Out of the Kitchen

Dear friends and readers,

I will be out of my kitchen starting on Saturday, May 24 '2008 until the first week of June '2008. I will be moving away to other province. This is gonna be our long long trip..more than 3000km driving, many cities to stop by, many friends to visit..
I am personally so excited and looking forward to seeing some old and new friends.

The new town is called Edmonton in Alberta province. We will pass 3 other provinces on our way to get there. If we do it straight, it takes up almost 3 days, but since we will make some stops so it will be 8-10days on road. We will take it easy, since we are not in a rush and considering that I am 5mo pregnant now and that we bring Bianca along, we will take our times.
The plan is staying with my in laws for 4days in Mississauga, ON. And then staying with my old friends in Winnipeg,MB and meeting new friends for 2days. These are our defined plan. Other than that we take it casually..staying in hotels for sure, but have not known where and when yet.

Out of kitchen means my family will eat whatever we find at fast food restaurants, mostly junk food (I don't mind though...but am sorry for my Bianca and her little brother in my womb) and I will surely miss my time spent in kitchen. Btw, I threw away all of my kitchen utensils, not a single spoon left, since our car is not big enough to carry all of our belonging. In some part it is sad to leave all of my tools, but at the other side I am happy just to think that I will get all new stuff when we get there.

OK friends, I am sorry if I did not have time to say good bye before, so here is a way to say it now. I will miss you all badly, but promise..I will be online once in awhile whenever I can...
Luv u all!

"Me Style" Ragout Rissole

By the time you are reading this post, I will be on my way to our new home (thanks to scheduled posting!). New home, new town, new job, new friends, new resolution for better future...
It is tiring to pack up and arrange every thing, yet it is exciting to know how life can be in a new place. We have been praying for it for the whole year and yes God gives us direction clearly.
Now back to food matter...I made this rissole just to finish up all that I had left in my kitchen. Since I did not have chicken meat left, I just used fish cake.

Ingredients:

To make skin:
- 150g wheat flour/all purpose flour
- 1 egg
- 350ml milk
- salt
- 1 Tbsp melted margarine

Mix all the above ingredients, if needed blend it in a blender, just like what I did to get an even mixture. Prepare a nonstick-pan by heating it on a stove. Then pour just a little bit of the mixture and distribute it evenly on the surface to get a thin pancake-liked layer. Cook it for sometimes, do not overcook. Do it again and again until all is done and you got enough layer of skin. Put it aside.



To make ragout:
- 1/2 block fish cake, cut into small cubes
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 2 carrots, peel off the skin, wash and cut into small cubes
- 1/2 can of sweet peas
- 2 green onion, chop thinly
- 250ml fresh milk
- 4Tbsp of wheat flour
- 1tsp of ground white pepper
- pinch of ground nutmeg
- salt
- sugar
- oil for saute

In a pan, saute chopped garlic until fragrant. Add carrot and fish cake cubes, stir it while cooking for 3minutes. Add fresh milk, pepper, nutmeg, salt and sugar and continue to cook until boiling. Add sweet peas and then wheat flour and stir it instantly until thicken.

To make batter:
- 1egg, beat it
- 70gr of breadcrumbs

Take one skin and place it on a cutting board. Take 1Tbsp of ragout and put it in the middle of the skin surface. Roll in the skin to form an envelope shape. Deep in the egg and then roll over breadcrumbs until all covered. Do it again and again until all is done. Deep fry it in hot oil under medium low heat until golden brown. Serve it warm with fresh chili paddy or chili sauce.

Cendol (Tapioka Bubbles Drink)

I have been talking about making it since two month ago, but keep postponing. I'd already had all the ingredients needed, still no desire to make it. Eventually last Monday I made it for my friend's birthday party. People loved it as the weather was warm outside.

