It's Getting Hot in Here

The word Sambal is of Indonesian origin. It is a condiment, an ingredient or a dish which always contains a large amount of chilies. Sambal is popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the southern Philippines and Sri Lanka, as well as in the Netherlands and in Suriname through Indonesian influence.

It is typically made from a variety of chilies. 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 ready-made sambals are available at food markets or supermarkets in many Asian countries.

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 ulek, sambal setan, sambal Taliwang, sambal matah and many more.

Basically, there is no fix standard recipe for sambal. People make it according to their own preference. Some like more fiery sambal, some like the less spicy one. Some like it more sour and some more sweet.

My favorite sambal is sambal terasi but I love all types of sambal. Some sambal recipes I posted here are the adaptation of recipes I learned from Authentic Recipes from Indonesia by Holzen & Arsana (Periplus Edition 2006).

Sambal Terasi (Chili sauce with shrimp-paste)

Ingredients
4- 5 red finger-length chilies, deseeded if you wish to be less fiery
10 gram or 1 tablespoon dried-roasted shrimp paste (terasi)
10 gram or 1 tablespoon shaved palm sugar or dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
Grind all the ingredients to a smooth paste in a mortar or blender.
For a more fiery sambal, use bird’s eye chilies instead of finger-length chilies

Sambal Kecap (Sweet Soy Sauce Sambal)

Ingredients
3-4 shallots, peeled and sliced
2-3 bird’s eye chilies, deseeded if you wish to be less fiery, sliced in small cut
2 tablespoons sweet Indonesian soy sauce (kecap manis)
1 teaspoon of freshly squeezed dark green calamansi lime (jeruk limau)

Combine all the ingredients, mix well and serve in a small bowl

Sambal Rujak

Ingredients
100 gram shaved palm sugar
200 ml water
60 ml tamarind juice
1 teaspoon dried shrimp paste, dry roasted
3-4 bird’s eye chilies
½ teaspoon salt

Grind the palm sugar, salt, shrimp paste and chilies to a smooth paste in a mortal. Add the tamarind juice to the ground mixture and mix well

In a saucepan, bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat to low.

Add the mixture to the water, stir well, increase the heat to a medium and bring the mixture to a boil

Reduce the heat to low and simmer until the sauce is thickened

Sambal rujak is used as a dressing for fruit salad.

½ pineapple, peeled, eyes and fibrous core discarded, then sliced
1 unripe mango, peeled and pitted, flesh sliced
1 small cucumber, peeled, deseeded and sliced
1 star fruit, sliced
1 small jicama (bengkuang), peeled and sliced

Place all the cut fruit in a large salad bowl, drizzle the sambal rujak over them and toss to coat well. Serve immediately.

Rujak is a popular snack in Indonesia with its intriguing mixture of sweet, sour and spicy flavors.

Sambal Matah (Balinese Shallot and Lemon Grass Sambal)
 

Ingredients
15 shallots, peeled and finely chopped
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
10-15 bird's eye chilies, finely sliced
5 kaffir lime leaves, discard the mid part then thinly finely sliced
1 teaspoon roasted dried shrimp paste
4 stalks lemon grass, white part only, thinly finely sliced
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon black peppercorns, finely crushed
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice
80 ml vegetable oil or extra virgin olive oil

Combine all other ingredients and mix thoroughly for a couple of minutes before serving with fish or chicken..

Love and Hate Relationship

Most of my life, I live in Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia. Home to over 10 million people, Jakarta is always bustling, from the sound of the wheel of government turning to the sight of the economy churning. Skyscrapers, single story residential houses, modern apartment complexes, survivalists shanties – all coexist in this city.

Daniel Ziv, the author of ‘Jakarta Inside Out’ described the city from the point of view of a foreigner who proudly called Jakarta as his home: Jakarta is not what you’d call a beautiful place, it’s chaotic maze of low-lying slums, gleaming skyscrapers and imposing toll roads, enveloped in a gigantic cloud of pollution and trapped in hopeless gridlock. It often seems a miracle the place keeps ticking at all. But it ticks. Like crazy. If it’s sometimes a city in crisis, it’s also one of great opportunity. If it’s a city of despair, it is at turns one of hope. A constant assault on the senses, it oozes wacky character.

