Mackerel in Spicy and Sour Curry Sauce (Acar Ikan Kembung)

There is one tradition in Indonesia that I really miss. We call it 'Bancaan'. It is a dinner tradition which you are gathering to do some prayer with all of your neighbor and you provide food for them. Usually we put the food in a lunch box made from carton or plastic and give it to the neighbor who came. It comprises of rice and some side dishes like spicy fried potatoes, fried noodle, spicy chicken, spicy long beans in curry sauce, spicy and sour chayote curry, pickled cucumber and carrot (sometimes), fried tempe, fried tofu, fried dried salted fish and potato fritter. It's unique you know..Usually we have that tradition for anniversary including death anniversary, birthday party, Indonesian Independent Day, celebrating new born baby (for celebrating new born baby, the side dish is quite different. Usually it consist of spicy fish, spicy vegetable  salad with  grated coconut, stir fry tempe, fried tempe, fried tofu and fried dried salted fish) or a week before wedding. It's common in Indonesia especially in Central Java to give away lunch box along with the wedding invitation to our neighbor or friends. But right now, instead of giving lunch box contained rice and its side dishes, a lot of people just order some buns filled with cheese, chocolate or jam. Yes, it is easier but the old fashioned is better I guess...because I'm a big fan of 'Bancaan' hehehe....Now, I'm going to share one of my recipe which is one of the side dish in 'Bancaan' tradition but I add fish in it. So here it is the recipe of Mackerel in Spicy and Sour Curry Sauce (Acar Ikan Kembung):

Ingredients:
2 mackerel, scaled it and marinate it with 1 squeezed lemon for 20 minutes
1 medium sized cucumber, julienned
1 galangal, bruised it
2 Indian bay leaves
1 lemon grass, tied into a knot and bruised it
4 red Thai chili peppers, cut into angle
2 tbs white vinegar
150 ml water
1 stalk green onion, cut into 1 cm long
5 springs of cilantro/ coriander leaves, chopped finely
2 tbs vegetable oil to saute the blended spices
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar

Spices to blend:
4 shallots
3 cloves of garlic
2 candle nuts
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 cm ginger
1 tsp tamarind

Direction:
Blend the spices while deep frying the fish until golden brown.
Saute the blended spices along with galangal, bay leaves, red Thai chili peppers, and lemongrass until fragrant.
Add julienned cucumbers, water, white vinegar, salt, sugar and green onion. Add the fish and green onion. Bring it to boil and let it shimmer.
Sprinkle with cilantro/ coriander leaves when you serve it.

 Serving 2 people

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Bun Tom Nuong Cha Ram (Vietnamese Rice Vermicelli with Grilled Shrimp and Vermicelli Spring Roll)

I made this recipe to participate in CSN Giveaway and Indonesia Eats Cook-up which is hosted by my neighbor's food blogger, Pepy Patern-Nasution. But don't get wrong, I also love this Vietnamese food. This is the food that always in mind when I step into the Vietnamese restaurant. After I have tried some Vietnamese restaurant in Winnipeg, I have to say that Pho. No. 1 Vietnamese Restaurant is the best by far. So here I am trying to use the recipe from Indonesia Eats and I have slightly modified it due to my personal taste and an ingredient's availability:

Ingredients:

Bun
rice vermicelli

Tom Nuong
400 g shrimps. Discard the skin and tail.
4 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallot, minced
2 tsp fish sauce, add more to taste
1 tsp ground black pepper

Cha Ram
4 shrimps, discard the skin and its tail. Pan fry it for 5 minutes and chopped it finely
1 small carrot, julienned
100 gr vermicelli (bun), boil vermicelli and julienned carrot for 10-15 minutes and strain it
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 tbs oyster sauce

2 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp white pepper powder
 

Nuoc Mam Cham
1 cup water
1/2 cup Nuoc Mam (Vietnamese Fish Sauce)
1/2 cup white vinegar

3/4 cup sugar
1 small carrot, julienned

Do Chua

50 gr bean sprouts

50 gr chopped iceberg lettuce
1 medium-sized carrot, julienned
1 tblsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup white vinegar

Directions:
Bun
Do as the package direction says so.

Tom Nuong
1. Combine all ingredients for Tom Nuong. Let them sit for 30 minutes.
2. Grill shrimps until done.

