

Well, I still have the left over beef rendang (spicy beef stew) and Thai dry-chili-shrimp-paste, onion, garlic and ready-made fried shallots.

Here comes My Free Style Fried Rice

The ingredients are the cold rice, left over beef rendang (spicy beef stew), cut up the meat into small pieces, 2 table-spoons of Thai dry-chili-shrimp-paste, 1 onion, chopped, 2 cloves of garlic chopped, 1 egg, 2 tablespoons of ready-made fried shallots, cooking oil.

This is the process of making Free Style Fried Rice:

In a wok, stir fry the onion and garlic until fragrant
Add the Thai dry-chili-shrimp-paste
Add the beef rendang
Add the egg, stir until well cooked and dry
Add the rice, keep on stirring until mix well
Add salt and continue to fry for 10 minutes or so
Remove the fried rice from the wok and place in a bowl
Garnish with fried shallots

Cooking to Celebrate Independence Day

2010-08-25T20:47:00.000-07:00

Last August 17th, Indonesia celebrated it’s 65th anniversary. The formal celebrations include military marches, military bands playing and hoisting the Indonesian national flag.

The celebration of the Indonesian Independence Day is usually observed by people of different ages, genders, status social economics and regions. They do many creative and unique games like sack races,

kerupuk-eating competition (kerupuk is traditional crackers made of flour),

pinang-climbing (pinang is tree of areca nut),

tug-of-war, recycle creativity, etc. In every province, the races were made based on their own traditional games.

Therefore, Indonesian people are waiting for and preparing to celebrate the Independence Day each year. No matter how old the games, how many people join the games, or how heavy the traffic jams are.

This year, the Independence day fell during fasting month (Ramadan) hence the celebration was not as crowded and full of excitement as in the previous years.

Although I was not fasting, I decided to stay at home and instead of watching traditional games, I cooked one of the Indonesian traditional dishes from East Java region to celebrate this year Independence Day.

Why East Java?

My mother was born in a small town in East Java and since I was a kid, I had been exposed to different typical dishes from East Java. The dish which came to my mind was Sambal Tumpang which my Mom often cooked for me but I have never tried to cook it.

‘Sambal’ means sauce or relish and ‘tumpang’ literally means join with others. This sauce is made of fermented tempeh (soy bean cake), chilies, spices and coconut milk and served on top of boiled vegetables like salad dressing – probably that’s why it’s called ‘sambal tumpang’ coz the sauce joins with others (vegetables).

In my recipes collection I have around 4 different versions of ”Sambal Tumpang’ recipes but I like my Mom’s recipe the most. So on Independence Day I tried out my Mom’s old recipe of Sambal Tumpang.

Ingredients

Mix of boiled vegetables e.g. string beans, white cabbage, spinach etc

200 g Tempeh (fermented soybeans), a bit over-fermented tempeh would be better, sliced into medium chunks. For those who live outside Indonesia (or Asia), you can find tempeh in China town.

100 gram of beef (any part of the beef will do because this is just to give more flavor to the sauce) – this is optional. If without the beef this dish is suitable for vegetarian.
1 salam leaves
2 kaffir lime leaves
2 slices galangal root, crushed
200 ml coconut milk
5 bird eye chilies (only if you want it to be really hot)
5 red finger-length chilies
2 cloves garlic
5 shallots
1 cm of Kencur (lesser galangal or Kaempferia galangal)
Pinch of salt
Pinch of brown sugar
500 ml water

Optional: some ’Kerupuk Rambak’ (deep fried of the thick skin of cow or buffalo) which looks like this:

This ‘kerupuk rambak’ is quite common in Indonesia but for non Indonesian, this probably can be grouped into Andrew Zimmen’s bizzare food .

How to cook:

Boil water in a sauce pan
Add tempeh, the beef meat, shallots, garlic, salam leaves, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lesser galangal, and the chilies.
When the meat become tender, remove from the pan. Cut it into smaller pieces. Put it back into the pan. Turn off the heat.
In a mortar, pound the tempeh, chilies, shallots, garlic, and kencur (lesser galangal). Put them back into the pan.
Turn the heat on again at low heat.
Pour the coconut milk, stir it well.
Add salt and sugar.
Cook for another 15 minutes
Add the ‘kerupuk rambak’ (if used)
Remove from heat

This is the look of the sauce:

And this is the look of the Sambal Tumpang on top of boiled vegetables:

Prawn Under the Blanket

2010-08-11T01:42:00.000-07:00

There is an Indonesian idiom ‘Ada Udang di Balik Batu’ which literally means “There is a prawn under the rock’ while figuratively referring to a person who is saying one thing, but harbors hidden agenda behind their words.

Well, I am not going to write about people who are having hidden agenda or ulterior motive here but it’s really and literally about PRAWN.

Prawn or shrimp?

First things first. What is a prawn and what is a shrimp? Are they the same or is there actually a difference between the two. Is a prawn a large shrimp or does the naming of this delicious crustacean just depend on where you live?

A prawn is sometimes called a prawn and a shrimp is called a prawn and a shrimp. Confused? You should be.

OK, let’s see what the experts say

The two words are used interchangeably in the markets and restaurants everywhere. Some people say the difference is size. In many parts of the country, small and medium shrimp are sold simply as shrimp, while large, extra-large, and jumbo shrimp are called prawns.

Believe it or not, there is actually a difference between prawns and shrimps. The difference lies in their gill structure. Prawns have a branching gill structure, whilst the gill structure of shrimps is lamellar.

There is also a difference in the way that the two brood their eggs. Prawns legs are longer than shrimps and the shrimp’s front pair of pincers is larger, whilst the prawns second pair of pincers is bigger.

Nutrional value of Prawns and shrimps

Prawns and shrimps are an extremely good source of protein, yet are very low in fat and calories, making them a very healthy choice of food.

Although shrimps and prawns have a high cholesterol content, they are low in saturated fat, which is the fat that raises cholesterol levels in the body and is bad for you. For this reason, there is no need to avoid eating shrimps or prawns, as the cholesterol in the food is not the same as the cholesterol in one’s blood.

