The Touch of Mother’s Love

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

When I cook this dish, I like to add  chopped bird’s eye chilies in the vegetable mix to give a kick .


Sticky and Sweet

I couldn't agree more with Devi Asmarani (one of my favorite writers) who wrote in one of her articles in Weekender (one of my favorite magazines) that ‘Food, like music, has a way of staying firmly in our memory, linking tastebuds and emotions’.

When I was still in elemetary school, there was a sticky and sweet snack I loved as a child. It is made of sweet potato mixed with sago flour (or tapioca) boiled in water and palm sugar and then served with coconut milk called ‘biji salak’ which literally means ‘the seed of snakeskin fruit’.

I have no idea why this snack is named ‘biji salak’ because it has nothing to do with the seed of snakeskin fruit whatsoever. Probably because the size and shape of the sweet potato ball looks like the seed of snakeskin fruit.

The sweet memory of my childhood favorite snack still sticks in my mind up to now. I remember when my Mom was making ’biji salak’, I used to help shaped the sweet potato into a small ball. It was really fun, because I got my palms all sticky after that. And imagining what it would be like after it is done really make it even more fun and exciting.

This sticky and sweet memory of my chidlhood snack has driven me to browse to internet looking for recipe of ’biji salak’. After going through some recipes, I found the following recipe by Yasa Boga which I think closest to what my Mom used to make.

Ingredients

750 g sweet potatoes, steamed, peeled, and divided into 4 parts
125 g tapioca/sago flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 liter water
200 g brown sugar/palm sugar
3 pandan leaves tied into a knot
1 tablespoon tapioca/sago flour diluted with a little water

For the coconut milk sauce

350 ml thick coconut milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 pandan leaf

Method:

Take 3/4 part of sweet potatoes, mix with tapioca flour and salt, knead until even and form into small balls.
Boil water, and palm sugar and pandan leaves
Put in the small balls and cook until they float.
Add the remaining 1/4 part mashed sweet potatoes and tapioca flour and stir
Remove from heat and put into a bowl

To make the coconut milk sauce:

Put the raw coconut milk in a saucepan
Add the pandan leaf
Cook on low heat and stir lightly until boiled

Then pour in the coconut milk into the ‘Sticky and Sweet Snakefruit Seed’.