Vegetable and Smoked Fish Congee

It was supposed to be Bubur Manado, a special congee from a beautiful place called Manado in South Celebes, Indonesia. The ingredients for making Bubur Manado were not easy to find here, and I just could not manage to compile all the spices needed, therefore I use the name Vegetable Congee or Bubur Sayur instead of Bubur Manado.

ingredients
serves 6-8

225 gr/8 oz short-grain rice
3 liters/5 oz water (a little bit extra water is better)
200 gr/7 oz spinach
100 gr/3,5 oz canned sweet corn
salt
pepper

condiments
smoked mackerel (I used the ones with black pepper)
chili sambal from a jar

method
1.Wash the rice and place in a large saucepan with the water. Cover and cook for about 2 hours, stirring regularly.
2. Add the spinach, corn, salt and pepper. Stir well, then return to the boil and cook for a couple of more minutes.
3. Serve the congee with smoked mackerel and sambal.

note: you can skip the smoked mackerel if you are a vegetarian

Gado-gado Salad

Gado-gado Salad is an Indonesian dish of slightly boiled vegetables served with peanut sauce dressing. Gado-gado in Indonesian literary means "mix-mix" since it is made of rich mixture of vegetables such as potatoes, string beans, bean sprouts, spinach, chayote, bitter gourd, corn and cabbage, with tofu, tempeh and hard-boiled eggs, all mixed in peanut sauce dressing, sometimes also topped with krupuk (if you are vegetarian, there are plenty of onion crackers available in the market), and sprinkles of fried shallots. That's what Wikipedia says, and I agree with it :)

For the peanut sauce (enough for a large serving of salad), I use these following ingredients:
100 gr ground roasted peanut
1/2 tbs palm sugar
1 tbs chili paste 
1 tbs dark soy sauce
2 kaffir lime leaves
1/2 tbs tamarind juice
a pich of salt
about 70 to 100 ml water (depending on the preferred thickness of the sauce)

Mix all the ingredients together in a food processor. Served with the boiled/steamed vegetable of your choice, and any meat substitute such as boiled eggs, fried tempeh and tofu. 

I sometimes add boiled eggs, and some other times I add Lontong or compressed rice cake to my Gado-gado. Few slices of cucumber will give an extra crunchiness to this salad. Enjoy!

I made Nasi Goreng few days ago. Nasi Goreng is one of my favorite Indonesian dishes. I guess I'm now back to blog about what I eat and cook again, yay!

It has been a while since I posted food recipes. I found it a bit hard to juggle between my study and everything around my life. But I recently got to know someone who could manage to administrate blogs and other social media among other things that revolve around this person's busy schedule.  So, I decided to try managing my past time and take a look at this old blog of mine. I would gladly post some stuff from my kitchen. I kind of miss blogging.

ingredients

serves 4

12 oz/350 gr cooked rice (left over chilled cooked white rice)

2 tbs sambal or any chili paste will do

1 egg, well beaten

1 tbs margarine plus 1 tbs cooking oil

1 tbs sweet soy sauce

1 tbs fish sauce

any left over meat products (I used thin-sliced beef balls, optional)

1 tbs chopped spring onions 

1 tbs fried onions 

sliced cucumber and tomato

method

1. Heat the margarine and the oil in the preheated wok or deep saucepan and stir-fry the sambal for 30 seconds, then add the sweet soy sauce and the fish sauce. Add the left over meat and the rice. Stir-fry for a minute, break the rice down as much as possible into individual grains.