Ingredients:
To make bubbles:
- 1 package of hunkwe powder
- 70gr of rice flour
- 35gr of tapioka flour
- 4drops of pandan essence
- 200ml of water
- 400ml of boiling water
- 1Tbsp of sugar
- pinch of salt
- ice cubes and cold water in molding pot

To make coconut milk mix:
- 1can of coconut milk
- 100ml of water
- pinch of salt

To make sweetener:
- 2blocks of palm sugar
- 3Tbsp of brown sugar
- 180ml of water
- 4 pandan leaves

Optional adding:
- 1can of jackfruit in syrup, discard the syrup, cut into small pieces
- 1can of grass jelly, cut into small pieces



In a bowl, dissolve hunkwe powder, tapioka and rice flour, sugar and salt with water. Add pandan essence and mix it well until all color distributed evenly. Prepare the boiling water on stove. While boiling, add the flour mixture little by little and stir it instantly and continuously until thickening and boiling again. Prepare the molding pot with ice cubes and cold water inside. Then pour the hot thick mixture and press it using a wooden laddle, so that the mixture will come out of the holes and form bubbles. The bubble which drops into cold water and ice cubes will harden and would not stick to each other. Do it until all done. Keep it aside.

In a small pot, mix well coconut milk, water and salt. Bring it to boil. Put it aside.

In a small pot, bring to boil water. Add pandan leaves. Then add palm sugar and stir it well until all dissolved. At last add brown sugar, stir it until all dissolve and wait until boiling again.

To serve, in a glass, put some bubbles, jackfruits and grass jelly. Then add coconut milk and the palm sugar sweetener. Stir it well. Add some ice cubes as it is good to serve it cold.

Pandan Marble Cake

After the first trial and everything turned out good, I confess that am addicted to baking. And since I still have some self raising flour and eggs and all the stuff I need for making marble cake, two days ago I made this pandan marble cake for my friend's birthday. The taste was good but the texture was not as smooth as the first trial. I suspect, the cold egg made the difference. Next time I do making cake again, I better let the egg stands for awhile and reaches room temperature before mixing it with other ingredients.

Ingredients:
- 150gr margarine (leave it for awhile at room temperature)
- 75gr sugar
- 3 egg
- 50ml fresh milk
- 130gr self raising flour
- 1tsp of baking powder
- 3 drops of pandan essence
- 1/2 tsp of extract vanilla



In a mixing bowl, mix margarine and sugar under medium speed until smooth. Add the egg one by one while mixing and then add milk. Continue to mix for awhile. Add the vanilla and then flour and baking powder, continue to mix until you get a fluffy mixture. Divide the mixture into 3, add pandan essence to the one third of the mixture, stir it well with a spatula until color distributed evenly. Put it aside.
Prepare the loaf tin by greasing it with margarine. Pour the first one third of the yellowish mixture into the tin. Then the green pandan mixture and lastly the other one third of the yellowish mixture. Make a line movement from one side of the tin to the other end using a fork. Bake for 45minutes to 1h at 300F until done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool off, then cut into the desired thickness. Serve it with a cup of tea or coffee.

Martabak Telor

This week has been a busy week for us, as we are ready to pack everything up and leave by Friday. We are looking forward for a new challenge and big change in our life. Busy packing up means cleaning up and getting rid of what is inside the fridge and freezer. I had to find idea of what to cook with limited choice of ingredients every day for the whole week. Since I still had some ground beef and spring roll skin, I decided to make this yummy martabak telor. I used to have it from street vendor in Jakarta Indonesia. Bianca loves it...she is just like me, she eats it with steam rice.



Ingredients:
- 300gr of ground beef
- 6 green onion, chop thinly
- 6 cloves of garlic, chop thinly
- 4 cloves of small red onion, chop thinly
- 3 egg
- 1tsp of fish sauce
- 1Tbsp of oyster sauce
- 1/2tsp of curry powder
- 1tsp of ground white pepper
- spring roll skins
- salt
- sugar
- oil for frying



In a pan, saute garlic and onion until fragrant. Add the ground beef and stir it while cooking, until change color. Add fish sauce, oyster sauce, curry powder and pepper, stir it well. Adjust the taste with salt and sugar. Continue to cook until the meat tender. Keep it aside and cool it off.
In a mixing bowl, beat the egg with fork. Add the green onion and then the meat. Stir it well until all distributed evenly.
Take one of the spring roll skins and place it on a cutting board or flat plate. Put one spoonful of the filling mixture on it. Roll it up and form an envelope shape. Glue the margin with water. While doing it, prepare the oil by heating it up in a frying pan. Deep fry the envelope in the hot oil under medium high heat until golden brown. Flip it over and wait until the other side turns to golden brown too. Take it out of the oil and drain the oil by placing it on paper towel.
Do it again and again until all done. Serve it warm with fresh chili paddy.

