Oseng-oseng Daun Silverbeet

Oseng-oseng=tumis=stir fy.
I've always seen silverbeet in the grocery stores, but I never eat or cook them before. The leaves are big-thick dark green with white stalk. I was curious about it, but never bought it until one day, one good friend mbak Jeanne posted a picture of Silverbeet dan Udang Masak Santan (silverbeet and shrimp in coconut milk) in facebook. So I asked her about the leaves' taste and how to cook it. It seemed this leaf is just like I thought it was, reminds me of papaya leaves when it cooked.

I finally bought just a bunch, to see how it goes. I was about to cook just like mbak Jeanne did with coconut milk, but I just cooked Opor Ayam (with coconut milk too) a day before. I thought, this could be too much coconut milk in 2 days. So I decided to make something easy, stir fry, as my grandma and my mum used to make. As their old way, I also added fried white bait. Their crunchiness just make it more complete. If you are not familiar with silver beet and white bait(Teri in Indonesian, and I think other part of the world call it anchovy?), I'll post photos of them when I buy them again. Otherwise, just google it please :P

It turn up lovely, almost like papaya leaves but without the bitter taste. Even better, right? My husband ate it too! The best way to eat it is with warm white rice and Sambal Terasi. Sambal is Indonesian condiment made of chilli and it's hoottt!

The recipe I wrote bellow is a very small portion, maybe enough for one or two adult.

Oseng-oseng Daun Silverbeet

Ingredients:
1 bunch silverbeet, leave out the white stalk
1 salam leaf (Indonesian bayleaf)
1 small package of white bait, fried and drained
salt

Spices, chopped:
1 big clove garlic
3 shallot
1 big red chilli (take out the seeds if you don't want it hot)
optionally, some cabe rawit (bird's eye chilli) cut in two

Directions:
- Cut the silverbeet into chunk pieces
- Heat some oil (about 2 tablespoon) in a pan over medium heat.
- Stir in garlic, shallot and chilli until golden.
- Stir in the silverbeat.
- Add some salt
- Add a little water if necessary. Cook until done but not too tender or mushy.
- Turn off the heat off.
- Sprinkle and stir the fried white bait when it's time to eat, to keep the white bait still crunchy.
- Enjoy with white rice and sambal is the best :D

Avocado Juice

Tooooo simple.
Indonesian who read this post will be like, 'What? Just avocado juice and you need to post it in a blog??'.
Ha ha... Why not?
It is because of how simple it is, I want to share it. In most part of the world, avocado has consumed as savoury food. Some people even confuse it whether it is vegetable or fruit.
However, in Indonesia, when we think avocado, most of us probably think about juice, or other beverages. It usually consumed as a sweet drink, with addition of some sugar, syrups or condensed milk(which of course lots of sugar in it).

The avocado juice is usually just a juiced or blended avocado with some water or milk, simple syrup or sugar and ice, pour in a tall glass. Then we add condensed chocolate milk just a bit. It's smooth and creamy, and just... nom nom!

Simple.

However, I think it involve toooo much sugar in it. I want something healthier, so I simply substitute sugar/syrup to honey. I also dilute unsweetened drinking cocoa with a little hot water to substitute the condensed chocolate milk. My kids love it, and I can drink with them, no worries :)

The fun of this avocado juice is, you can have that simple juice with or without chocolate taste. Then, if you substitute honey to banana, you will have a smoothie. Then, after become smoothie, you can freeze the into ice cream! As a matter of fact, at this moment I got my smoothie in the freezer as my first attempt to make ice cream from it!

Anyway, here is the simple avocado juice :)

Avocado Juice

Ingredients:
1 ripe avocado, scoop the flesh out
1 tbsp honey
2-3 ice cubes
water or milk
1 tsp unsweetened drinking cocoa
1 tbsp hot water


Directions:
- Blend ice cubes, avocado flesh, honey until all crush.
- Start to add water or milk little by little until you got the density that you prefer. If it's very liquid it will be like juice. If you keep it a little dense it will be like smoothie (my preference).
- Pour in a tall glass.
- Dilute the cocoa with hot water until smooth. Drizzle it on the avocado juice. Add a straw and enjoy.
- Optionally, you can omit the honey and switch to one banana.
- Optionally again, you can freeze it into ice cream like this lovely blog I found: thriftydecorchick.
- Simply enjoy! :)

Sage and Onion Roasted Chicken

It started when we bought frozen ready to cook Sage and Onion Roast Chicken. It's just a package of frozen marinated and stuffed chicken that we bought from supermarket one day. It is easy because all we need is just put the chicken in oven for 1 hour and, voila! No preparation needed. My hubby love it, and would be happy if we buy it again. My kids ate it. And I...well, I think I just have to find the recipe by Google, ha ha ha! It's just curiosity. I thought, the name is sage & onion....could the ingredients be not more than sage and onion? :D

So, I found these two recipes. It's like a little bit habit of mine, that when I googled, I compare some of recipes I found, and pick up 2-3 recipes that I like. At the end, I might fuse 2 or 3 recipes, or feel happy enough with just one. This time I fuse 2 recipes. One recipe is from the Hairy Bikers, while the other one is from Lala's kitchen blog.

It's quite easy, only a little messy when stuffing and rubbing the chicken, but it's alright. It's simple, yet yummy. Most of all, cooking from the scratch is fresher, cheaper and heart pleasing :)


Here is my Sage and Onion Roasted Chicken

The chick, ready to roast

Ingredients:
1 medium whole chicken
1 egg yolk
1 slice of bread or 1/2 cup of bread crumbs
2 onion
1 clove garlic
2-3 tbsp dried sage or 4 fresh ones
salt
pepper
a pinch of freshly ground nutmeg
1 heap tbsp butter
lemon
olive oil


Directions:
- Boil onions in water just enough to cover them for about 5 minutes. Drain them. (I usually keep the water to boil potatoes that accompanied the chicken later).
- Smear chicken with lemon zest. Set aside.
- Heat up oven to 180 degree celcius.
- Process boiled onion, garlic, bread, egg yolk, butter, sage, nutmeg, salt, pepper and butter in blender or food processor until it looks like coarse mixture (not until it become paste-like).
- Stuff the stuffing inside the chicken and massage some of the stuffing on the chicken's skin.
- Rub a little oline oil on the skin.
- I sew up the opening part of the chicken to keep the stuffing in, but it's up to you.
- I usually put it in oven plastic bag before put into the oven, but it's up to you.
- Cook about 1 1/2-2 hours. I'm usually happy with 1 1/2 hours.
- Since I usually use oven plastic bag, I usually make few holes on the plastic. When the chicken almost done, I take the chicken out, take the plastic away (caution: Hot!), and roast again about 10 minutes to get the skin brownish.
- Serve with potatoes and vegetables, anyway you like.

Serve: 2 adults and 2 toddlers :)