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.