Black Bottom Cupcake

I'm very pleased to share this recipe because I love this black bottom cupcake. I got this recipe from www.joyofbaking.com. I hope you'll love it too. It's very easy, moist, delicious and definitely will make your day!

Ingredients:

8 oz cream cheese (227 gr) room temperature

1/3 cup white sugar

1 large egg

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

For the chocolate cupcake:

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour ( I used the whole wheat one)

1 cup white sugar

1/3 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup water

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tsp vinegar

1/3 cup corn/ canola oil/ vegetable oil

Direction:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners

Cream cheese filling:
In your electric mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add sugar, egg, vanilla extract until creamy and smooth. Set aside.

Chocolate cupcake:
In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl mix the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla extract.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients until nice and smooth.

Evenly divide the batter to 12 muffin cups then spoon a few of cream cheese filling into the center of each cupcake.
Bake for 25 minutes until cream cheese filling a little bit brown

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Lasagna Stuffed Spinach Salad

This recipe is my creation of lasagna noodle since the recipe of lasagna that running around is usually so fatty. Damien is my tester for every food I made and he loves this meal as well. This recipe is so simple. My first experience made lasagna was not great. I followed all of the direction in a lasagna box but the result was very disappointing. As a matter of fact, even though we bake the lasagna for 45 minutes, the lasagna noodle is still hard. Since then every time I make lasagna I always boil them first for about 10-15 minutes. It also helps us to  cut off the baking time by 30 minutes. Let's check out the recipe:

Ingredients:
4 pieces lasagna noodle
a handful of spinach, chopped thinly
3 green onions, chopped thinly
1 carrot, cubed
2 baked chicken breast, chopped coarsely
4 tbs caesar dressing salad
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 tsp oregano
1/2 cup of feta cheese
1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
1 tbs lemon juice derived from lemon squeezed
4 tbs pasta sauce

Direction:
Boil the lasagna noodle for 10-15 minutes so that it will be easy to fold.
Combine spinach, green onions, carrot, feta cheese, black pepper, lemon juice, garlic, salt and caesar dressing.
Cut lasagna in a half and arrange the spinach salad in the middle of it and wrap both sides.
Arrange the wrapped lasagna seam-side down in a greased pan. Cover with pasta sauce and sprinkle with cheddar cheese and oregano.
Bake for 15 minutes

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Banana Cupcake

I'm trying to gather some of my old recipes and pictures. This banana cupcake is my first baking experience. I think baking is as fun as cooking. The thing is I have to keep it away from my mind since I love sweet food  but I have to control my sugar consumption. My mom, my grandmother from my mom's side, both of my aunties (from my mom's side) and my grandfather from my dad's side had diabetes. So genetically I have diabetes carrier in my blood, that's why I have to be more careful with sugar. Since I found that the common sugar in here is corn sugar which is worse than any other sugar product, I have to really controlling my sugar intake. One time, I found one sweetener as sugar substitute calls Stevia. This kind of sweetener apparently has been widely used in Japan since 1970. I have never used this kind of sweetener for baking but I do use it for cooking. What I'm doing in baking is I usually reduce the amount of sugar by a half or a quarter. Baking once every week is fine for me since I don't like to buy bakery product in the store because they usually use chemical stuff and I found that the taste is not that great. Homemade bakery is the best. Banana cupcake is easy to make and it could be your alternative meal to start your day. I forgot where I got this recipe so I'm sorry about that. Whoever shared this recipe in the internet, thank you so much...

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (spponed and leveled)

3/4  cup of sugar

1 tsp of baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, melted

1 1/2 cup mashed bananas (about 4 ripe bananas)

2 large eggs

1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

Direction:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder,baking soda and salt.

