Bubur ketan hitam (black rice porridge)

I started a photo club with my friend this week. It's nothing professional or fancy, it just that we want to learn how to take photos better and most important is to have a friend where we can go photo hunting and discuss the result. So our first project is a mum and her lil girl in the park during falls.

Now it's late falls and the weather is getting colder everyday. For this kind of season, I'm so much into warm beverages and soupy meals. And sometimes after the meal, this warm desert is just yummy. Though in Indonesia, people do eat this at any time of the day. So after coming back from the photo taking, I decided to make this one.

Ingredients:

1 cup black glutinous rice
3 cups of water
1/2 cup palm sugar (brown sugar)
1.5 tsp salt
3 pcs pandan leaves
1 can coconut milk
canned jackfruit (as much as you like)
salt
2 cm of ginger (crushed)

Directions:

1. Soak the rice in water overnight (or at least few hours before)
2. Boil the rice in water and add 1 pandan leaves and ginger
3. Boil till the rice is soft (app. 1 hour)

4. Add the sugar and 1 tsp salt
5. In a separate bowl make the sauce: heat the coconut milk, add the 0.5 tsp salt and pandan leaves
6. Chopped the canned jack fruit
7. Serve the black rice, the sauce and jack fruit.

Banana, cheese and chocolate dumpling (Roti pisang ala Kartika Sari)

A friend of mine came over for lunch today. This time we ate Indian curry with nan bread then after couple of hours later, throughout our chats and laughs, we made this dumplings.

Ingredients:

grated or sliced cheddar cheese
grated chocolate bar (8 spoons)
2 banana (plantain; pisang kepok); steamed and cut into 2x4 cm; this will make 8 pieces.
1 pack pastry dough cut one sheets into four (roughly 8x8 cm)

Directions:
1. Heat the oven to 375 F
2. Pick the cut pastry sheet then put the cheese then add the banana and top it with grated chocolate.
3. Wrap it like envelope then wipe the scramble yellow eggs on top of it.
4. Pick a baking tray  and spray with oil then arrange all of the dumplings.
5. Bake for 15-18 minutes.
6. Serve with a cup of tea and coffee, it's good for afternoon snacks :)

Kue Lapis pandan

In Indonesia there is a phrase called "ngidam" literally it means a wish for something. This wish is commonly happened to women who are pregnant. There are a lot of stories during pregnancy related to this wish lists, more special is of course how to accomplish the lists.

When I was younger, listening to the ngidam among the women sounds natural, the common one is of course eating young mango with sambal rudjak when the mango seasons is far-far away from the moment, or even when the mango trees just started the fruity seasons and since not all mango trees started at the same time, to find a young mango is probably the same hard as to find an oase in the desert. The last one, of course, I exaggerated a bit. . The merrier story always goes to the one which is the most difficult to achieve. Once, I read a story like this one: a husband is asked to buy a late nite es cendol ( ice drink made of rice flour) with a male seller wearing a black shirt, with his moving stall (gerobak) crossing the street at nite. Now, can you imagine how poor this guy is?

Now, I realized whether the ngidam does really happened or was it just a scheme created by women to be spoiled by their hubbies especially during the pregnancy time.

So my friend is coming over for a chat like usual, the different is that she is coming with a belly bump, carrying her 5 months old pregnancy.When I asked her if she is ngidam for something, she said she missed kue lapis. So after finishing a plate of rujak, we continue the chatting in the kitchen making the kue lapis. In this recipe I only did two layer, instead of five as commonly made, well I think making two layers just more practical.

Here is the recipe:

1 can coconut milk
2.5 cup of water
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of rice flour
1/2 cup of tapioka flour
1 pc pandan leaves
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pandan essence

Direction:

1. Boiled the coconut milk + salt + water + pandan leaves, set aside.
2. Mix the flour and sugar. Then add the boiled coconut milk, stir slowly until they blend well.
3. Divide the mix into 2 parts, one parts remained white and add pandan essence to the other part, this will make it green.
4. Prepared the steaming pan, spray it with vegetable oil.
5. Heat the steamer and then  pour the white part to the pan. Steam for 5 minutes
6. Then add the green part steamed for other 5 mintes.
7. Steamed them together for further 20 minutes.
8. Let it cool before serving.


ps: You can do more layers with the same technique.

Kue Nagasari (banana and rice coconut cake)

I have been missing this kue for a while. One of the reason was that I did not have a steamer. I checked one at local Asian market and the size is huge, cukup untuk orang sekampung (the quantity probably enough to feed the whole village, well I exaggerate a bit). Then last week, a friend of mine asked if I would like to have a steamer; since she and her family is relocating back to Bandung, Indonesia.

Well, I was just so happy and this kue nagasari was playing in my mind and other steamed foods, like pepes ikan, siomay and etc,etc. This is my very first attempt to make the nagasari. It was so easy to find in any traditional/modern cake shop in Indonesia so one did not really feel to cook it (isn't that the case with most food there? you might ask :) well, that's perhaps true.

So let's make our nagasari, here are the ingredients:

1 can coconut milk
1.25 cups rice flour
4 cup of water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 pandan leaves or 2 tsp pandan essence
1 big plantain banana; cut into three parts and then each part sliced into 6 smaller pieces
banana leaves to wrap

Directions:

1. Mix the coconut and the water split into two
2. Boiled one part of the mix, add the pandan leaves or essence, sugar and salt.
3. Mix the other part with flour and stir well into the other part (the boiling mix)
4. Stir the ingredients and low the fire (app 3-5 minutes). Set aside.
5. Meanwhile prepare the banana (cut into slices)
6. Cut the banana leaves into app. 10x12 cm or 1.5 palm size
7. Put two spoon of the mix on to banana leaves and top with sliced banana and wrap it. Do the same with the rest of ingredients
8. Steam the wraps for about 20 minutes.
9. It taste better when served cool (store in fridge)

Mung beans porridge (Bubur kacang Hijau)

I got a message on my facebook inbox last week, it was from Ibu Zita from Massachusetts. Once, I responded to her inquiry about this recipe, since then we sent email few times. I promised her that I will post the recipe on my blog so she and the others who looked for this recipe can try it at home.

