Pergedel kentang (potatoes fricadel)

 I have been quite busy with thesis writing lately, well it felt a bit like a never ending business for a while. I sent it out and it came back with lot of questions, I addressed those questions and more questions were coming in. And when there were no more questions , I creatively created them and fixed it and fixed it. So wish me luck folks! I can't wait to graduate :)

And my in laws were visiting these past two weeks. I called them the Vikings, and they fond of potatoes or potatis in Swedish. I served this with salad and fried salmon at home. This food seemed to be one of Dutch influence in Indonesian kitchen. So let's cook!

Ingredients:

6 medium size gold potatoes
2 shallots, sliced thinly
1/2 tsp ground white pepper
1.5 tsp salt (add more if necessary)
Water to boil the potatoes
2 stalks Chinese celery; chopped thinly
1 egg yolk
2 eggs white; stir till it make form.
Vegetable oil to fry

Directions:

1. Peel the potatoes and cut in halves
2. Bring the potatoes to boil about 20 minutes
3. Takes the potatoes out and mash them.
4. Heat 5 tsp of vegetable oil then fry the onions till the smell is out.
5. Mixed the mashed potatoes, the fried onion, Chinese celery and egg yolk
6. Add the ground white pepper and salt
7. Form the mix into round shape or balls
8. Heat the oil to fry the potatoes balls
9. Dip the balls into the white eggas foam before fry them
10. Deep fry the potatoes ball till the skin is brown and crispy (more or less 2 minutes)
11. You can serve it with fried salmon or even mix it into soto.

Water spinach with tauco (tumis kangkung tauco)

I found the picture of this dish in my computer. It is probably from  long time ago. The water spinach is not available in MD, can't find them in the Asian Market.

Ingredients:

1 bunch of water spinach (kangkung) cut in 3 cm length
6 pcs of portabello mushroom cut into 2-3 parts
2 garlic; sliced thinly
1 shallot: sliced thinly
2 Thai chilles; sliced
2 tbs of tauco (fermented soy beans)
3 tbs olive oil
1/2 cup water

Directions:

1. Heat the oil in the wok, then add the mushroom, after a while (3 minutes) add the garlic and shallots.
2. Stir in the chilles and the water spinach. Then add the tauco, add water and keep stirring till it is well done.

Sayur lodeh

Last weekend I found a new Asian Market near Gaithersburg. I tried to shop at Lotte once but it is a bit too far from my place. Then my friend introduced me to this Grand Mart. I just love this place. Cooking becomes easy and easier with lot of Asian markets nearby. There are a huge selection of fish, veggies and fruits and Asian spices. I decided to cook sayur lodeh for lunch, accompanied by fried salted fish and sambal trassi.

This food reminds me of small resto stall near Cianjur in West Java. Many times back then, on the way up to the hilly areas where I traveled with the volunteers to our Water and Sanitation projects we made a stop at this small place served all West Java delicacies. And these menus was among our favorites. Well nothing is better to eat together with bunch of volunteers who always looked happy no matter how tired we were or how bad the road was. That was something to be missed  :)

Here is the lodeh recipe:

Ingredients:

1/2 cup cut string bean
1/2 cup cut Asian egg plants
1 chayote cut into diced
1/2 carrots sut into smaller parts
2 bay leaves
3 green chillies deseeded and slices in to two parts
2 cm galangal
1 cup water/ chicken broth
2 cups thick coconut milk

Spices: processed the following in the food processor or mortar.
2 tbs trassi
3 candle nuts
4 shallots
3 garlics
1/2 tbs chillie paste
1 tsp kencur powder (available at asian market)
1 tsp ground corriander
1-2 tsp salt

Direction:

1. Boil the water and coconut milk then add the bay leaves and the ground spices
2. Keep stirring while boiling and then add the rest of the ingredients
3. Keep boiling till all is well cooked (10-12 minutes)
4. Served with salted fish and sambal trassi.

Tempeh Mendoan

Tempeh mendoan is thinly sliced fried tempeh battered in flour and spices. It is good to go with rice or eaten as snack with tea. Dont forget to eat this with cabe rawit (thai green small chilles).

