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Vegetable Pulao

My first encounter with Indian food was years ago when I was still living in Hamburg, Germany. I was sort of living (plus working) with a host family, and my host mother happened to be Indian. She would cook nice fragrant Indian food for dinner and I instantly like them. This one is a real easy Indian food, good for Indian food beginner like me ๐Ÿ™‚ It’s nice to eat as it is or maybe also to accompany a curry.

Vegetable Pulao

For 3-4 persons

Ingredients:
– 1 cup Basmati rice
– 3 tbsps vegetable oil
– 1 large onion chopped fine
– 1 tsp ginger minced
– 1 tsp garlic minced
– 1 tsp coriander powder
– 1 tsp cumin powder
– 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
– 1 tsp garam masala powder
– 2 cups chopped mixed vegetables of your choice (I used green peas)
– Salt to taste
– 2 1/2 cups warm water
– 3 tbsps chopped fresh coriander to garnish the pulao

Directions:
– Wash rice throughly, set aside.
– Heat the cooking oil in a deep pan on medium heat. Add the onions and fry till soft.
– Add the ginger and garlic pastes and fry for 1 minute.
– Now add all the spice powders and mix well. Cook/ brown the masala (onion-ginger-garlic-spice mix) till the oil begins to separate from it. You may need to sprinkle a little water over the masala as it cooks, to keep it from burning. Stir frequently while browning masala.
– When the masala is cooked, add the tomato to it and cook till pulpy.
– Add the rice, the mixed veggies to the masala, add salt to taste and pour in the warm water. Stir well. Cook till the water comes to a boil. Stir and monitor the cooking till most of the water dries up and the rice begins to develop ‘pits’ on its surface. Turn the heat down to low/ simmer and cover the pan. Cook till done. You will know the rice is done when you press a grain between your thumb and index finger and it squishes completely.
– Turn the heat off now as some cooking will continue to take place even after you do that. Let the dish rest on the stove (turned off) for 5 minutes.
– Uncover and garnish the Pulao with the chopped fresh coriander. Serve piping hot with yoghurt and mango chutney.

Source: Adapted from here

Terong Lado Mudo (Eggplant with Minangnese Green Chili Sambal)

If you ever went to a Padang Restaurant you must know sambal lado mudo..it’s just so good eaten with boiled daun singkong (cassava leaves) but too bad I couldn’t find cassava leaves here so I just make do with eggplant instead ๐Ÿ™‚

Terong Lado Mudo

For 4 persons

Ingredients:
– 2 eggplant, sliced
– 10 green chili, steamed
– 6 shallots, coarsely pound
– 1 green tomato, steamed (I couldn’t find this so just used normal small tomato)
– 4 tbs teri medan (tiny silver anchovy), deep fried until crispy
– Salt
– Oil

Directions:
– Coarsely pound the steamed chili and tomato.
– Fry shallot in little bit of oil until fragrant.
– Add chili and tomato.
– Add teri medan and salt, adjust the taste.
– Continue cooking until done.
– Fry eggplant with little bit of oil until done or alternatively you could also grill it.
– Serve warm with steamed white rice.

Source: Herti Kitchen Gallery

Guacamole

A very nice dips with tortilla chips ๐Ÿ™‚

Guacamole

Ingredients:
– 1 ripe tomato
– 1 avocado, very ripe but not bruised
– Juice from 1 lime
– 1 small red onion, finely chopped
– 1 red chili, finely chopped
– Handful coriander leaves and stalks, finely chopped, plus a few leaves chopped roughly to serve
– Tortilla chips

Directions:
– Use a large knife to pulverise the tomato to a pulp on a board, then tip into a bowl. Half and stone the avocado, (save the stone) use a spoon to scoop out the flesh into the bowl with the tomato.
– Tip all the other ingredients into the bowl, then season with salt and pepper. Use a whisk to roughly mash everything together. If not serving straight away, sit the stone in the guacamole (this helps to stop it going brown), cover with a cling film and chill until needed. Scatter with the coriander, if using.
– Serve with tortilla chips, or spicy wedges and sour cream.