As far as I could remember, this food has been weekly treat at home since I was very young. Vividly, I also still had this memory of my mum and her activity with PKK and Posyandu. No she is not the wife of Kepala Desa or the head of the village, she was a teacher and I can see her love for teaching :)

PKK (Family Welfare and Empowerment Movement) is a group of local women who volunteered to educate the women and girls on fiamily empowerment issues. It was started in Central Java in 1957 as a reaction to the poor socio-economic situation. The by then the wife of Central Java governor Mrs. Isriati Soenadi . (http://deemention.blogspot.com/2008/09/peranan-pkk-dalam-pemberdayaan-keluarga.html)

One of the activity of the Ibu-ibu (women) PKK was to manage the Posyandu. A Posyandu is an integrated community service station that function as a center(s) for pre- and postnatal health care and information for women and for women and for children under five (balita). Through the Posyandu the local community mostly woman with children under five were educated about child care, nutrition, hygiene and sanitation and also reproductive health. It was a big movement in Indonesia especially during Soeharto era (2nd president of Indonesia).

Children under five were taken to Posyandu and then the volunteers put them on the scale, write down the weight on a personal history records called "Kartu Menuju Sehat" or Child personal health records. This card contains column to fill the weight and age of the child, immunization history, information about diarrhea intervention, Vit A intake, information about breastfeeding and additional food to provide along side breastmilk. The records of those information is used by the volunteers to discuss the health status of the children and when necessary educate them with relevant health issues. Sadly after Soeharto lost the power in late 90's, this activities was abandoned nationwide. Recently the issue of revitalization of Posyandu has been appeared in public.

So why PKK and Posyandu? Anyway, the most interesting part of going to Posyandu for the children is probably the treat after that ugly scaling up. Yes, most of the children looked unhappy when they were put onto the scale. Most will cry, since hanging on that sarung attached to the scale is not pleasant at all. But after the scale done, a bowl of mung bean porridge is always nice.

Here is the recipe,


Ingredients:
1 cup of mung beans, soak over the water over a night ot at least 2 hours before cooking
4-6 cups water 

1 pandan leaves or 1/2 tbs vanilla essence
2 cm ginger
1/2 cup palm sugar (brown sugar); add more sugar if you like
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup boiled coconut milk + 1/2 tsp salt. (if you cook it separately)
1 tbs gravy flour (maze flour) mix with 2 tbs of water.


Direction:

1. Soak the mung beans with water over the night, this will make it fleak easily and reduce the cooking time
2. Boiled the mung beans , pandan leaves and ginger with water till it soft and fleaky, then add the palm sugar.
3. Add the coconut milk and cook it till all is boiled then add the gravy flour, stir a bit then turn off the heat.
4. You can also add the coconut milk when the porridge is ready to be served.

The porridge can be served both warm and cold, if you want to top it with coconut milk, make sure to boiled it once and keep it separated from the porridge. This can be added as topping to the porridge. Enjoy!

Indonesian Fruit Salad (Roedjak sambal kacang)

This weekend, the weather was started to be nicer in DC. It showed 10 C. Then the weekend became longer as it was Marthin Luther King day on Sunday. Hubby and I decided to go out to get some sunshine. We went to Annapolis, almost an hour drive from our place.

I really liked this old city, in a way it reminded me a lot of Alkmaar in Netherlands. I travelled to Alkmaar in summer 2007, I was looking forward to see the cheese but I end up in the old city centrum, which I did not regret. The small shops lined along the bay the color of the brick building is quite Dutch style but of course Alkmaar has much more water and little cute old buildings, but I must say that I liked them both, Alkmaar and Annapolis.

During sitting in the sunny bay and this bit warmer weather (yes, my friends back home laughed at me when I said 10 celcius is warm, but come on...it is much-much better than minus 3 :) I was thinking about hmmm..what would have been good to eat when the weather is warm like this back home. Then this picture of Roedjak Deli around the Maimoon palace in Medan came up into my mind. But then another picture also popped up, the ones in Muara bay in Padang city, I remember my late Father sometimes took me and my sisters spending the time by the beach and enjoying the rujak muara not too spicy for me and my sisters, and the one in Jakarta, this small stall in front of Bakso Lapangan Tembak restaurant in Jakarta. After a portion of meatballs soup, I will buy a pack of take home rujak, freshly prepared by the seller.

I liked to observed them when preparing it and sometimes I asked question what they put in the food, this way I can use some of those memories to create the food especially when I am away from home.

So here is the recipe:

Fruits: washed and chop the fruits in any size you want
Pineapple, apple, jicama, green pears, young papaya, strawberry, etc-etc

Sambal Kacang (salad sauce):

1/2 cup cashew nuts (most people would use peanut)
1/2 cup hot water with 1 teaspoon tamarind paste
1 thai chilles (add more if you prefer spicier taste)
1/4 cup palm sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 banana preferably the half ripen one, it will add to creamy texture.
Directions:

1. Clean and chopped the fruits, sets aside
2. Heat the wok and stir the cashew nuts till it brownish app. 3-5 minutes
3. Mix the tamarind paste to hot water, stir till it blend well
4. Pick a mortar then grind the chillie with the salt, add the banana then add the cashew nut and the palm sugar, grind them until they blend well but make sure the nuts is coarsely crashed then add the hot water mix.
5. Served the fruits with the sauces.
6. Selamat makan!