[Masak Bareng Yuk!] Rujak Pengantin

Rujak/rojak is a fruit and vegetable salad dish commonly found in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia (where here is called Rujak). source: wikipedia.
For most of Indonesians, rujak is referred to fruit salad that is served with spicy peanut sauce.
Meanwhile, Pengantin means bride/groom.

It'll be pretty strange if I directly translate this name into English. The story behind the name according to a website says that once upon a time, this dish was served only during wedding ceremony/celebrations. It was not an everyday food. Today we can find it or cook it anytime we want. ...hmmm as Kelly Kwong always says: "every food has a journey" :)

This dish is popular in Bogor, West Java. Bogor is famous as a Rain City (almost rain everyday even during the dry season), has one of four Indonesian Presidential Palaces, has a world's famous botanical garden and ...has a very rich and innovative culinary. Actually Bogor is not too far from Jakarta; only about 30 minutes driving via a highway from our home in South Jakarta.
Back to Rujak Pengantin, this is my entry to "Masak Bareng Yuk!" event. This month's theme is Indonesian Salad/Vegetables. Regularly I join this monthly event, because I like to explore Indonesian Food... and every month I'm amazed on how rich our local culinary are. That's why, I have chosen to prepare a food that I have never tried before. Yup, this is the first time I make and eat rujak pengantin.

This 'rujak' is actually different from 'fruit salad type' rujak that is common in Indonesia. It is slightly look & taste like gado-gado, the famous Indonesian vegetable salad. The different is in the peanut sauce; in rujak pengantin we need to put 'ebi' (dried 'tiny' shrimps), which adds a special savoury flavour to the sauce. Very special and unusual.
I modified a little bit from the original recipes, and I'm very happy with the result. I substituted the white tofu with the famous yellow "tahu YunYi" from Bogor. Also I substituted half of the sugar with brown sugar and I served the rujak pengantin with the yellow 'kerupuk mie' (noodle crackers) that normally we eat with 'asinan bogor'.

Source : Femina Online

Bahan :
100 gr touge
200 gr isi buah nanas (tanpa kulit), iris tipis memanjang 2 cm
300 gr kentang, kukus, potong persegi
3 butir telur ayam, rebus, kupas, iris tipis
300 gr tahu putih, goreng, potong dadu
200 gr selada keriting
150 gr kol, iris halus
200 gr mentimun, iris tipis
Taburan :
100 gr kacang goreng
Saus :
3 siung bawang putih
8 buah cabe merah
4 buah cabe rawit
1 sdm ebi, sangrai, tumbuk halus
150 gr kacang goreng
200 ml air
50 gr gula pasir
1 1/2 sdt garam
3 sdm cuka masak

Cara membuat :
Tumbuk halus bawang putih, cabe merah dan cabe rawit. Tambahkan kacang tanah dan ebi, tumbuk kembali hingga halus. Campurkan dengan air, tambahkan gula pasir dan garam. Jerang di atas api sedang, hingga mendidih. Angkat, biarkan hangat dan tambahkan cuka masak. Aduk rata, dinginkan.
Penyajian :
Atur semua bahan di atas piring saji, tuangkan saus dan taburkan kacang tanah. Sajikan.

[Click] Bowls Stacks

Hello from Jakarta!
We've been in our hometown, Jakarta, Indonesia for about two weeks. Back to our home, spending time together with our family... So far, most of the time we're busy trying to find a new school for our children (ohh ...this is not an easy job for us!), clean the house, and also enjoying the food that we missed since some months ago; yes, Indonesian Food.
Unbelieveable, many-many morning we have delicious traditional chicken porridge for our breakfast. There is one street hawker selling this delicious porridge nearby our house.

I've tried already some new recipes in my kitchen. Most of them are Indonesian Food that the ingredients are really easy to be found in the local market or supermarket. I always tend to feel so excited everytime I go to market and find lots of ingredient that I couldn't find in India before :D

Other than cooking, I have to find a good spot in our house to do my food photography. I have moved from one room to other room, try to click the camera here and there... then finally I found one good spot in our living room to take the food pictures.