Marble Cake

To be honest with you..this is my very first time doing baking from scratch myself. I'd never baked before, except when I was teaching food processing lab back in 2002-2003, but never in my own kitchen. On Friday I urged myself to start doing it, I wanted to make something delicious yet easy to make with a very little risk of failure. Melanie encouraged me to start doing it with this marble cake, she convinced me that I would never fail to follow this simple recipe. Beside I was also drooling when I saw the picture of it on her page.
Yes, finally I did it and she is right..I can do it! Thank you Mel...My husband loves the cake that he asked me to bake another loaf the next day.

Here is the recipe from her:

Ingredients:
- 150gr margarine (leave it for awhile at room temperature)
- 75gr sugar
- 3 egg
- 50ml fresh milk
- 130gr self raising flour
- 1tsp of baking powder
- 2 tsp of cocoa powder
- 1/2 tsp of extract vanilla


In a mixing bowl, mix margarine and sugar under medium speed until smooth. Add the egg one by one while mixing and then add milk. Continue to mix for awhile. Add the vanilla and then flour and baking powder, continue to mix until you get a fluffy mixture. Divide the mixture into 3, add cocoa powder to the one third of the mixture, stir it well with a spatula. Put it aside.
Prepare the loaf tin by greasing it with margarine. Pour the first one third of the yellowish mixture into the tin. Then the cocoa mixture and lastly the other one third of the yellowish mixture. Make a line movement from one side of the tin to the other end using a fork. Bake for 45minutes to 1h at 300F until done. Take it out of the oven and let it cool off, then cut into the desired thickness. Serve it with a cup of tea or coffee.

Sweet and Sour Fish Fillet (Ikan Asam Manis)

This is a typical menu in many Chinese restaurant in Indonesia. I used to have it whenever I dined in there back then. I still had one whole Tilapia in freezer. Last Tuesday early in the morning, I took it out of the freezer, thawed it and started the smelly job-filleting the fish in the afternoon. In the middle of cooking I found out that the tomato paste which I'd kept in fridge was rotten. Thus I chucked it into the garbage and replace it with lime juice and plum sauce. It was a bright idea, the food turned out to be delicious...even my little Bianca surprised me by asking to have some more rice with it.


Ingredients:
To make the fish fillet:
- 1 whole Tilapia, use the fillet, cut into small chunks
- salt
- ground black pepper
- lime juice
- tapioka flour
- oil for frying

In a bowl, put the fish fillet and drizzle some lime juice. Add salt and pepper and mix it well. Cover all the surface of the fish with tapioka flour and then deep fry it in hot oil under medium high heat until golden brown. Place it in a serving bowl.

To make the sauce:
- 2 carrot, peel off the skin and cut into matches shapes
- 1 green bell pepper, discard the seed and cut into thin long shapes
- 6 cloves of garlic, chop thinly
- 4 cloves of small red onion, chop thinly (supposed to be onion, but I did not have it)
- 4cm of ginger, crack it pestle
- 1 tomato, cut into 12 pieces
- 2Tbsp of plum sauce
- 1Tbsp of lime juice
- 1Tbsp of oyster sauce
- 1Tbsp of fish sauce
- salt
- sugar
- ground white pepper
- water
- 1Tbsp of tapioka flour, mix it with a little bit of water
- oil for saute

In a pan, saute garlic, onion and ginger until fragrant. Add tomato and continue to saute for another 2minutes. Add cut carrots and bell pepper, stir it well and continue to cook for 5minutes. Add plum sauce, lime juice, oyster, fish sauce and water and mix it well. Continue to cook until boiling. Add salt, sugar and pepper to taste. At last pour the tapioka mixture and stir it immediately until thicken.
To serve, pour the sauce on top of the fried fish fillet. Eat it with warm steam rice.