Source: BBC GoodFood Magazine, February 2009

(Masbar) Tom Yum Kung

Masak Bareng Yuk


People, is it tom yum kung or tom yum goong? I need some “pencerahan”. Because when I ask “mbah” Google, both those two names showed up.

This month’s theme for masbar is tom yum kung, one soup dish from Thailand. Nowadays Thai food can be considered as equally famous as other famous Asian cuisine; Chinese and Indian food. When will Indonesian food can be as famous as them?

I was too lazy to google for other recipe so when Deetha said she had one, I immediately copied that…hehe. With some modification as I didn’t have some of the ingredients listed.

So here we go.

Tom Yum Kung

For 2 persons

Ingredients:
– 600 ml water
– 100 g shrimps/prawns, shelled, and deveined
– 2 garlic cloves, minced
– 3 kaffir lime leaves (bai-ma-krut)
– 3 thin slices fresh or dried galangal (kha)
– ยผ cup fish sauce (nam pla)
– 2 stalks lemon glass/cironella (ta-khrai), lower 1/3 portion only, cut into 1-in (2,3 cm) lengths
– 2 green onions, sliced
– 5 hot green Thai chilli peppers (phrik khi nu), optional
– ยฝ cup sliced shitakee mushrooms
– 60 ml lime juice
– 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro/coriander leaves (bai phak chi)

Directions:
– Bring the stock to a boil over medium heat.
– Add the garlic, lime leaves, galangal, fish sauce, lemon grass, and shallots, then the mushrooms and chili peppers, if using.
– Simmer for 2 minutes.
– Add the shrimp and reheat to boiling.
– Cook until the shrimps are pink, opaque, and firm but no longer than 1 minute.
– When the shrimps are cooked, place the lime juice and chili paste in a serving bowl.
– Pour the soup into the bowl, stir, and garnish with cilantro leaves.

Source: Adapted from book Amazing Tastes of Thailand through Deetha

PS: Don’t forget to participate in my foodie event ๐Ÿ˜€

Button Event


(Almost) Forgotten Indonesian Culinary Heritage. A whittycute.com Foodie Event 2009

Calling all Indonesian Bloggers (and also non blogger) to join my foodie event.

Have you ever wondered what is going on with a number of Indonesian dishes, why they are slowly disappeared from our society, why it is hardly or almost impossible to find at the food markets on these days??? I do curious about it and I decided to make this little event for us to share our knowledge about our (almost) forgotten Indonesian culinary heritage. Therefore, we can demonstrate what we have and collect them in this event to share with everybody. If possible, the mission is to pass it on to our next generation.

As you can guess from the title, the theme is Indonesian food (and drinks) that is almost forgotten. In the term of forgotten, you don’t see the dishes around that much, barely to find for purchased at the market compare to 10 years ago; or else, you only see once a while in a special feast or ceremonial. It can be rice, fish, meat, and vegetable dishes. Dessert, snack and beverages are acceptable too. It doesn’t have to be an extravagance dish, show us what you have got in your hometown (or used to have) or may be a childhood memory dish that your grandmother used to make but nobody hardly make it anymore.

For sure, weโ€™d like you to share the story behind the dish that you made. Why the dish is being (almost) forgotten. If the dish can only be seen at a special feast or ceremonial, let us know why and what the meaning of the food is. Provided, you had difficulties in finding them in the market, share your story what the reason behind the difficulties. Lacking of ingredients or complexity in cooking way and not suitable anymore for modern busy everyday life. Please let us know by taking a picture of the (almost) forgotten dish that you have made.

Was it not clear enough?

