Gudeg ayam dan telur (Chicken and eggs Gudeg)

Gudeg is probably the food that is original from Jogjakarta. I don't always consume this food. Not before I had this Jogjakartan house mate. My first encounter was when my house mate came back from Jogjakarta and brought a pack of gudeg Jogja by Yu Jum. I am not a fan of sweet food but I must say that I like the sweet taste of the gudeg. Perhaps the sipcy sambal krecek that comes with the package makes it more kicking. Gudeg is made from jack fruit, chicken and sometimes also eggs. In this recipe I used all three ingredients and also tofu.

Since then I always think of visiting Yu Jum Stall in Wijilan, a place located in the eastern of Yogyakarta palace. In 2006, when the Jogjakarta earthquake struck, I went there to assist with emergencies operation but it is quite impossible to go to Yu Jum food stall during the hectic schedule, but three months after the quake, I traveled to Jogjakarta to assist with recovery operation of the humanitarian organization I worked with, by then I always tried to sneak out in the evening or weekend, taking a becak ride around the palace, exploring the batik shops and learning about different motifs and amazed by the skills of these batik artists who can make beautiful and specific pattern. The more I observed the batik especially the hand painting ones, the more I am surprised by so many different pattern is used in each of the cloth.

Often, the seller will explain about the motif and the philosophy behind it. For example, for a bride and groom she suggested to wear the batik with "Sido Mukti" pattern, Sido means continuously and mukti means happiness, so the philosophy is probably that the couple will have a long lasting happiness in their marriage. There are a lot more motifs in batik design like parang rusak, semen, truntum and etc. I also learned that the choice of color also have certain philosophy. Like white is associated with truth, brown is associated with warm personality and etc (http://jurnalmahasiswa.filsafat.ugm.ac.id/nus-8.htm)

What more interesting about Jogjakarta is that even the abang becak (the three cycle rider) understand well about the history of the city and also can explain it very well, so imagine sitting in a becak, going around the city in the breeze afternoon and listening to the history. I cannot get better than that. Not in this country of mine where most time I visited lot of sites but received less or no information about what are they about. In this context this "education city" as we call it outnumbered other cities nation wide.

Well, in a short sentence I would like to say that eating gudeg will remind me of Jogja. So before I kept going and writing about Jogja, let's get back to the making of gudeg.

I found this recipe of Ibu Sri Arifatun on the web, and modify some of the spices. But I cannot do the sambal krecek (krecek is the glutinous part of the cow skin), since I cannot find the krecek around. So here is the recipe:

Main Ingredients:

* 2 canned jack fruits
* 10 boiled eggs
* 1 chicken (cut into 12 pieces)
* 1 canned coconut milk
* 1 canned coconut water
* 2 pieces of firm tofu cut into 8 smaller pieces
* 1 cups of onion skin
* 4 cups of water

Spices:

* 12 cloves of onion
* 6 cloves garlic
* 1.5 tsp ground corriander
* 10 candle nuts
* 3 cm galangal
* 3 bay leaves
* 1 pandan leaves
* 1 tbs trassi (shrimp paste)
* 2 tbs grated palm sugar
* 1 chicken block (bouillon)

Directions:

1. Boil the eggs and get rid of the skin.
2. Boiled the water with the onion skin and then add jack fruit, eggs and tofu till the color turn to brownish. Take it out and sets aside.
3. Grind all the spices in the food processor except the bay leaves, pandan leave and galangal.
4. Put the chicken into a pan, add the spices and heat the pan, add the coconut water and cook for 10 minutes to let the spices merge with the chicken. Then add the coconut milk, eggs, tofu and jack fruit, bay leaves, pandan leave and galangal.
5. Reduce the heat and continue to cook till the sauce become thicker.
6. Serve with sambal if you like.