(Masbar) Serombotan (Balinese Mixed Vegetables with Two Sauces)

Time for masbar again :) and this month's theme is really healthy and also real nice. Why healthy because it's vegetable and nice because it's Indonesian. Oh how I love Indonesian food (lebay-mode-on).
Talking about this dish, it's really popular in Bali. It's originated from the eastern part of Bali which is Klungkung but you could easily find it in other part of Bali. I used to buy it for just Rp. 1000,00 a package (though not sure about the price now?) at the pasar senggol (night market) and it was more than enough for two persons to accompany rice.
I warn you though, if you're not so fond of -oh-darn-it's-so-hot-makes-my-mouth-on-fire-kinda-food- then better ask less of the sambal koples (peanut sauce). But for me the hotter the better.
Oh how I miss Bali....sob sob.....



For 4-6 persons

Ingredients:
- 750 gr of mixed vegetables such as; yard long beans, water spinach, bean sprouts, spinach, winged beans, cut, cleaned and blanched
- 100 gr green aubergine
- 50 gr pigeon pea (kacang gude) (I used red beans), boiled
- 50 gr fried peanuts
- 50 gr short bean sprouts, washed
- 50 gr soy beans, boiled

For the Sambal Koples (Peanut Sauce)
- 75gr roasted peanuts
- 3 red chili
- 2 tsp dried shrimp
- Juice of 1 leprous lime (or kaffir lime if unavailable)
- 100 ml water
- 100 ml coconut oil
- Salt

For the Sambal Kelapa (Coconut Sauce)
- 1 garlic, finely chopped
- 2 cm fresh galangal, finely chopped
- 2 cm fresh lesser galangal, finely chopped
- 3 red chili, finely chopped
- 10 bird's eye chili, finely chopped (less or more depending on your taste buds)
- 1 tsp dried shrimp
- 1 tsp palm sugar
- Salt
- 150gr freshly grated coconut

Directions:
- To make the peanut sauce, use a pestle and mortar (me: food processor) to pound the peanuts, chilies and shrimp paste into a fine paste. Add the lime juice, water, coconut oil and a little bit of salt and mix well.
- To make the coconut sauce, use a pestle and mortar to pound the garlic, galangal, lesser galangal, chillies, shrimp paste, sugar and a little salt to a paste. Mix in the grated coconut.
- Just before serving, mix the vegetables and sauces together.



Source: Adapted from The Bali Cookbook by Lonny Gerungan

Espresso Brownies

This post is also for this month's Click Event with the theme "Stacks"

They say always use the best quality cooking chocolate you can afford to achieve the best result in making brownies. But the thing is dark cooking chocolate here is so darn expensive and I tried couple of times making brownies with a really good brand like Callebaut and Lindt but why oh why I found they were too bitter to my taste buds. Was it just me or what? I used to use Colatta dark cooking chocolate back home and it was totally fine. It seems that dark cooking chocolate here contains more cocoa than back home? Anyone got answer? I guess I'm just so used to product I used back home that when I got the chance to use other type of product my tongue refused it :P But hey that's also okay, it means I didn't have to break the bank just to make a loaf of brownies.
Oh and for your information this brownies I made with supermarket brand milk cooking chocolate, precisely the Albert Heijn (AH) merk. AH you should thank me for a free commercial :P The price was lets say 1/4 of the branded chocolate but it was better for my taste buds.

Verdict: one of the best brownies I made ever. Thanks to Ning Rachmah for sharing the recipe.



Ingredients:
- 230 gr good quality plain chocolate melted(I used AH milk chocolate)
- 115 gr butter
- 300 gr caster sugar (I used 250gr)
- 5 large free range eggs, lightly beaten
- 4 tablespoons, strong espresso coffee, room temperature (I used 8 tbs)
- 70 gr plain flour
- 70 gr cocoa powder, plus extra for dusting

Directions:
- Beat butter and sugar until smooth.
- Whisked eggs lightly just until they are well mixed, add whipped butter and sugar with the eggs. Mix well, add espresso coffee.
- Sieve dry ingredients; flour and cocoa powder. Add into the batter, mix well.
- Add melted cooking chocolate, mix well.
- Grease a square baking pan 20x20x4cm with butter and lightly dust with cocoa powder.
- Pour batter and bake in preheated oven 160Celcius for 35-45 minutes until brownies in done.