Potato Doughnuts (Donat Kentang)

Doughnuts have become my sweet comforting snack since I was a little kid. My mom used to make it for me. Normally I do not like sweet stuff, but doughnut is an exception. Surprisingly enough, I love the very sweet Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnuts which were introduced to me when I was living in Sydney, Australia. One of these days I came across Widya's kitchen where she made potato doughnuts. I was so impressed with the smooth shapes of the doughnuts. Then I asked her if I can have the recipe. It's so nice of her that she sent me the recipe on email. Thank you Widya...
Two days ago, I decided to make it (after a long waiting coz the cough which I had before..I did not want to make it worse with frying stuff). I started early morning, but still I did not have enough time for I had to rush to go to the dentist on time. So I left the un-kneaded dough on the table. I got back from the dentist only to find very crumbled dough (coz I'd already add the egg yolks but did not have time to knead it). I had to spend extra energy for kneading in order to produce smooth dough. Thankfully, it paid off..the doughnuts were so good, the whole family loved it.
Btw, I used only half of the original recipe, but then I made mistake when adding the egg yolk and milk, it was a bit too much. So the recipe which I am gonna share is what I really really used, including the mistake I did. Still it's good though...


Ingredients:
A:
- 275gr all purpose flour
- 38gr full cream milk powder (I used baby formula)
- 5gr yeast
- 50gr sugar

B:
- 100gr potato, boil, peel off the skin and mash it until smooth, cool off the temperature

C:
- 3 egg yolks
- 80ml fresh milk

D:
- 2Tbsp of margarine
- pinch of salt

Topping/Glaze:
- dark cooking chocolate
- chocolate sprinkle
- icing sugar


Mix well the ingredients A in a mixing bowl. Add the cool mashed potato. Add the ingredient C (this was the point when I had to run to the dentist and left the dough) and then knead it by hand until it is not sticky. Add ingredients D and knead it again until you get a flexible dough. Cover the bowl with a wet cloth and let it stand for 20minutes until you get good overrun. After 20min press the dough to release the trapped air. Take small amount of the dough and make ball with palm hands (coz I do not have doughnuts mold) and place it on a cutting board which was prepared by layer it with a little bit of flour. Do it again and again until all done. Let it stand for another 20minutes. Make a hole in the center with your pointing finger. Deep fry it one by one in a hot oil under medium low heat. While frying, use a chopstick and make circle stirring movement on the center hole. Flip it over and fry until golden brown.
Place it on a plate and cool it off. When it is cool enough, dip it into melted dark cooking chocolate and then add some chocolate sprinkles or just simply dip into icing sugar.

Note: the recipe is good to make 15-20medium sized doughnuts.

Strawberry Foam Pudding with Vanilla Sauce

Summer is just around the corner..meaning cheaper fresh fruits are available on markets. Last week I found a very good deal for strawberry. The price was one third of its winter price...
So I bought 3 big containers of them, and since Bianca loves the pudding I made before, this time I made pudding again with some variation on layers and added vanilla sauce too. The whole family love it..


Ingredients:
To make the pudding:
- 1 package of green color agar powder
- 1 package of clear color agar powder
- 5 egg white
- 1lt of fresh milk
- 1/2lt cold water
- 18Tbsp of sugar
- 12 strawberry, cut into 4 each

In a pot, pour 500ml milk and 250ml water, mix it. Then add the clear color agar powder and stir it well until the agar distribute evenly. Place the pot on a stove and cook until boiling, do not forget to stir it while cooking. Once it is boiling, add 9Tbsp sugar and stir it well until all sugar dissolved.
Meanwhile beat the egg white with a mixer at high speed until foamy and then place it in a square casserole bowl or pudding mold. Pour the boiling agar into it and let the foam float on the surface (if you like it all foamy and stiff, you may stir it gently while pouring the agar). Keep it in a freezer for 10minutes just enough time to let it half-harden. Then add cut strawberries on top of the foam. Put it back to the freezer for another 10minutes.
While waiting, prepare the top layer by well mixing the rest of milk and water with the green color agar powder. Bring it to boil and then add the remaining sugar, stir it well until all sugar dissolved. Remove it from the stove and wait for 2minutes (do not give time for agar to harden). Take out the harden first layer agar and foam from the freezer and carefully pour the green agar on top of it. Put it back to the freezer or fridge until it is harden (remember that using freezer is a way to accelerate the hardening process, but at the end it is better to keep it in a fridge).


