Tumis Tauge

Tauge or Mung Bean Sprouts in English is famous in Asian cooking, in Indonesia too. We use this in fried snacks or soups, salad and many other things. If it is stir-fried with Tofu or Bean Curd in English, it makes a delicious vegetable dish eaten together with warm white rice.

ingredients:

4 cups of tauge/bean sprouts, washed and cleaned
1 package tofu (about 15 cm x 6 cm, 6 cm thin) sliced in the size of 1 x 2 cm
1 tsp turmeric powder + 4 cups of water mixed with 1 tbs of salt (optional)
15 green beans, sliced thinly and diagonally
2 red chilies, sliced thinly and diagonally
2 shallots, sliced finely
2 garlic cloves, sliced finely
light soy sauce
salt and pepper
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tbs sunflower cooking oil
oil for frying the tofu

method: 

1. Before heating the oil in the wok and fry the tofu slices, you can make the tofu turn color into yellow first. This is optional: Soaked the tofu slices in the turmeric + brine water mix for an hour. Then remove the water, dry the tofu with kitchen paper/towel and fry the tofu. The reason to soak it in the yellow brine water is to get the yellow color for the tofu. Therefore it gives better and festive look. In Indonesia, yellow tofu is everywhere, no need to do this step to make it even more yellow. This process can be skipped and just fry the tofu without having to soak it in the brine first. Fry the tofu in hot oil for about 3 minutes just to get it firm and crispy. In Indonesia, yellow tofu is firm enough to be cooked without being fried first but I'm not there now, so I need to fry it to make it firm. Once the tofu is done, remove from the wok with slotted spoon and transfer to a plate with kitchen paper.

2. Heat the sunflower oil in a different wok. Add garlic slices and shallot slices and stir fry them until fragrant. Add the chilies, sugar, salt and pepper. Stir fry for a minute.

3. Add the green bean slices, stir fry again. After about 2 minutes, add the tauge, sir fry. Add light soy sauce, stir fry again for a minute.

4. Add the fried tofu slices to the wok. Give it all a good stir. Serve it with warm white rice.

Rempelo Ati Kering Manis

Sweet Crispy Chicken Liver and Chicken Gizzard, that's what this is. In Indonesia, these two chicken organs (plus the heart) are more "valuable" than the rest of the chicken body. It means, it is more expensive and because of that too we usually only eat this during holidays or religious festivities when most household gets extra fund from holiday bonus. 

ingredients: 

10 chicken livers
10 chicken gizzards
2 bay leaves
3 cm galangal root, crushed
2 liters water for boiling the chicken organs

spices:

3 garlic cloves
2 tbs palm sugar
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp salt or more

1 cup water
2 tbs sweet soy sauce
2 tbs cooking oil

method:

1. Wash and clean both the livers and the gizzards. Place them in the deep pan with the bay leaves and galangal plus the water and bring to boil. 

2. In a food processor, process together garlic cloves, coriander, salt, palm sugar and that 1 cup of water.

3. Once the water in the pan of those chicken organs is boiling, leave it on that stage for an extra 5 minutes over high heat. Then, turn off the heat, remove the organs and the bay leaves and galangal with slotted spoon and throw away the hot water. Put the pan back to the stove, put the organs, the bay leaves and the galangal back to the pan and pour the mixture from the food processor into the pan. Turn on the stove to medium heat. Close the pan with its lid and let it simmer inside for 5 minutes.

4. Open the lid of the pan, pour the cooking oil and the sweet soy sauce, give it a good stir.

5. Turn off the heat. Leave the pan on the stove for a few minutes. 

6. Transfer everything from the pan into a serving plate. Serve The Sweet Crispy Chicken Liver and Gizzard with fresh white rice or pan fried potato.

Bola-bola Daging Sapi

Beef Balls in Oyster Sauce. That is the best way to say what this is. People in Holland like to serve their beef balls with simple juice made from rich and creamy butter and a bit of provincial spices and of course it is also served together with mashed potato and beans. I eat this beef balls with white rice :) hence the sweet savory sauce.

ingredients:

makes 10 balls

500 gr/17 oz minced beef

1 egg

1 tbs bread crumbs

1/2 cup chopped cellery leaves

1/2 tsp nutmeg powder

few drops wochester sauce

salt and pepper

2 tbs cooking oil + 1 tbs butter

for the sauce

1 onion, sliced

1 tbs oyster sauce

2 tbs sweet soy sauce

1/2 cup water

salt and pepper

method:

1. In a bowl, combine the minced beef and the rest of the beef balls ingredients together (except for the oil and the butter) 

2. Once it is all incorporated, divide it into 10 beef balls.

3. Heat the oil and butter in a frying pan. Once it is warm, slide in the balls. Cook each side for about a minute. Top side, bottom side, along the middle side, all side has to be browned.