So, why should I live in Jakarta?

To me Jakarta has its own quirky vibe which I love but at the same time I hate. The love and hate are tightly woven into a special feeling too hard to explain.

I love Jakarta because there are so many shopping malls with different sizes and types. Being a more in-door person I enjoy ‘malling’ – malls are fully air-conditioned, spacy, contains bright glitzy things and have local and imported branded boutiques, book stores, cafes, food-courts, cineplexes……….you name it and even ice skating.

In the malls you can find many international as well as local chain-cafes such as Starbucks , Coffee Beans, Dome, Gloria Jean, Excelso etc considered by Jakartans as popular place to hangout with friends. Sometimes you can even hangout at a more upper class place like Harvey Nichols Social House. Though the price of the food and drinks are more expensive than regular cafes, it is still within the reach of most middle class people. What I love the most about malls in Jakarta is most of them provide valet service at the cost of only Rp.20,000 or $2. Though I can drive but I am lousy with parking so this valet service makes my life easier whenever I feel like ’malling’

Other thing I love about Jakarta is the Umbrella Boys or known as Ojek Payung in the local language. If you’re caught out on the street, running late for an important meeting or temporary trapped under the roof of a Bus Stop or Cigarette stall while it is heavily raining, your would agree with Daniel Ziv that the Umbrella boys are heroes of the hours and surely God’s own little barefoot angels. The service of an umbrella boy is ranging from Rp. 2,000 – 5,000 (20 – 50 cents US dollar). I really missed the Umbrella Boys when I was Singapore and suddenly it was raining while I was just stepped out of a bus. I have to wait for almost one hour for the rain to stop and there was no angel to save me.

What I hate about Jakarta is the Bajaj. It is an automotive rickshaw which Daniel Ziv describe it as “THE BRIGHT ORANGE NUISANCE. Bajaj is undoubtedly the cockroach of the automotive world and an element of Jakarta many residents love to hate.

Jakarta is notorious for its traffic and is one of the worst cities in Asia. Traffic jam is an everyday routine Jakartans have to deal with. I hate traffic jam but it’s a reality of life in Jakarta so I choose to enjoy it. Whenever I get caught in the jam, it’s time for either reading (newspaper or magazines) or twittering (yes, in Jakarta you can do this). So, it’s either you get bitter or better.

Other thing I hate is during the wet season, Jakarta so easily gets flooded due to clogged sewage pipes and waterways, deforestation etc. Major floods occurred in 2002 and 2007. Approximately 70% of Jakarta’s total area was flooded with water up to four meters deep in parts of the city. And my house was amongst the thousands of houses which hit by the flood.

Let us pray for Jakarta, no matter how bad it is sometimes. Because if Jakarta prospers, we too will prosper.

The Culture

Jakarta is a real melting pot of ethnic diversity, with peoples from all over the archipelago – traditional cultures mix and intermingle, co-existing side by side with modern metropolitan life. In such a diverse, flamboyant setting, it is sometimes easy to overlook the native inhabitants of the city.

The original people of Jakarta are the Orang Betawi. “Orang” means “person”, and “Betawi” indicates the original Dutch name of the city, Batavia. The Betawi dialect has a special place in the Jakarta of today, being the fashionable street language of the younger generation of Jakartans – it has been adopted as the hip, modern, trendy and informal language of kids and yuppies alike.

In the Jakarta of old, the Betawi people dominated the centre of the city, but as it has expanded, much of their land has been bought up for development and the Betawi people have been dispersed.

Ondel-ondel is a gigantic “human puppets”. The existence of ondel-ondel can be traced back to as early as the 18th century. In the past, they were used to protect the community from black magic and afflictions. The two puppets symbolize the spiritual protection provided by the ancestors to the Betawi population. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, people still commonly put on an ondel-ondel shows during family celebrations held when, for example, a boy in the family was circumcised.

