Sunday Burger

Hullo!
Yesterday was Sunday, and it's been a long time I want to make my own burger bun. So I got this Indonesian blog, Dapurnya Rina, from a mailing list I joined into. She said in this blog that the bun's recipe actually from Smittenkitchen(which actually got from another source also). So I decided to make burger for Sunday lunch.
Since I don't want to keep so much bread, I made just half of the recipe. The recipe I post below is for one recipe, so if you want just half of it, just cut down all the measurement in half. The buns came out soft and I love it.

The note is don't make any buns to close to meal time. My kids, and my hubby, kept on wandering around the kitchen asking whether the lunch was ready or not. Sometimes they just hang around staring without saying anything. But it's not a new thing in our home. It's not just once or twice men in my home were staring at the fridge and food cupboard as if they were watching TV.

The burger patty I made from this recipe with a little adjustment. It's actually very good, but it makes me having an idea of adding one ingredient in it. If I make it again later(and turn out good), I will post it. (otherwise, I won't post, he he). Oh and I grated the onion because I got this idea from Katjaskitchen. Good idea. Since I ran out of mayonaise, I just put some shredded mozarella on the patty while it's still hot. Put the veggie you like and there it is, the Sunday burger lunch.

I'm so glad I can make this 'fast food' by myself, where I can be sure that the ingredients are fresh, healthier and insyaAllah Halal. You know, since we moved here to NZ we can not just drop by to any fast food restaurant expecting all food are Halal. I told my sons that most of them are not Halal even though the restaurant is just like in Jakarta. So it is so nice to give my kids a treat once in a while. But of course from more trusted hands, which is mine, he he.

Burger buns

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
3 tablespoons warm milk
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 1/2 tablespoons sugar
2 large eggs (1 for the dough and 1 for the egg wash)
3 cups bread flour
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Sesame seeds (optional)

Directions:
- In a bowl, combine one cup warm water, the milk, yeast and sugar. Let stand until foamy, about five minutes. Meanwhile, beat one egg.
- In a large bowl, whisk flours with salt. Add butter and rub into flour between your fingers, making crumbs. Stir in yeast mixture and beaten egg until a dough forms. Knead the dough until smooth and elastic, 8 to 10 minutes. The dough will be on the sticky side so it can be a bit messy at first, but keep on kneading and it will get better.
- Shape dough into a ball and leave it in the bowl. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, one to two hours. (I just put it in warmed closed oven)
- Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Divide dough into 8 equal parts(or 4 parts if you make half recipe). Gently roll each into a ball and arrange few centimetres apart on baking sheet. Put in warmed and closed oven again, or cover them with plastic on top and let buns rise in a warm place for one to two hours.

the chubby buns

- Set a large shallow pan of water on oven floor. Preheat oven to 200C with rack in center. Beat remaining egg with one tablespoon water and brush some on top of buns. Sprinkle with sesame seeds, if using. Bake, turning sheet halfway through baking, until tops are golden brown, about 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Makes 8 burger buns


Burger patty

Ingredients:
500g beef mince
1 teaspoon soy sauce
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 egg, light beaten
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 cup bread crumbs
1 small onion, grated
2 cloves garlic, crushed

Directions:
- Add all ingredients into a bowl and then use your hands to make sure the mixture is well combined.
- Make round patties about 1cm thick and 12cm wide.
- The source said that you can use baking paper or cling wrap between the patties to stack up so they don't stick to each other and they store well in freezer too.
- The patties will shrink a little when they are cooked.
- Cook until cooked through.
- Put in the burger bun with all sauce and vegetables of your choice
- Enjoy!

Fried Kumara (Ubi Goreng)

This afternoon snack is just easy one. Ubi Goreng is very cheap and common traditional snack. It is, makanan kampung (village food). By the way, is ubi means yam or sweet potato in English? Is yam and sweet potato the same thing? In NZ they call it Kumara. In Indonesia it's Ubi.
This is just my way of Ubi Goreng. I always like salty taste in touch with the sweeetnes of Ubi. I cut it into chunky french fries look-a-like. I also add some white pepper. My eldest son thought they were potato french fries and he likes the crunchiness at the edges.
Here it is, Ubi Goreng.

Fried Kumara(Ubi Goreng)

Ingredients:
800 gr kumara(ubi)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp pepper
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp rice flour

Directions:
- Peel the kumara, cut in chunk aticks and wash in running water. Rinse.
- While still wet, add salt and pepper. Stir with your hand until all covered.
- Mix all the flour in a bowl.
- Heat oil in medium heat.
- Put some of the kumara into flour bowl, get them all covered with flour.
- Tap the kumara a bit to remove of excessive flour before tossed in oil.
- Fry them until golden.
- Drain.
- I add a pinch of salt and a pinch of pepper again at this moment. But it's optional.


Have a nice tea time!