4. Once all balls have changed colors, line them alongside the furthest side of the frying pan leaving an empty space in the middle. Add the sliced onions in the middle. Add also oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce, salt and pepper. Pour in the water too. Close the pan. Set the stove to low heat. Let the balls slowly cook for 10 minutes.

5. Open the lid and mix the sauce with the beef balls. Close the lid again and let it cook for another 10 minutes.

6. Beef balls are ready to serve. This is a delicious companion to mashed potato too I guess.. The sauce is then served as the gravy.

Bakwan Jagung

Bakwan would probably mean deep-fried snack made from a mixture of vegetable or shrimps. I am not sure if the meaning of it is actually true but I think it is somewhat meant something like that, at least I hope it would mean like that ;) Bakwan Jagung is corn fritter. A deep-fried snack made from a mixture of batter and corn.

ingredients:

makes 8 snacks

1 can sweet corn, 212 ml (netto weight 150 gr)
1 cup flour
2 tbs rice flour
half shallot or about 2 cm thick with diameter of 3 cm or just small amount of shallot, peeled
2-3 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tsp coriander seed or use  coriander powder
salt and pepper
1/2 cup finely chopped spring onions
1/4 cup finely chopped celery leaves (optional)
1/2 cup water
cooking oil for deep-frying

method:

1. Grind the shallot, garlic, coriander and salt until smooth paste. The use of food processor is okay too here.

2. Add the corn and gently grind it together with the shallot+garlic+coriander paste. Do not grind it violently as it will crush the corn too much, just grind slowly and softly only to flat the corn and to nicely mix it all up. using a food processor could be a little bit tricky here as the corn can be crushed too much, but it is not impossible to use food processor. I did it once and it worked just fine. Just be careful not to smooth-processed the corn.

3. In a bowl, combine together; the ground corn mixture, the flour, the rice flour and the chopped spring onions.

4. Add  water, mix it all together until it becomes a firm batter and not to liquid-ish (look at the picture below as reference) and feel free to add a bit more water if necessary.

5. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fill it in with cooking oil. Once the oil hot enough, about 175°C/350°F, ladle the batter to the hot oil and spread it a little bit to the side.

6. Deep-fry the batter for about 2 minutes one side, then turn over and fry again until it turns golden brown. Remove with slotted spoon and drain well with kitchen paper.

Spicy Shredded Rotisserie Chicken

Rotisserie chicken is a gift from heaven. It is delicious, juicy and crispy all at the same time. I see people eating this with fries or with rice just like that, but I like to improvise a little bit.. or a lot. It is easier to work with than the raw chicken, you know, save more time :) In Indonesia I could easily find this in big supermarkets but here I usually come across this in traditional markets. I like it a lot and I often shred it into small pieces and stir-fry it in oyster sauce.

ingredients:

1 rotisserie chicken, shredded
1 onion, sliced
2 green chilies, sliced
2 red chilies, sliced
3 garlic cloves, sliced
1 tbs oyster sauce
1 tbs light soy sauce
2 tbs sweet soy sauce
1 tsp chicken powder
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
100 ml water
3 tbs sunflower oil for sir-frying

method:

1. Heat the oil in a large pan. Stir in garlic and onion until the onion becomes translucent. Add the chilies, green and red all together at the same time. Stir-fry for about 3 minutes over medium heat.

2.  Add, oyster sauce, soy sauce, light soy sauce, sugar, chicken powder, salt and pepper. Stir-fry for a minute. Add water, stir-fry again for another minute.

3. Add the shredded chicken, stir-fry for a minute. Reduce the heat. Close the pan. Leave it for two minutes. Open the pan, stir-fry for a minute. Close the pan again for another two minutes.