The below pictures are my experiments three days ago. I send the first one to Click 'Stacks' June. If you are interested to join this event, ... quick... send your best photo before June 30, 2009! Click HERE for more information.

I look forward to get your photos and judge it :)

It was fun so much to take those pictures. I kept moving, playing around with the ceramic bowls and my camera (I've never use tripod). Pushed the big table closer to the window, adjusted the window blinds to get enough natural light and playing with the camera.

Yup, finally the living room will be my regular "studio" to take the food pictures, not on my bed anymore like what I used to do in Mumbai :D.

Happy Clicking!

Ontbijtkoek a.k.a Breakfast Cake

Ontbijtkoek is one of the popular old-fashioned cakes in Indonesia. This is one of the collonial Dutch's legacy in our country, same as croquette, poffertjes, oliebollen and some Dutch snack (by now, you can tell by judging from the name, right ?).

My big family is actually familiar with this particular cake, eventhought my uncles & aunties call it 'kolomben', instead of ontbijtkoek. I have no idea where the name comes from. Occassionaly my mom and aunties make this cake until today, and we always enjoy it with tea or coffee.

At home, we call it 'bolu kampung' (meaning traditional village cake) or also "oldies cake" because of the smell of spices aroma of this cake always make us reminded back to the old time, long ago while we were little children & when our parents baked this cake.

Different type of cake have their own textures. We know that butter cake has different texture compare to sponge cake. This cake does not require any type of fat; no butter, margarine or oil on the list of ingredients... The result is a dry texture cake. That's why my mother usually spreads margarine on top of the cake, right after it comes out from the oven, and never miss tea or coffee to accompany this cake.

Normally, this cake is baked on loaf pan, but I prefer to bake it using the muffin pan. It really helps to cut the baking time only 1/2 time from the normal baking time while we used loaf pan.

source: The Best of Indonesian Desserts by Yasa Boga. Times Edition.
Ingredients
1 levelled tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
125 gr wheat flour
5 egg yolks
3 egg whites
125 gr brown sugar *I used palm sugar
butter, for brushing
flour, for sprinkling
50 gr sliced almonds *I used sesame seeds & flax seeds.

Method
1. Sift together cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and wheat flour. Set aside.
2. Beat egg yolks, egg whites and brown sugar until thick and frothing.
3. Add the sifted ingredients and stir well.
4. Pour into a loaf baking pan lined with grease-proof paper that has been brushed with butter and sprinkled with flour
5. Bake at 180 C for about 20 minutes until half done. Sprinkle with almond slices. Continue baking for another 20 minutes until done.

Sukriya India

Home is where the heart is.
If someone asks me where my heart is, ohooo, it'll be hard to answer for now.

We have been counting down hours to leave India: 20, 19, 18, 17, ... By today when this blog is being written, it'll be very soon, less than 24 hours! Happy and sad feelings are mixed in my heart, in my mind. Very happy to meet my big family, back to our own lovely house, enjoy my own private kitchen, but also feel sad to leave my kitchen here. Lots of new recipes were tried in this kitchen, lots of new experiments were done in this black and white open kitchen. I'll miss the black marble table top, the electric oven, and the Indian brand 'Bajaj' kitchen appliances. Yup, I'll be back slaving my 'Phillips' & 'Moulinex' while keep dreaming of 'Kitchen Aid' :D.

After all, I feel so grateful that I have been given an opportunity to spend some parts of my life here in India; a place that is very rich of colours, cultures and traditions. The land of dreams and romance, the land of celebrations. Lots of things I have learnt, lots of things I have got, ... and lost ? Yeah, little bit, sometime I lost my passion, and need to do lots of adjustment to survive. And yeaahhh, I'm survived and happy. Very happy!!