Here is the recipe:

1 block of tempeh cut into two and then sliced each thinly
1 scallion thinly sliced
1 cup all purpose flower
1/2 cup white rice flour
3/4-1 cup water
vegetable oil to fry

Ground these spices:

3 cloves garlic
3 candle nuts
1 table spoon corriander
1.5 teaspoon salt

Direction:

1. Mixed the flour with water then add the spices and scallion
2. Add the thinly sliced tempeh in
3. Heat the wok with lot of vegetable oil when it hot enough fry the tempeh
4. Pick the tempeh before it becomes dry and crispy
5 Serve with small thai chilles or chopped of chilles with sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)

Perkedel jagung Manado (corn fritters)

My travel to Manado ten years ago has introduced me to Manado food. Manado is the capital of North Sulawesi. It was quite exciting to go there with a bunch of friends. We were part of a reception committee to regional youth exchange program that was hosted by Manado that year.

It was a real fun travel. We board on to Garuda Airlines that flew us first to Makassar in the South Sulawesi and then fly north to Manado. What I liked most about Garuda Indonesia is the flight attendant are very professional and friendly, the food are amazingly good, most of the captain are quite informative. Many times when the aircraft flew over a lake or a mountain, the captain usually informed the passenger. I think this gesture brings me to some sense of comfort.

When the flight set off to landing in Sam Ratulangi airport of Manado, all I can see were coconut trees, they were everywhere, hundreds perhaps thousands of them. Well Manado is quite hot in temperature, compare to Jakarta I think. We were so busy during the whole weeks, preparing the program, make sure that everything runs well, train the local youths to be liaison to the participants and of course travel back and forth Manado-Bitung everyday. Bitung is the port of North Sulawesi, a 40 minutes drive from Manado. It lies on the east coast exactly opposite Manado. During this travel I learned some local langguage and practice a lot with my friend, Wawan. One of our fellow alumni, a very kind man so I called him brother Superman drove us everyday and I am amazed that he can stand how ridiculous these two people trying to speak like locals were.

I think Manado has this atmosphere of fiesta. The city is so alive, people are friendly and their motto was torang samua basudara or we are all family, isn't it nice? Well after the program accomplished we stayed over the weekend and after sending off the youth at port Bitung we were heading back to Manado. This time we took the chance to go to the famous Bunaken island and Siladen islands. These places are diving heaven in Indonesia, lots of beautiful corals and fish in its sea. We also took the chance to go up to Tomohon, a hilly beautiful-flowery areas in the southern part of Manado.

We also tried local food at Malalayang, the coastal areas of Manado. The restaurant called RiaRio and the food just amazing. The stir fry kangkung (chinesse water cress), ikan kuah asam (sour fish soup), perkedel jangung, fried fish, grilled fish and sambal dabu-dabu. Oh! they are just delicious. Back then, I think the kangkung in Manado is so special, it is so much crunchy and slightly bigger size than those I found in Java or Sumatera. Later after travelling to eastern part of the country, I conclude that those kangkung of the east Indonesia are just better than the ones grow in the western part.The North Sulawesi also famous with the klapper taart, this one is made from young coconut.I'm still trying to get the recipe of this delicous cake.

Recently Manado food is getting more attention in the capital Jakarta, one can easily find Manado restaurant and enjoyed the spicy delicious meals. This time we will cook perkedel jagung ala Manado.

Ingredients:

5 whole corn, take the grains out by cutting deep at the stem
3 shallots or spring onion, thinly sliced
3 garlics, thinly sliced
5 keffir lime leaves, thinly sliced
1 eggs; scramble
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of crushed white corn pepper
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup rice flour
1/2 cup water
vegetable oil to fry

Directions:

1.Mixed all the ingredients add the water bit by bit make sure that the mixed is not too watery to fry
2. Heat the pan and put the vegetable oil
3. Pick one medium size spoon of the mixed ingredients and then pour into the pan. Fry on each side till it's done
4. Serve with Thai chillies sauce.

Tempeh and shrimp in chillies sauce

I served the dish last month when we had a small gathering at home. The dish is a bit spicy due to the hot chilles but also kind of sweet and sour. It was one of the favourite that night. I don't know why, perhaps my Indonesian guests really missed that taste of pedas (hot n spicy) as we said it in bahasa.

The dish usually served as side dish, yes we like that term of campur (mixed). For example we have nasi rames or nasi campur (which is a food platter with rice, chicken curry or beef rendang, a bit of eggs, veggies and sambal and not to forget the crunchy "krupuk" or shrimp crackers).