4. Turn off the heat. Open the pan and serve this special dish with warm white rice.

Martabak Telor Mini

The original  Martabak Telor is a lot bigger than the version below. And when the word "original" appears, it also means that my version is pretty much "edited" and that some ingredients in the original version need to be substituted too. In time like this I wish I were back home, waiting for the original version of Martabak Telor being prepared by the street seller. Now, before I dream the dream that takes time to come true, I'll just be happy with my very own version of this snack.

ingredients:

makes 8

250 gr/9 oz lean or extra lean minced beef
2 cups chopped spring onions
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
1 tbs corn starch mixed with 1/4 cup of water to glue and seal the wrappers
oil for deep frying
8 spring roll wrappers

method:

1. Brown the minced beef. Use a non-stick pan without adding extra oil or margarine. Set aside.

2. In a bowl, whisk the eggs, try to whisk 3 eggs first, add nutmeg, sugar, salt and pepper. Add the spring onions and lastly add the browned minced beef. Mix it all together. When the mixture is not liquid-ish (because using only 3 eggs), you can add an extra egg. The idea is to make this filling not too liquid-ish because it results in the filling running away to every direction once we put it on the spring roll wrapper. So, please make sure that the filling is firm but not too firm, a little bit extra liquid from the egg will be ok.

3. Heat the oil for deep frying. While waiting for it to reach the temperature of 175°C/ 350°F work on your snack. 

4. On a spring roll wrapper, add 2 tbs of minced beef-egg mixture, fold it neatly like you make an envelope out of a single sheet of paper. Seal it by applying the glue at the very end part of your envelope.

5. When the oil reaches the desired temperature, slide the snacks into the pan. Maximum 4 snacks at a single frying stage. Turning occasionally until golden brown. Remove with slotted spoon and drain well on kitchen papers.

This video shows how the original Martabak Telor is made, the one that is in my dream *wink wink* Just to sit neatly next to the seller and curiously watch him prepare mine:

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. 

Sie Joe, Amsterdam

It was back in 1996 when I stumbled upon this cute little Indonesian eatery in the heart of Amsterdam. I was still an Indonesian student at that time and was staying near the city center. It was really special to find this place among the other little shops in this city's narrow streets. Not only I could indulge myself in my favorite dishes there but it also brought back the nostalgia of my home country. Sie Joe.

This is Stroop Susu; cold milk mixed with rose syrup. It's strange, yes, but it gives very nice fragrance that makes me giggle all the time, hihihi.. see? Don't know why, I just like this pinky milk.

The menu Sie Joe offers is packed with famous Indonesian food. This below is Ketoprak, a splendid dish with rice cakes, bean sprouts and peanut sauce, yum!

My all time favorite is Nasi Goreng Kambing or Fried Rice with Lamb.

Soto Ayam is Indonesian spicy soup.. and in Sie Joe, it is good..

Sie Joe

Kastengel

These cheesy cookies are cheesy and crunchy! I love them very much. The original name for this would probably be Kaasstengel (double a, double s). Kaasstengel is Dutch word for cheese stick. Indonesian people probably think that less a and less s is okay too. Probably, not sure, hihi.. It's easy to make and it's cheesy and crunchy.. wait, I said that already!

ingredients
175 gr/6 oz butter (room temperature)
2 egg yolks
25 gr/0.9 oz corn flour
225 gr/8 oz all purpose flour
150 gr/5 oz grated old cheese
1 tbsp dried chopped parsley
1 tsp chicken powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg yolk for glazing + 1/2 cup grated old cheese for sprinkling

method
1. Mix the cheese and butter with a fork, add egg yolks, mix well.

2. Add the corn flour and all purpose flour to the butter cheese mixture. Also add the parsley, chicken powder and the salt. Mix well and knead the dough until it reaches the consistency of clay.

3. Flat the dough and place it in a baking sheet. Cover it with a plastic foil and store it in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

 4. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Preheat the oven for 180°Celcius/355°F

5. Remove the plastic foil and slice the dough into small rectangular form of 1x3 cm, 1/2 cm thick. Place the sliced dough on another baking sheet covered in baking paper.

6. Glaze or brush each one of them with egg yolk and sprinkle with grated cheese.

7. Bake cookies until golden, about 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks for about 5-10 minutes. Transfer cookies to plates using a spatula, let cool completely. Cookies can be stored in air-tight containers.

Pandan Chiffon Cake

Now that I live far away from home and some ingredients for my cooking or baking are just too difficult to find -or almost impossible to be imported- I gladly pop open a spice mix or ready to use cake mix on regular basis. Not that I would necessarily bake a cake from scratch if I could have been able to find the ingredients though.. Yeah, I'm lazybones.. Anyway, this time I bake Pandan Chiffon Cake from Pondan. 

Look at how beautiful it turns out! I love my Pandan Chiffon Cake. The ready to use cake mix has information about the necessary ingredients at the back of the box along with the baking instructions.

A special baking form that looks like the images below is needed for an optimal baking result. It is especially made for baking chiffon cake. Follow the instructions of how to grease this form and any other information about baking this cake at the back of the ready to use cake mix.

This is how it looks like a minute it comes out from the oven.