Shrimps and prawns do contain a lot of omega-3 fatty acids, but these fatty acids are good for you and help prevent against heart disease, circulatory diseases and many other types of illnesses.

Prawns and shrimps also contains high levels of vitamin B12, zinc, iodine, phosphorous, potassium, selenium and iron and have smaller quantities of calcium, magnesium and sodium. Many of these vitamins are essential for healthy skin, bones and teeth.

Wow, for so long I thought it’s not healthy to eat prawns or shrimps as they have high cholesterol content. One of my favorite dishes is Spicy Prawns and Stinky Beans (please see my post Dangerously Delicious). Every time I eat this prawn dish, I always take Lipitor, a medicine for reducing high blood cholesterol. I should have known better.

Choosing and Buying Prawns and Shrimps

When buying fresh prawns or shrimps look for the following signs before making your choice:

The shells should be firm and glossy and not broken or slippery.
There should be no discolouration of the heads or the shells, as this is an indication that the meat is starting to go bad.
They should smell fresh and salty. Avoid if there is any hint of a smell of ammonia.
The eyes should be prominent and shiny and not shrunken inwards or missing.

If you are buying raw prawns or shrimps, do not be put off if they are translucent or a different colour than the typical pink prawn. Prawns and shrimp only turn this colour once they have been cooked.

Why under the Blanket?

My first encounter with ‘Prawn under the Blanket’ was a few months ago when I attended a meeting which was conducted in a Bistro near my home. During lunch we were served with a set menu. It started with the appetizer which was named “Udang Berselimut’, literally it means “Prawn wrapped in Blanket’. Yeah, indeed, the prawns were wrapped in blanket ….noodle blanket. It was such a unique and attractive dish and I loved it! I love the taste, the look, everything.

I was so curious on how to make the dish so I interviewed the staffs who served our lunch. One person seemed to know about the recipe and he described to me roughly how to make it.

Last week, I tried to cook this dish and I name it Prawn under the Blanket and here is my version of the recipe:

Ingredients

100 grams dried Noodle
10 big size prawns, peeled but leave the tail intact
Pinch of salt and pepper
5 cloves garlic, finely sliced and fried.
2 eggs
2 spring onion, finely sliced

Preparation

Cook the dried noodle in a boiling water for around 5 minutes, then set aside.
Add pepper, salt, garlic and spring onion. Mix well.
Add egg into the mixture, stir well and leave the mixture for a while
Take one prawn, roll the seasoned noodles around it
Put it on a tray and leave it for a while.
Repeat this process for the remaining prawns.

Heat cooking oil for frying. Fry the rolled shrimp until the noodle changes color into yellow-golden color. Remove and drain.
Serve warm with sweet and sour sauce either home made or branded which can be purchased at supermarket.

The appearance of my “Prawn under the Blanket’ was not as good as the ones prepared by the Bistro but the taste was better and that’s all the matter.

References:

 Wikipedia

 theepicentre.com

 helpwithcooking.com

No Rattans, Roots Will Do

2010-07-26T21:19:00.000-07:00

‘No rattans, roots will do’ is a literal translation of an authentic Indonesian proverb ‘Tak Ada Rotan, Akar pun jadi’. The meaning is more or less like this: ‘when you don’t have the originals at hand, go for the substitutes’.

We often try to find substitutes for everything in life, although somewhere in the back of our minds, we know that’s not really possible. Substituting everything in life is impossible!

When it comes to cooking, there are substitutes for almost every cooking ingredient. But, there is one thing that cannot be substituted for, it’s the taste. Why do similar recipes made by different people have different tastes? It is because the taste of a recipe does not depend only on its ingredients and method of preparation. It also depends on who cooks it. There can be substitutes for ingredients but there’s no substitute for the taste.

Why recipe substitutions?

In cooking, particularly when you enjoy free style cooking like I do, we need to practice the essense of this old Indonesian proverb when certain ingredients are unavailable at home or in the market. When we forget to buy the stuff we need, that is when we need to get hold of something that is handy. Using margarine as a substitute for butter and vice versa is a common example of the use of substitutes in cooking.

It’s common sense to use ingredients of similar flavor as alternatives for one another. Obviously, you won’t like the substitutes to bring about a radical change to how your recipe tastes. Or you will find yourself finding a substitute for what you have cooked!

Well, let’s park for a while the Roots (read substitutes) ……...…and focus on the ‘rattan’(read: original) intention I wrote this blog which is to share one of the authentic Indonesian Chicken Satay recipes named Sate Madura.

Why Sate Madura?

Indonesia has so many types of chicken satay but Sate Madura is the prima donna of all chicken satay in our country. And some of the ingredients of Sate Madura may not be available in countries outside Indonesia or Asia thus some of you may have to find substitutes for them.

The ‘Rattan’ (read: original) Ingredients

3 shallots
3 candle nuts
2 cloves of garlic
1 kg boneless, skinless chicken breast or thighs, cut into cubes
100 ml water
Cooking Oil
Pinch of Salt
100 ml Indonesian sweet soy sauce
2 red finger-length chilies
3 bird-eye chili (optional)
500 roasted peanuts (ground to a paste)
10 ml Lime juice
Bamboo skewers (as needed)

And here is the list of the ’Roots’ (read: substitute) Ingredients:

shallots (for the spice-mix) can be subsituted with onion
candle nut can be substituted by almond
ground the roasted peanut into a paste can be substituted with ready-made peanut butter
the Indonesian sweet soy sauce is the authentic ingredient for Sate Madura. As a substitute, you may try adding palm sugar or brown sugar into Kikoman soy sauce until the soy sauce becomes sweet and a bit thicker.

Cooking Method

Ground shallot, garlic, candle nut, red chilies, and bird-eye chilies to a fine paste.
Heat oil in a saucepan then sauté the paste until fragrant.
Add the ground peanuts or peanut butter, 50 ml of sweet soy sauce, salt and water.
Mix well and slowly bring to a boil.
Remove saucepan from heat and add lime juice.
Cool to room temperature.
Impale the chicken cubes on the bamboo skewers until 3/4 full.

Before grilling, marinate the chicken satay for at least 1 hours with a quarter of the sauce and the rest of the sweet soy sauce.