Here, I was falling in love for the first time to 'street photography'. The beautiful exotic architecture, the hospitality of the people, the colourful sarees, the richness of local culinaries and lots of authentic objects making me very hard not to bring my camera everywhere I go out (hmm, the camera is physically quite heavy, but once I forgot to bring it, I'll felt sorry for myself). I've never been worried to carry around my camera while walking exploring the city by myself alone; going to the local markets, walking through the seaside, even visiting some heavy populated areas. Oooooh, I'll miss them all, but I'm so glad to have hundreds of pictures of India for my collection. Oh, not only the camera, I have never been worried to bring my children along to explore every corner of this city eventhought many times I found out they were grumbling behind my back.

No more word I can write to express how lucky I am, having an opportunity to live in Mumbai, and exploring some parts of India. Meeting lots of new friends, tasting original Indian Culinaries, enjoying their richness of their land, including being an eyewitness how Mumbaikars struggled againts terrorism. The luckiest one I feel is to bring home lots and lots and lots of 'properties' (metal, glass, wood, plastic and fabric products) for my food photography journey, plus lots of very-good-but-inexpensive books. Ohh, I should share this to all my blog readers and friends, that India is the heaven of book lover. You will surprise and get excited to find out that you can buy books and magazines with very reasonable price and big discount. You should come to prove it yourself !
"Thank you, India".

Yesterday was my children's last day of school. Their minds telling me they are really ready for school holiday. Our house stuffs were packed yesterday and they will arrive in Jakarta about 1 more month. Our apartment here is not homey anymore as it's empty, but we enjoy the echo every time we talk loud :D

We'll be back home, and for sure this blog will continue, don't worry. This month I will celebrate my 4th anniversary of this blog. I started it when we were in Labuan, Malaysia. Also this month, we will celebrate our 11th wedding anniversary. Blogging and being a wife & a mother look like having not relation. But for me, the objective of learning to cook is simply for my family. Preparing delicious and healthy food is my resposibility. No one can change it. Arranging the food, touching them up, putting some style and taking pictures from different angles are always big excitement for me. At the end, collecting and storing the recipes in my blog bring me lots of advantages. I can now very easily finding any favorite recipes. I have many new friends and I can learn alot from other food bloggers.

Yup, this blog will continue wherever I live and have mood to update :). I'll see you on my next posting.
Last, just to let you know that I have been selected as one of the judges for Click event for June. The hosts; Bee and Jai have a very interesting theme for this month; STACKS. For more information you can click here.

Bala-bala a.k.a Mix Vegetables Fritter

Most of us must be familiar with fried fish or fried chicken. Both of them are popular fried meals in almost every country in the world. Fried rice and fried noodle are popular dishes in Asian countries. Frying is one of the easy cooking methods (bear in mind, I'm not talking about healthy or unhealthy cooking method here :P).

In my beloved Indonesia, almost every type of food can be fried. Banana fritter probably is the most popular fried fruit, but we also have pineapple fritter or jackfruit fritter (please raise your hand if you have ever tried them). Don't you thing it is very creative? ha..ha...ha..

Not only fruit. One of the popular street fried food is Bala-bala or mix-vegetables fritter. Some people call it Bakwan. It is made of mix vegetables (shredded carrot, chopped cabbage and bean sprout), flour, egg, salt and some spice. Normally, it is served with chilli paddy; oh yes... they are small but very hot.

In my kitchen, I have been trying to produce crispy and un-greasy fritters. After several time 'trial and error' cooking, finally I found out that it's better to use rice flour plus 2-3 tablespoons of wheat flour instead of using only wheat flour.
That's what I did when I prepared this Bala-bala. I got a very good result; a crispy skin but soft inside meat plus ungreasy fritters.

This time I'm just posting one picture of the food that I cook. The reason, ... I just took some picture from 1 angle, and suddenly my camera battery was drained empty. After charging the battery, the fritters were gone!

Bala-Bala
source : Dapurbunda
Bahan:
150 g tepung terigu (I used rice flour + some wheat flour).
1 butir telur ayam
100 ml air
100 g daun kol, iris halus
100 g wortel, iris halus kecil
50 g taoge, bersihkan
1 batang daun bawang, iris halus
minyak goreng
Haluskan:
2 butir kemiri
2 siung bawang putih
1 butir bawang merah
½ sdt merica butiran
1 sdt garam
Cara membuat:
Aduk tepung terigu, telur dan air hingga licin.
Masukkan bumbu halus, aduk rata.
Tambahkan sayuran, aduk rata.
Goreng sesendok demi sesendok makan adonan dalam minyak panas dan banyak
hingga kering dan matang.
Angkat, sajikan hangat.
Untuk 16 buah

*please let me know if you need the recipes in English version.