Some examples of food that you canโ€™t submit in order to participate in this event:

– Soto ayam Lamongan and other well-known sotos that are still around
Sate ayam Madura and other common sates that are still in the market

Rendang Minang

Gado-gado

Few food that you may contribute for this event

Rujak Merak Cirebon
Bubur sop Ayam Cirebon
Es selendang mayang Betawi
Sayur babanci Betawi

There will be two categories in this event, but all you need to do is sending one entry as the categories are the dish itself and the photo of course ๐Ÿ™‚

The criteria for the dish are:

1. The uniqueness of the dish.
2. The story behind the dish.

3. The cooking technique.
4. The uniqueness of the ingredients.

The criteria for the photography are:

1. Food styling & edibility
2. Originality
3. Photo composition


Here are the rules:

1. Submit your entry, it doesn’t matter whether it’s in Indonesian or English, one participant can only send one entry.

2. If the recipe wasn’t originally yours, named the source.

3. Photo must be taken by you.

4. As much as we like exotic food, we don’t want any endangered species on our plate.

Badge can be grabbed from above and don’t forget to link back to this post ๐Ÿ™‚

Send your entry with the submission detail to [email protected]
latest midnight (GMT+1) Friday, February 20th 2009 which means Pk. 06.00 WIB.

Details for the submission:

1. Name/nickname:

2. City/country:

3. Blog/site name: -no need to fill this for non blogger-

4. Blog/site url: -no need to fill this for non blogger-

5. Entry title:

6. Whole entry content: (meaning your whole text for the entry)

7. Photo: width 600pixels


Now let me introduce you to the judges.

The judge for the food c ategory would be Bondan Winarno from Indonesia, he is a well known food adventurer if I may say so. And he is always in the search of good food all around the world and not forgetting also to explore unique Indonesian dishes. His drooling writing about his food related adventure can be read here.

For the food photography we got Thorsten Kraska from Germany. He is a keen amateur food photographer with very inspiring photography and founder of the Food Photography Club on Flickr, a forum to discuss food photography. You can see his outstanding work here.

Thank you for both judges for sparing their valuable time to judge this little event.


Now for the fun p
art, for all your hard work, there are some little prizes from me.

The first food winner will receive this book, Cooking Ingredients the ultimate cook’s guide with 1900 foods shown in 2300 photographs.



The second food winner will receive this book, Delicious Pastries. A book covering all yummy pastries from pies to รฉclairs.

For the third food winner will receive this Wilton Gifts from the Kitchen. A book full great recipes
for food related gift giving ideas.

For first photo winner will receive this book Desserts by James Martin, a well known chef from UK. You would literally drooled when you see his French fruit tart or Swiss roll.

The second photo winner will receive this Sushi book covering all from California sushi to hand roll sushi.

For the third photo winner will receive this book, Dutch Cooking Today. A book covering all Dutch delicacies ie; bitterballen, Dutch apple pie.



Success and have fun in this event!

As the host I would like open this event with my entry (don’t worry this is just an example entry, I’m not allowed to win ๐Ÿ˜‰ ) with a dish from my mother’s hometown Blitar.

Punten (Coconut Rice Cake with Vegetable and Peanut Sauce)

Punten

Ok at first glance you would think this is just the same like pecel and therefore is not allowed to participate in this event. But let me tell you that it is different indeed. Usually we eat pecel with rice but in this dish you eat eat it with lontong (rice cake) and this lontong is also different because when you cook the rice cake you also added some coconut milk.

When I was small 15 years ago I remember whenever I went to my mother’s hometown in Blitar, my aunt would always take me to punten seller. It was just a humble seller, she didn’t even own a warung (a small food stall). People would just queuing in her kitchen, waiting for her to finish her cooking. I remember her humble kitchen with wooden fire, but somewhat it made the food tasted more delicious. And what was weird that her odd opening hours, she would cook during the day (or late in the evening) then she would sell her cooking quiet late at night. So it was rather late supper than dinner, because my aunt always took me there after 9pm and when I asked her why couldn’t we go at 6pm, she said that the food wouldn’t be ready then. And what surprised me so much was the price. For a portion you just needed to pay Rp. 100,00 – Rp. 200,00

Even then there were not many seller of this dish, I only knew her. Now, that humble lady had died already and I heard from my mother that there are some other sellers at the market selling this dish but now whenever I wanted to eat this, I always ask my aunt to make it for me.