After half-cooked, dip again in the marinade and then grill again until completely cooked.

By dipping in the marinade repeatedly, the taste of the ingredients really permeate through the chicken meat.

Serve satay with peanut sauce mix and condiments (sliced onions or shallots, carrots, cucumber, chilies, limes). It goes well with rice or lontong (Indonesian rice cake wrapped in banana leaves).

To add flavor, garnish the chicken satay with fried shallots

More on ’Roots’

The original grilling method, the charcoal grill, can be substituted with gas or electrical grill.
Home-made fried shallots can be substituted with ready-made which you can buy in some supermarkets.

Notes and Tips:

The shallots used for fried shallots cannot be substituted by onions coz when deep-fried, the taste is different.
Soak bamboo skewers in water for at least 1/2 hour so they don’t burn.
Use chicken thighs for best flavor and texture.

Oprah's Suffocated Chicken

2010-07-13T00:19:00.000-07:00

When I started my cooking journey, I began with cooking my mom’s authentic recipe of Bumbu Rujak Chicken Barbeque (see My First Post).

Why chicken?

My mom ever mentioned that every beginner in cooking should start with chicken. She did not explain why, it’s simply like an unwritten golden rule in the world of cooking.

One Sunday, after church, I went to a book store and found a cook book written by the famous writer and poet Maya Angelou titled ‘Hallelujah! The Welcome Table’.

What an amazing book written by an amazing woman! This is the kind of book I wish I could write one day.

I love all the stories and recipes she wrote in that cook book but one particular chicken recipe named ‘Smothered Chicken’ caught my special attention where she wrote a very interesting story about Oprah Winfrey, another amazing lady whom I admired.

Maya Angelou’s smothered chicken is delicious and quite easy to cook. It tastes yummy and creamy yet it’s sinless because the ingredients used are healthy stuffs. I give the full recipe here, and then add how I adapted it when I cooked for my family.

Smothered Chicken by Maya Angelou

Oprah calls this suffocated chicken!

Serves 8

Ingredients:

2 (3-pound) fryer chickens
Juice of 2 lemons
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup all-purpose flour
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 medium onions , sliced
1 pound button mushrooms , sliced
1 clove garlic , minced
2 cups chicken broth

Preparations:

Wash and pat dry the chicken. Cut each chicken into pieces and place the pieces in a bowl with lemon juice and water to cover. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Wash the lemon water off the chicken and season it with salt and pepper. Dredge the chicken pieces in 3/4 cup of the flour.

In a large skillet, heat the butter and 1/4 cup of the vegetable oil over high heat. Add the chicken pieces and fry until dark brown. Remove them from the skillet.

Add the remaining 1/4 cup flour and 1/4 cup vegetable oil to the skillet. Cook the flour until it’s brown.

Add the onions, mushrooms and garlic, stirring constantly.

Put the chicken back into the skillet. Add the chicken broth and water to cover. Turn the heat to medium and cook for 25 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through.

My version of ‘Oprah’s Suffocated Chicken’

I used 400 – 500 grams of boneless, skinless chicken breast instead of cut up from whole chicken because I usually stock up boneless chicken breasts in my freezer. I chopped the breast into small cubes and cooked it up per the directions, but with a little less time since the smaller chopped pieces would cook faster that a cut up chicken.

I substitute the chicken broth with chicken cubes diluted in water (it’s what I had) and reduced the amounts for the other remaining ingredients in half.

Maya Angelou suggests to serve the smothered chicken with Buttermilk Biscuits but I, as Indonesian, served it with rice. And the result was yummy saucy gravy…….

In Indonesia, we have hundreds if not thousands of chicken dishes but nothing tastes like Maya Angelou’s Smothered Chicken. The closest which I can relate is our famous “Opor Ayam” (Braised Chicken in Coconut Milk) or we can call it:

Indonesian Smothered Chicken

Ingredients:

Makes 6 servings, with other dishes

One whole 3½-pound chicken
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup thin-sliced onion
1 clove garlic, sliced thin
1 teaspoon coriander
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
2 candle-nuts, crushed
¼ teaspoon pepper
2 cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon peanut or corn oil
1 teaspoon tamarind, dissolved in 1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 piece (aboud 2 cm) of galangal
1 piece or 1 square inch of lemon peel
2 pieces of salam leaves

Preparations:

Cut the whole chicken into eight pieces, discard the loose skin and fat and rub the pieces with the lemon juice. Broil for five minutes, turn the pieces over and broil for five minutes more. The chicken will be partially cooked and firm.

In a blender, prepare a smooth sauce-mix of the onion, garlic, coriander, cumin, candle-nuts, pepper and ½ cup of the coconut milk.

Heat the oil in a saucepan or wok, and pour the sauce-mix. Stir fry for two minutes; then add the remaining coconut milk, the tamarind juice, salt, sugar, salam leaves, galangal and lemon peel. Add the pieces of precooked chicken, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Cook for five minutes, basting frequently; then continue to cook for thirty minutes more. The liquid will have to reduce to a rather thick sauce, and the chicken will be tender but still firm.

The taste of ‘the Indonesian Smothered Chicken’ is also yummy and creamy but it has different creaminess from Maya Angelou’s as it has different source of gravy sauce – coconut milk Vs butter.

Usually people in Indonesia eat ’Opor Ayam’ with other dishes such as ’Gudeg’ and ‘Sambal Goreng Krecek’ (see my post ‘Hit the Road Jack Fruit’).

POTATO INSIDE OUT

2010-06-18T02:54:00.000-07:00

What’s so special about potato?

Potato is an important staple food and the number one vegetable crop in the world. Potatoes are available year-round as they are harvested somewhere every month of the year.

The potato belongs to the Solanaceae or nightshade family whose other members include tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and tomatillos. They are the swollen portion of the underground stem which is called a tuber and is designed to provide food for the green leafy portion of the plant. If allowed to flower and fruit, the potato plant will bear an inedible fruit resembling a tomato.

Although potato is a humble, lumpy, bland, familiar and unglamorous staple but I love cooking as well as eating it. It brings satiety and I love the fluffy taste of potato. Could be that is why potato is considered as comfort food.