Make a well in center flour mixture. In well, mix together butter, mashed bananas, eggs and vanilla. Stir in incorporate flour mix (do not over mix or the muffin will be tough). Diving evenly, spoon batter into  muffin pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes

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Steamed Tofu, Anchovy Fish and Shrimp Wrapped with Banana Leaves a.k.a Botok Tahu, Teri dan Udang

Botok (not a 'botox' treatment) is one of Javanese food made from shredded coconut flesh wrapped with banana leaves and we steam it. When I was young, my mom pretty often make this meal for us as a companion for Tamarind Soup (Sayur Asem). Actually this is one of her favorite dish. She also made Shrimp paste sambal (Sambal Terasi) as a condiment. To be honest, I don't like when my mom making this meal. I found that it's boring. As I grew up, I don't mind with this meal but not quite often. Since I moved to Winnipeg, somehow I miss this meal and want to make it so badly. My favorite one is with dried anchovy fish and white leadtree a.k.a jumbay; white popinac; (Leucaena leuchocepala (petai cina in Indonesia; lamtoro or pèthèt in Javanese). Unfortunately I haven't found white leadtree in here yet. The main ingredient for this dish is shredded coconut flesh, usually we use the young one. Why? It's because the young coconut flesh is more juicy which will enrich the taste. In here because we don't have fresh coconut so I just use the frozen one. Hence, I couldn't choose the young coconut to use so I just used whatever I got, life must go on...Unfortunately I just have a little bit of shredded coconut flesh left over from last time I made Cooked Vegetable Salad (Urap sayur) so I decided to add tofu. Here it is the recipe:

Ingredients:

200 gr shredded coconut flesh

1 block of tofu, mashed

100 gr of dried anchovy fish

10 shrimps, peel of the skin

10 bilimbi (belimbing wuluh/ belimbing keris), cut into angle

5 red Thai chili peppers, cut into angle

5 bay leaves

5 galangal

banana leaves

toothpicks

Spices to blend:

3 shallots

2 cloves of garlic

2 cm of kaemferia galangal/ great galangal (kencur)

1 red Thai chili pepper

1 tsp shrimp paste

1 1/2 tsp sea salt

1 tsp sugar

Direction:

Steam/ pan fry/ boil the shallots, garlic and chili pepper before you blend it. It will make it easier to blend. After you're done then blend it altogether with kaemferia galangal, shrimp paste, sugar and salt.

Combine the blended spices, shredded coconut flesh, mashed tofu, dried anchovy fish, shrimps, bilimbi and red Thai chili peppers.

Place one bay leaf and galangal on a banana leaf then put 2 tbs of  the mixed ingredients (from step 3) on top of it.Wrap and pin it with toothpick.

Steam it in a steamer for about 45 minutes.

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Fried Wrapped Egg a.k.a Martabak Telor

Martabak telor is a common street food in Indonesia. You can easily find street food vendors selling this food. It's an appetizer. It's a bit costly for street food because the main ingredients are eggs and meat (eggs and meat are consider as a bit expensive ingredient in Indonesia). If they usually use duck egg, in my recipe here, I just use chicken eggs. Duck egg has a pungent smell and usually its size is bigger that regular chicken egg. It has light blue color and Indonesian like to use it to make cooked salty egg. I found some cooked salty egg at Asian store in here but I'm not sure whether they make it from duck egg or chicken egg.

I'm a big fan of martabak telor. I really like the combination of eggs, lots of green onions and ground meat. They are so tasty. For the wrapper, I just use spring rolls wrapper. I have no idea how the street food vendor make their own martabak wrapper. They really make their own homemade wrapper though...Anyway, pickled cucumber and carrot are the best companion for martabak telor. Of course with some heat from red or green chili peppers.

So let's check out the recipe below:

Ingredients:

2 eggs, lightly beaten

6 stalks of green onion, chopped thinly

100 gr of ground beef

1 shallot, minced

1 clove of garlic, minced

1/2 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 tsp curry powder

1 tsp chicken stock powder

1 tsp salt

7 spring rolls wrapper

1 tbs olive oil for sauteing

vegetable oil for deep frying

Direction:

Using a skillet, saute minced shallot and garlic until fragrant. Add ground beef and ground black pepper, stir it until the meat is tender enough.