One of Natural Meat Tenderizer

Hi,
wow, it's amazing how I can post 2 posts in 2 days, I normally too lazy for it, haha!
So, as I promised in the last post, I am sharing about a little secret about meat tenderizing. Well, maybe I'm not the only one who knows that, anyway..
As a new immigrant family (I never thought to be an immigrant in my life before), we didn't bring a lot of things to move here. Not that we HAVE a lot of things :p Pressure cooker is one 'fancy' thing that I don't have here. Back in Jakarta, I could use my Mom's. Maybe pressure cooker is not so expensive for some people, but you know, we just starting to make a living here. We have to be very careful in spending money. We don't feel sorry for ourselves. No, we don't. We enjoy very well living here. It's peaceful and I can really concentration to my little family here.
Back to topic.
My hubby is meat-y person. That's why meat is one of the dish that always exist in weekly menu. So, I Google(as usual) to find a way to tenderize meat without pressure cooker. Beside, my hubby and I agreed that pressure cooker could results the texture that we don't really like. I don't know how to explain this. It is also seems to lost it's juice and flaky.
I've heard about pineapple and papaya as tenderizer before. So is the Google said too.
So, I tried pineapple few times. I don't know was it me or the pineapple, but the beef still hard to chew and it was also dry as if losing their juice. I remember long time ago I use pineapple too long and my stir-fried beef turned into mush.
Then I Google again and I found about yoghurt. Yes, yoghurt. Apparently yoghurt has been well known as meat tenderizer in Indian cooking. So, I guess it's not really a secret isn't it? :( About -I don't know- how many million Indians already know this. Shame on me!
But I will tell anyway, who knows somebody in this world still don't know that. *please raise your hand*
I tried it once to beef. It was actually much better than pineapple. My hubby love it. I love it. Then I tried to lamb. My toddlers can eat it. My hubby just cut the meat to smaller pieces and my sons can actually enjoy it. The meat more tender, and moist, but still has it's chewiness(but not hard) as a meat should be.

So, for one kilograms of lamb, I used only a heaped tablespoon of plain unsweetened yoghurt.

I didn't wash the lamb, just smear and make sure that the yoghurt cover all the meat. You can use your hand or spoon. I left them in the fridge, went shopping, then back to cook. I washed the lamb before cooking, because the recipe doesn't require yoghurt in it.

I don't know how long is it supposed to be marinated, but I think I just let the lamb sit about couple of hours. Beef might need longer time to be soaked in yoghurt than lamb. However, for further information about how long should it be sit, and how can yoghurt tenderize meat, you can find it here, here and here.

I use this yoghurt which is using vegetarian friendly gelatine to avoid any gelatine that made of animal (which could be not Halal), as we are Muslims.


Oh, they also said that buttermilk can work as well. But I never try it yet.
I think this is easy and worth it very much. I think it's better than buying bottled tenderizer, especially if it made out of chemical that I don't know about.

Very well, see you later!

Semur Domba (Lamb Semur)

Semur is authentic Indonesian recipe. It's meat, with spices and most importantly, sweet soy sauce.
It's a Betawi(old name of Jakarta) very old recipe.
Like any recipe, ingredients and way of cooking sometimes depend on the cook. Even my grandmother and my mom cook Semur in slightly different way with slightly different spices. They were from Betawi origin.
So, my husband request to today's menu is Semur, made of of lamb. Semur are usually made of beef, but there are some from chicken too. Some I heard made of goat. But I never made it either from goat nor lamb.
So here it is, made as Ayah's request; using not so much soy sauce as it supposed to be. It's usually more dark, brown to black colour because use a lot of sweet soy sauce. But Ayah doesn't like too much soy sauce because it will be too sweet for him.
By the way, the shallots here in NZ are big. So I use only 4 cloves. But if you are in Indonesia, you can use 5 shallots.
Oh, one more thing, I will tell you a little secret later about a natural way in tenderizing meat, ok? ;)

Lamb Semur

Ingredients:
1kg lamb, diced
Sweet soy sauce
Salt
Water
Cooking oil
Fried shallots to spread

Spices:
5 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
5 candle nuts
2cm of ginger
2 lemon grass stalks
tsp white pepper
1/2 nutmeg

Directions:
- Grind shallots, garlic, candle nuts and ginger.
- Stir-fry the ground spices and lemon grass with enough oil (about 4-5 tablespoons)until you can smell nice fragrant from it
- Pour some sweet soy sauce.
- Stir in lamb until the colour changed.
- Pour in water, nutmeg, pepper and salt.
- Taste the salt, and you can add the sweet soy sauce to suit your taste.
- Cook until well done.
- Put them in a bowl. Spread the fried shallots on it. Serve.

New Label: Natural colouring!

Hullooo hullooo!
I decided that to urge myself to be more active in this blog, I have to have a sort of project or challenge. You know, add a little ambition in blogging, eh eh eh.
So, I thought, I was quite success(I know, it's a little snob, sorry) to 'paint' some of my food to green with Suji leaves. Then, why not continue pursuing to get other colours from natural sources?
Do you think it's a good idea?
Okay, anyway.
I will keep this post updated every time I found new colour. I will also put the link on the side of my blog so anyone can check the list.
If anyone had heard or experience using natural colouring for foods, please share with me. I will embrace you with biiiiigggg HUG! ^^

Now, let's start:

GREEN:
• Suji leaves
Tried as:
- Cookies: Bangket Daun Jeruk
- Cakes: Pandan Sponge Cake, Cake Singkong
- Others: Lapis Beras Pandan Suji

RED:
• Beet root
Tried as:
- Soup: Tomato Soup

Isn't it FUN? ;)

Risoles with Ragout Filling

Risoles Isi Ragout
Risoles or Risol is a common snack in Indonesia. In my country, this snack or fingerfood is so wellknown from long time ago, you can easily find it in many food stalls or even bakeries. It made out of rolled crepes(wrapper) and covered with breadcrumbs. The filling is become quite various nowadays. In the old times, I only know two fillings, ragout or stir-fried vegetables.