What is it that such a humble little vegetable can make me so excited about?

A few weeks ago I learned a potato recipe from one of the Asian Food Channel programs named ‘Chef at Home’. This recipe makes potatoes that are crispy on the outside and fluffy in the inside. The name of the dish is Stuff Baked Potato. What I really like about Michael Smith (the Chef of this program) is that he encourages his viewers to improvise.

I really agree with what he said: “A recipe is merely words on paper; a guideline, a starting point from which to improvise. It cannot pretend to replace the practiced hand and telling glance of a watchful cook. For that reason feel free to stir your own ideas into this dish. When you cook it once, it becomes yours, so personalize it a bit. Add more of an ingredient you like or less of something you don’t like. Try substituting one ingredient for another. Remember words have no flavour, you have to add your own!”

Following what Michael Smith said, I tried the recipe, stirring down my own idea into this dish and …………love the result.

Here is my version and name of the dish - ‘Potato Inside Out ’

Ingredients

8 potatoes
4 slices of bacon, fry until crispy, cut into small pieces
4 green onions, sliced thinly
50 gram of Cheddar cheese, grated
Salt and pepper

Method

Steam the potatoes for around 45 minutes or until tender when pierced with a fork. Let them cool.
Slice the top, lengthwise, off of each potato

Scoop out the flesh

Note: the original recipe is to bake the potatoes before they are scooped instead of steam them. You may choose whichever you like. I prefer to steam coz it’s easier to scoop

Add the grated cheese, fried bacon, green onion, salt and pepper to the potato flesh. Mash well and then stuff back into potato shells. You can even carve a face on this stuff potato as you can see on this picture

Place on a baking pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and potatoes are heated through.

And these are the results……..so yummy

GASTRONOMIC DELIGHTS ON THE STREET OF JAKARTA

2010-06-04T02:12:00.000-07:00

As the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta attracts scores of international and domestic immigrants. Along with the migration, these people brought their different backgrounds, cultures, dialects, and cuisines into this city. Thus, unsurprisingly hundreds of different dishes from all over Indonesia and all over the world can be found in Jakarta. This makes Jakarta a perfect heaven for food lovers to spoil their taste buds.

No need to worry about feeling hungry in Jakarta. Thousands of eating spots ranging from upscale restaurants to street food stalls and hawker centers are all here in Jakarta!

But, if you desire for more authentic food, the best way is to venture to street hawkers. The taste of hawker’s food is so much better than in the restaurants. I often wonder why less hygienic, easy to go foods are the more delicious?

Yes, you can find some of the best of Indonesia’s culinary creations on the streets, very inexpensive (around one US dollar or less per serving), throughout the day from very early morning till very late evening….

In the morning

The common menu for breakfast are bubur ayam and ketupat sayur

Bubur ayam (chicken porridge)

Pondering where to eat in the wee hours of the morning? No worry! Bubur Ayam is one of the right meals. The Indonesian style chicken porridge is similar to the Chinese porridge. The ingredients used are chicken broth, with the flavor mainly attained from soy sauce, pepper and green onion. The thick porridge is then topped with shreds of fried chicken, cha-kuay (salty, fluffy fried dough) and kerupuk (crispy crackers)

Every morning, the street hawkers pass by to let the customers know they are there, they hit the bowl using the spoon to make noise.

Ketupat sayur

“Ketupat” is rice cake that boiled in a rhombus-shaped packet of plaited young coconut leaves. “Sayur” is a kind of creamy soup. “Ketupat sayur” has many kinds of variant. It depends on where it is from.

The one that passes my house in the morning is from Jakarta. The vegetable used for the soup is young papaya. So, it is a fruit actually. In the soup, there are also tofu and boiled egg. Ketupat sayur is always accompanied by “kerupuk”, a kind of crispy crackers. The price of one portion of Ketupat Sayur is IDR 5000 if only with tofu. If you want the boiled egg, the price becomes IDR 6000.

During the day…..

You may see other foods like gado-gado, ketoprak, soto mie, mie ayam or mie bakso, gorengan, rujak, siomay, and many more.

Gado-gado

‘Gado Gado’ literally means mixture. This dish is a mixture of boiled veggies, tofu, egg, corn, and shrimp crackers with peanut sauce

Ketoprak

Ketoprak is one of traditional food mostly sold by street vendors. Ketoprak offer’s delicious taste and it is quite filling, too. Usually it is eaten with steamed rice cake or lontong which made of rice stuffed into banana leaves shaped into a tube, then boiled until it’s ready to eat. Ketoprak is a mix of beansprouts, fried tofu, and boiled and rice-noodle in peanut sauce.

Soto Mie

Need something nice and warm… and I think a bowl of hot Soto Mie (noodle in beef soup). It is just the perfect comforting meal on a rainy day.

Mie Ayam

Indonesian Mie Ayam (chicken noodle soup) comprising a bowl of chicken stock, boiled choy sum, diced chicken cooked with sweet soy sauce and often added with tomato ketchup on top.

Or you can have meat balls on your noodle and it is called Mie Baso

Gorengan

Gorengan, literally means “fried things.” The golden offerings of this gorengan street hawkers included tahu (tofu), tempeh (bean curd), pisang (bananas), singkong (cassava), and ubi (sweet potato).

Es Campur

Es campur (mix shaved ice dessert) is a favourite Indonesian drink. At festivals, markets and other places where locals gather, you might see a stall selling es campur. The drink is made by placing shaved ice into a cup together with multi-colored jelly items, coconut, chocolate sauce and other items. Locals love the drink, tourists find it rather strange, but its worth a try.

In the evening…..

If you wish to have supper but no meals available in your fridge, no worries; there are also food hawkers in the evening! The choices may vary in other areas; sate ayam/kambing, tongseng, nasi goreng tek-tek, martabak etc.

Sate

Different regions in Indonesia have their different versions of sate. The famous Sate Ayam is from the island of Madura, off the coast of the central island, Java. It’s also very common to find this sate peddled on the streets as well as in five-star hotels in Jakarta. The lovely combination of lime juice, ground peanuts, chilies, and the sweet soy sauce makes it perfect. You have to try it at least once.

