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!

Mud Cake

Hi!
I used to wonder what would be the different between what they called as Mud Cake with other chocolate cakes. So, to find out, I made this once about a couple months ago. I made it out of a recipe from Exclusively Food which I found through Google (my number one source of recipes), with several changes.
Fortunately, the cake could feed not just anyone in our house back in Tangerang, but I could also had chance to gave a half of the cake to my brother. His wife returned to me to say that she and her sister like the cake. They said it's delicious. Alhamdulillah. I promised her to give the recipe, but we were too busy preparing to move to NZ. It took quite long time, I had forgot what kind of changes I made in the recipe.

Yesterday, I try to make this Mud Cake again from the same source, and again, made some changes to suit my liking.

When I make some adjustment to a recipe I found, I usually change the using of sugar and/or the food additives. Well, sometimes I make changes simply because I didn't have the needed ingredients on hand. Of course, that made me NOT always successfully made it, ha ha!

This is dede, who was fallen asleep on the carpet,
but woke up again after I bribed him
with the pan that I used to melt chocolate-->



Oh, one more important thing to be concern when you make cake but prefer NOT to use any food additives as baking powder or baking soda is the method. Food additives give short cut in making cake. With help of food additives, some long methods sometimes are not important to do any more. Take muffin as example. You don't need to use electric mixer or too much of eggs to raise a cake. But if you intend to make food additives-free cakes, you have to go through the complete or right procedures.
The complete procedure for sponge cake type is to whisk the eggs and sugar until as fluffy as you can get. Then fold in dry ingredients(flour and friends) and wet ingredients(milk and friends) alternately in three batches. Yep, you have to do little bit more work.
The result of most of additive-free cakes may not be high-risen ones like any other cakes with additives. But if the taste just as lovely and delicious, why bother using any of it, right?

Anyway, let's back to muddy Mud Cake. I don't know why they name it Mud Cake. The texture is not slimey-gooey like mud. My Mud Cake is more like ground or wet sand. Is it wrong? I don't know. But I would not really care about it when I eat it, because it taste good. The cake texture is really-really dense. I think this could be an option for chocolate lover who's looking for the alternative of brownies.


cracky..


..crackilicious.

One more thing before you read through the recipe, I made what I think as a lighter ganache. Well, if using milk instead of cream can be called 'lighter', then it is lighter *grin*. I only use 150 gram of chocolate, because it was all I have left on hand *another grin*. The cake itself IS full of fat of course. It has butter, oil, chocolate and sugar in it. But I replace buttermilk with yoghurt and reduce the sugar. I hope it helps a liiiiiitle bit to lighter it. If you afraid the ganache will be too runny, you may start with 1/3 cup of milk, and add more if needed.

Soooo, if your heart is broken, your boss is being a jerk, the traffic makes you vomit, or any of bad day, just go home and make one of this. Forget how much fat in it 'coz you deserve it!

Mud Cake

Ingredients:
250g dark chocolate
200g butter (if using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon salt with the butter)
3/4 cup water
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons plain flour
1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons oil
1/2 cup yoghurt

Ganache, just melt everything above simmering water and stir to blend!
150g dark chocolate
1/2 cup milk
1 tablespoon salted butter

Directions::
- Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius.
- Line 20cm diameter round cake pan with non-stick baking paper. I use a springform pan for easy removal of the cake.
- Place 250g chocolate, butter, oil and water in a large saucepan over low heat, stirring occasionally until they melted. Add salt and water, stir until they blend. Remove mixture from heat and allow to cool to lukewarm/room temperature. Add yoghurt in and stir well.
- Sift the flour and cocoa powder together into a large bowl.
- Whisk eggs and sugar with electric mixer until fluffy and white.
- Fold flour mixture and chocolate mixure to the egg alternately in three batches with spatula until well combined.
- Pour mixture into prepared pan.
- Bake for about 40 minutes to 1 hour.
- Insert a thin-bladed knife or wooden skewer into the centre of the cake to test whether it is cooked through. If the knife/skewer comes out clean or with moist crumbs (not gooey batter) attached, the cake is ready.
- Remove cake from oven and allow to cool in the pan.
- When the cake has cooled to room temperature, remove it from the pan.
- The top surface of the cake will probably have a crunchy crust, which you may wish to trim off. But I didn't.
- We turn the cake upside down to give a flat surface for icing.
- Then I just cut the cake into two. I use the bottom as the top to get flat surface on top.
- Spread the ganache on first piece of cake. Top it off with the other piece of cake. Don't stop. Just spread all over the surface with ganache until all covered up.
- Let it cool. You may put it in the fridge for faster result.
- After the ganache hardened, you can cut it with knife and enjoy.

