Fried chicken with green chili (Ayam lado mudo)

I made this dish for an order last week. A friend of mine and her friends missed Indonesian food. And she asked me if I would like to make some "ayam lado mudo" for them. Not only that, they also wanted fish curry. So I spent the next 4 hours bustling in my kitchen, preparing both of dishes and voala, here's the recipe.

Ingredients:
1 whole chicken, cut into 8 pieces
2 cloves of garlic, crushed.
½ ts white pepper
1 salt
cooking oil

Sambal Lado Mudo:
2 tbs vegetable oil
5 green tomatoes, sliced
1 tbs lime juice
1keffir lime leave

Ground the spices:
150 gr green chilles
6 shallots
3 garlic
1 ts salt
½ ts sugar
5 tbs water

Directions:

1. Mix the chicken with garlic, white pepper and salt
2. Fry the chicken till it turns golden
3. Make the sambal lado mudo:
    Stir fry the grounded ingredients till fragrants, add tomatoes, lime juice and keffir lime leaves.
4. Add water and chicken, stir for 5 minutes.
5. Chicken is ready to serve.

Chicken Satay (Sate Ayam)

I got this recipe from a friend of mine, Keke. I saw her posting on Facebook and it looks so yummy. When we lived in the same city, we used to held Indonesian gathering once a month. The idea is simple, to bring Indonesian food and drinks, chatting about this and that, sometimes dancing to the dangdut song till we get tired of laughing and then went home, and looking forward to the next gathering. The bliss of friendship, really!

Chicken satay

So here is how to make her delicious chicken satay:

Ingredients:
1 chicken breasts, cuts into smaller chunks (50 pcs)
10 bamboo skewer, soak in water

2 big shallots
4 cloves of garlic
5 candle nuts
1/2 tsp ginger paste
1/2 tbs ground corriander
1/2 tbs ground cumin
4 tbs oil

1 tbs salted soy sauce
2 tbs sweet soy sauce
(salt)

Sambal kecap:
Sweet soy sauce, slices shallots, slices Thai chillies, lime.

Methods:
1. Cut the chicken into smaller pieces.
2. Soak the bamboo skewer in water
3. Put the shallots, garlic, candle nuts into food processor, add ginger
4. Stir fried the puree in the wok, then add corriander, cumin and soy sauces.
5. Taste the mixture and add salt if necessary.
6. Mix with chicken pieces (allow for 15 minutes)
7. Put the chicken into skewers and grilled for 8-10 minutes each side.
8 Serve the satay chicken with sambal kecap.

Crushed fried chicken with red chillies (resep ayam penyet)

I really like this dish. The taste of fried chicken with spices topped with hot chilli and sambal trassi  goes beyond my expectation. Ayam penyet available at many restaurant that served traditional food in Indonesia. But this won't be found in a Padang restaurant. I think this recipe goes well with tempeh as well.

Ingredients:

Half of whole chicken cut into 2-3 pieces
1/2 cup of water
2 cloves of garlic crushed
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1 tbs salt
vegetable oil

Chillies:
5 red small Thai chillies
1/2 tbs trassi
1 tbs sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 ripen tomatoes

Directions:

1. In a dutch pan, mix the chicken and the spices, boil till the water reduced more or less 10 minutes
2. Heat the wok and fry the chicken in the hot oil
3. Pick the chicken then put it into a mortar and crush it.
4. In a mortar, grind the thai chillies, add salt, trassi and sugar, add the tomatoe.
5. Mix the crushed chicken and the chillies
6. Served with rice and fresh salads.

Grilled Chicken in Padang style (Ayam bakar bumbu Padang)

The small Padang food stall near (back then) my place in South Jakarta has introduced me to this delicious dish.

The owner prepared the food from fresh ingredients everyday. His day started very early in the morning even before the sun rise, he went to the traditional markets, buy the ingredients, and then continue cooking the food, then at 10 a.m. when everything is ready, he and his workers started to serve the customers.

So by the opening everything would be ready from beef rendang to eggs curry, to head fish curry to potatoes fricadel, from fish to chicken, all warm and delicious.

This grilled chicken is better cooked with charcoal grill or barbecue grill I think. But I tried it with oven, baked it first and then switched to low grilled few minutes.