Tongseng

Tongseng Kambing, a kind of lamb curry from Solo, Central Java. This is one of my favorite dishes ever. You would find it sold on street vendors often together with Sate Kambing or lamb satay. Yes, it’s a typical street food, quite a famous one

Nasi Goreng Tek Tek

The fried rice street vendors are known as Tukang Nasi Goreng Tek – Tek (Tek – Tek Fried Rice man) because when they are selling around the neighborhood with their carts, instead of shouting, they always make a sound… “tek – tek – tek – tek” by tapping a wood.

Martabak Telor

Have you ever been in a moment when you are very really hungry in the middle of the night?? And potato chips or other snack just won’t fill your hunger for food? Don’t worry. Martabak telor is the perfect food for such situation. The name Martabak comes from the Arabic “muttabaq” meaning “folded” and telor means it contains egg.

Martabak Manis

This is the sweet version of martabak. It is filled with sugar, nuts and/or chocolate and topped with condensed milk.

How can you resist Jakarta?

SWEET MEMORY DISH

2010-05-25T01:58:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, I loved watching my Mom cooking in the kitchen. One of my sweet memories ‘working in the kitchen’ with my mom was when she cooked a special dish for me named ‘Gadon’. This dish was cooked whenever I got sore throat or stomach-ache (of course without the chili on it) since it has soft texture and high nutrition.

I used to be fascinated by the unique taste of ‘gadon’. That memory has left me with an eternal soft spot for this ‘savoury soft beef cake’, a Javanese dish made from minced beef mixed with spices, egg and coconut milk, wrapped in banana leaves and then steamed.

People say childhood memories last forever, they may be right, because since then, whenever I cook ’gadon’ for my family, somewhere unknowing to myself a flash of that moment with my mom snaps back.

So, that takes me to today’s recipe, it is a dish very near and dear to me

GADON DAGING (‘SAVOURY SOFT BEEF CAKE’)

Ingredients

300 grams minced beef
2 eggs
2 salam leaves
2 kaffir lime leaves, thinly sliced
4 red chilies, thinly sliced or whole bird-eye chilies
100 ml thick coconut milk
Banana leaves for wrapping (note: in modern cooking, we can use aluminum foil)

Smooth ground spice mix

½ – 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
4 shallots
3 cloves garlic
A pinch of salt
½ teaspoon palm sugar

Cooking Method

Mix well the minced beef with coconut milk and egg
Add the smooth ground spice-mix to the meat-mix
Add in salam leaves and kaffir-lime leaves
Take one table-spoon-full of the meat-mix and put it on a piece of banana leaf
Top the meat with the chili slice (if you want it to have a kick)
Wrap the meat-mix with the banana leaf and seal it with a tooth pick (some people even use stappler).
Arrange the wrapped meat- mix on a steamer and steam for about 30 minutes or until well cooked

Serve warm

This was how my mom made gadon:

This was how I made gadon:

Look similar but not the same

MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH ASPARAGUS

2010-04-13T22:41:00.000-07:00

Asparagus is not a native vegetable in Indonesia and it is not commonly used in everyday Indonesian dish. So far I've never bothered myself to think about cooking asparagus.

The first asparagus recipe that caught my attention was Grilled Asparagus wrapped with Proscuitto (by Hungry Girl) I found in LifestyleFood.com. The picture of the dish showed on the recipe was so mouth-watering that I couldn't resist the urge to try it out.

Fortunately, NOW is the right timing for this highly prized vegetable. The season for asparagus production is short, traditionally it begins in April and ends in mid summer. Due to the short growing season asparagus commands a premium. Moreover, in Jakarta where I live, asparagus is imported .....it cost me around 20 bucks for 20 stalks of fresh asparagus so I chose my daughter's birthday on last April 9th as the right occasion to cook these precious vegetables.

But before I cooked the asparagus, I want to learn more about it:

The fleshy green spears of asparagus are both succulent and tender and have been considered a delicacy since ancient times. Asparagus stalks should be rounded, and neither fat nor twisted. Look for firm, thin stems with deep green or purplish closed tips. The cut ends should not be too woody, although a little woodiness at the base prevents the stalk from drying out. Once trimmed and cooked, asparagus loses about half its total weight.

Use asparagus within a day or two after purchasing for best flavor. Store in the refrigerator with the ends wrapped in a damp paper towel, and be sure to place the asparagus in the back of the refrigerator away from any light, since folate is destroyed by exposure to air, heat or light.

Tips for Preparing Asparagus:

Asparagus can be served hot or cold. While it is not necessary to peel asparagus, you should cut off the woody base before cooking. Wash it under cold water to remove any sand or soil residues.You can tie asparagus stalks in a bundle to steam them, as this will make it easier to remove the stalks once cooked.
Avoid cooking asparagus in iron pots as the tannins in the asparagus can react with the iron and cause the stalks to become discolored.

And here is my version of Bacon-Wrapped Asparagus

The original recipe used Prosciutto for the wrap but I consider prosciutto as similar to bacon so I used the available bacon from my refrigerator. For those who don’t eat pork, you can use beef bacon

Ingredients

10- 20 asparagus spears
10 -20 slices of bacon
1 lemon (optional)

Before Grilling:

cut any thick woody ends from the asparagus and discard
add asparagus to a pan of boiling salted water
cook for 2-3 minutes or until the asparagus is bright green and tender
drain quickly and dry the stalks
wrap each one or two pieces of asparagus spear in a slice of bacon
to make the bacon stick to the asparagus I use tooth-pick.

The Grilling:

preheat barbecue grill or griddle plate
barbecue the asparagus
turning regularly until char marks appear
remove from grill
Optional: drizzle with a squeeze of lemon and season with pepper (*) this is based on Hungry Girl’s recipe. In my own version, I skip the lemon and pepper, I just love the taste of grilled bacon as it is.

Best when serve immediately.

COOKING 'OUTSIDE THE WOK'

2010-04-04T22:12:00.000-07:00

Along my delightful journey of cooking, I have tried different types of cooking methods: stir frying, deep frying, braising, and even slow cooking (all inside the wok) but so far never try ‘baking’.