Ragout, I don't exactly know where this word came from. Could it be related to Ragout from French, or Ragú from Italian? In Wikipedia it means meaty sauce. I don't know if this related or not, but Indonesia did get some influences from European country (especially Holland). The ragout we know is usually chicken or beef with vegetable with very thick clear or creamy sauce seasoned with pepper and nutmeg.



While the stir-fried vegetables filling is more Indonesian-ish. The filling is made by stirred shallot and garlic, added with vegetables like chopped string bean and carrot, and maybe chicken or beef, also sometimes a slice of hard-boiled egg.
Whatever the fillings, we-Indonesian, usually like it HOT! A sachet or a bottle of hot chilli sauce or fresh hot green chilli called cabe rawit are usually stand by the Risoles! Yumm-eeeee!

Ehm.

So I made the Risoles for the farewell share lunch at the kindy. The head teacher was moving to Sidney. Share lunch means every parent bring a plate of food. Any food will do. So I decided to make Risoles, food I had never made before.

The recipe is taken from a this blog. I made it almost the same as the recipe in that blog, but I use frozen mix vegetables for the filling to make it simple. As for the filling, hmm... I remember many snack sellers in Indonesia probably make ragout without milk or cream and with too many flour which resulting pudding-y filling, which I think..eeww! I just don't find it tasty.

I mean, wouldn't it be nicer to imagine that when you bite that crispy yet soft wrapper, a creamy sauce ready to flowing down in your mouth, rather than stick on your teeth? I imagine to have white sauce to be the Risoles' filling. So I made it, by cutting down the amount of flour from the original recipe. But the filling have to be able to scooped and put onto the crepes. If it too liquid, I might get trouble rolling the crepes because the filling can flood all over the place. So I just use about 5 tablespoon of flour and try to get the right consistency. To make sure, I put it in the fridge so I can scoop with spoon later. After it fried, it will be melt again. Unfortunately, I didn't really measure some ingredients.

Well, insyaAllah with this recipe you can't be so wrong, I think. Hehehe. Goodluck!


Risoles

Ragout:
2 pieces of boneless chicken(or more), boiled and cut to small cubes. Keep the boiled water as the broth.
200-300 ml of chicken broth (sorry I forgot how much exactly I pour, but it is around 200-300 ml)
500 gr carrots and string bean or any vegetables, cut to small cubes (I used frozen mix vegetables. Sorry for not really made it from scratch this time :( )
300 ml milk
5 tbsp flour
1 medium onion, chopped
½ tsp white pepper
a pinch of nutmeg
1 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
a slice of cheese (I didn't measure it, sorry :( )
Directions:
- In pan stir onion with a little oil until golden.
- Turn down the heat to low.
- Add in flour, stir quick and pour in the milk. Stir quick until the texture smooth.
- Add the chicken, vegetables, broth and cheese.
- Season with pepper, nutmeg, salt and sugar.
- Cook until the sauce is thicker.
- Put aside until completely cool.
- You may keep in the fridge and continue to make the Risoles the day after.

Crepes(wrapper):
100 gr flour
1 tsp salt
3 eggs
250 ml milk
1 tbsp butter, melted
a little more butter for the pan
Directions:
- Sieve the flour in a bowl with salt.
- Make a hole in the flour.
- Add the eggs inside the hole. Stir well with wire whisker.
- Gradually pour the milk and keep stirring until smooth.
- Add the melted butter and stirring until blend.
- Wrap the bowl with plastic wrap and let it sit for about 30 minutes.
- Heat a pancake pan (I use 12cm diameter pan) and smear with a little bit butter.
- Pour the crepes batter in the pan using a large spoon and tilt the pan to spread the batter evenly. You might want to choose the spoon that you think could make a thin crepe and use the same spoon all the time to make the evenly thick crepes.
- Cook about 2-3 minutes or until the surface of the crepe no longer wet/liquid.
- No need to flip to cook the other side of the crepe. Just put it on a plate, and continue to cook another crepe until finish.
- Set aside.
(makes about 25 crepes)

Dipping:
1-2 eggs, beaten
breadcrumbs


Making Risoles:
- Take one piece of crepe and put about 1-2 teaspoon of the filling and fold and roll like envelope or spring roll. Put aside the Risoles with the edge tucked underneath. Repeat until the crepes are finished.

- Dip each Risoles into beaten eggs then coat with breadcrumbs.

- Deep fry them with low heat until golden brown. Better keep an eye when frying, because it doesn't take long until they get brown. Set aside and use the tissue paper to absorb the oil.

Enjoy!