To make vanilla sauce/fla:
- 1/3 can of sweetened condensed milk
- 2 egg yolks, beat with 3Tbsp cold water
- 250 ml cold water
- 1Tbsp margarine
- 2Tbsp tapioka flour, mix it with 50ml cold water
- 1tsp vanilla powder

Bring to boil all of the ingredients except tapioka mixture and egg yolks. After boiling, add the tapioka mixture and stir it well. Wait until boiling again. Remove from the stove and quickly add the egg yolks and stir it instantly. Keep it in a fridge until cold enough.

To serve, cut the pudding and place it on a saucer/small plate. Then pour the vanilla sauce on top. Serve it cold.

Savory Rice Plus Plus (Nasi Uduk Komplit)

After talking to my mom in law on the phone Saturday morning, I felt like making nasi uduk for my little family. It happened since she mentioned that she was given some nasi uduk by friend and had it for breakfast that day. So in the afternoon, I just made myself comfortable sitting in my kitchen preparing this nasi uduk. And since I still had some tempeh/tahu bacem and empal goreng, they would be good to go with the nasi uduk, I supposed.

Ingredients:
- 2.5c of jasmine rice, wash and drain
- 1/2 can of coconut milk
- water (as much as needed)
- 3 pandan leaves
- 5 Indonesian bay leaves
- 1 lemon grass, cut into 4cm in length and crack it with pestle
- salt

Side dishes:
- tempeh/tahu bacem (see the recipe here)
- empal daging (see the recipe here)
- kering kentang-teri (see the recipe here, I did not have it on the picture since my husband ate it all up before I took the picture)
- omelet/dadar telur: beat 4 eggs, then fry with a little bit of oil, make a very thin layer until done. When it is warm, cut into thin slices.
- spicy peanut sauce, I used the recipe here
- crushed chili
- fried onion

Bring to boil all of the ingredients to make the savory rice except the rice in a pot. Stir it well while boiling. After boiling, add the rice. Make sure that the water is enough to cover all the rice. Stir it again. Put the lid on. Cook for 20-25minutes under medium low heat, stir it occasionally to avoid burning on the bottom.
To serve, place the rice in the middle of a plate, add the side dishes and pour some peanut sauce on top.

Sweet Marinated Tempeh/Tofu (Tempeh/Tahu Bacem)

This was my last batch of tempeh which was kept in freezer. I should finish it up before we are moving away in 2 weeks from now. Bacem is the word for marinating with sweet and tasty seasoning. This food is high in fibre and protein and it might go with rice or good as a finger food.


Ingredients:
- 1 package of tempeh, cut into 12 pieces of triangle shapes
- 5 blocks of tofu, cut into 10 pieces of triangle shapes
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 6 cloves of small red onion
- 1 Tbsp of ground coriander
- 1 tsp of ground cumin
- 250g palm sugar, grate
- 1 tsp of tamarind, mix it with water and use the juice
- 4 Tbsp of sweet soy sauce
- 6 candle nuts
- 4 Indonesian bay leaves
- 3 Tbsp of brown sugar
- water
- salt
- oil for frying


In a blender, crush onion, garlic, and candle nuts until smooth. Bring a large pan of water into boil (make sure that the water volume is good enough to cover all tempeh and tofu). Add the spice puree and the rest of ingredients, except oil (including tempe and tofu). Reduce heat and simmer, stir occasionally, until half of water is removed. Take out the tempeh and tofu, drain off the water and then deep fry it with hot oil under medium heat for 2-3minutes.

Indonesian Sweet Pancake (Martabak Manis)

Christian loves this Indonesian pancake, and as a good wife I have been trying to make it myself. I do not have a special tool such as the thick pan which is usually used to make it in Indonesia, thus I use my electrical skillet. It has been a long journey to find the recipe which is suitable to our taste buds, trial and error...The first trial I did it with two of my sweet ladies, Lucy and Lany (we are triple L btw...)..I found the recipe available on the internet. It was not good since the dough was too much for the skillet and it did not give a chance for the heat to cook the thick volume of dough. The spongy texture could not be formed. We chucked most of it to the garbage. The next, I used the same recipe, but half. It was good, I got the spongy texture and very good taste. However, the next day the texture turned too hard to chew. The last recipe I used was from Mel's blog. Thank you Mel!
I modified a little bit of the recipe by replacing half of the coconut milk required with fresh milk. The result was a combination of very good texture and taste. I am content with it...so here is the recipe..