Cha Ram
1. Mix together vermicelli, shrimps, julienned carrot, garlic, oyster sauce, soy sauce and white pepper powder
2. Place on wraps and roll
3. Deep fry until golden brown.

Nuoc Mam Cham
1. Boil 1 cup water. Actually, you don't have to boil the water, just get it hot so that it can dissolve the sugar more easily.
2. Stir in 1/2 cup vinegar, 1/2 cup fish sauce, and 3/4 cup sugar.
3. Taste and adjust if necessary. Add julienned carrot. Store in a jar and keep it in the fridge.

The taste should be slightly sweet and rather mild, the pungency of the fish sauce quite muted.

Do Chua
1. After julienning the vegetables, spread them out in a shallow bowl.
2. Sprinkle just enough sugar for a light coating. Add a smidgen of salt. Pour enough vinegar to submerge about half the vegetables.
3. After 15 minutes or so, stir the vegetables so the vinegar is mixed. The carrots should be lightly pickled after about half an hour.
4. Store extra pickles in a glass jar and pour the extra vinegar in the jar. Add enough vinegar to fill the jar halfway and fill up the rest with water. Screw the lid on tightly. Store in fridge.

Time to assembly:
In a bowl, put rice vermicelli. Top with tom noung, any vegetables that you like (in this case, I added bean sprouts, chopped iceberg lettuce), do chua, cha ram and any herbs as you wish. I also sprinkled it with the Vietnamese coriander leaves.

In another small bowl, place nuoc nam cham.

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Tom Yum Goong (Thai Sour Clear Soup)

There are a lot of Tom Yum Goong recipes out there so I suggest that you pick one which is convenient for you. I made Tom Yum Goong based on the recipe in www.thaitable.com which I assumed that the author is originally from Thailand. There is one ingredient that I don't have. They call it Nam prig pow. So what I'm doing is I just looked it up the ingredients and just try to find it from scratch. In the website above says that nam prig pow is chili paste soy beans contain shallots, garlic, shrimp paste, dry chili pepper, salt, and sugar. Frequently there is also tamarind paste and dried shrimp. So what I did is I just add garlic, fresh chili peppers, salt, sugar, soy bean paste and shrimp paste. You can see in my recipe below:

Ingredients:

10 medium-big size shrimps

1/2 block of extra firm tofu, chopped into small chunk

3 cups water

2 cloves of garlic, bruised it

1 galangal, bruised it

1 lemongrass, bruised it

4 kaffir lime leaves

2 red Thai chilli peppers, finely chopped

1/2 lemon, squeezed it to obtain lemon juice

2 tbs fish sauce

1 tsp soy bean paste (I used the Korean brand)

1/2 tsp shrimp paste

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar
1 stalk green onion, chopped into 1 cm long

5 springs cilantro/ coriander leaves, finely chopped

Direction:

Bring to boil shrimps with 3 cups of water. Add garlic, galangal, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, red Thai chili peppers, lemon juice, fish sauce, shrimp paste, salt and sugar.
When it's boiled, add green onion and turn off the stove.

Sprinkle with cilantro when you serve it.

Serving 2 people

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Red Thai Chicken Curry

Let's travel to Thailand today! That was what I'm thinking yesterday when I decided  to make Tom Yam Goong soup and Red Thai Chicken Curry. I was curious to make Red Thai Curry since first I had it. First time I had it, it was good. It was at Thai restaurant call Sawatde. Then in a grocery store they have its sauce. Uhmm...make me eager to make it  from scratch. Looking around for the perfect recipe in the internet, I found two of them and both are quite different. The first one is from www.allrecipes.com (which I suspected that it must be Westernize Thai Food) and another one is from www.templeofthai.com (I assumed that the owner of this web must be Thai people). So I decided to combine both of the recipe and it ended up really good and spicy, which I love it so much! I have a few big chicken breasts which are not good quality so it's quite tricky to cook it. So what I'm doing is avoid to cook the whole chicken like make chicken cordon bleu, BBQ chicken and all that. Instead I always slice it, bake it and put in a food processor to yield coarsely or finely grind chicken breast. Or simply I just make chicken nugget with it. Anyway, here it is the recipe for red Thai chicken curry:

Ingredients:
1 big chicken breast, slice it thinly and bake it in a preheat oven 350 degrees F for 25-30 minutes
1/2 medium zucchini, chopped into small chunk
200 ml coconut milk
1 cm galangal, bruised it
1 stalk lemongrass, fold and bruised it
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
2 tbs tomato sauce
2 tbs fish sauce
1/4 tsp shrimp paste
3 tbs chili pepper powder
1 medium tomato, cut into wedges
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp sugar
1 tbs vegetable oil











Direction:
Using a frying pan, saute garlic, galangal, lemongrass until fragrant. Add tomatoes and chicken, stir it for 1 minutes.
Add coconut milk, fish sauce, tomato sauce, shrimp paste, chili pepper powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder and coriander powder. Stir it gently.
Add zucchini and bring it to boil and let it until shimmer.