Combine eggs, green onion, curry powder, chicken stock powder, salt and ground beef. Stir it evenly.

Place one spring roll wrapper on a flat plate. Put 1 tbs of egg filling in a middle of the wrapper and fold it like an envelope. Glue the margin with water. Keep doing it until all of the wrappers is filled.

Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan (under medium-high heat) and deep fry the filled wrapper until golden brown. 

Serve it with pickled cucumbers and carrot also a few chili peppers.

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Chicken with Salted Soy beans Sauce a.k.a Ayam Siram Tauco

Last time I went shopping with Kak Pepy I got so many stuff. I took a chance to ask her about a lot of cooking ingredients term in English. One of them is tauco. Tauco or salted soy beans in English is one of main ingredient to make Indonesian frog soup calls Swike. Some of people probably think it's bizarre to eat frog. Frog is edible, that's the thing. It tasted better than chicken. And don't worry, of course we peeled off their skin before we eat it. They are high in cholesterol though so just be cautious with that. Anyway, I'm not going to make Swike today, but in order to try my salted soy beans, I'm making chicken with salted soy beans. As a matter of fact, salted soy beans which I found in here is terribly salty than the one I grew up with. Javanese tauco is sweet and salty in a same time so it's quite good. But life is go on, I still can use it, just don't put too much. So here it is the recipe:

Ingredients:

250 gr chicken breast, sliced thinly

1 egg, lightly beaten

1/2 cup of all purpose flour

1 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp salt

A generous handful of bean sprouts

Sauce:

3 tbs salted soy beans

2 cloves of garlic, minced it

1/2 tsp white pepper powder

2 cm of ginger, bruised it

4 tsp sugar

1 tbs lemon juice derived from squeezed lemon

1 tbs sweet soy sauce

1 tsb corn starch, dissolved in 1/2 cup water

3/4 cup water

Direction:

Mix the flour with black pepper and salt.

Coat the sliced chicken alternately with egg and flour and deep fry it. Set aside.

Using a skillet, saute the garlic, white pepper and ginger until fragrant. Add water, salted soy beans, sugar, sweet soy sauce, lemon juice. Let it boil. Then add dissolved corn starch, stir it evenly until bubbling.

Arrange the chicken and sprinkle with bean sprouts. Pour the salted soy beans sauce on top of it.

Serving 2-3 people

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Sweet and Spicy Fried Potatoes a.k.a Kentang Balado

I just came back from the potluck dinner with my friend. I brought two dishes, chicken satay (sate ayam) and sweet and spicy fried potatoes (kentang balado). It ended up so satisfying. They all like the food I made. So here I would like to share my sweet and spicy fried potatoes which is Damien's favorite food. It's easy to make, just need a little bit patient to slice the potatoes and deep fry it. During the summer time, I got so many fresh potatoes and I store it in my fridge. They are Manitoba grown potatoes, absolutely tasted great. Here it is the recipe:

Ingredients:

8 medium red potatoes, peel of the skin and sliced thinly

500 ml water

3 tbs sea salt

1/2 cup shredded palm sugar or coconut sugar

6 lime leaves

3 bay leaves

1 galangal

1 tbs tamarind

3 red/ green cayenne peppers, discard the seeds and chopped into angle

2 tbs vegetable oil 

250 ml vegetable oil for deep frying

Spices to blend:

4 shallots

3 cloves of garlic

1 red Thai chili peppers

2 red cayenne pepper

1/2 tsp shrimp paste

1 1/2 sea salt

Garnish:

Italian parsley

Fried garlic

Direction:

Soak the sliced potatoes into 500 ml water and 3 tbs of salt. Let it sit for 30 minutes. By soaking the potatoes before deep fry it, it'll make the potatoes more crispy.

Deep fry the potatoes until golden brown. Put it on a plate covered with paper towel so that it'll absorb the excess oil.

While you deep frying, you can blend the spices above.

When you're done deep frying all the sliced potatoes, you can start to heat up 2 tbs of vegetable oil in a skillet. Saute the blended spices along with palm sugar/ coconut sugar, bay leaves, galangal, lime leaves, tamarind and chopped cayenne peppers until the sugar start to caramelizing.