I find it funny sometimes when my hubby and I ate Indonesian food. The way he ate the platter is really steps by step, I mean he will finish either the eggs, then the meat and the veggies and lastly the rice. So I try to educate him a bit by explaining that the way we eat the Indonesian food is to scoop bit of the rice and something else on the plate. This way will maximized the taste. Thus if he eats the sambal (chillies paste) the hot from the chillies will reduce a bit when it is mixed with the rice. So he is learning now :)

Allright, so let's do this tempeh and shrimp in chillies sauce!

Ingredients:

1 pounds of peeled shrimp

1 block of tempeh; sliced thinly or diced, add a bit salt.

4 shallots sliced thinly

4 garlics finely minced

1 medium sized of tomatoes; sliced thinly

2 cm ginger finely minced

2 scallions chopped 

2 tbs soy sauce

2 tbs rice vinegar or juice from 1/2 lime will do

6 thai chilles coarsely grind

Vegetable oil to fry

Direction

Heat the pan and add 10 tbs vegetable oil. Fry the tempe till it cooked then put onto a plat and discard all excess oil, then add 5 tbs of vegetable oil (if necessary) add the shrimp in till it turned pink and done. Set aside.

Heat 5 Tbsp oil in wok. Then add the garlic, shallots, ginger, and the chilles, stir it till fragrant. Add the diced tomatoes then the soy sauce and rice vinegars, sprinkle the scallions slices. When it's done turn off the heat and put the fried tempeh and shrimp in. Mix them well and serve.

Veggies and seafood curry with fermented soy bean (Sayur tauco)

Today, I was thinking what to cook. So I went to the fridge and check what is available. Apparently I have some scallops, lima beans in the freezer, some broccoli and quails eggs in the fridge. And a little bit of fermented soy bean (salted soy bean) was also showed up in the bottle.

So I decided to do the sayur tauco. Well honestly I don't understand why we called the dish sayur tauco, because it is not only the vegetables (sayur) in the dish but also some shrimps or even chicken, too. My mum always make the dish for big family dine gathering, it's good to go with other meaty dishes like rendang or fried chicken and sometimes on any lazy weekend this will be good with lontong (rice cakes). This lontong sayur is a famous breakfast dish in my hometown. Originally the vegetables in this dish are green egg plants, peteh (stinky beans), green beans, green chilles and string beans. In addition you can also add fried tofu. In this recipe I only use what is available in my freezer :)

A friend of mine, a South African whose grandparent was Turkish and Javanese  liked this dish a lot. I made this last time we had students gathering in my university.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1.5 cups or scallops or shrimp (clean and peeled) or chicken cubes

12 pcs of quails eggs (boiled and peeled)

1 cup mushroom (any kind)

5 thai chilles; slices

1/2 onion; chopped

5 cloves garlic; slices

2 cm ginger; crushed

2 cm galangal; slices

2 keffir lime leaves

2 bay leaves

5 cm lemon grass; crushed

1.5-2 cups of water

1/2 can coconut milk

5 tbs vegetable oil

2 tbs tauco (fermented soy bean)

1 cube of chicken stock (optional)

Direction:

1. Wash and cut the broccoli and mushroom, set aside

2. Heat the vegetable oil and then put the onion, cook it till transparent then add the garlic, ginger, chillies, lemon grass, galangal and the leaves. Stir till fragrant.

3. Add the broccoli, lima beans and mushroom, then put the fermented soy bean in stir for 3-5 minutes, then add the scallops or shrimps.

4. Add the water and coconut milk then the quails eggs, continue till the whole ingredients boiled, reduced the heat and continue cooking for another 5-7 minutes.

5. Served with rice or lontong.

Sauteed tempeh with green beans (tumis tempe dan buncis)

Half a year ago when I went shopping at whole food, my eyes spotted a white long medium package of tempeh. First, I did not believe that it was indeed tempeh, but then it is written clearly as tempeh, not only one kinds but there are few variations natural soy bean only like most you find in Indonesian market, with few grains, with carrots and etc. Since that day whole food has been a tempeh heaven to me.

Tempeh is a good source of protein, dietary fiber and protein, the amount of these nutrient in tempeh is higher than than found in tofu. And tempeh is originally come from Indonesia. I think the best place to eat tempeh and also tofu is probably in Java. During school, I was told by a teacher that both tempeh and tofu is a good substitute to meat. So if you are a vegetarian, this dishes might be appeal to you.