Why not baking?

I thought I am not a baking type of a person and I did not even know how to handle the oven. I am the type of a person who prefers simple, easy and free style cooking, and to me baking sounds rather intimidating. For so long, I have been comfortable with cooking inside the wok …….

Until one morning …….

while sipping my coffee, I was craving for oatmeal cookies which I once bought at Star Buck. But I didn’t feel like going out that day and the nearest Star Buck Coffee is around 5 km away from my home …..then I said to myself ‘why not trying to make my own oatmeal cookies?’

But…it means I have to bake.

‘So what if you have to bake’, I challenged myself. The worst thing could happen is I screw-up the cookies. After weighing the pros and cons, I decided to give it a try and start ‘cooking outside the wok’ – get out my comfort zone and start to bake

I checked my kitchen cabinet and yes, I found a bag of oatmeal, brown sugar and unsalted butter. I thought these 3 ingredients were sufficient to create the cookies. I got excited…and here was my simple oatmeal cookies experiment

Ingredients

100 gram quick cook oatmeal
3 tablespoons brown sugar
50 gram unsalted butter – leave at room temperature to melt
5 tablespoons water

Method

Combine the oats, brown sugar, water and melted butter
Mix the combined ingredients thoroughly into a dough (note: it would be nicer if the dough is added with raisins coz raisins will give more flavor to the cookies).

Take 1 tablepoon of the dough and shape it into a cookie-form
Repeat until no dough remains and you will get around 24 cookies
Cover the base of a baking pan with aluminum foil
Arrange the cookies on the pan

Bake in pre-heated oven at 150 degree Celsius (or 300 degree F or Mark 2) with both upper and bottom flame for 30 minutes.

Hey, finally I can bake… and it’s not as intimidating as I thought. And my invented oatmeal cookies were not bad at all …. I love the cookies and it goes very well as ‘the companion of a cup of hot coffee’.

EVERYBODY LOVES PUMPKIN

2010-03-31T03:16:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, our house was located near a busy street. Since early morning the street hawkers who sold Ready-to-Eat (RTE) foods were already busy. They sold many different types of foods like bubur ayam (chicken rice porridge), fried rice noodle, nasi uduk (mixed rice) and some sweet treats like mung bean porridge, dark sweet risotto (black rice pudding) and sweet pumpkin treat (kolak).

My mom was the kind of a mother who never give her children pocket money and she did not allow me and my sisters to buy food from the street hawkers. She knew that as kids, we love food from street hawkers better than our home-made meal. So to compensate what we missed, everyday she cooked me and my sisters different types of snack-foods like those sold by the street hawkers. And one of my favorites is the Sweet Pumpkin Treat.

Let’s cook the Pumpkin

When choosing a pumpkin, we have to know exactly how are we going to cook the pumpkin. To serve pumpkin as a tureen, the size of the pumpkin must fit into your oven and you must be able to lift it out comfortably and safety after it is filled with hot soup. In addition, the pumpkin must have a flat base so that it stands upright firmly and of course it must be free of cracks that could cause leaks.

So far I have seen only 3 types of pumpkin available in supermarkets in Jakarta, where I live: butter-nut pumpkin, sugar pumpkin and the large deep-orange pumpkin (in Bahasa we call Labu Parang). I love the taste of butter-nut pumpkin but certainly not the price. Many people like the sugar pumpkin coz it’s smaller in size and tastes sweeter. My favorite is the large-orange pumpkin. The flesh is thick and I love its starchy taste.

It’s a bit tricky to buy pumpkin as a whole coz I don’t have any idea how to judge whether the level of ripeness is just right. Fortunately, in most supermarkets in Jakarta pumpkins are available by piece (in half / one-quarter etc) and it is charged based on the weight. This way it’s easier to judge whether the level of ripeness is in line with our expectation or not.

Cooking Sweet Pumpkin Treat

My favorite Sweet Pumpkin Treat is a kind versatile food. It can be served both warm or chilled depending on the occasion. Serve warm for breakfast alternative or serve chilled as a dessert after lunch or dinner. It can also be cooked as pumpkin stew (kolak) or pumpkin soup.

This is the original recipe of Indonesian Sweet Pumpkin Treat (kolak labu kuning):

Ingredients

250 gram pumpkin meat, cut in cubes
500 ml water
50 gram palm sugar, shaved
200 ml thick coconut milk
Pinch of salt
1 pandan leaf, tied into a knot

Method

Put water in a saucepan, bring to a boil
Slow cook the pumpkin cubes in the water on low heat until tender but still in the form of cubes.
Add the coconut milk
Add the salt
Simmer uncovered until the liquid thickened
Remove from heat
Serve warm or chilled.

The Sweet Pumkin Stew (kolak) will look like this:

How to prepare the coconut milk:

To make traditional fresh coconut milk, put 2 cups of freshly grated ripe coconut into a bowl and add 2 cups of lukewarm water. Squeeze and knead the coconut thoroughly for 1 minute, then strain through cheesecloth into a bowl to obtain thick coconut milk.

Repeat the process with another 1 cup of water to obtain thin coconut milk. Combine both for the coconut milk. Coconut milk can be frozen; thaw and stir thoroughly before use. The substitute for fresh coconut milk is instant coconut powder. Combine this with warm water as directed on the packet.

My version of Sweet Pumpkin Treats

To cook my version of Sweet Pumpkin Treat, I prefer to use dairy milk instead of coconut milk:

Cook 350 gram of pumpkin cubes in 500 ml of water until tender but still firm. Then remove the cooked pumpkin from the water and put aside.
Mix 250 ml water + 250 ml liquid full cream milk + 100 gram Sweetened Condensed Milk in a sauce pan until mix well.
Boil the milk on medium heat and stir occasionally.
Add the cooked pumpkin cubes into the milk.
Add 1 drop of Vanilla essence
If needed, add shaved palm sugar (the quantity depends on desired sweetness level)
Simmer uncovered for around 10 minutes until the pumpkin cubes are really soft and tender and the liquid is thickened.
To make it into soup type, cook longer, stir and mash the pumpkin. Remove from heat.
Serve in a bowl either warm or chilled

This is my version of Sweet Pumpkin Stew (Kolak)

CASSAVA, THE VERSATILE TUBER

2010-03-25T23:01:00.000-07:00

One day during a heavy rain, I was craving for my childhood favorite snack namely Sawut (Steamed Grated Cassava With Sugar), one of Javanese traditional cassava snacks. My mom used to cook me this cassava snack when I was a kid to keep me from catching cold during rainy season.