Serving 2 people

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Indonesian Spicy Curry (Mangut Terong Ungu dan Ikan Patin)

One of my favorite food when I was in Indonesia is Indonesian spicy curry. My mom used to make it really hot and put a lot of white pepper in it. There is special type of fish that we used, we call that 'Ikan Manyung' or Arius Thalassinus. In Javanese we call it Mangut Ndas Manyung. We just used their head because their head is yummy and not a lot of meat in it. But that's the point of eating head fish eh... Because I couldn't find that fish yet, I just simply used Basa Fish or Ikan Patin Siam in Indonesian language.

Let see the recipe:

Ingredients:

3 fillet Basa fish

1 eggplant, chop into small chunk

1/2 block of extra firm tofu, cut in half then cut in triangle

5 red Thai chillies, cut in angle

1 medium sized tomato, cut into wedges

3 medium size bilimbi (belimbing wuluh)

1/2 cup of coconut milk

1/2 cup of water

Spices to blend:

5 shallots

3 cloves of garlic

2 candlenuts

2 cm of ginger

1 tsp of coriander powder

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp white pepper powder

1 bay leaf

2 cm of galangal

Direction:

Sauté the blended spices with bay leaf, galangal and red Thai chillies until fragrant. Add tomatoes and bilimbi.

Pour the water and coconut milk, add eggplant, tofu and fish in the same time. 

Keep stir the broth so that coconut milk has smooth texture.

Serving 3 people

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Laotian Chicken Laap

I like to try some foods from different country and Winnipeg is the best place for that. You name it! Indian food, Filipino, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Laotian, Thailand, Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Korean, France, Spanish, Portugese, Japanese, Ukrainian, etc...all you'll find it in here! Except Indonesian...so I'm expecting one day there is Indonesian open Indonesian restaurant...it would be awesome! First time went to Laotian restaurant calls the Taste of Laos, I didn't have any clue what I'm going to eat. We asked the waiter and he said the most popular Laotian food is Laap and beef and vegetable stir fry. So we tried both of them. The stir fry is like any other stir fry except they have really tangy taste, I think they put some herbs in it . While the laap is excellent, it tasted really Herby and definitely healthy food. Afterward I really want to make it by myself and started to search around in the internet and found a perfect recipe. So here it is the recipe which I have modified it:

 Ingredients:

2 chicken breast, slice it and bake it in the preheat oven for 30 minutes in 350 degrees F

10 cm lemongrass

2 shallots

3 cloves of garlic

A handful of cilantro

A handful of mint leaves

A handful of sticky rice, toast it and grind it to get sticky rice powder

4 tbs fish sauce

3 red Thai chili peppers, finely chopped

2 tsp black pepper

1 lemon, squeeze it to get lemon juice

Couple of iceberg lettuce

Sticky rice

Direction:

Put baked chicken breast, cilantro, mint leaves, lemongrass, shallots, garlic in a food processor to get finely chopped.

Take it from the food processor, mix altogether with fish sauce, chili peppers, black pepper, lemon juice and mix it thoroughly.

We usually eat it wrapped with iceberg lettuce and complement with sticky rice.

Serving 2 people

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Mexican Beef Taco

The first time I tried Mexican food I didn't like it. Now..it's alright, once in a while. The most popular Mexican food such as Taco, Chicken Quasadillas, Burrito and Nachos, I have tried all that recipes. I found that Mexican food is very easy to make and really simple. Taco and Nachos are popular as fast food. It's very easy to get Mexican food in Canada and the taste is easily accepted by North American since its ingredients is mostly cheese, hamburger and beans. They have special flat round bread calls Tortillas which is used for most Mexican food. There are some Taco place calls Taco Bell which is affiliates with KFC franchise. You don't need a lot of effort to get this food in here apparently.

So here it is I'm trying to make Taco Beef.