Add the deep fried potatoes and coat it with the spices evenly for about 5-10 minutes. 

Sprinkle with fried garlic and garnish it with Italian parsley.

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Sambal Tumpang a.k.a Spicy 'Tempe'/ Fermented Soybeans with Coconut Milk Sauce

Tempe or fermented soybeans is a common food in Indonesia. Tempe is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form (based on Wikipedia). If you are a vegetarian, this would be a perfect food for you. This food is originated from Indonesia especially from Java island. We eat tempe and tofu every single day as a staple food. The taste is unique and it is good for meat substitute. We created a lot of dishes with tempe as a main ingredient. Since I moved to Winnipeg, I found the Asian store which sells frozen tempe. They're not that great because it's tasted more like old tempe or over-fermented tempe (tempe semangit). In here they call it 'tempeh', I'm not sure why they spell and pronounce it like that.

Sliced tempe (picture from Wikipedia)

Anyway, I'm trying to make spicy 'tempe' with coconut milk sauce or Indonesian usually call it Sambal Tumpang (sambal means spicy chili sauce) and the tempe which is I found it in here and tasted like old tempe is the perfect ingredient for this dish. This dish is quite common in Indonesia. In some areas they add some 'krecek/ krupuk rambak (rambak crackers made from thick skin of cow or buffalo)'. But because I don't like that stuff so I didn't put any. Some people also like to eat it with pecel (Indonesian cooked vegetable salad). For me I just like to eat it with steamed rice and it's so yummy. In Javanese language we call it  nglawuhi. Let's check out the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 package of tempe (20 cm x 10 cm, I used old tempe/ tempe semangit)

150 gr beef (I used the sirloin)

500 ml water

6 kaffir lime leaves

1 galangal, bruised it

2 bay leaves

4 shallots

3 cloves of garlics

1 cm kaemferia galangal (kencur)

1 candlenut

1 tsp shrimp paste

3 red Thai chili peppers (cabe rawit)

3 red cayenne peppers (cabe merah keriting)

200 ml coconut milk

1 1/2 tsp of salt

1 tsp of sugar

1 tbs vegetable oil for sauteeing

Direction:

Boil the beef into 500 ml water to obtain the beef broth. In a halfway of boiling the beef (after 30 minutes) add tempe, shallot, garlic, red Thai chili peppers and red cayenne peppers to boil for around 10-15 minutes. Turn off the stove.

When shallot, garlic and all the peppers are tender enough, take them out and blend it with kaemferia galangal, candlenut, salt, sugar and shrimp paste.

Take the beef out and slice it.

In a skillet, saute the blended spices along with galangal and bay leaves until fragrant.

Transfer the sauted spices to the beef broth. Add sliced beef, coconut milk and kaffir lime leaves.

Bring it to boil and stir evenly. When the tempe become tender, you can crush it a little bit.

Let it boil it until the beef is tender. 

Serving 2 people

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Nasi Goreng Ati a.k.a Chicken Liver Fried Rice

Some people like to eat animals 'liver' such as chicken liver, beef liver, etc and some don't. I don't mind with chicken liver but not for everyday. It considers as a food that make your LDL (Low-density Lipoprotein/ bad cholesterol) and uric acid goes higher. In contrary, it considers as a food you need to get some iron source. Without ignoring some affects caused by eating those, I think we'll be fine if we just eat it normally, I mean not excessively. Anything, any kind of food, except vegetables and some fruits if we eat normally, based on amount of nutritions that we need, we'll be just fine.

Chicken liver or beef liver are widely used in Indonesian cuisine. Apparently Western cuisine also use it, like French cuisine and North American cuisine. In Indonesian cuisine, chicken liver or beef liver just worked so well in spicy potatoes dish, chicken curry, fried rice or you can just deep fry it (before you have to marinate it  with garlic, coriander powder, salt and water) and it eat it with sambal and steamed rice. 