No-Knead Dinner Rolls

My very first bread!
Yay!
Alhamdulillah!

I always thought that making any kind of bread is high risk baking and complicated. All I know that bread need time, kneading, and probably a lot of luck! That's why I never try to make any. I skipped the bread recipes when I read or browse. But, it's been so long that I was eyeing on several no-knead bread recipes. I wondered, are they that easy?

Later, we are now finally moving to Auckland. We have been here for almost two months. I have to gather my guts to drive again. So I drive again, so far only to pick and drop my sons to kindy.
I'm still not so confident to drive too far, other than to the kindy. So, it makes me unable to go to grocery stores by myself. I have to wait for weekend so my hubby can drive me to go shopping. But, you know, sometimes some of the food run out before the weekend comes. Stuffs like bread is gone fast, or meet their expiry date before weekends.

I realize now, that my responsibility, not just about the food, raise so high. I have to stop from my daydreaming, slap my face and work on it!

So I finally try this recipe, after browsing for the most eeeeeasiest and shortest time it could get. I found this, from Sweet & Saucy blog. I never explore this blog before, but now I interested to go 'deeper':)
So after making shortbread yesterday, today I made real bread. After I did my Subuh pray, I started by staring the recipe I was about to make. Mix, mix mix, and I let the dough sit for an hour inside the cabinet under the stove to keep it warm.

It is sooooo nice to see it doubled in size. Looked very promising! After that I make 16 rolls, let sit for half hours.the rolls before raising up again


I cover the rolls with towel since I don't have the plastic wrap.The rolls looked bumping tight shoulder to shoulder.
After they got into the oven, it looked more stuffed and tight between them.
I love watching those little fat rolls. The smells of bread in the oven is warming the house. My heart melt. My bread, my very first bread. Not bad at all for my first time bread making.
The only bad thing that I have done is I think 25 minutes is a bit too long for my oven. So the 'skin'of the bread is a little harder that I expected. If you want to try this recipe, you might want to start with 15-20 minutes. If you think it is not enough, you can add 5 more minutes and see what happen.
Anyway, enough 'talking'. Here, have a bread!

No-Knead Dinner Rolls

Ingredients:
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon active dry yeast
2 tablespoons of sugar
2 tablespoons of melted butter
1 large egg (lightly beaten)
3/4 teaspoon of salt
3 cups of bread flour (spooned and leveled)

Directions:
- Put warm water in a large bowl and sprinkled it with one tablespoon of active dry yeast and let the mixture stand until it was foamy (about 5 minutes). --> I don't think mine was foaming (I don't call it foaming, just blending).
- Add sugar, melted butter, egg, and salt to the yeast-water mixture, whisking to combine.
- Add flour, stirring with a wooden spoon until everything is incorporated and a sticky dough has formed.
- Using a brush, brush the top of the dough with more melted butter, cover the bowl with clean kitchen towel, and set it aside until the dough has doubled in bulk (about 1 hour).
- After an hour, turn the dough out onto well-floured chopping board.
- With floured hands, roll the dough into a thick log and cut it into 16 equal pieces.
- Smear a 23x23cm pan with melted butter.
- By hands, fold the edges of each piece towards the center, pressing to secure, until a smooth ball formed.
- Put the dough balls in the prepared baking pan (smooth side up), cover the pan loosely with kitchen towel, and let them rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk (about 30 minutes).
- After the rolls has risen adequately, remove towel from the pan and bake them at 205C for 15 minutes first (and add few minutes more if necessary).
- Take them out of the oven.

Makes 16 rolls.