Hit the Road Jackfruit

Does anybody know the song ‘Hit the Road Jack’ ? It is an old song written by rhythm and blues artist Percy Mayfield and recorded by singer, pianist Ray Charles. It hit number one for two weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, beginning on Monday, October 9, 1961.By the way, I am not in the process of changing from “cooking to singing career”. I just borrow the name of the song for the title of my cooking story today.In cooking, I am more of ’cooking-make-easy’ type of a person. I don’t like cooking a dish which takes a long time and complicated method. But one day, out of the blue, I had the gut to try cooking ’Gudeg’, the signature dish of the Special Region of Yogyakarta (Indonesian: Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, or DIY), Central Java.

Gudeg is made of young ‘nangka’ (jack fruit) among other things, boiled for several hours with palm sugar and coconut milk. Additional spices include garlic, shallot, candlenut, coriander seed, galangal and teak leaves, the latter giving a brown color to the dish. It is also called Green Jack Fruit Sweet Stew. Gudeg is usually served with white rice, chicken, hard-boiled egg, tofu and/or tempeh, and a stew made of crispy beef skins (sambal goreng krecek).

There are three types of gudeg: Dry, Wet and East-Javanese style. Dry gudeg is a gudeg which only has a bit of coconut milk and is served dry. Wet gudeg is a gudeg which (obviously) has a wetter look than the dry gudeg. There is much more coconut milk used in making this type. Meanwhile, the East-Javanese style gudeg employs a more spicier and hotter taste, compared to the Yogyakarta-style gudeg, which is sweeter.

I found the recipe of the Yogya-style Gudeg in one of the cooking artciles in website and by following this recipe I started my marvelous cooking misadventure with Mr Jackfruit.

Ingredients
5 Shallots
10 candle nuts
10 cloves of Garlic
4 salam leaves or Indian bay leaves
250 gram young Jackfruit and some teak-leaves
12 gram coriander seeds
6 gram cummin
40 gram palm sugar, shaved
2 cup (500ml) coconut milk
2 tsp. (30g) Tamarind
1 kg Chicken (cut into small pieces with bone
5 cups (1 liter) water
2 inches bruised galanga

Method
Cut jack fruit 1 inch thick wash.
Boil the jack-fruit together with the teak-leaves to give color .
After the jack-fruits become tender, drain from the water & discard the teak-leaves
Grind shallots, garlic, and candle nuts. Saute paste
Add salam leaves, and galangga, until fragrant then add chicken pieces
Stir fry until chicken changes color
Pour 4 cups of water and palm sugar, cumin, corriander, tamarind, and bring to a boil
Add jack fruit and simmer until chicken and vegetables are tender
Add coconut milk 5 minutes before it’s done, bring back to a boil

Serve hot with rice. This dish is sweet and usually served with shrimp craker and it supposed to look like this:

For every first time cooking trial, I always follow a recipe to the letter and I did the same with this Gudeg recipe. First, I boiled the jack fruit and the teak-leaves. While waiting for the jack fruit to become tender, I pound the ingredients, saute the paste then add the chicken with the rest of the ingredients. In the meantime, I checked whether the jack fruit has become tender by tasting it a bit but wait a minute, why did the jack fruit taste bitter? Initially I thought it was probably due to the jack fruit was not cooked long enough so I cooked a bit longer. It still tasted bitter. Oh, probably because it was not yet added to the chicken. So I followed the next instruction of the recipe. But even after the dish seemed well cooked, the jack fruit still tasted bitter. Apparently, the palm sugar and coconut milk did not seem able to cover the bitter taste of the jack fruit

I was devastated. The labor of many hours was a total failure and I did not have a clue what have I done wrong with the jack fruit. The next thing I know was that the Gudeg of my labor went strait to the bin. I really felt betrayed by Mr. Jackfruit and suddenly the words of the song popped into my mind

Hit the road Jack and don’t you come back no more, no more, no more, no more

Since then I never dare to try cooking Gudeg Yogya again. I decided that a dish using Mr. Jackfruit as the main ingredient is not the type of dish I will be able to cook. I prefer to buy Ready To Eat (RTE) Gudeg at one of the Gudeg sellers whenever I feel like eating it.