2. Quickly add the egg. Stir until the egg is cooked. Once the rice becomes hot, add in the chopped spring onions.

3. Serve with fried onions, sliced cucumber and tomato.

Perkedel Kentang

Perkedel Kentang is some sort of potato cake made from freshly fried potatoes that is then smashed and formed into small, round shape. This Perkedel Kentang is usually served to accompany eating soup or soto. It takes some effort to actually succeed in frying it without seeing the nicely formed round potato cake crack from side to side (because the wrong choice of potato or because it isn't fried properly), but once you nail it, the smell of success will beat the smell of hot frying oil all over the house.

ingredients:
makes 20 pieces

900 gr/2 lbs potato (use the floury variant), peeled and cut into chunks
3 shallots, peeled
2 cloves garlic
30 pieces whole white peppers
a pinch of salt
2 eggs
oil for deep-frying

method: 
1. Heat the cooking oil, fry the potato in two batches. On the last batch, just a minute before the potato chunks are turning golden brown, slide in the shallots into the frying pan and fry the shallots together with the potato in that hot oil only for one minute. Remove the potato and the shallots from the frying pan with slotted spoon. Turn off the stove. Let the potato chunks cool off on a plate that is already covered with kitchen paper.

2. Use a mortar and a pestle to grind the shallots, garlic and peppers until they are all crushed and incorporated.

3. In a big bowl, mash the fried potato chunks until a smooth consistency just like the consistency of mashed potato. Add the shallots+garlic+peppers paste and a pinch of salt to that mashed potato. Mix it all with clean hands. Add an egg and mix it all again.

4. Divide the mashed potato into twenty balls. Press each ball into thinner round shape.

5. Heat the oil for deep frying again. Beat the remaining egg and cover each Perkedel Kentang in egg mixture before sliding it into the hot cooking oil.

6. Deep-fry the Perkedel Kentang in batches until golden brown. Turning them once only to avoid them from cracking into pieces.

7. Remove Perkedel Kentang from the pan with slotted spoon and transfer them to a plate that is already covered with kitchen paper.

New King, Amsterdam

This is a Chinese restaurant that I visit almost every week. I actually live about 80 km away from Amsterdam but it doesn't stop me from coming here and enjoying its delicious mandarin cuisine. Whether it rains or shines, or it heavily snows, I would still take the train to the capital city and find myself a seat in this tiny restaurant. That's my love for New King :o)

From different kinds of delicious soup until various kinds of meat dishes as well as vegetable dishes, New King presents its food with different approach. Not sure if I can explain that, but the neighboring Chinese restaurants can't even compete with New King's deliciousness.

Overall, this is really a different experience in enjoying mandarin cuisine in a western land. Three words; delicious, delicious, delicious.

Prego; pizzeria & döner kebab

Prego is a pizzeria & döner kebab located in a small shopping center near my place. Every now and then I would just drop by this place to grab a döner kebab or anything italian-turkish-mediteranian snack/meal/pasta. I love this döner so much that I rarely remember to make pictures of what I eat there. I usually eat it without thinking so much about taking its pictures. So these are few captures I can find in my computer.

Oh, if you're not familiar with döner kebab, here it is; döner kebab

Kapsalon; a layer of potato fries at the bottom of the foil, a layer of döner kebab, a layer of melted cheese and variations of sauce to your liking, and a layer of fresh salad with crumbled feta cheese on top. They actually oven the fried potato and the slices kebab along the cheddar cheese for a couple of minutes before sprinkle it with the rest of the ingredients.

Döner Kebab Menu; Pita bread filled with slices of döner kebab, sauce and salad. Served with potato fries and a can of soda.

Spaghetti a La Carbonara served with sliced of döner kebab if requested

Slices of döner kebab up close!

Takumi, Düsseldorf

I visited Düsseldorf, Germany, just before Chrismast last year. It was something that needed to be done because I wanted to visit Takumi, a Japanese restaurant. This was my second visit, the first one was about two years ago. "Needed" because the first time I was there, I fell in love with its authentic Japanese food. Düsseldorf must have been heavily populated with Japanese eateries since this city has the biggest Japanese concentration in Europe, but Takumi is just the best. Too bad it is a small restaurant with too many customers. It has always been packed.

Ramen Soup with Chicken Karage

Ramen Soup with some sort of meat, don't remember what..

Gyoza

Chicken Karage

Merry X'mas Ramen

Ramen Miso Soup with Mixed Meat

I can't find Takumi's website, but this below is a screen shot from its facebook page.