Ingredients:
- 250gr self raising flour
- 4gr yeast
- 150gr sugar
- 100ml coconut milk
- 100ml milk

- 175ml warm water
- 2 egg
- 1/2 tsp of baking soda

For filling:
- margarine
- sweetened condensed milk

- sugar
- shredded cheese
- chocolate sprinkles
- crushed peanuts

In a big cup mix the coconut milk, milk and warm water and microwave it for 30second (the temperature app. 50C). Add the yeast in and stir it well. Let it stands for 20minutes.
Meanwhile, mix the flour and sugar in a mixing bowl. Then add eggs in the middle and mix it well under low speed. While mixing, add the yeast mixture little by little. Keep mixing it and increase the speed to medium level until all ingredients distributed evenly. Add baking soda and mix it again until the dough raising. Let it stands for 30minutes in a warm place, or cover the bowl with wet cloth, until the dough becomes twice as much as the initial quantity.
Prepare the skillet by heating it for 3minutes at 300F and then spread some margarine on its surface. Pour the dough into the skillet and let it raises and forms the texture. When it half-cooked, sprinkle some sugar on top and put the lid on, lower the heat to 225F and continue to bake until done.
Take it out of the skillet and place it on a cutting board. Cut in the middle into two pieces. On one of the two, spread some margarine and then top up with crushed peanuts, chocolate sprinkle and shredded cheese. At last pour some sweetened condensed milk. Place another pieces on top of the one with the filling. Cut into pieces as you like.

Sweet and Spiced Fried Beef (Empal Daging)

Two days ago I made this fried beef for our dinner. It reminds me of what I had at home in Indonesia before. Some people like it to be very very dry, meaning that you have to fry it a bit longer, but the consequence is it will look burnt and will get too hard the next day. As for me, I like it medium dry by frying it for a short period of time just to round up the aroma.

Ingredients:
- 500gr beef meat, cut into small chunks
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 8 cloves of small red onion
- 6 candle nuts
- 4cm of galangal
- 5 Indonesian bay leaves
- 1Tbsp of ground coriander
- 2 lemon grass, cut into 2cm in length
- 2 blocks of palm sugar, grate it
- 1 Tbsp of tamarind, dissolve it into 200ml water, use the juice
- salt
- water
- oil for frying


In a blender, blend garlic, onion, candle nuts, galangal, palm sugar, lemon grass with some tamarind juice until smooth. Place it in a pot. Add salt, coriander and bay leaves and stir it. Add some water just enough to cover all the meat. Add the meat and cook it until tender or at least 40minutes. Take out the meat, drain off the water and then fry it with oil under medium-high heat until change color. Serve it with warm steam rice and veggies.

Strawberry Pudding

It has been so difficult for me to feed Bianca recently. It may because she is teething again or is just being fussy and picky eater now. For 4 days she has not taken any rice which she loved before, she just took milk, biscuits, yogurt, cheese and fruits and other finger foods. I am a bit worried with this condition. Yesterday I made this simple pudding and I am happy to know she loves it. Still, it is not enough for her I think...

Ingredients:
- 1 package of green color agar powder
- 600ml milk
- 100ml cold water
- 8Tbsp of sugar (add some more as needed)
- 10 fresh strawberry, cut into 4 each


In a pot, pour milk and water, mix it. Then add the agar powder and stir it well until the color distribute evenly. Place the pot on a stove and cook until boiling, do not forget to stir it while cooking. Once it is boiling, add the sugar and stir it well until all sugar dissolved.
Meanwhile place some cuts of strawberry in molding cups and then pour the hot agar into it. Keep the cups in a fridge until it is harden. Serve it cold.

Spicy Grilled Fish (Ikan Bakar Sambal)

The other day, I came across this blog of Lela from Malaysia and I drolled over her menu there. After asking her permission and getting all the main ingredients that I need, I made this spicy fish. This is really really good...my husband loves it! Thank you Lela for sharing the recipe...I made a little modification, since I do not have the turmeric leaves, I replaced it with lime leaves. And since there is no quantity mentioned on the original post, I just made it up myself. Anyhow..here is the recipe I used.....