For 2-4 persons

Ingredients:

For the coconut rice cake:

– 2 cups rice

– 3 cups coconut milk

– Pinch of salt


– Cook rice with the coconut milk and salt until all coconut milk has evaporated.
– Steam the rice until the rice is done (approx 20 minutes)
– C
over a bowl with plastic and add the rice immediately when it’s still piping hot.
– Cover a pestle with plastic and pound the rice until it’s relatively smooth.

-Press the rice back to the bowl so it would make the shape of the bowl.

– Let it cool down before you can cut it.

For the vegetable:

Basically you can use any kinds
of vegetable that you like, here what I used:

– 200gr long beans
– 200gr bean sprouts

– Blanched the vegetables in boiled water, don’t over cooked them.


For the pecel sauce:

– 250gr fried peanut, grind until smooth

– 3 garlic

– 1cm lesser galangal

– 1 red chili

– 2 bird’s eye chili (less or more depending on your taste buds)

– 50gr Indonesian palm sugar

– 2 kaffir lime leaves, minced

– ยฝ tsp salt

– Combine all ingredients in a pestle and mortar or food processor until smooth.

– When you want to serve it, this the sauce with hot water.

– Serve the coconut rice cake with the vegetables and pecel sauce. If you like you can also serve it with fried tempe or tofu and rempeyek kacang.


Featured Patron for this events are my fellow foodie blogger, thank you very much.

1. Deetha of Mlebu Pawon

2. Ayin of AG’s Food

3. Pepy of The Art and Science of Food

4. Dita of Culina Sanctuarium

5. Rita of Mochachocolatarita

Ps: Extra thank you to my fellow foodie blogger Deetha and Pepy for all the help during the preparing of this little event.

Sop Ayam Sayuran (Vegetable Chicken Soup)

Nothing beats nice hot soup for a cold day…but I don’t really fancy those smooth western soup…..ooh forgive my village taste buds alias lidah ndeso ini.

Sop Ayam Sayuran

For 4 persons

Ingredients:
– Some chicken bone boiled in water to make 1 liter of chicken broth
– 4 bakso (Indonesian meatballs) sliced into 4
– 4 ready made fried tofu sliced into 2
– 100gr carrots, cleaned and cut
– 100gr cauliflower, cut into florets
– 100gr snow peas, trimmed
– 1 spring onion, sliced
– 5 stalk celery, sliced
– 3 shallots sliced
– 3 garlic sliced
– Grated nutmeg
– Salt
– Pepper
– Some oil
– Fried shallots

Directions:
– Heat the chicken broth in a deep pan.
– Heat oil in a pan, fry shallots and garlic until fragrant.
– Add the fried shallots and garlic to the chicken broth when it’s boiled.
– Lower the fire, add grated nutmeg, salt and pepper.
– Add carrots and cauliflower, cook for 3 minutes.
– Add snow peas, spring onion and celery, cook further until all vegetable is done (approx 2-3 minutes)
– Serve hot with fried shallots.

PS: You can eat it with rice or even with bread ๐Ÿ˜€

Source: My mother

Bakwan Tiram Pedas (Hot Oyster Mushroom Fritters)

After seeing Ayin’s Bakwan Jagung Pedas, I was inspired to make (read: eat) the same sort of food. Then I came up with different filling variations. I remember when I was still living in Bali, there was a big mushroom farm and they sold lots of yummy variations of food made with mushroom, one of them was this bakwan.

Bakwan Tiram Pedas

For 2-4 persons

Ingredients:
– 1 cup self raising flour (If you don’t have any, use normal flour with a pinch of baking powder)
– 1/2 cup rice flour
– 1 egg
– 3 garlic mashed
– 2 bird’s eye chili chopped (less or more depending on your taste buds)
– Handful oyster mushroom shredded
– Handful cabbage shredded
– 1 spring onion thinly sliced
– Salt
– Pepper
– Some water
– Vegetable oil for deep frying

Directions:

– Mix flour, rice flour, egg, mashed garlic, salt, pepper with water into a nice smooth batter.
– Add chili, oyster mushroom, cabbage, spring onion, mix throughly.
– Heat up oil in a fryer, scoop the batter with spoon and fry until golden brown.
– Serve hot, if you think it’s not hot enough feel free to eat it with sambal sauce or chili ๐Ÿ™‚

Source: Me inspired by Ayin

Jukut Urap (Balinese Vegetable Salad with Coconut Dressing)

This dish is a Balinese version of urap, urap itself is an Indonesian food consist of mixed vegetable with spices and coconut dressing. Now you can call this dish a sort of salad. It is really nice to accompany Tum Ayam which I would post tomorrow ๐Ÿ™‚

What makes it different with urap from other part of Indonesia? I don’t know that much of urap myself but from my parents background (Javanese), when they make urap they always steam the dressing meaning the spices mixture and the coconut but in Bali, they always grill the coconut.

Now see the picture and maybe try the recipe, and you can see for yourself ๐Ÿ˜‰

food

Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
– 100 gr bean sprouts, blanched
– 100 gr yard-long beans, cut and blanched
– 100 gr spinach, cut and blanched
– Flesh from one fresh coconut
– 1 cm fresh lesser galangal, finely chopped
– 1 tsp black peppercorn
– salt
– 2 kaffir lime leaves, very finely chopped
– 150 gr sambal mbe (see below)
– 1 tsp granulated sugar
– juice of 2 leprous limes (if unavailable, use kaffir limes)

Directions:
– Remove the dark skin from the coconut, toast the flesh over hot coals or under the grill until light brown, then grate it coarsely.
– Use a pestle and mortar to pound the lesser galangal with the peppercorns into a fine paste, then season with salt.
– Put the blanched vegetables into a serving dish and stir in the lime leaves, sambal mbe, sugar, lime juice, salt, coconut and spice paste.

Sambal Mbe

Ingredients:
– 1/2 tsp roasted dried shrimp
– salt
– 12-15 tbs coconut oil (I used vegetable oil since it was difficult to find coconut oil)
– 150 gr shallots, finely sliced
– 25 gr garlic, finely sliced
– 8 bird’s eye chillies sliced
– Juice of 2 leprous limes (if unavailable use kaffir limes)

Directions:
– Use a pestle and mortar to pound the shrimp paste and a little salt to a paste.
– Heat the coconut oil (I used vegetable oil) in a wok and deep fry the shallots and garlic separately until golden and crisp. Using a slotted spoon, transfer them to kitchen paper and leave to drain.
– Pour all but 2 tbs or the oil out of the wok, add the chillies and stir fry for about 2 minutes.
– Remove the wok from the heat and stir in the shallots, garlic, shrimp paste mixture and lime juice.

Source: The Bali Cookbook by Lonny Gerungan

Ayam Cah Sawi Hijau (Stir Fry Chicken with Coy Sum)

his one is really easy and one of my favorite (ok I admit I eat chicken in any way ๐Ÿ˜‰ )

Ayam Cah Sawi Hijau

Ingredients:

– 500gr chicken pieces
– 1 bunch of sawi hijau (coy sum)
– 4 garlic mashed
– 2 spring onion sliced
– 1 tbs fish sauce
– 2 tbs sweet soy sauce
– 1 tbs soy sauce
– 1 tbs oyster sauce
– tiny bit of salt (because the fish sauce is already salty)
– 1/2 tsp pepper
– 50ml water
– 2 tbs vegetable oil

Directions:
– Heat up oil in a wok, add garlic, fry until garlic is fragrant.
– Add chicken pieces and all the rest of ingredients except the coy sum.
– Cook for 15 minutes until chicken is done and water has evaporated.
– Add coy sum, stir quickly and serve immediately.

Source : Me

Spicy Stuffed Tofu

Spicy Stuffed Tofu

This is another version of the Spicy Stuffed Chillies, so instead of using chillies because I was running out of them and there were still some of the meat filling I used tofu. Taste as good as the chillies ๐Ÿ™‚

Source: BBC GodFood Magazine, UK Edition, December 2008