Now, I'd like to share the fried rice recipe:

Ingredients:

A full plate of steamed rice (using steamed rice which has low content of water will make the fried rice look better)
3 fried chicken livers, chopped into small chunks (marinate it first with 1 tsp coriander powder, 1 minced garlic, 1 tsp salt and 100 ml water for about 10 minutes and deep fry it)

1 1/2 tbs of sweet soy sauce

1 tbs chili sauce (I used the ABC brand)

A handful choopped iceberg lettuce

1 yellow tomato, sliced it

fried shallot

2 tbs vegetable oil to fry

Spices to blend:

3 shallots

2 cloves of garlic

6 red Thai chili peppers

1/2 tsp shrimp paste

1 1/2 tsp salt

Direction:

Blend the spices above while you heat up the oil in a frying pan over medium high heat.

When the oil is hot enough (by dipping a chopstick in it and if it is start to bubbling, around  the chopstick, it means the oil is hot enough), saute the blended spices until fragrant.

Add the chicken liver and rice. Try to coat the rice with blended spices evenly.

Add sweet soy sauce, chili sauce and turn up the heat a little bit to release the liquid. Keep stirring until the rice is drying out.

Serve with fried shallot and garnish with chopped iceberg lettuce and sliced tomato.

Serving 2 people

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Green Thai Chicken Curry

Well, again I'm going to post one of Thai food because of my curiosity of how to make green Thai curry. The green color comes from green chili peppers such as jalapeno or green cayenne pepper as well. The spices for this recipe are almost the same as red curry yet I have to discard chili pepper powder and turmeric in order to reach more green color. Instead of using red tomato, I'm using green tomatoes which is still available in my backyard. I adapted this recipe from http://thaifood.about.com. As some of you might know that the weather in Winnipeg is getting cooler now so this kind of food is really help me to warm up a bit. So here it is the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 big chicken breast, slice it and bake it in a preheat oven 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes

1/2 medium zucchini, chopped into small chunks

1/2 can of green young jackfruit

1 galangal, bruised it

1 stalk lemon grass, tied it into a knot and bruised it
4 kaffir lime leaves

3 tbs fish sauce

200 ml coconut milk

100 ml of water

1 tbs vegetable oil

A generous handful of coriander/ cilantro leaves, chopped it finely

Spices to blend:

4 shallots

2 cloves of garlic

2 jalapeno

3 green cayenne pepper

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp white pepper powder

3 small green tomatoes

1/2 tsp of shrimp paste

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar
2 tbs lemon juice (from squeezed lemon)

Direction:

Using a frying pan, saute the blended spices with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and galangal until fragrant.

Add water, coconut milk, fish sauce, green young jackfruit and chicken. Let it until boil.

Keep stirring so that the coconut milk would not be broken and add zucchini at the very last. Stir it for about 5 minutes.

Sprinkle with chopped coriander/ cilantro leaves when you serve it.

Serving 2-3 people

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Soto Ayam (Indonesian Yellow Chicken Soup)

Soto ayam (English; Chicken Soto/ Indonesian Yellow Chicken Soup) is a common food in Indonesia. Right now, every area in Indonesia has their own 'soto'. Soto Kudus, Soto Sokaraja, Soto Madura, Soto Surabaya, Soto Makasar, etc. Even though the first name of the dish is the same indeed they have a slightly different recipe. So don't get wrong, every area has their own 'soto' specialty. I have left over roast chicken so I just used it to make Chicken Soto accompanied by chicken satay. Here it  is the recipe, I got it from my mom:

Ingredients:

Cooked rice

50 gr bean thread noodles (Suun), boil it for 5 minutes and drain it

100 gr of chicken (I used left over roast chicken, if you don't have it, just use fried chicken or cooked chicken, shred it)

50 gr bean sprouts, casting it with the hot water

2 stalks green onion, chopped thinly

3 cloves of garlic (sliced thinly and deep fry it)

2 Indian bay leaves

2 cm of galangal, bruised it

1 stalk lemongrass, bruised it

2 cups of chicken broth

3/4 cup of water

Spices to blend:

3 shallots

3 cloves garlic

2 candle nuts

1 cm of ginger

a little bit of kaemferia galangal (kencur)

1 1/2 tsp turmeric powder

2 tsp of coriander powder

1 tsp white pepper powder

2 1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

Chicken satay:

75 gr cooked chicken, cubed it

3 pieces of chicken liver, marinated it with 2 tsp of salt and 1 1/2 coriander powder and 50 ml water, let it sit for around 10 minutes

7 skewers 

Condiment:

Sweet soy sauce

Chili sauce (sambal)

Limes

Direction:

Blend all the spices above. Using a pot, stir fry blended spices with a little bit of oil altogether with galangal, bay leaves and lemongrass until fragrant.

Add chicken broth and water, let it boil. 

While waiting for the broth, you can start to deep fry the chicken livers until brown. Cubed it. 

Arrange the cubed chicken and livers in skewers. Dip it into the soup broth. 

How to assembly:

In a bowl, arrange together cooked rice, cooked bean threads (suun), bean sprouts and shredded chicken.

Pour the soup broth and sprinkle with chopped green onions and deep fried garlic.  

Put the chicken satay in the edge of the bowl.

We usually eat it with sweet soy sauce, chili sauce (sambal) and squeezed limes. 

Serving 2 people

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Zucchini Cake

Again I have a big zucchini sitting on my counter for so long, left over from the summer time. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of zucchini neither spaghetti squash, so I have to avoid buying that vegetables. I got zucchini from Damien's mom's garden, too bad if we just let it go to the compost pile. I have been looking around for the perfect zucchini cake's recipe and I found one which is worked perfectly for me. The recipe is from www.cooks.com. Simply I just reduced the amount of sugar by a quarter. Still sweet but it is not terribly sweet. For the frosting, I chose cream cheese frosting. I always have cream cheese in my fridge because it is  versatile. It is good for frosting, making cake, wonton or even worked good for sandwich.This zucchini cake is so moist (I guess it's because I used vegetable oil instead of butter) and tasted so perfect. I can't taste zucchini at all which is exactly what I want.

Here it is the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose flour, I used the whole wheat one

1 cup vegetable oil

1 3/4 cups of white sugar

3 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp cinnamon powder

2 cups of grated zucchini (it is derived from 1/2 medium-big sized zucchini)

1 cup walnuts

Cream cheese frosting:

1 3/4 cup confectioners/ icing sugar (gula halus)

250 gr cream cheese, room temperature

2 tbs milk

2 tbs butter

Direction:

Preheat the oven in 350 degrees F. 

Mix oil and sugar. Add eggs one at a time. 

Beating well after each addition, blend in vanilla.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon powder.

Add sifted dry ingredients to the wet mixture, alternately with grated zucchini. Fold in chopped walnuts.

Batter will be a bit thin.

Pour into greased and floured pan, bake it for 350 degrees F for 50 minutes.

For the cream cheese frosting:

Beat together icing sugar, cream cheese, milk and butter until smooth and spread it on top of the zucchini cake.

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Spicy Water Spinach (Kangkong) Salad a.k.a Plecing Kangkung

Plecing kangkung is the specialty dish from Lombok (the small island nearby Bali). Some recipes use palm/ coconut sugar, some don't. I'm a real Javanese and we like sweet food so much, so  I add small amount  of palm sugar in this recipe. When my beloved mom still alive, she likes to make the similar dish called 'Cemeding Kangkung'. I'm not sure where this name came from. I found that Plecing Kangkung, Cemeding Kangkung and Brambang Asem (that's the way Solonese called, in Semarang they call it with another name that I'm still trying to remember what it is- finally I recall it, yes, Semarangese call it Glandir) are similar but actually they are slightly different. The 'sambal' (spicy condiment) for Plecing Kangkung uses garlic and the acidity comes from lemon. While the 'sambal' for Cemeding Kangkung doesn't use garlic but the acidity comes from tamarind (the sambal for Cemeding Kangkung is the same with the one used for Rujak (spicy fruit salad)). Brambang asem (Javanese language) in English means shallot and tamarind. For this dish, the original recipe uses shallot and tamarind, without garlic. It also uses sweet potato's leaves instead of water spinach. But it has similar taste with Plecing Kangkung and Cemeding Kangkung.