Source: Brownies by Linda Collister through Rachmah Setyawati

KBB#11 Ontbijtkoek

Waaa, it's time again for KBB challenge....and what is funny, this time it's onbijtkoek aka breakfast cake :P I never made this cake before because obvious reason that it's available everywhere here but also because I don't really like Dutch style ontbijtkoek, I like the Indonesian's version better. If you ask me why, maybe it's just my personal opinion but Dutch ontbijtkoek doesn't have the "bite", the taste is too flat compared to Indonesian's one. Indonesian's one got more spice flavour .....or maybe it's just because I'm Indonesian ;)

For this challenge, I didn't modify any ingredients because I wanted to see how would the cake turned out. And luckily I have all the ground spices so no need to buy anything extra for this challenge. Only there was no kenari (Javanese almond) available here, so I just used the normal almond. Even no baking powder or emulsifier needed. Though I did change the last bit of the step, I didn't wait for 20 minutes to add the almond instead I just added right from the start. Because from my experiences after 20 minutes the cake surface would be dry already therefore no almond would stick :P The end result was nice bouncy cake though it was a bit dry but it was expected, and we ate it just like the Dutch would eat it here, with slab of butter/margarine. In texture it was lighter and bouncier than the Dutch version. All in all it was a really easy cake to make, economic one also and taste wise it was approved by a real Dutch men ;) as I quote here "it tasted better that shop bought ontbijtkoek" het was lekker toch schatie ^_*

So sorry for the step by step pictures, you might wonder whatever happened with after all the ingredients were in the bowl then suddenly mixing was finish. Where were the middle processing....It was a long story but short version was, after the second picture, the card was full I used another one but that one was broken and I lost some pictures including the middle process of baking :s

Ingredients:
- 125 gr palm sugar
- 5 egg yolks
- 3 egg whites
- 125 gr flour
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves
- 50 gr kenari (I used almond)
Directions:
- Sift together cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and wheat flour. Set aside.
- Beat egg yolks, egg whites and palm sugar until thick and frothing.
- Add the sifted ingredients and stir well
- Pour into a loaf baking pan lined with grease-proof paper that has been brushed with butter and sprinkled with flour.
- Bake at 160C for about 20 minutes until half-done. Sprinkle with almond slices, continue baking for another 20 minutes until it is done. (I didn't do it like this, instead I added almond right from the start of baking time)

Source: Book of Kue Kue Indonesia by Yasa Boga

(Masbar) Ayam Rica Rica (Manadonese Chicken in Red Hot Chili Sauce)

Yay I finally could upload my entry for this month's masbar. Don't know why my spirit to blog has dropped a bit lately. I still cook and bake and take photos too but just lazy to upload it into this blog... :s Hopefully it wouldn't be long until I found my mood back again.

This month's theme is chicken dish from North Sulawesi. Chicken is my favorite meat and dishes from North Sulawesi is usually hot and spicy. I love chicken in any way and my life would be bland without my spices and chilies, so I was more than happy to make this dish.



For 3-4 persons

Ingredients:
- 500 gr chicken pieces
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tbs lemon juice
- 2 small tomatoes, diced
- 1 cm ginger, bruised
- 1 lemongrass, bruised
- 2 kaffir lime leaves
- Salt
- 2 tbs oil
- 150 ml water

For the spice paste:
- 5 red chili (less or more depending on your taste buds)
- 10 bird's eye chili (less or more depending on your taste buds)
- 5 shallots
- 3 garlic

Directions:
- Marinade chicken pieces in lemon juice and salt for appoximately 15 minutes.
- Pound spice paste ingredients until smooth.
- Heat up oil in a pan, add spice paste, ginger, lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves when the oil is hot.
- Fry until the spice is done, add chicken pieces.
- Continue stirring until chicken turns color.
- Add water and salt, continue cooking until water has evaporated and chicken is cooked.
- If you prefer, you could grill the chicken little bit just until it's nicely brown.
- Serve with steamed white rice.

Source: Adapted from the book Masakan Indonesia by Yasa Boga

Kue Lumut Hijau (Indonesian Green Mud Cake)

I've been wanting to try this recipe for so long, but I didn't have the proper mold for the cake until I went to one of my favorite's shop, kringloop or thrift shop. You could click on the link to see what kind of a shop is that. There I saw this one, looked never been used. The size and cavities were not so deep like original mold but I thouhgt it would do the same job. For a mere 1 I got a new mold. And yes I was right, I could use it for this cake. What's next? Takoyaki perhaps?