Ingredients:
A
1/2 of whole chicken
1 slice of lime

B
5 shallots
4 garlics
1 cm ginger
5 cm lemon grass
1 cm galangal
2-5 thai chilles
6 candle nuts

C
1 tbs ground corriander
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 tablespoon ground fennel
1/3 cup thick coconut milk
1/4 cup water
salt
1 pcs of chicken stock
vegetable oil
3 bay leaves
2 keffir lime leaves, shreded

Direction:

1. Clean the chicken then sprinkle with lemon juice
2. Put all the ingredients B into food processor and grind till it blended well
3. Heat a wok, add the vegetable oil when it hot and smoky add the ingredients B and stir till it fragrant.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients, then add the chicken. Let it cooked for a while till the sauce get a bit dry.
5. Turn on oveh to 350 F then baked it for 15-20 minutes
6. Turn the oven into low grilled mode then cook at each side for 5 minutes
7. The chicken is ready to serve.

Ayam Bumbu Bali (Chicken in Bali spices)

Bali is probably the most celebrated tourist destination in Indonesia. This rather small island offers quite diverse attraction to everyone. For the youngsters who love the crowd, Kuta and the surroundings is the place to go, the night life who start around 10 p.m. till morning, the long stretched Kuta Beach for those who wanted to watch the sunsets or learning surfing and the shops along Legian streets for bargain stuffs from t'shirt to sandals, silver jeweleries to sculpture and home decors arts.

If you prefer a more village atmosphere, Ubud probably the best place to stay. Here you can walk around the paddy fields, watching the monkey at Monkey Forests, Rafting at Ayung rivers, or just a visit to the palace and the market in the opposite, visiting the house of Blanco and see his paintings as well as other Balinese artists and enjoying the Balinese dance in the evening.

Some people who fancy hilly  areas, Bali region of Tabanan offers hiking activity and eco-tourism around Batukaru. This quite place by the foot of the mountain equipped with small villas and bungalow with direct access to your own small rivers and the birds singing at all time.

But if you are a lover of a quiet rather small beaches like me, then the travel to Bali is like an adventure, which is to find new places where most people did not go. One of the places which is not too crowded is the east coast of Bali. Yes, I am talking about Amed in Tulamben. This quite village stretched by the sea facing Lombok straits is one of my favorite place. Well it did not have that white sandy beach like Kuta but it's a nice place to go snorkeling and diving.

During a stay in Amed few years ago, I dined at Amed Cafe, one of the cafe in the areas where restaurants are quite limited. This cafe is part of the bigger Amed Hotel. I tried this ayam bumbu Bali. The pre-fried spicy chicken is served with white rice and bit of salads. It goes well with my cold lemon juice and the wind breeze over this restaurant by the beach. I was wondering how come this delicious Balinese style dish wasn't that famous like that of bebek betutu (Balinese dish made of duck). This dish has been my favorite ever since and for sure anytime I go to Bali I am looking forward to enjoy this spicy chicken again and again :)

So here is the recipe of ayam bumbu Bali. Btw, I did not pre-fried the chicken like most restaurant would do.

Ingredients:

5 pcs of chicken
1 cm galangal; sliced thinly
1 cm ginger; crushed
3 bay leaves
3 keffir lime leaves; take out the stem and sliced thinly
1 big tomatoes; sliced
3 tbs Indonesian sweet soy sauce
1 tbs sugar
vegetable oil

Ground Ingredients (processed in food processor):

3-4 thai chillies
4 shallot
3 onions
3 candle nuts
1 cm ginger
1-2 tbs trassi (shrimp paste)

Directions:

1. Clean the chicken add a bit salt and lime, set aside for 5-10 minutes (you can fry it a bit)
2. Heat the pan, then add 5-6 tbs vegetable oil when it is heated add the ground ingredients till fragrant, add the leaves, galangal, ginger, tomatoes, and sweet soy sauce.
3. Add the chicken in and stir for few minutes till it is well cooked.
4. Serve with rice and sambal matah ala Bali

Soto Ayam (Indonesian Chicken soup with coconut milk) ala Medan

If you are in Indonesia or if you have been traveling around the country, you probably read "Soto" in any restaurant menus. Soto has been daily delicacy for many people. Throughout Sumatera you will find Soto Medan and Soto Padang (the name refer to the city in the north and west sumatera), then if you arrive in Jakarta you'll find Soto Betawi, Betawi refer to the ethnic origin in Jakarta or in the old days this capital city of Indonesia called Batavia. West Java is famous with Soto Bandung. In mainland Java there several variations of soto like Soto Kudus, Soto Pekalongan, Soto Banyumas, Soto Madura. While In South Sulawesi, the local made Cotto Makassar and In Kalimantan or Borneo, Soto Banjar is the local version of Soto.