Betawi Cuisine

I can’t talk about Jakarta without talking about the Betawi cuisine. All-time Betawi favorites are Soto Betawi, Nasi Uduk, Kerak Telor and Kue Putu.

Soto Betawi
Is a popular soup cooked in a coconut and beef broth, and served with beef, potato and tomato, which was very tasty and had just the right amount of spice — certainly a good way to start the meal. One of the best Soto Betawi in Jakarta is Soto Betawi Babeh in Kelapa Gading area where I now live.

Nasi Uduk
Nasi Uduk is an Indonesian style of steamed rice dish originally from Jakarta, which can be widely found across the country. It is made by mixing steamed rice with coconut (santan), lemongrass and salam leaf. Nasi Uduk is often served with raw cucumber, raw cabbage raw tomato, fried sambal, fried fofu, fried tempeh, fried chicken and beef. Nasi Uduk can be found throughout the day, some street hawkers open exclusively in the morning, noon, or night, depending on the demographic of the surrounding areas. Some are open during the day and some during the night.

Recipe of Nasi Uduk reported by Yumi.

Ingredients:
4 cups Jasmine rice, washed, half-cooked
700 ml thin or light coconut milk
1-1/2 tsp salt
2 bay leaves
2 kaffir lime leaves
2 lemongrass, white part, crushed

Method:
Cook the coconut milk along with salt, bay leaves, lime leaves, and lemongrass in a medium-sized pot. Bring it to boil, then simmer immediately.
Stir in the half-cooked rice into this mixture. Stir with wooden spoon until the coconut milk is absorbed by the rice. Remove the bay leaf, kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass. Continue to steam until the rice is fully cooked.

Note: If you think the coconut milk is too much or too little, you may adjust it yourself.

Serving suggestions
Sliced plain omelets [make a thin layer of plain omelet, with salt and pepper only, then slice it into strands]
Dry-roasted peanuts
Fried dried anchovies
Fresh sliced cucumbers
Chili sauce or spicy peanut sauce

Kerak Telor
Kerak telor consist of ingredients: white sticky rice, egg (chicken or duck egg), dried shrimps, and fried onion; added by some refined spices viz. grated coconut (fried without oil), red pepper, galangal, ginger, peppercorn, salt, and refined sugar.

Its cooking recipe is somewhat unique. The whole cooking process is not using edible oil. Firstly the white sticky rice which is already soaked is parboiled in a hot wok. Then the stirred egg is poured into the wok and added with fried onion, dried shrimps, and the spices. The egg is flattened on the wok surface. The wok is inverted until touched by the flame lick; and the upper surface of kerak telor is giving the roasted aroma. Thus the curst surface is actually dry.Then kerak telor is served with fried onion and serundeng (relish of grated coconut and spices). Combination of the fried egg aroma with coconut and fried onion mixture can be sniffed. The aroma is really appetizing. It’s yummy, especially when served while it’s still warm.

Kerak telor is sold by the street vendors using a unique litter carried on their shoulders. They’re commonly still using the traditional cooking equipment. Currently kerak telor is still can be found, although only limited in certain places.

Kue Putu
Kue putu is a sweet cake filled with palm sugar and scraped coconut, served on banana leaves is a perfect choice to close the meal, light and sweet. The taste is “luscious, giddying and sinful” when melting hot, especially when taken with the lightly salted grated coconut toppings.

The complimenting sweet aroma of the pandan leaves also never fails to keep our customers coming back for more. It is usually sold by street vendor which can be recognized by the sound of a steam whistle.