Ning Rachmah terimakasih ya resepnya ^_^



Ingredients:
- 110 cc milk
- 65 gr sugar (I used 40 gr)
- 2 eggs
- 30 gr flour
- 50 gr steamed potato, pound smoothly
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 125 gr fermented cassava, pound smoothly
- 20 gr melted butter
- 1/2 tsp pandan paste
- Some raisins

Directions:
- Beat eggs with whisk until thick.
- Add flour, salt, sugar and eggs in a bowl, add milk and mix throughly.
- Add whisked eggs, mix well.
- Add potato and fermented cassava, mix well.
- Add melted butter, mix well, add pandan paste.
- Heat up the mold on the stove, brush lightly with butter.
- Pour batter into each holes until 3/4 full, top with raisins. Cover with the lid (I just used pan lid), let it cook until the cake is done. When it's done the cake will rise.
- Take out from the mold, cool it down and serve.



Source: Rachmah Setyawati

Lontong Sayur (Indonesian Rice Cake with Vegetable in Coconut Sauce)

In Indonesia we eat if possible rice 3 times ^_^ White rice, Fried rice or rice in other form like this dish rice cake with vegetable. And this one is a famous dish for breakfast. I know, westerner think that it's too heavy to eat this first thing in the morning but not for us. Back home, I could easily buy this in the market but here I have to make it myself



For 4 - 5 persons

Ingredients:

For the rice cake:
- 2 packages of instant rice cake in a bag (or use your own method of making rice cake)

- Boil rica cake in lots of water for approximately 2 hours, drained.
- Cool it down in a colander.
- It's better to make rice cake the day before because it needs to cool down for some time.

For the vegetable:
- 1 cayote, peeled and sliced into matchsticks
- 1 canned or 300gr fresh young jack fruit, cut into bite size pieces
- 1/2 block of tempe, diced and fried
- 1/2 block tofu, diced and fried

For the spice paste:
- 12 pcs shallots
- 6 pcs garlic
- 3 red chilies (more or less depending on personal taste buds)
- 2 bird's eye chili (more or less depending on personal taste buds)
- 2 cm galangal bruised
- 3 pcs salam leaves
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp dried shrimp paste
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 2 tsp dried shrimp (ebi) fried
- 200 ml thick coconut milk
- 1 ltr water (more or less depends on how thick or thin you want the end result)
- some oil for stir frying

Directions:
- Grind shallots, garlic, chilies, salt, dried shrimp paste, sugar, dried shrimp into a paste.
- Fry spice paste until fragrant, add galangal and salam leaves.
- Add water and coconut milk, wait until it boils.
- Add young jack fruit then after five minutes add chayote.
- After the vegetable is soft add fried tofu and tempe.
- Stir now and then and cook until it's all done.
- It's even better to eat the next day of cooking.
- Cut rice cake into bite size pieces, top up with the vegetable and serve with krupuk and sambal.

Source: My mother

Garlic Butter Scallops

I never knew or heard about this kind of seafood until recently I was hooked into a tv programmed called Hell's Kitchen. They always had this in one of their menu so I was intriqued to find out and see what made scallops so special until it deserved to be a dish in a fine dining restaurant.
But oh boy they are so darn expensive :s but that didn't stop me from buying them, to satisfy my curiosity, oh was that the risk you had to take as a foodie. But I thought it was money well spent as I never quite eaten anything like scallops, it's tender meat, juicy and sweet. Here is a simple recipe that worked really well to preserve the delicate taste of scallops.



For 2-3 persons

Ingredients:
- 6 fresh scallops
- 2 garlic cloves
- 100 gr butter
- Handful parsley
- Splash tabasco
- 6 tbs white wine
- 6 tbs olive oil
- Salt
- 6 tbs fine breadcrumbs

Directions:
- Heat the oven to 220C.
- Make the garlic butter. Place, garlic, parsley and butter in a food processor with the splash of tabasco and blitz until zmooth.
- Place the scallop in each shell, keeping the roe on. Splash each one with 1 tbs white wine to each scallop and 1 tbs olive oil.
- Season with a little salt, then place a tsp garlic butter on top of each scallop.
- Sprinkle breadcrumbs on the top of each scallop.
- Place the scallops in a roasting dish and cook in the oven for 5 minutes. The breadcrumbs should be nicely browned, the scallops firmed up and the olive oil, garlic butter and white wine all bubbling together.
- Serve 3 scallops to a plate or one plate of 6 to share and get tuck in.