So what is Soto actually? Thanks to someone who have written it well on wikipedia, soto is a traditional soup mainly composed of broth, meat and vegetables. Most of the time the main feature of soto are either beef or chicken and sometimes some part of the organs and intestines also included. In a bowl of warm soto you can also add some condiments like potatoes cake (perkedel kentang or fricadel), scallions and fried yellow onion, fried potatoes, boiled quail eggs or boiled eggs, crackers, fried chicken giblets and of course some ground chilles with sweet soy (kecap) is necessary to enrich the taste. The main spices that is used to make soto is shallots, garlic, galangal, turmeric, ginger, corriander, salt and pepper. The soup is either cooked with clear broth or by adding coconut milk like Soto Medan or by adding milk like soto betawi.

I have some favorite places to eat soto.  In Medan, my hometown, I opted to go to the restaurant pagi sore, this place is located on Gatot Subroto street, not too far from the Deli river or the city hall. The restaurant served three kinds of soto, the ones with chicken only, with beef only, or the one with organs and intestines, chicken and beef ones are the ones that I always buy. Soto Medan in coconut milk and a lot of spices is very good for those who liked spicy food. In Jakarta, near the Pasar Baroe, the location is part of the old city of Batavia, I always go to Soto Padang, Sutan Mangkuto. The clear beef broths served with fried beef fillets, potatoes cake, a bit of lime and ground red chilles just so delicious, sometimes a bowl is certainly not enough. Soto Kadipiro in Jogjakarta also awesome. My Jogja friends introduced the restairant chained to me when I travelled there, this one is also with clear yellowish broth is just delicious. And sometimes, even the ones sold by the street vendors in any of these cities was extremely good, though I am sometimes try to avoid it cause it may give me some stomach ache afterward, probably it's due to lack of hygiene practice by the street vendors.

You probably asked, when is the good time to eat soto? Hmmm...it is probably good at any time. As you probably know, the Indonesian are eating rice almost three times a day, yes they (or we :) do. So early in the morning for breakfast, at noon for lunch or even for dinner. For me, I like to eat soto when days are bit cold and cloudy, a bowl of warm soto will brighten my day.

This time we will make soto Medan, the one with coconut milk and spices. I got this recipe from my sister, well this is the advantage of having sisters not only one but three, though the younger one is not really reliable for asking recipe.

Ingredients:

Chicken:

1/2 chicken medium size (cut into two)

2 cups of water

salt

5 bay leaves

Soups:

1/2 can coconut milk (yes, I tried to reduce the quantity, please add more if you like to have a more condensed taste of coconut milk)

5 shallots

4 garlic

3 cm ginger; crushed

3 cm galangal; cut into stripes

5 keffir limes leaves

1/2 stick of lemon grass (get the one close to the root)' crushed

3 bay leaves

1/2 cup chopped chinese celery

1/2 tbs ground turmeric

1/2 tbs ground pepper corn

1 table spoon ground fennel

1 cube of chicken stock

vegetable oil

Additional condiment:

1 cup bean sprout; plunk it into boiled water and then take it out.

Krupuk (shrimp crackers)

slices of limes (get the juice out baby)

ground thai or red chilles.

1 tomato; slices

fried spring onion

Directions:

1. Boiled the chicken with water and salt, add the bay leaves for 10 minutes (keep the broth)

2. Fry the chicken till its a bit brownish then sliced it. Put the bones back to the chicken broth.

3. Grind the shallot and ginger then mix it with other spices like ginger, galangal. turmeric, fennel and white pepper corn.

4. Heat a pan, add 5 tbs vegetable oil, add the spices in then add the keffir lime leaves, bay leaves and lemon grass till fragran.

5. Add the coconut milk and chicken broth, let it simmer for a while then add the chicken slices, cook till the soup is boiled.

6. Serve in a bowl and add the condiment.

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.