Telur Merah

This is another dish I usually prepare with cooked ground chili paste. The recipe is just like my previous post Ayam Merah when I used chopped chicken breasts, only this time I use hard boiled eggs. You can go to my Ayam Merah link and find the recipe. Substitute the chicken with hard boiled eggs. Enjoy it with nice fragrant warm white rice.

Risoles

The above images are images of Risoles or Rissole. Special snacks loved by everyone who likes savory, crunchy, tasty, rolled, filled and fried pancakes. Yes, I do not know how to describe this thing. I just like this popular snack from Indonesia and I try to make this from scratch this time.

makes 15 pieces

what you need for the skin/pancakes

100 gr all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

250 ml low fat milk

3 tbs liquid margarine

cooking oil + brush

a small (20 cm) non-stick pan

for the filling:

3 medium size carrots, washed, peeled, diced

3 medium size potatoes, washed, peeled, diced

250 gr/ 9 oz cooked/baked/any left-over chicken breast, shredded

2 stalks spring onions, chopped 

3 tbs oil

2 garlic cloves, crushed, chopped

2 tbs finely chopped shallot

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp chicken powder

salt and pepper

2 tbs flour + 50 ml water, mixed together

for the coating and deep frying:

75 gr flour

150 gr bread crumbs

1 very large egg or two small eggs, beaten

oil for deep frying

method: 

1. For the filling: Heat the oil in a pan. Add both chopped garlic and shallot, mix well. As soon as those makes fragrance, add the diced carrots and potatoes, mix them well completely, close the pan with its lid. After the carrots and potatoes are soft and fully cooked, add the chicken, sugar, chicken powder, salt and pepper. Mix them all together then add the spring onions. Close the pan for about 5 minutes. Open the lid, stir in the flour+water mixture and immediately and quickly, mix them all together.

2. Once they are all mixed and incorporated, turn the heat off, set aside. Let them cool off.

3.  For the pancakes: Beat the eggs. Whisk the beaten eggs with milk and liquid margarine. In a big bowl mix the flour, salt and egg-milk-margarine mixture. Whisk them all together.

 4. Brush the small pan (that size of 20cm) with cooking oil and heat it. Ladle about 40ml the pancake mixture to the pan or use a small size soup ladle to pour the pancake mixture to the pan. 

5. Swirl the pan around so that the pan is evenly covered with the pancake mix. Cook it for about 1 minute until it can easily come off the pan when you flip over the pancake to a flat surface like to a plate or a cutting board.

6. Place 1 tbs of filling in the middle of the pancake, fold it gently from the bottom part up (roll it away from you towards the upper side), the left side to the middle and the right side to the middle too. Roll it up to the upper part of the pancake. No need to seal it. It sticks together. Repeat the same process for the remaining pancake mix and filling.

7. The coating process: Carefully roll each Risoles to the flour, then to the beaten egg, then to the bread crumbs. Set aside. Repeat the same process for all Risoles.

8. Heat the oil for deep frying. Fry the Risoles per batches, maximum 5 pieces per batch. Be careful in frying them as too much Risoles flipping-over will cause some hole on the Risoles skin that can result in nasty looking Risoles. Fry them until golden brown.

Bakso Sapi

Bakso Sapi is beef balls in English. Minced beef that is shaped like smaller size ping pong balls. Any Asian grocery store in Holland would stock this in the freezer as this is quite popular. This time I try to make this from scratch. It seems to succeed even though it is far from being perfect.

ingredients:
make 30 beef balls

400 gr/14 oz minced beef
1 egg
1 cube chicken stock, crushed
1 tbs garlic powder
3 tbs starch
1 tsp salt
30 ml cold/icy water
2 liter water for steaming and cooking

methods:
1. In a steaming pan, bring about 2 liter of water to the boil. Process all ingredients in a food processor until they becomes smooth and all ingredients are incorporated.

2. Divide into 30 parts and shape them into small ping pong balls and place all beef balls on the steamer. Steam the balls for about 20 minutes.

3. Remove the balls from the steamer and immediately put all balls into the boiling water of the steaming pan. At this stage you do not need the steamer anymore.

4. Cook the beef balls for another 20 minutes.

5. Turn off the heat, with big slotted spoon remove the balls from the pan.

6. The beef balls are ready to use. You can eat them with your noodle soup like this Mie Ayam

Pastel

Pastel or Kue Pastel is my ultimate snack. Like, it is just the one snack that I certainly can never live without. It is somehow similar to curry puff in Malaysia or Singapore, only Pastel is filled with vegetables without any curry herbs whatsoever. I love eating it even though I don't enjoy kneading the dough. Not that it is hard to knead but hey I am lazybones. Even moving my lazy ass from the couch is hard.

ingredients:
makes 18 pieces

for the skin
275 gr/10 oz all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
75 ml lukewarm water
1 egg
4 tbsp liquid margarine or cooking oil

for the filling
3 hard boiled eggs, each sliced into 6 pieces
1 package (100 gr/4 oz) glass vermicelli/cellophane/mung bean noodles soaked in lukewarm water, drain
2 cups of diced carrot
2 cups of diced potato
1 cup of chopped spring onions
3 garlic cloves, crushed and sliced
1 tbsp chicken powder
1 tbsp salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp sugar
50 ml water
3 tbs cooking oil
oil for deep-frying

method:
for the filling

1. Heat the cooking oil in the a large saute pan, add the garlic and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently for about a minute.

2. Add the potato and carrot, stir occasionally, put a lid on the pan for about two minutes. Open the lid, reduce the heat. Add salt, pepper, sugar and chicken powder, stir well. Add water, put the lid back on and cook for five minutes. 

3. Open the lid, put the heat back to medium. Add the soaked noodles and spring onions, stir well for few minutes until the vegetables are soft and the noodles are all incorporated. 

for the skin

4. Mix all ingredients for the skin, except the water. Add water gradually into the mix while kneading it. Knead completely until it is no longer sticky and shape it to a round ball and flatten in with a rolling pin. 

5. Make 18 round/circular shape dough with the thickness of 1/3 cm and a diameter of 10 cm each.

6. Fill in each dough with the filling plus a slice of hard boiled egg on one side of the dough and flip the other side on top of the filling so that it covers the filling. Seal the edges by pressing them together using the thumb and fore finger then press it again using a fork. I use a Pastel/Curry Puff/pastry mould. It can be a huge help in this process.


7. To fry the Pastel: fill a wok with cooking oil. Heat the oil to 175°C/350°F. Gently slide in the Pastel, frying 4-6 at a time, turning occasionally until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain well on kitchen paper.

8.  Peanut or chili sauce is recommended as the condiment.