Ingredients:
- 1 fresh Tilapia, wash, remove the scales and volume inside the stomach cavity
- 2 lemon grass, cut into 2cm in length
- 3 lime leaves
- 6cm of ginger
- 4cm of galangal
- 10 cloves of garlic
- 10 cloves of small red onion
- 20 chili paddy or bird's eye chili
- 1 Tbsp of dried small shrimp
- 1 tsp of ground turmeric
- 2 tsp of ground white pepper
- 1 Tbsp of tamarind, mix with a little bit of water and discard the seed and hard part
- salt
- sugar
-oil for saute


In a blender, blend all the ingredients except the fish and lime leaves until smooth. Then fill up fish's stomach cavity with 2 Tbsp of this seasoning. Place the fish in an aluminum pan and spread some of the seasoning all over the fish (do not use up all the blended seasoning, use app. 1/4 of it). Bake in an oven at 375F for 20minutes each side. After the first 20min flip it over and then spread another quarter of the seasoning on the fish. Continue to bake until the desired dryness (as for me, I like it dry and well done).
While baking it, in a pan saute the rest of the seasoning with a little bit of oil for 2minutes. Add lime leaves and continue to cook until boiling. Put it aside.
When the fish done, take it out from the oven and place it on a serving plate. Pour the sauted seasoning on top. Serve it with warm steam rice, fresh cut cucumber, tomato or other fresh vegetable as you wish.

Bakmoy

This is a request from my niece, Inge who lives in Holland and my dear Deetha who lives in Semarang, Indonesia. My mom used to make it back then and in Inge's memory mom's bakmoy was soooo delicious, that is why she asked me to make it. Unfortunately, I could not get mom's recipe since I have been not feeling well and have not contacted my sister whom may have the recipe somehow. So I just browsed around the internet the other day and found one at cie Ine's page. After asking her permission, I adapted the recipe into my kitchen, I made a little modification by adding chinese five spices.

Ingredients:
- 2 blocks of medium firm tofu, cut into small squares, fry until half-cooked
- 200gr pork/chicken meat (I used 350gr), boil until tender then cut into small squares and put aside the stock
- 5 boiled egg, peel off the shells
- 2Tbsp dried small shrimp, soak in water and then crush until smooth (I used 3 Tbsp)
- 3 cloves of garlic (I used 8), crack it with pestle
- 2Tbsp soy sauce
- 10Tbsp sweet soy sauce (or as much as needed)
- salt
- ground white pepper
- 1tsp of chinese five spices

To make stock/broth:
- 1.5l the broth (add more as needed)
- 4cm of ginger, crack it pestle, saute together with garlic
- salt
- 6 cloves of garlic, chop thinly, saute

Side dishes:
- Asian celery (I used 3 green onion), chop thinly
- Garlic solution, 2 cloves of garlic, crush until smooth and mix with 10Tbsp of boiled water (I did not use it, instead I added garlic for sambal kecap)
- fried onion
- sambal kecap (I used 6 chopped chili paddy+3 cloves of garlic-chopped+lime juice+sweet soy sauce)


Saute cracked garlic with a little bit of oil until fragrant. Add dried shrimp and continue to saute. Add the cut meat, soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, five spices, cut tofu, salt, pepper and some water (just enough to make all soaked in). Add boiled egg and continue to cook until it changes color to brown and the water decreases into half of the initial quantity. Put it aside.
Boil the meat stock/broth, add some salt and add the sauted garlic and ginger.
To serve, in a bowl, place some steam rice first and then add the meat mixture with the brown sauce, half of the brown egg, 1-2 Tbsp of garlic solution (if preferred). Sprinkle some chopped celery/green onion and fried onion. Pour some boiled stock over. Add sambal kecap as needed.

Some people may like to serve the stock in a separate bowl, as you see on the picture below.

Our Typical Saturday Breakfast

Normally on Saturday, if daddy does not do OT, we have some lazy time during morning, meaning that I can spend some more time lying on my bed, no need to rush to prepare breakfast or lunch box. I also can prepare more proper-filling breakfast for us. The above picture is our typical Saturday breakfast. Even though it seems like fast food, but still you will need time to prepare it..you need to bake the fries, sausages, fry the eggs etc. I found out that baking the fries needs more time than frying it. However I love it to be baked better than fried, because it won't get too oily. At the end, it worth it! Full tummy until 2pm...hehehe...
The recipe can be seen here.