Ingredients:

1/2 lbs lean ground beef

Romaine lettuce

1/4 medium onion, chopped coarsely

3/4 tsp black peppers

3/4 tsp cumin powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1 tbs salsa

2 tortillas

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

Direction:

Saute onion and garlic until fragrant. Add ground beef, black pepper, cumin powder, salt and sugar.

Saute until the beef is tender.

Arrange romaine lettuce over tortilla (on a middle-top) then put sauteed beef on top of it. 

Add salsa on top of beef. Sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese on a very top layer.

Fold the left side of tortilla then the bottom and close it with the right side part.

Serving 2 people

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Russian Salad

I still have a few beets left over from the summer picking garden and I just want to using it before it's getting bad. So I was thinking to make salad. After looked around in my book Super Salad, I found Russian Salad. I love beets...So here I am trying to make Russian Salad..

Ingredients:

5 beets, small until medium size

2 medium pickled cucumber, sliced it

1/2 medium red onion, slice it

Dressing:

1 1/2 tbs sour cream

1 1/2 tbs mayonnaise

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp white wine vinegar

Direction:

Wash beets gently, don't peel off the skin. Bring it to boil around 20-25 minutes until it gets tender.

When it tender enough, let it chill. Usually cook it in advance so that they chill enough.

Peel off its skin and cut into wedges.

Mix together beets, pickled cucumbers and sliced red onion.

Mix all the dressing ingredients.

Toss vegetables with dressing until combined.

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Pecan Pie

Pecan pie is the most simple pie and also the most delicious pie I've ever had. I had it accidentally when my sister in law asked me what kind of dessert I like to buy in a store? I looked around and there are a lot of pies that I don't like ( I found that pie is quite boring dessert so I'm not a big fan of it) but I've never tasted pecan pie before so I told her that I want that pie. Since after, I just love it so much, so caramely, buttery and super duper sweet. Well that's the point of dessert right? :) The special ingredient is corn syrup; maple syrup; cane syrup or honey. If in Indonesia a lot of people said that cane sugar is bad and corn sugar is good for diet but in Canada is contrary. A lot of people in here said that cane sugar is way better than corn sugar which is fructose sugar. So don't get wrong people, CORN SUGAR is actually WORSE than  CANE SUGAR, not the other way around! In this recipe I used cane sugar syrup instead of corn syrup as a lot of recipes have suggested. The first time I made, I used half of honey and half of maple syrup. It ended up yummy but the honey seemed just stayed on the bottom and got so sticky. And because of maple syrup is so expensive so this time I'm making my pecan pie using cane sugar syrup which I found at Saveway. So happy to find that stuff thou...

Ingredients:

3 eggs

1 cup of cane syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup pecan halves

2/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup of butter (melted)

1 pie crust

Direction:

Brush the pie crust with beaten egg white and bake it for 5 minutes in 190 degrees Celcius to get golden crust.

Beat the eggs lightly until combined.

Stir in cane syrup, sugar, butter and vanilla extract.

Stir well.

Stir in pecan halves and pour filling into crust.

Bake in 350 degrees F preheated oven for 45 minutes.

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Nasi Gandul Khas Pati ('Gandul' Rice, Pati's Food Specialty)

I miss Pati, my home town so much. It's been along time I haven't had Nasi Gandul (Gandul Rice, Pati's Specialty Food). It riches of spices such as cumin, coriander, nutmeg, white pepper and also Indonesian Black Nuts or commonly we call it 'kluwek'. For more information about kluwek, you can see it in here. This spice is originally from Indonesia and some foods use it to enrich the flavor particularly for Nasi Rawon, Nasi Pindang Kudus and Nasi Gandul itself. Gandul is Javanese word means floating. Usually we eat Nasi Gandul in a plate covered by banana leaf. So when you pour the broth over the rice, it will look floating. 

There are several places sell Nasi Gandul in Pati. The most popular one is Nasi Gandul Gajahmati. We also like to buy one in Puri, it's located in DPLD, just near my house and the one beside TK Bhayangkari (Bhayangkari Kindergarten School). They were all good. But remember, the special spice for Nasi Gandul is 'kluwek' so don't miss it! I got kluwek from Kak Pepy, the well known author of Indonesia Eats food blog. Thank you so much Kak Pepy! Next time I wan't to try to make Nasi Pindang Kudus with it, but I really need melinjo leaves aka Gnetum gnemon; bago (in Malay and Filipino).