Right now I'm going to share Plecing Kangkung's recipe:

Ingredients:

1 package of water spinach

For the 'sambal' (spicy condiment) to blend:

2 cloves of garlic

6 red Thai chilli peppers

1/2 tsp shrimp paste

1 medium sized tomato

2 tbs of palm sugar/ coconut sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tbs lemon juice from squeezed lemon

Direction:

Boil the water spinach until tender, make sure it's not over cooked and the leaves still in a light green color. 

Boil or steam garlic, red Thai chili peppers and tomato until tender. When they're tender enough, blend it altogether with shrimp paste, palm sugar, salt and lemon juice.

Serve the water spinach over the plate and pour the spicy condiment (sambal) on top of it.

Serving 2 people

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Whole Roast Chicken (Thanksgiving dinner)

Yay...Thanksgiving is just right in a corner! It's time to buy turkey, potatoes, some ingredients for stuffing, cranberry and all that stuff! When Thanksgiving is coming, it means that Halloween is also approaching. If Halloween is over then it means that winter is just counting down the days. And finally yay....Christmas! I always enjoy White Christmas, with full of snow, some lights and Christmas decoration. Okay, for now we are celebrating Thanksgiving. The origin of celebrating Thanksgiving in Canada based on the story of Martin Frobisher, for the detail of this story you can check this site. Basically Thanksgiving it's a time to give thanks for the harvest and show gratitude in general. In a summer time a lot of people do farming and gardening to get some fresh food which they don't get during the winter and spring time. By the end of the summer and the beginning of fall season, they start to harvesting. This holiday is intended to give thanks to God for the summer and farming season that they have been through. Thanksgiving day is identical with mashed potatoes, turkey, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. So here I am trying to make Thanksgiving dishes, just using chicken not turkey.

Ingredients:

Roast chicken

1 whole chicken, I got like 5 lbs whole chicken

2 carrots, cut into angle

1/2 medium sized onion, sliced it

3 cloves of garlic, sliced it

2 tsp dried oregano

1 1/2 tsp black pepper

2 tbs butter, melted it and mix it with 1 tsp of oregano and 1 tsp black pepper

Mashed potatoes

3 medium sized potatoes, cut in a half

2 tbs of butter

1/2 cup of milk

Gravy

Chicken oil, left over from roasted chicken

2 tsp of corn starch

100 ml water

1 tsp black pepper

1/2 tsp salt

Caesar Salad

1/2 package organic green lettuce

1/4 medium sized of onion, chopped coarsely

1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese

3 tbs of Caesar dressing

1 tbs of lemon juice

Direction:

Roast Chicken

Stuff the chicken cavity with carrot, onion, garlic, oregano and black pepper. Dab the whole chicken with butter mixture. Put in a pan and bake it in 450 degrees F preheat oven for 20 minutes. Then put down the oven temperature to 375 degrees F and bake it until it cooked and tender (every 500 gram of chicken need to bake for 10 minutes).

Mashed potatoes

Boil the potatoes until they are cooked. Mash it with the potato masher ( I used the old school one) and mix it with butter and milk. Mix the mashed potatoes with the vegetables that we stuffed in a chicken cavity.

Gravy

Pour the chicken oil (fat) left over from roasted chicken into the skillet. Add the corn starch which is dissolved in 100 ml of water, black pepper and salt. Stir it evenly until it cooked.

Caesar Salad

Toss the green lettuce, chopped onion, grated cheddar cheese with Caesar salad dressing and lemon juice.