Kue Putu Recipe by Desi Chef

Ingredients:
2 cups rice flour
3/4 tsp salt
150ml + 2tbsp hot water
1/2 cup coconut without skin, grated
1/2 cup gula melaka, grated
Pandan leaves, cut into squares

Method:
Dry roast rice flour for 1 minute. Sift and leave it to cool.
Mix the salt in hot water and sprinkle over the rice flour.
Rub the water into the flour until mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
Lightly grease a putu mold. Fill half the container with the prepared flour.
Top with 1 – 2 tsp palm sugar and cover with more flour.
Place a small piece of pandan leaf over it.
Steam for 10 – 20 minutes. Serve with grated coconut if desired. Makes about 13 pieces.

References:
Wikipedia, Indo.com, Kreasidapurmivanda, Jakarta Post, Jakarta Inside Out (Daniel Ziv).

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

Dangerously Delicious

In everyday Indonesian language, the word delicious is translated to enak.  The word enak is usually used to describe the taste of  food and beverage. But we Indonesian also use it to describe our health condition. For example, when we are not feeling well, we say tidak enak badan which, if literally translated, means my body is not delicious.

Speaking of not delicious body, I have a habit of craving for a certain food whenever I am not feeling well. Strangely, the food I mostly crave is one of the so many delicious Padang dishes named  Spicy Prawn with Stinky Beans or in Bahasa we call it  Balado Udang Petai.  And believe it or not, it always works, the dish can cure me whenever my body is not delicious.

I have learned how to cook Udang Balado Petai from one of Periplus Mini Cookbooks – Spicy Padang Cooking which was written by the famous Indonesian Culinary Expert Mr. William Wongso together with Hayatinufus A.L. Tobing. When I first learned how to cook a dish, I followed the recipe to the letter. But after sometimes, I found my own version of every recipe I’ve learned either from books or TV programs.

This is my version of Balado Udang Petai, the adaptation of Spicy King Prawns by William Wongso and I gave it a new name:

The Balad of Sexy Prawn and Stinky Bean

Ingredients:

500 gram of fresh large prawns note: in Indonesia I use Udang Topi; some people like the prawn to be peeled but I like them un-peeled but the head taken out.
Vegetable oil for deep frying

2 tablespoons of freshly squeezed lime juice
Pinch of salt
20 peeled whole mature stinky beans

Seasoning:
10 red finger-length chilies, finely sliced
3 cloves garlic chopped
5 shallots, finely sliced
1 medium tomato, deseeded and chopped
1 teaspoon sugar; optional
Pinch of salt
2 kaffir-lime leaves

To make the seasoning, grind all ingredients, except the kaffir-lime leaves, to a smooth paste in a mortar or blender, adding a little oil if necessary to keep the moisture turning.

Rub the lime juice and salt onto the prawns. Set aside for a few minutes then drain the prawns and pat dry with towel paper
Heat the oil in a wok in high heat. Deep fry the prawns, a handful at a time about 1 minute or so for each batch. Remove and drain on towel paper

Heat 3 tablespoons of  vegetable oil in a wok over medium heat, Stir fry the stinky beans with the seasoning and kaffir-lime leaves until fragrant and cooked around 5 minutes. Add the fried prawns and mixed well and blended  but don’t over cooked the prawn. Discard the kaffir-lime leaves and serve immediately with rice

I assure you that this Balad of  Sexy Prawn and Stinky Bean is dangerously delicious. I love it and I believe that many Indonesians and Asians love it too although some people don’t want to admit it or eat it in public because the dish contains stinky bean so it is considered dangerous to self-image.

It’s hard to ignore Mr. Stinky Bean. You’ll either love it or hate it. Stinky Bean has bright green color and shape of plump almond and has a rather peculiar smell. The bean itself is not particularly stinky but once you eat it, you will begin to notice things. The effect on your breath will be worrying. And when you burp, and if you eat stinky beans you will burp, you’ll get to taste of the stinky aroma all over again

A few months ago in KL, I and a German colleague went to a shopping mall next to our hotel for dinner. Being an Anthropologist, my colleague wanted to taste the real local food so I took her to one of  the local Malaysian Restaurants. I suggested her to try the famous nasi lemak and for myself I ordered steam rice and  Sambal Udang Petai which is quite similar to Indonesian Balado Udang Petai. When our foods were served, my German colleague could not resist to try this dangerously delicious dish, so she did try it even after I warned her about the stinky beans.

