CASSAVA, THE VERSATILE TUBER

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

My Dark and Sweet Journey with Risotto

After success with Pasta, I want to develop further my cooking skill by trying to cook Risotto. Why risotto? Coz it’s a rice dish and as Indonesian, I simply love rice. Indonesia have so many different  rice dishes: nasi goreng, nasi uduk, nasi ulam, nasi liwet, nasi kuning, nasi kebuli and many others (note: nasi = rice).

Again, recipes from Periplus Mini Cookbooks become my guide. This time I found the recipe of Mushroom Risotto in Classic and Essential Vegetables. Carefully, I studied the recipe and it looked easy.

The ingredients were: 750 ml vegetable stock, 250 ml white wine, 60 gram butter, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 leek, 250 gram button mushroom, 250 gram Arborio rice, 50 gram grated parmesan cheese and 2 tablespoons chopped thyme.

When I checked my stock, I had everything I need except the Arborio rice. Mine was the Indonesian Setra Ramos rice. Rice is rice, I thought. How could it be so different from one to the other. I decided to just go ahead with my plan to cook Mushroom Risotto with whatever ingredients I had. Since this was the first time for me to cook Risotto, I followed the cooking instruction from the recipe to the letter
Place the stock and wine in a pan. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently.Heat the butter and oil in a large heavy-based pan. Add the leek and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the mushroom and cook for 5 minutes, or until tender. Add the rice and cook, stirring for 1 minute. Add 125 ml of stock and stir until absorbed, then add more stock. Repeat until all the stock has been added and the rice is soft and creamy. Stir in the Parmesan and thyme and cook for 1 minute or until the cheese is melted.

OK, the dish I just cooked was supposed to be the mushroom risotto. But, wait a minute. How come it did not look like the mushroom risotto which showed in the picture of the recipe? It looked so ugly and messy. Well, probably I did not stir it right and as long as the taste is good, I am happy” I said to myself. So I tasted it and…………..yuck!

My mushroom risotto was a disaster. It tasted so bad that even a stray cat did not want to eat it so it ended up in the bin.

Now I learned my lesson. Risotto is a rice dish and like any other rice dish, the most important thing in cooking rice dish is to use the right type of rice. The recipe mentioned Arborio rice and I used Setra Ramos Indonesian rice (not even the high quality type of Indonesian rice).

Not long after my risotto experience, I watched Bobby Chinn on TV. He was in Bali and he mentioned that he would cook Balinese Risotto. What? Balinese Risotto? Never heard of it. It must be something new and exotic or probably a type of fusion cooking or something. I watched carefully when Bobby Chinn explained the details of the cooking.

I could not believe what I saw. What Bobby Chinn cooked was not something new or exotic at all. It was just the simple Indonesian ‘Bubur Ketan Item’ (in Bali it is called Bubur Injin) which I have known since my childhood. People say that its hard to find foreign visitors to Bali who does not fall in love with the wonderful nutty flavor and melt-in-your-mouth smooth texture of Balinese Bubur Injin or also known as Black Rice Pudding which served with coconut cream on top.

This is what I like about celebrity Chef like Bobby Chinn – he gave fancy name to the dish, bubur injin became Balinese Risotto. Bobby inspired me to go back to Risotto.

This time I cooked Bobby Chinn’s Balinese Risotto but I did not follow exactly the details of his recipe (he used the classic recipe of Balinese Bubur Injin). I modified the recipe a bit and I name it Dark and Sweet Risotto.

The ingredients:
100 gram uncooked black glutinous rice
100 gram uncooked white glutinous rice
1 liter water
1 pandan leaf, tied into a knot.
2 table spoons of white sugar or shaved palm sugar
1 pouch (220 gram) Full Cream Sweetened Condensed Milk (SCM).

The original recipe does not use sweetened condensed milk but coconut cream.In my recipe I use full cream SCM coz the taste is much better than coconut cream. I learned this secret from street hawker who sells ‘bubur kacang ijo’ (mung-bean porridge) and ‘bubur ketan item’ (black rice pudding). He substitutes coconut cream with Full Cream SCM. The SCM should be the full cream otherwise the taste will not be creamy enough.

Method:
Place the rice in a plastic bowl, rinse several times until water runs clear.
Put the rice, pandan leaf and water in a saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat and cook for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally until the rice is soft and cooked with porridge-like consistency.
Add the sugar and stir until the sugar is dissolved. No need to add too much sugar coz later we will top it with SCM which will give more sweet taste. Discard the pandan leaf.
To serve, spoon the porridge into individual serving bowl and top with full cream sweetened condensed milk

Like any other Risotto dish,the quality of the rice will determine the look and taste of the Risotto. For Dark and Sweet Risotto, I recommend to use the organic glutinous rice coz it gives really smooth texture in the mouth

Notes:
You may substitute pandan leaf with 1 drop of vanilla extract.
You may also cook the rice in a rice cooker
This is also a good food for breaking the fastduring Ramadhan