Why cassava? What is so special about it?

Cassava (Manihot esculenta ) originated in the Americas. The plant grows tall, sometimes reaching 15 feet, with leaves varying in shape and size. The edible parts are the tuberous root and leaves. The tuber (root) is somewhat dark brown in color and grows up to 2 feet long.

Around the world, cassava is a vital staple for about 500 million people. Cassava’s starchy roots produce more food energy per unit of land than any other staple crop. Its leaves, commonly eaten as a vegetable in parts of Asia and Africa, provide vitamins and protein. Nutritionally, the cassava is comparable to potatoes, except that it has twice the fiber content and a higher level of potassium.

In Indonesia, cassava is used in a variety of food products, the same way potatoes are used in the Western countries. They can be used as vegetables in dishes, grated to make pancakes, dried and ground into tapioca flour, or sliced and made into snack chips

To cook cassava, just wash and peel, then cook whole in savory dishes such as curry. You can also cut the cassava into chunks, boil them and then dip in freshly grated coconut and sugar or honey.

The young root can be grated, mixed with sugar, coconut milk and baked or steamed to make Indonesian snack.

One of the famous cassava recipes is cassava cake or known in Indonesia as Getuk Lindri. It is ground cassava with grated coconut and it’s really one of the old and authentic Indonesian desserts.

You can mostly find them in the villages or in the market. The daily morning market usually sold original Indonesian desserts and cakes. They are usually cheaper than the big desserts shop and they are really delicious.

The Cassava Cake (Getuk Lindri) Recipe

Cooking time: 1/2 hour
For 20 pieces

Ingredients:

1 kilogram grated cassava (you can use frozen cassava from the supermarket, it’s usually easy to find)
1/2 kilogram dried grated coconut, pours some water and salt over it and steamed it to get moist grated coconut.
250 gram sugar
150 cc water
1 teaspoon vanilla sugar
Food coloring
Salt

Instructions:

Cook sugar with water, add some vanilla sugar. Let it cooked.
Mix the grated cassava with 1/4 kilogram grated coconut, and add the mixture sugar with water, mix until well.
Divide the dough into 3 parts or more, add different colors as much as you want.
Then use pasta machine to get the spaghetti form like the picture above then cut into 5 inch length.
Serve with moist grated coconut that you have already seasoned with some salt.

Other more simple recipes of Cassava:

Steamed Cassava (Singkong Rebus)

500 gram cassava, peeled, washed and cut into chunks of 5 cm length
steam cassava in a steamer until tender
serve warm with salt or sugar

You can also fry the steamed cassava if you like

Fried Cassava (Singkong goreng)

Or you can make my favorite cassava snack:

Sawut (Steamed Grated Cassava with Sugar)

Ingredient:

500grams of Cassava ~ peel and wash until clean then grated
100 grams of white sugar
pinch of salt
200 gram coconut meat ~ grated well

Cooking steps:

Mix grated cassava with salt
Prepare steamer then put in the cassava. Steam for about half of hour.
Put the cooked cassava in a plate; garnish with grated coconut and sugar

WALK TO WOK

2010-03-22T04:34:00.000-07:00

Along my journey of cooking, one of the questions I have asked myself was: Do I really need a WOK to cook Chinese food?

Let’s hear what the expert said:

According to Rhonda Parkinson @about.com, we don’t absolutely need a WOK to create satisfying Chinese meals. However, the WOK has several advantages – it spreads heat evenly, uses less oil for deep-frying than a traditional deep-fat fryer, and ensures that food tossed during stir-frying lands back in the pan and not on the stove. A good WOK will make it easier to cook Chinese food.

So I decided to add a WOK to my kitchen equipments and I want to shop around to choose the best model. But before I shop around, I checked it out first by browsing the internet.

And that was how I started my “WALK to WOK”.

Step 1: What Type Should I Buy?

Remember that old adage “You get what you pay for?” This is one of those rare cases where it doesn’t apply. There is no substitute for a good carbon steel WOK. Not only is it relatively inexpensive, but it conducts heat evenly.. While there many other types of WOKs on the market today – aluminum, stainless steel, even copper – every article on WOK I’ve read so far still consider carbon steel as the best choice, and I have to agree.

I read in Wikipedia that WOK is most often used for stir frying, but can also be used many other ways, such as in steaming, deep frying, braising, stewing, smoking or making soup. It is commonly, almost exclusively, cooked with a long handled chahn (spatula) or hoak (ladle). The long extension of these utensils allows the cook to work with the food without burning the hand.

Traditionally, the WOK came with two metal handles, making it easy to lift in and out of the stove. However, I prefer the modern WOKs that have one long wooden handle, like a skillet. As Barbara Tropp points out in The Modern Art of Chinese Cooking, the long handle “eliminates the need to work with a potholder or mitt, and gives you wonderful leverage for tilting the pot.

Step 2: Flat or Round Bottom?

If you are cooking with a western electric range your best option is to use a flat bottom WOK. Round bottom WOKs can reflect heat back on the element, damaging it. A flat bottomed WOK can also be used on gas stoves.

Step 3: Size matters

WOKs come in a variety of sizes – restaurants may use WOKs that are several feet across. The size of WOK you choose will depend on several factors, including your own preferences, the type of stove you have, and the depth of the WOK. A 14 inch WOK is a good size for home use.

Step 4: Where to buy a WOK?

The best thing would be to buy a WOK in the nearest Chinatown. WOKs there tend to be inexpensive. As a bonus we get the advice of the seller who more than likely would be happy to advise us not only on materials, weight and seasoning your WOK but would also help us with a ‘pantry list’ to get started.