Surprise, surprise, she immediately fell in love with the dish and finished it up. Wow, a German lady fell in love with Mr. Stinky Bean

What is so special about this Mr. Stinky Bean?
Known to the botanist as Parkia speciosa, stinky bean
are known to help in treating depression, premenstrual syndrome or PMS, blood pressure, diabetes, obesity and constipation.

Really?
No wonder this dangerously delicious dish can cure me when ‘my body is not delicious’.

Much A Do About Tofu

The title of my today’s topic is not my own invention. I ‘borrow’ it from the title of an article which I read sometimes ago somewhere in a magazine or newspaper but unfortunately I forgot where exactly I read it.  I use this title because firstly, it reminds me of the title of one of Shakespeare’s plays ‘Much A Do About Nothing’. Secondly, I agree with this title, yes there is much a do about tofu: many dishes are made of tofu.

One of famous Indonesian dishes made of tofu is ‘Tahu Gejrot’. It is known as one of the native dishes from Cirebon (pronounced "Cheerebon". The city is in the North Coast of Java Island, close to the border of West Java and Central Java. Because of this, Cirebonese have their own dialects, bearing elements of Sundanese and Javanese.

A few months ago, I and my colleagues got the opportunity to visit  Cirebon for a business trip.  One of the good things about business trip to other cities and other countries is the opportunity to taste the famous local foods. Cirebon is well known for its local foods, such as nasi lengko (rice mixed with bean sprouts, fried tofu and fermented soybean cake or tempeh), nasi jamblang (rice of various side dishes), empal gentong (a kind of curry), tahu gejrot (fried tofu with sweet sour topping), tahu tek-tek (fried tofu topped with peanut sauce and mixed with vegetables) and many more. So we made plan that we had to find the time in between our busy works to taste different Cirebon dishes.

When we arrived in Cirebon on the first day, it was just the right time for lunch. We chose to try empal gentong for our lunch. Everything  went well. For dinner, we went to an eating place famous for its sea food. Not as good as we expected but everything went well.

The next day, early in the morning we left the hotel and went to the best place of nasi jamblang for our breakfast and we ate to our hearts’ content. With full stomach and happy heart we worked hard that day

We had to finish all the work before the end of the day so it meant we had no time to go out for lunch. And now, what? we still wanted to try the famous tahu gejrot (literally means smashed tofu). So we asked the favor of the local people who helped us with the work to buy and bring it to our place.

Finally, we had our ‘Smashed Tofu’ which we ate while we were finishing our work. Everything went well until one or so hour later. I started to feel something wrong with my stomach so I went back and forth to the toilet. Around 30 minutes later, one of my colleagues also experienced the same thing then followed by another and another. Ooooops, it seemed that we all got food poisoning from the tahu gejrot (note: it could be that they bought it from the street hawker- the tofu could get contaminated by germs from the dirt.

Back in Jakarta, I decided to cook Tahu Gejrot. I Google the recipe and found from the one posted by Indonesian Exotic Recipes. I tried it out and the following is my adaptation of the recipe. And I name my version of Tahu Gejrot as Spicy Smashed Tofu

Ingredients
10 pieces of small Tofu (use the firm tofu type or in Indonesia, I use Tahu Pong)
Vegetable oil to fry the tofu
10 shallots, thinly sliced and fried until golden brown

Ingredients for the sauce
5 small green chilies, chopped (the number of chili depends on how hot you want it to be
3 shallots, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
25 gram palm sugar, shaved
Pinch of salt
100 ml water

To prepare the TofuHeat the oil in a saucepan on medium heat
Deep fry the tofu in the oil until golden on both sides and set aside

To prepare the sauceFinely pound the chilies, shallots, garlic and salt in a mortar and pestle.
Put the mix into a small bowl
Add the tamarind paste, palm sugar and water.
Stir until mixed well.
Put the sauce mix in a clean saucepan.
Bring to the boil and turn down heat

Final touchAdd the fried tofu in the sauce-mix
Smash the tofu lightly using the spatula to let the sauce penetrate the fried tofu. Serve the smashed tofu on a serving plate and garnish with fried shallots.