This time, all the ingredients is done very simple, clean, cut and stir and that's it, sounds so easy, don't you think so? So let's start cooking!

Ingredients:

1 block of tempeh (you can buy it at whole food in US)
2 cups of sliced green beans
1/2 cup portobello mushroom; sliced
4 cloves of onions; sliced
3 cloves of garlic; sliced
2 long fresh chilles, deseed then slices
3 tbs tauco (preserved black beans; available at asian market)
1 teaspoon ground corriander
1/2 stem lemon grass
3 keffir lime leaves
2 cm ginger
3 cm galangal
2 bay leaves
olive oil/ vegetable oil (more or less 10-15 tbs)
salt

Direction:

1. Heat the wok add olive oil and then stir fry the tempeh (4 minutes at each side or till it turn brownish), set aside
2. Add the oil again and this time add the onion, garlic, chilles, ginger, galangal and keffir lime and bay leaves, lemon grass, till that nice smell appear, then add the green beans and mushrooms, sauteed for 5 minutes then add the fried tempeh and ground corriander.
3. Add the tauco (preserved black beans) and sauteed for 2-3 minutes, taste the saltiness, add salt if necessary.
4. Turn of the heat and the dish is ready to go as side dish.

ps; You can also add chicken or shrimps into the mix. Cut the boneless chicken, add some salt, ground corriander and pepper, stir fry till bit brownish, for shrimps you can simply add it the same time when you put the tempeh into the mix.

Indonesian Vegetable salad with peanut sauce.

Recently, I invited some of my Indonesian friends to have dinner at my place. One couple is both Indonesian with two kids and the other is an Indonesian woman married to American.

They did asked us, what was there to celebrate? Well, there was nothing really special to celebrate. We were invited to the Christmas party with the Indonesian community in Rockville, MD. This is really my first time to be around a lot of Indonesian, the whole church is filled by the Indonesian, young, old, and middle aged. They sang Christmas songs, the kids dresses in white angels clothes and dance slowly. It reminded me of my early childhood, growing up in Medan, North Sumatera of Indonesia.

Back then, my neighbours were Christians, one is a mix couple, a Java man and Manadoan woman and on the left side was the Bataks Christian. During Christmas, we, the kids went with them to the church and sang Christmas song and when we were at my house, my Christian friends will pray and put on muslim white clothes and bowed with me when I prayed. So going to the church again on this special day really brought back come childhood memory.

After the Chrismas lunch, my Swedish husband told me, that he really had good time. It reminds him of Idul Fitri day in Indonesia, the biggest muslim holiday, with so much food and people just chatted, laughed and really had a good family time. Then we decided, why not making one at home. So actually that was the real reason for the dinner.

One of the menu that I prepared that day was the Indonesian Vegetable salad. In Bahasa Indonesia it called 'Pecel'. It is a set of boiled green vegetables and spicy sweet peanut salad. It is very delicious. It is good for all season.

Here is the recipe:

Veggies:

1 bunch of string beans
1/2 cabbage (a half size of whole cabbage medium size)
2 pieces of Chayote
1 pack of tempeh, fried and cut into dice.

Peanut sauce:
5 tbs olive oil
4 thai chilles
5 cloves garlic
2 cm of kencur (kaempfaria galanga, zedoary)
8 keffir lime leaves, take out the stem
2 tbs trassi (shrimp paste)
1/2 cup palm sugar
1 cup of water (add 1 tbs of tamarind) and warm it in the microwave
1 cup peanut, fried and grind.
1 tbs salt.

Directions:

1. Boiled the veggies for 5 minutes in boiling water and it took 15 minutes for chayote. Then cut the veggies into smaller pieces
2. Heat olive oil then add the chilles, garlic, kencur until fragrant and then add the keffir lime leaves and turn off the heat. Grind all of these spices or use food processor. Add shrimp paste, palm sugar and salt and then add the grinded peanut.

3. Add the warm water to the mix and stir until they dissolve well.
4. Taste it add more warm water, salt or palm sugar if necessary.
5. Served the veggies with the peanut sauces and shrimp crackers.


Now this salad is enough for up to 3-4 people. Enjoy!