As much as I love cooking, I find that buying RTE Gudeg or any other jack fruit dish is much easier, cheaper and more satisfying than trying to cook it myself

Hit the Road Jack fruit, don't you cook no more no more no more....Hit the road Jack fruit

This Is The Beginning...

I don’t know why I start this blog. I just feel an urge to write something about my journey into the joy of cooking.

It started in early 2005, after I came home from visiting my sister in Switzerland. She was the one who inspired me to cook, because she cooked for me everyday during my stay in Bern, and her cooking reminded me of my mom’s. My mom was an excellent cook. It’s a shame I never had the desire to learn how to cook when my mom was still alive.

At the time, I only knew one recipe that my mom taught me. It was “Bumbu Rujak Chicken Barbecue”, a kind of spicy barbecue chicken dish. I remember when I was in my early twenties and had just gotten married, I cooked the dish for my husband and he loved it and told me that it was really good. Being in my twenties, young and impressionable, after getting that one compliment I kept cooking him the same dish for five days in a row. Bless his heart, it took him 5 days before he turned to me and said, “Sweetheart, as much as I loved your chicken, but after eating the same dish for 5 days in a row, it kind of lost its appeal on me.”

The man had a point there, but still, it discouraged me a bit from cooking and I never cooked anymore because I felt that I wasn’t the cooking type of person, and that was the reason why I never bothered to learn any of my mom’s other recipes.

But coming back from Switzerland, it felt like I was bitten by ‘cooking bug’. Suddenly, I have a burning desire in my heart to cook. So I started.

I bought some cooking books, the pocket series from Periplus Mini Cookbooks because they were cheap (around $ 2 per book). I was determined to learn how to cook, and soon I discovered my passion.

I began by cooking the “Bumbu Rujak Chicken” for my children (only this time I made sure that I didn’t cook it five days in a row) . Now this is important: never cook the same thing over and over again) and just like my husband did a few decades prior, my children loved it as well.

Thus started the beginning of my journey into the “joy of cooking”. I don’t know if you are just starting or if you’re already a pro, but in any case, I thought I’d share with you the recipe that started it all. Enjoy!

BUMBU RUJAK CHICKEN BARBECUE

Bumbu Rujak Chicken is traditionally roasted in a special clay oven but in modern kitchen the closest and easiest way to imitate this is to cook it under electric or gas grill.

Main Ingredients
• 2 whole chicken legs
• 1 whole chicken breast

Ingredients to marinate the chicken
• 5 fresh red chili
• 1-2 table spoon of shrimp paste (belacan)
• 1 table spoon of brown sugar
• 300 ml coconut milk

Method
• Cut each chicken leg into 2 pieces (separate the thigh and drum stick)
• Cut the chicken breast into 2 pieces
• Make a few diagonal cuts on the thicker parts to allow the marinade to penetrate

To prepare the marinade:
• Cut the fresh chili into small cuts. Pound the chili, shrimp paste and brown sugar in a mortar and pestle or grate finely.
• Coat the chicken pieces with this mixture, ensuring that they are well covered with the marinade.
• Transfer the chicken coated with the marinade into a pan. Pour in the coconut milk.
• Cook on low heat stove until the chicken pieces are tender and the sauce thickened.
• Pre heat the grill to medium heat. Arrange the chicken on a wire rack, leaving a little space in between each piece and grill fairly close to the source of heat. Cook for 10 minutes on each side or until the chicken is well browned and cooked through.
• Serve Hot with steamed Rice

Notes and Tips
Test the chicken by inserting a skewer or tip of knife into the thigh - the juices should not be pink or tinged with blood.