My family love my home-made Spicy Smashed Tofu and this one is cooked with love and certainly free from germs.

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

Talking Tex-Mex

Driven by my cooking passion and my habit of trying out new recipes, one day I bought one more cooking book from the Periplus Mini Cookbooks. I was intrigue by its title ‘Tex-Mex’.

The book says that the phrase ‘Tex-Mex’ is not a trendy term coined by some food writer or a funny name of a Mexican restaurant – it is a geographical fact. Tex-Mex is the border between Mexico and Texas which separates two different countries but where food is concerned, the line blurs. Tex-Mex relies heavily on traditional Mexican, therefore often Spanish ingredients and recipes but there is also a strong American influence.

What I love about the recipes in Tex-Mex cooking book is because most of the recipes use chili and I am a chili lover. Over the pages I read some familiar dishes such as tacos, nachos and chili con carne which I have tried in Amigos, one famous Mexican restaurant in Jakarta. There are other recipes which are less familiar: Texan Beef Chili, Potato Skin with Chili Con Queso and Chicken Tamales and many more.

I decided to try out one of the less familiar recipes. I was attracted to the recipe of Texan Beef Chili. It has short ingredient list and relatively simple cooking method. The seasoning ingredients are onions, garlic, cumin and chili. Simple enough but wait a minute……..cumin? my family do not like the strong smell of cumin (in Bahasa we call jinten).

So now what? Should I skip this one and try out other recipe? Or should I just skip the cumin? Or should I cover the strong smell of cumin with other ingredient? But what ingredient?

When the cooking gets tough, the tough gets imaginative

Here comes my version of TEXAN BEEF CHILI

Ingredients
500 gram beef silver meat (instead of chuck steak)
5 tablespoons of all purpose seasoned flour to coat (the original recipe use plain flour)
100 gram button mushroom or 1 red bell pepper (capsicum), cut into small pieces
5 table spoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
½ onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, crushed & chopped
1 teaspoon Five Spice powder (as substitute of ground cumin)
3 teaspoons of chili powder
2 teaspoons of beef stock powder diluted in 100 ml water (as an alternative to liquid beef stock)

In the original recipe, the ingredients do not include button mushroom and/or red pepper. I add button mushroom  to the recipe to give more volume while the red pepper can give more color to the dish.

Method
Cut the meat into small cubes
Toss in the seasoned flour until coated, then shake off the excess.
Heat the oil in a large heavy-based pan
Cook the meat in batches over medium heat until brown and remove from the pan.
Put the chopped onion in the pan and cook until soft and golden
Add the garlic and chili powder, cook and stirring continuously for around 1 minutes
Put in the button mushroom and/or red pepper, stir occasionally until mix well with the seasonings
Return the meat to the pan
Add the Five Spice powder
Add the beef stock and stirring frequently to scrape up the spices from the bottom of the pan
Reduce the heat to very low and continue to cook until the meat is tender and the sauce is thick
Serve with white rice

My improvised Texan Beef Chili worked!

The substitution from plain flour to all purpose seasoned flour makes the beef more tasty and Five Spice powder seems to be a perfect ingredient to substitute the cumin.

My family love it.  Tanti, one of my colleagues in the office has been begging me to share the recipe (I told her that it’s a secret recipe).

Well, here is the recipe my friend. Now you may try it, it’s no longer secret recipe.

Notes and Tips
For the seasoned flour I use one of the so many brands of all purpose seasoned flour available in the market. But we can also use plain flour seasoned with salt and pepper.
When I ran out of button mushroom, I used red bell pepper cut into small cubes and it worked well too.