Adapted from the book: Fish: the Complete Fish & Seafood Companion by Mitch Tonks

Orange Lemon New York Cheesecake

I couldn't help but drool when I saw this cheesecake from this pretty pregnant lady ^_* I thought, I have to make it, have to, no excuse! That's the thing of being foodie blogger, everyday you see food posts from your foodie blogger friends and you drool in front of your screen uncontrollably. I bet this happens to all of us foodie blogger.

Back to the cheesecake, I read somewhere but I forgot where, that if you baked cheesecake with au-bain marie technique it will lighten the texture. I did so with my cheesecake, it tasted perfect but as I never tasted cheesecake baked without au-bain marie technique before so I didn't know the differences between those two.

I didn't know whether it was my own fault or what but I ended up needing twice ingredients for the cheesecake base. First I did just like the recipe said, but it covered only half of my baking tin. Was it because I was using a 20cm round baking pan and not the square one as the recipe suggested? I also made orange lemon instead of cherry. I didn't have cherry at the time and I love orange lemon a lot so I thought why not? But the rest I followed the recipe and Dita's suggestions. It tasted so good, creamy yet fresh with a tang from the orange lemon, definitely a keeper.



Ingredients:

- 6 Honey Maid Honey Grahams, crushed (about 1 cup) (I used regular biscuit marie but I ended up using 2 cups)
- 3 tbs sugar (I used 6 tbs)

- 3 tbs butter or margarine, melted (I used 6 tbs)

- 5 pkg (8 oz. each) Philadephia Cream Cheese, softened (I used 2 pkg = 370gr)

- 1 cup sugar

- 3 Tbsp. flour

- 1 tbs vanilla (I used 1 tsp)

- 1 cup sour Cream

- 4 eggs
- 1.5 tsp lemon zest
- 2 tbs lemon juice
- 1 can mandarine orange

Directions:
- Heat oven to 325°F (160C).
- Mix crumbs, sugar and butter; press onto bottom of 13x9-inch pan. Bake 10 min.
- Meanwhile beat cream cheese, 1 cup sugar, flour, lemon zest, lemon juice and vanilla with mixer until well blended. Add sour cream; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each just until blended. Pour over crust.
- Bake 40 min. or until center is almost set. (Mine was 1 hour) Cool completely. Top with orange glaze. Refrigerate 4 hours.
- Serve with mandarine orange on the side.

Orange glaze:
- 150 ml orange juice
- 2 sheets gelatine

- Melt gelatine according to the package.
- Mix well with orange juice.
- Pour over baked cheese cake and refrigerate.



Source: Philadelphia through Dita

Udang Goreng Mentega (Garlic Butter Shrimps)

I love love this dish, but then again....it's darn expensive to buy seafood in Holland so I couldn't eat this as much as I have liked :D So when I got the chance, I would really enjoy it until the last bite.



For 2-3 persons

Ingredients:
- 300 gr shrimps, deveined
- 4 tbs butter
- 5 garlic, minced
- 2 spring onion, sliced
- 5 tbs kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)
- 5 tbs worchestershire sauce
- Salt
- Pepper
- 4 tbs lime juice
- 2 tbs vegetable oil

Directions:
- Marinade shrimps in in 2 tbs lime juice for 15 minutes, then wash until clean.
- Heat oil in shallow pan, stir shrimps until it turns color, set aside.
- Heat butter in the same pan, add garlic, stir until garlic turns color and fragrant.
- Add fried shrimp, add kecap manis, worchestershire sauce, salt and pepper.
- Add spring onion, stir throughly and take out from the fire.
- Pour the lime juice over shrimps before serving.

Source: My mother

Garlic Cheese Salmon Puff Pastry

I first ate this at friend's of masbul, Ron and Marie-Anne. They would invite us for dinner from time to time and her dishes were always wonderful. I thought this was a nice dish which look classy yet so easy to make.



Ingredients:
- 1 pack ready made puff pastry
- 1 can salmon in water, drained
- 1 tub garlic soft cheese (I used boursin)
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Parsley (optional)
- 1 egg yolk, lightly whisk

Directions:
- Preheat oven to 200C and thaw the puff pastry.
- Rolled out puff pastry and filled with a tbs garlic cheese and salmon.
- Sprinkle generously with black pepper and parsley.
- Shape the puff pastry as you like and brush the surface with egg yolk.
- Bake in the oven according to the puff pastry direction or until golden brown (mine was 20 minutes)

Source: Marie-Anne