Here it is the recipe of Nasi Gandul Khas Pati:

Ingredients:
250 gr beef, diced it (1/4 part I boiled it and mixed it with the broth, 3/4 part I made 'empal gepuk' (it's more like seasoning beef jerky)
1 cup coconut milk

2  bay leaves

2 cm galangal, bruised it

1 lemongrass, bruised it
2 tbs vegetable oil for sauteing

Blend spices:
6 shallots
4 cloves of garlic

4 red Thai chillies
1 cm great galangal (kencur)
2 candlenuts
1 kluwek (keluak nuts/Indonesian black nuts/ Pangium Edule, click in here for details)
1/2 tsp cumin powder
1/2 tsp coriander powder
1/2 tsp white pepper powder

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp shrimp paste

1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar

Direction :
Boil the beef until almost tender. Slice the beef and keep the broth for later.

Saute the blend spices altogether with bruised galangal, bay leaves, lemongrass until fragrant.

Mix the sauteed blended spices and coconut milk into beef broth, bring it to boil and until the meat is tender.

Serve with sliced 'empal gepuk', fried shallots, sweet soy sauce, sambal (chili sauce), potato fritters and fried tempe.

Serving 3 peoples

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BBQ Mackerel with Lemon Grass (Ikan Kembung Bakar Serai)

Since I was kid, I love fish. I like any kind of fish. Fresh water fish or ocean fish, both I like it. Ocean fish has much more nutrition if they don't get contaminated. Juwana is one of the district in Pati. It's located by the sea and it has some developing fisheries. When I was in high school, I remember some of my friends whom come from Juwana. A few of them moved to stay in the students dorms near the school and some of them just like to make trip from Juwana to Pati which was 45 minutes to 1 hour trip by bus or another public transit. I found that they are really smart thou...because they like to eat fish most of the time. I and my mom are big fan of fish. When she deep fried the fish, I just like to munching on it...ohh, so good...I've never get bored eating that stuff. Seafood also one of my favorite too. You just name it...mussel, clam, calamari, squid, crab, lobster, I love them all, even seaweed. When I just came back from Canada, I visited my friend, Melani in Salatiga and she served me a big platter of green mussel, my God, I just can't stop eating it. But this is the worst part, I got a very bad headache after that. I think I got poisoned by eating too much green  mussel so just be cautious with that. But I still love seafood, they are so delicious compare to any poultry.

I would like to share one of my fish recipe. Even though I live far away from the ocean right now, it doesn't stop me eating fish. In Lucky Supermarket Asian Store, they have so many different kinds of frozen fish, which is very fortunate for me. Fresh fish is still the best thou. So here it is the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 mackerel fishes

1 lime

1 tsp salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

Spices to blend:

2 shallots

2 cloves of garlic

1/2 tsp fish/ shrimp paste (terasi)

1 candle nut

1 tsp white pepper powder

1 tsp coriander powder

10 cm of lemon grass, chop thinly

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 tbs sweet soy sauce

Direction:

1. Marinate the fish with squeeze lime and salt for 20 minutes.
2. Deep fry the fish until golden brown.
3. While you are deep frying, blend all the spices above and sauté it with little bit of oil until fragrant. Set aside.
4. Smear the fried fish with blended spices and throw it to BBQ for about 15-20 minutes over medium high heat.

Serving 2 people

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Collard Green and Green Beans Stir Fry (Oseng-oseng collard green dan buncis)

Since I lived in a four seasons country, I haven't found a papaya leaf yet. I don't like papaya leaf when I was kid but when I lived by myself in Semarang, I really love to eat that stuff. Papaya leaf is very versatile. You can use it to tenderize the red meat by boil it together. Papaya leaf also helps you to improve your appetite. No kidding,  after you eat it, you want to get some more food to eat. So for anybody who has a goal to gain weight, papaya leaf is a good choice to try. Unfortunately I can't find papaya leaf in here so one day when I found collard green in a grocery store which has similar taste with papaya leaf, I was so happy. In fact, collard green is very nutritious as well. It has high source of vitamin C if we eat it raw, high in fiber and has potent anti-cancer properties. Pretty cool eh..Because of its texture is hard as broccoli leaf, so I decided to cook it, just to make a bit blanch. The taste is better than papaya leaf, not that bitter.