Serving 2-3 people

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Javanese Stir Fry (Family Recipe) a.k.a Cap Cay Jawa ala Keluarga Fitri

Today I want to share one of my family recipe named Cap Cay. I believe that this food is one of Chinese food back then. There are a lot of street food vendors in my home town Pati which sells this kind of food. But I and my family just like to make it by ourselves so that we can add some ingredients that we like. My mom used to make it for us and I helped her to blend the spices using mortar and pestle. Later on she asked me to make it by myself  with her supervision and it turned out really good. It tasted garlicky than the one that my mom made. But my family liked it that way thou...we love garlic since we know that garlic is a good antioxidant. Since then, every time I visited them they always asks me to make this dish. I don't mind because I like it too...This fried Cap Cay uses a flour fritter a.k.a kekian a.k.a nyemek (Pati's Javanese language). 

Let's check out the recipe below:

Ingredients:

2 carrots, peel of the skin and cut into angle

Cauliflowers (as many as you like)

2 skinless boneless chicken thigh, diced it

100 gr shrimp, peel of the skin

5 medium sized meatballs (bakso), sliced it

1/2 medium onion, sliced it

4 cloves of garlic, minced it

2 tsp white pepper powder

3 tbs of sweet soy sauce

2 tbs of tomato sauce

2 tbs of ketchup

1 medium sized tomato, cut into wedges

2 tsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 cup of water

2 tbs of vegetable oil

To make 'kekian' batter (flour fritter) you will need:

250 gr all purpose flour

1 egg

100 gr prawns, peel of the skin and chop it finely

4 cloves of garlic and 2 tsp white pepper powder, blend it

Direction: 

Make the flour fritter by mixing and stirring all of the 'kekian' batter ingredients mentioned above. Deep fry it until golden brown. Let it cool for 10 minutes and sliced it. Set aside.

Using a skillet, stir fry the onion, minced garlic, cubed chicken thigh and shrimp until fragrant.

Add 1 cup of water, sweet soy sauce, tomato sauce, ketchup, tomato, white pepper, salt, sugar, sliced meatball (bakso), carrot and cauliflower. Let carrot and cauliflower cooked first before adding the flour fritter.

When carrot and cauliflowers are tender, add the flour fritter and stir it evenly until all coated. Let it cook for about 8-10 minutes until the water is reduced.

You can serve it with sprinkled of fried shallot and fresh pickled cucumber and carrot.

Serving 2-3 people

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Chicken Satay with Peanut Sauce (Sate Ayam)

It's been too many food pictures sitting in my folder ready to share in my blog, however I have been so busy lately and just couldn't do anything with my blog. Please accept my apologize for that! Couple days ago, my fellow food blogger kak Lidia posted Chicken Satay picture on her facebook. It made me drooling so the next day I went to the groceries store to buy one package of skinless boneless chicken thigh to make chicken satay as well. Some people like to use chicken breast instead. But for me I like chicken thigh more for this recipe. Just feel free to use  different chicken part which is you or your family's favorite.

So here it is the recipe of my chicken satay:

Ingredients:

To marinate the chicken you will need:

1 lbs skinless boneless chicken thigh, diced it

1 1/2 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt
3 tbs of chicken oil derived from heating the chicken fat or skin  in a skillet

Skewers (soak in water for about an hour or more to avoid burning during BBQ-ing)

Dipping sauce during BBQ-ing or grilling:

3 tbs sweet soy sauce

1/2 cup water

1 tbs lemon juice

Peanut sauce:

100 gr peanuts, pan fry it until cooked

4 kaffir lime leaves,

50 gr palm sugar

3 cloves of garlic

5 red Thai chili peppers

1 tbs tamarind

1/2 cm kaemferia galanga (kencur)

2 tbs smooth peanut butter

2 tbs sweet soy sauce
1/2 - 1 cup of warm water

Direction:

Marinate the chicken at least for 20 minutes.

Arrange the cubed chicken in a skewers.

BBQ the chicken and in a half way, dip it into the dipping sauce both side evenly and put it back in a BBQ

While you BBQ-ing, you can grind all of the ingredients for peanut sauce

Serve it with sliced shallots and chopped chili peppers

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