Step 5: Purchasing a WOK

The traditional style of WOK made of carbon steel is higly recommended. It is an excellent conductor of heat, therefore respond very quickly to temperature changes. It is relatively inexpensive but must be seasoned before use to prevent foods from sticking and to prevent them from rusting. Stainless Steel WOKs won’t rust and heat quickly, but won’t respond as well to temperature changes. WOKs with a non-stick coating need to be treated carefully so as not to scratch or damage the surface.

Step 6: Seasoning the WOK

It is very important to season the WOK before trying it out for the first time. Why is this necessary? Seasoning removes the preservative oil manufacturers place on the WOK to prevent it from rusting, replacing it with a light coating of cooking oil. It is also important to properly clean the WOK after each use.

Step 7: Cooking with a WOK

Cooking in a WOK is a healthy way of cooking. Usually, only a small amount of oil (1 to 3 spoons) is enough. We should heat the WOK before adding the oil under full burner heat. Pre-heating before adding oil will prevent food from sticking. It will also ensure that the oil does not burn and smoke up our kitchen before the upper surface of the WOK is heated. Most recipes require fresh chopped ginger and garlic to flavor the oil. We should add them once the oil is hot and we might scoop them out before they turn brown or burn So, remember:

Heat the WOK
Add the oil
When oil is hot add the flavorings (garlic/ginger/chilies)
Start cooking your meal.

NOODLE SOUP FOR THE SOUL

2010-03-16T01:04:00.000-07:00

Noodles are the second most-consumed food in the world, and a staple in Chinese cuisine. Whether you slurp them, gulp them down, or twirl them with your chopsticks, everyone seems to love noodles.

The noodle recipes in Chinese cuisine can conveniently be divided into soup noodles, pot noodles, hot-gravy noodles, cold-gravy noodles, steamed noodles and stir-fried noodles.

In my family, my second daughter is the real noodle lover. She loves any kind of noodles but her favorite is the soup noodles. For her, there is no food quite so comforting than a bowl of hot noodle soup.

In Indonesia, the way most Chinese restaurants sell Chinese Noodles Soup is either in the form of dry seasoned noodles plus a separate hot soup or a noodle soup dish where they pour the hot soup into the noodle and then top with the meat and vegetables. I prefer the dry seasoned noodle with a separate soup.

One day I was inspired to try cooking Chinese noodles soup when I watched Chef in Black in Asian Food Channel. I did not follow all the details of the ingredients and method he used, but I have captured enough to figure it out myself how to make it. After finished with my first trial of cooking the Chinese noodle soup, I asked my daughter the noodle lover, to try it out and ….she liked it!

Here is my version of Chinese Noodle Soup.

Main basic ingredient:

1 pack of dry Chinese egg-noodles

A bunch of Choy Sum or Bok Choy

Meat Ingredients:

100 gram ground chicken meat mixed with 100 gram ground beef
50 gram of Shiitake mushroom and 100 gram of buttorn mushroom, cut into small pieces
4 cloves of crush garlic, chopped
1 cm ginger, grated
2-3 of green onion, chopped
4 tablespoons vegetable oil

Seasoning Mix for the meat

1 tablespoon of sweet noodle sauce
1 teaspoon of Chinese rice wine
1 teaspoon of soy sauce
A little bit of pepper

Cooking the Meat

Heat oil in a wok and stir fry the garlic and ginger until fragrant
Add the mixed ground meat and cook until crumbled
Add the mushroom
Add the seasoning mix and stir fry briskly
Add the green onion

Cooking the vegetables

On a high heat bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil.
Immerse the Choy Sum or Bok Choy in the water for 1 around minutes
Drain the water and cut the vegie in 5 cm length

Cooking the noodles

On a high heat bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil.
Immerse the noodle in the boiling water.
Keep the water at a vigorous boil; the constant motion will prevent the noodles from sticking to the bottom of the pan and each other.
Cook the noodle just until al dente and drain the water
Put the noodle in a large bowl and season with combined mixture of
1 tablespoon of sesame oil and 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil.

Cooking the Soup

Heat chicken broth in a high heat
Add meat balls (if desired). Season with salt & pepper

In an individual bowl, put a bundle of noodles then add the meat and vegetables

Serve it together with the hot meatball soup

Stay Young and Juicy

2010-03-02T01:16:00.000-08:00

An article in Jakarta Post caught my attention. Here is more or less what it said: “wake up with a cup of strong coffee to get a kick, instant noodle for breakfast, a pack of artificially seasoned chips for later of the day, thick lamb curry for lunch, a pack of cigarette all day long, drink till you drop on weekends and so it goes day after day, week after week”.

Sounds familiar?

Are you aware how much toxins have we accumulated in our body? how can we get rid of it all? Some say ‘try detox’ – from doing a three-day diet of just fruit and veggies to drinking detoxifying herbal milk or lemon juice every morning for a certain period.

Nutrition experts say that fresh fruit and vegetables have a significant role in replacing damaged body cells and cleansing our body of toxins from the residues of food we eat.

Health experts repeat the old rule: eating at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day. But a single glass of juice could actually do much more to promote your overall wellbeing.

Really?

My ‘love affair’ with fresh juice began about a year ago when I was having breakfast at Harvey Nichols Social House. I ordered one of the fresh juices listed on the drink menu. I forgot the name of the juice written on the list but I remember that it was a mix of fresh papaya, orange, carrot and lime. I have never tried such a mix before. When the drink was served and I tasted it….. wow it tastes so refleshing.

The next day I tried to make the mix myself. Here is my version of the mix.

Ingredients:

100 gram of ripe papaya, peeled and cut into small cubes
50 gram of carrot, peeled and cut into small cubes
10 oranges (I use Jeruk Pontianak – the type of juicy orange ), squeeze to get the juice of around 100 ml
100 ml of iced water
1 lime, cut into 2 and squeeze to get the juice

Method

Put the papaya cubes, carrot cubes, the orange juice and the ice water in the blender
Blend the mixture for around 3 minutes or until mix well.
Pour the mix into a glass and sqeeze the lime juice into the mix.
To give a kick, you may add 50 ml of Sprite Zero (optional).

Serve chilled.

Drink this juice each day and you'll feel Young and Juicy everyday