So the recipe is below:

Ingredients:

3 big collard green leaves

10 green beans, cut into angle

8 shrimps, peel off the skin

1/4 of medium size onion, sliced thinly

2 shallots, sliced thinly

2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly

4 red Thai chillies, cut in angle

1 galangal, bruised it

1 bay leaf

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

1 tbs sweet soy sauce

Direction:

1. Rinse the collard green leaves under the running water. Cut into medium size and boil it for about 10 minutes over medium heat. After it cooked, cut in thinly. Set aside.
2. Sauté onion, shallots, garlic, chillies, galangal and bay leaf until fragrant. Add shrimps and green beans. Stir it evenly. Add collard green leaves, green beans, sweet soy sauce, salt and sugar.

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Cream Cheese Veggie Shrimp Wonton

I have visited one of Thai restaurant in Winnipeg and I was so impressed with crab meat wonton they have.

It was so creamy and succulent. My friend told me that it was cream cheese and crab meat in it. Ehmmm, with spicy peanut sauce as a dipping sauce, it was so melted in my mouth. I fell in love to that wonton! Subsequently I have tried to browse around that recipe in the internet and I found that it was pretty easy to make. Instead of using imitation crab meat I would like to use veggie shrimp meat which was easy to find at the Asian store.

 

Here it is the recipe.

Ingredients:

6 oz cream cheese, I melted it in a microwave for less than a minute

4 green onions, chopped finely
2 tbs soy sauce

1 tsp garlic powder

5 pieces of veggie shrimp meat, chopped finely

1 package of small wonton wrapper

Direction:

1. Mix together melted cream cheese, green onions, soy sauce, garlic powder and veggie shrimp meat.
2. Put 1 tsp of the cream cheese filling into the wonton wrapper and fold into shape that you like.
3. Deep fry the wonton until golden brown.

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Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

I hope you won't get bored by me posting some more of blueberry cake. Just want to use my cream cheese in a fridge and blueberries. So here I'm making blueberry coffee cake.

Ingredients:

Streusel topping:

1/3 cup whole wheat flour

1/3 cup granulated white sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon powder

1/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Cake batter:

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup white sugar

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/3 milk

1 cup fresh blueberries

Cream cheese filling:

8 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup white sugar

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbs grated lemon zest

1 tbs flour

Direction:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease the baking pan. I used 8.5 inches spring form pan. 
2. In a large bowl mix flour, sugar and cinnamon.
3. Cut in the butter with fork until it resembles coarse crumbs.
4. In your electric mixer, beat cream cheese until creamy and smooth.
5. Add the rest of the filling ingredients and beat until very smooth.
6. Meanwhile, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
7. In the paddle, beat the butter until creamy, add sugar, beat until fluffy. Add egg and vanilla extract then add flour mixture alternately with milk.
8. Spread the batter into the pan then spread it with cream cheese filling. Scatter fresh blueberries and streusel on a very top layer.

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Buttermilk Blueberry Muffin

I had a lot of wild blueberries in a freezer. I have made smoothies and oatmeal with it couple of times but it still a lot. So after it's been a while I haven't baked, I finally decided to bake buttermilk blueberry muffin. It's kind of healthy because I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour and blueberry itself is very nutritious and have a lot of vitamins in it. This recipe also using buttermilk and I don't have any. After searched around in the internet about how to substitute buttermilk, finally I found one. Maybe some of you familiar with buttermilk and probably some don't. Especially if you live in a country, you may need more effort to find it. Buttermilk is creamy milk with rich tangy butter taste that makes baked goods tender. In a past, buttermilk was made from left over liquid after churning butter. It is now commercially made by adding bacteria to whole skim or low fat milk. If you don't have buttermilk, simply you can substitute it by adding 1 tbs white vinegar to 1 cup (250 ml) of milk. So this is one of my healthy desert I think. Again, this recipe is based on baking website in here and has been modified by me because last time I made, it was really stiff so I have to add some milk and oil.

Here, enjoy the recipe!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups of whole wheat flour

3/4 cup white sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1 cup of buttermilk (by adding 1 tbs vinegar to the milk)

3/4 cup of vegetable/ canola oil

1 vanilla extract

2 cups of blueberries

Direction:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and grease the muffin pan.
2. In a bowl, whisk together egg, buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract.
3. In another bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gently fold itn the berries.
4. With rubber spatula, fold the wet ingredients into the dry.
5. Stir it until the ingredients are combined. don't over mix or tough muffin will result.
6. Place 2 tbs of batter to the muffin pan.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.