The pictures below were taken in Bandung, West Java, Indonesia, on January 2009 during our vacation there. These are some popular street 'fried' food that very easy to be found around the city. Here, in India, everytime I see samosa, my mind is transported back to these kind of food. Don't you thing they look so tempting.

[Click] Cookies

Both of my children, 6 and 9 years old, have a routine to drink three cups of milk everyday. Morning, late afternoon and night time just before they go to bed. During the milk time, they usually need a accompanion to their milk.

Cookies, toast, brownies, or banana are choices that normally I prepare for them.

The picture below, I took on one late afternoon just before these cookies were "executed" by my 'monster cookies'. These are Chunky Peanut, Chocolate, and Cinnamon Cookies, the most favorite cookies at our home now. To be ready anytime for the children's unpredictable order, I keep two big plastic bags of the 'ready to bake' frozen cookies in our freezer.
This picture is my entry for Click Cookies Event.

Have a great weekend with milk and cookies!

[Masak Bareng Yuk!] Spicy Clay Pot Chicken

Back again to 'Masak Bareng Yuk!' event.
I just realize that today is the last day for posting the entry. Puuuuffff... The theme that the host has chosen for this month is 'North Sulawesi Dish using Chicken as the Main Ingredient'. North Sulawesi is an Indonesian province that located on center-north part of the archipelago on the island of Sulawesi just to the south of the Philipines.
The unique part of North Sulawesi dish is rich of leaves aroma and 'hot' spicy. This makes the food a bit special and different compared to the general dish from other parts of Indonesia.

Most of the North Sulawesi dish use lots of aromatic leaves that always raise an appetite and very mouth-watering. Kaffir leaf, basil, lemon grass and pandanus leaf are the most popular used in their culinary. The spicy aroma come from small chillies.

Fish is the most popular meal in North Sulawesi. Most of villages and cities are located just by the seashores. It explains about the fish. By the way, one of the most beautiful corals and under-water flora in the world is in North Sulawesi. It's the beautiful Bunaken.

Beside fish and delicious stir fried vegetables, they have other type of very famous meals, like Ayam Rica-rica (Hot & Spicy Grilled Chicken), Ayam Tuturaga (Fragnant Curried Chicken, Manado Style), Ayam Masak Belanga (Spicy Clay Pot Chicken) and more.

This time, I tried the Spicy Clay Pot Chicken, that is supposed to be cooked on a clay pot. Unfortunately I don't have one, so I just used my big steel pan to cook this meal. The combination of aromatic leaves, lime and chillies has produced a very special flavour of chicken meal. To give more 'traditional' flavour, I used banana leaves to cover the pan while shimmering the chicken. Please come, the food is ready...

source : The best of Indonesian Cooking by Yasa Boga.
Ingredient:
1 chicken, cut into small pieces
1 tsp salt
1-2 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp oil
1/2 turmeric leaf, finely sliced
1 pandanus leaf, finely sliced
3 kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced
2 stalks lemon grass, bruised
4 green chillies, coarsely sliced
2 spring onions, cut into 2 cm pieces
25 grams basil leaves

Spices (ground)
7 red chillies
2 tsps turmeric
2 tsps ginger
7 shallots
3 gloves garlic
2 chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp salt

Method:
1. Rub chicken with 1 tsp salt and lime juice, and let it stand for 10 minutes.
2. Heat oil and saute the ground spices until fragnant. Add the chicken, turmeric leaf, pandanus leaf, kaffir leaves and lemon grass. Fry for a few minutes before adding enough water to cover the chicken. Bring to the boil.
3. Simmer until the chicken is tender, then add green chillies, spring onions and basil leaves. Cook until the gravy thickens.

Ayin, Dheeta, Shinta... terimakasih.