Double Chocolate Muffin

Last Friday evening, we had some church friends coming to our tiny apartment for Bible studying. I still had some throat infection and coughing, so my husband asked not to spend lot of time in the kitchen. First he said it is better to serve some green mung beans dessert, but when I tried to find the mung beans in our stock container, I could not find it there. So yeah..at the end I just prepared these muffins. No special recipe since it came in a ready-mixed package.

Ingredients:
- 1/2 package of Double Choc Muffin mix
- 2 eggs
- 2 Tbsp of margarine, melt it
- 165ml of milk (supposed to be just plain water, but I replaced it with milk)


Place the muffin mix in a bowl, add the margarine and egg and mix it well with a spatula. Add the milk little by little while stirring the dough with a spatula, until you get even-mixed muffin dough. Pour in a muffin tin, 2/3 way full. Prepare an oven by heating it at 350F for 10minutes. Bake the dough for 30minutes.

Note: the recipe is good to make 10-12 muffins.

Cantonese Chow Mein/Crispy Noodle with Mixed Topping/Ifumie

There is one particular Chinese restaurant in downtown Montreal, which we often do an eat-in lunch or dinner. And every time we went there I always ordered seafood chow mein, since it is very good. It has been a while we did not go there, merely because we rarely went to downtown recently. Two days ago I decided to make it myself...hm..not too bad..even though the noodle was not as crunchy as the one I usually have at that Chinese restaurant...(maybe because my stove is not providing enough heat to make the noodle crunchy, or it was just different type of noodle). Anyway, the taste was still good...saved by the topping!!

Ingredients:
- 1 package of egg noodle for chow mein (I used carrot noodle)
- 200gr chicken breast fillet, cut into strips
- 200gr of mixed seafood
- 100gr of fish cake, cut into small squares
- 8 beef balls, cut into 3 each
- 8 chicken balls, cut into 3 each
- 1 egg, beat it
- 200ml of chicken stock
- 1 tomato, cut into 12
- bunch of baby bokchoy, cut into 2 each
- bunch of napa cabbage, cut into small pieces
- 1/2 green bell pepper, cut into small pieces
- 1/2 red bell pepper, cut into small pieces
- 3 carrot, peel off the skin and cut into small pieces
- 1 can of straw mushroom
- 2 green onion, chop thinly
- 1 onion (Indonesian-bawang bombay), chop thinly
- 8 cloves of garlic, chop thinly
- 1 Tbsp of corn flour, mix it with a little bit of water
- 2 Tbsp of fish sauce
- 2 Tbsp of oyster sauce
- ground white pepper
- sugar
- 1 Tbsp of sesame oil
- water
- oil for frying


In a pot, boil the noodle until just cooked not too soft. Drain it and then deep dry it with hot oil under high heat until crispy. Put it aside.
In a wok, saute garlic and onion with sesame oil until fragrant. Add chicken strips, mixed seafood and cook until change color. Add beef, chicken balls and fish cake and continue to cook for 5minutes. Add fish sauce, oyster sauce and chicken stock and then cook until boiling. Add the veggies starting with the hardest to the easiest to cook one. Stir it well. Adjust the taste with sugar and pepper. Add the green onion. Drop the egg and stir it instantly. At last add the corn flour mixture to thicken the broth and stir.
To serve, in a big plate place the crispy noodle, then pour the topping.

Chili Sweet Basil Chicken

This food reminds me of my very best friend, Pat whom I met back then in Australia. I am so excited that in less than 7months she will be marrying the guy she loves. I know that it takes lots of energy to prepare the wedding and finish PhD at the same time. But I am sure you can make it my dear...I miss you terribly much and wish I would be able to witness your happy day!
(hey I miss your Tom Yum soup too...!)

Ingredients:
- 300gr of skinless boneless chicken breast, cut into strips
- 150gr of washed cut carrot
- 1 green bell pepper, cut into small pieces
- 6 cloves of garlic
- bunch of basil leaves
- 3Tbsp of chili sweet basil paste (available in a jar at Asian store)
- oil for saute


In a wok, saute garlic with a little bit of oil. Add the chicken strips, stir and cook until change color. Add chili sweet basil paste and mix it well. Add carrot and then bell pepper and continue to cook for 4minutes. At last add the basil leaves, stir it and cook for another 2minutes.
Serve it with warm steam rice.