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Garang Asem Ayam (Chicken in Sour Coconut Milk Sauce)

One day I got so confused what I have to cook for the day. Suddenly I remember Garang Asem Ayam (Chicken in Sour Coconut Milk Sauce) that I used to eat when I was in Pati, Kudus and Semarang. There is a restaurant in Pati calls Surya Baru which is offer some good foods and Garang Asem is one of their menu. I and my family used to eat there. The owner is a Chinese descendant, no wonder they cook very well.  So, I looked at my freezer, oh I still have some attached back chicken legs, so I'm going to use that. The sourness suppose to come either from 'belimbing wuluh/ belimbing keris' ('bilimbi' in English), tamarind or green tomatoes. Because I don't have any bilimbi and coincidentally I have to pick some of my green tomatoes in my garden (due to cooler weather which is start to approaching lately), so I just used green tomato instead.

Now, here it is the ingredients:

1 attached back leg chicken

2 pieces of galangal

4 pieces of bay leaves

1 egg

150 ml coconut milk

3 fresh red Thai chilies, cut in angle

1 medium green tomato, cut into wedges

1 medium red tomato, cut into wedges

1 tsp tamarind, mix in 100 ml lukewarm water

some banana leaves

some plastic wraps

2 pieces of toothpicks

Spices to blend:

2 shallots

2 small cloves of garlic

2 tsp coriander

2 tsp white pepper

3/4 tsp salt

1 cm of ginger

1 candle nut

1 tbs vegetable oil

1/2 tsp sugar

Direction:

1. Blend all the spices.
2. Cut chicken into 3 pieces.
3. Sauté the blend of spices with oil until fragrant.
4. Add coconut milk, let it shimmer then add egg and tamarind water. Stir it evenly until boil.
5. Take banana leaves, put plastic wrap on top of it then arrange galangal, bay leaf and chicken. Sprinkle with some cut tomatoes and fresh chili peppers. Wrap with banana leaves and pinned with toothpick.
6. Steam it for 60 minutes ( I used the electric steamer).

Serving 2 people

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Peanut and Almond Biscotti

I'm really craving of biscotti which I can find easily at Second Cup, but I really want to make it by myself. I'm still learning how to bake properly thou. There is a baking website that I really trust, you can click in here, so I made this biscotti based on that recipe. Because I don't have any hazelnut simply I substitute it with peanuts and almonds, still taste good.

So, here it is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup peanuts

4 oz semisweet chocolate

1/2 cup almond

1 cup brown sugar

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 tbs coffee powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Direction:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees to toast peanuts for 10 minutes. Put in a food processor until it chopped finely. Put down the oven temperature to 300 degrees.
2. Sift/whisk flour, cocoa powder, coffee powder, baking soda and salt.
3. Melt the chocolate and mix with sugar.
4. With hand mixer beat eggs and vanilla extract about 30 seconds. Add the chocolate mixture and flour mixture. Add the peanuts and almonds about halfway through mixing.
5. With greased hands, divide the dough in a half. On a lightly greased surface, roll each half of dough into a log about 10 inches or 25 cm long and 2 inches wide. Transfer to prepared greased pan spacing about 7.5 cm. Bake until almost firm to touch, about 35-40 minutes. Remove from oven and let it cool for 10 minutes.
6. Using a long spatula, transfer the log to cutting board. Cut the dough into slices 3/4 inches (2 cm) thick on the diagonal. Arrange the slices cut side-down on the greased pan or baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes. Turn the slices over and bake until crisp and dry for about 15 minutes.

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Welcome!

This is actually not my first time blogging, I have one already in my Friendster account. Since I live in Winnipeg, the only way to put up with my longing of Indonesia, my home country, is by cooking Indonesian food. I found pretty much of the spices but sometimes there is a little thing I couldn't find. I'm very attached with the internet connection in here so I don't have a hard time to find some Indonesian recipes online which is some of them are from food blogs. It's quite interesting to food blogging so I'm thinking to make one too. I found that it is also the way we can make new friends from all over the world. It's really neat. Every time I cook, I never have a certain amount of ingredients and measure it up, except baking, because the risk of failure is higher than cooking. If we cook, if it is salty, we can add some more water or sugar. But if we baking, if we miss or have a wrong measurement, it's going to be totally failure.

So now I'm going to try working on my blog, as often as I can and see what I can do.

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