Chicken Congee-Chinese Rice Porridge

All of a sudden I craved for chicken congee, the name for Chinese rice porridge that has a lot quantity of water. Normally it is eaten for breakfast or late supper. Usually we got it from a Chinese restaurant, but since we are new to this town, we do not know yet where to find this porridge. Thus 4 days ago I gathered my courage to make it myself. I browsed around on the internet for some online recipes and at the end come up with my own version of recipe.

Ingredients:
- 1 whole chicken leg, to make broth
- 2 chicken breast fillet, cut into thin slice
- 2 cups of rice (I used jasmine rice)
- water (I did not measure, but it was a lot)
- 2.5Tbsp of cooking wine (I used the one that has sugar, salt and rice spirit in it)
- 5cm of ginger, cut into thin slice
- 5 cloves of garlic
- salt
- sugar

Side dish:
- soy sauce with chili
- fried onion
- fresh cilantro
- you char kway or Chinese cruller or cahkwe (I did not have it)



In a pot, boil chicken leg with a lot of water until tender. Take it out and let it cool off. Shredded the meat and put it aside. In a container, marinate the chicken breast meat with cooking wine, garlic, ginger and sugar for at least 20minutes. Meanwhile, use the chicken broth to cook rice. Add ginger and salt. Continue to cook until it becomes porridge. Add more water as needed. Pour the chicken breast with all the marinating juice into the porridge and continue to cook for another 8minutes or until the meat tender. Stir it occasionally to avoid burning. Add the shredded chicken leg meat and then adjust the taste with salt and sugar.
To serve, pour the porridge in a bowl. Sprinkle some fresh cut cilantro and fried onion. Eat it hot with chili soy sauce and Chinese cruller/cahkwe.

Pork Ribs Soup

Having no idea of what to cook that day, I decided to cook something simple yet acceptable for the whole family, including my daughter. The choice went to soup..

Ingredients:
- 500gr of pork ribs, cut into small chunk
- 4 potato, peel off the skin and cut into small chunk
- 4 carrot, peel off the skin and cut into small chunk
- 1 clove of onion, chop thinly
- 3 green onion, chop thinly
- 1tsp of ground white pepper
- 1tsp of ground nutmeg
- salt
- sugar
- water
- oil for saute



In a pot, boil pork ribs with water until tender. Add potato and then carrot and continue to cook for 5minutes. While waiting, saute onion with a little bit of oil until fragrant and then pour the sauted onion together with the oil into the pot. Add pepper and nutmeg. Adjust the taste with salt and sugar. At last add green onion.

3 Layers Orange Pudding

I made this pudding for an Indonesian community picnic potluck which was held last week at Hawrelak park, Edmonton. A friend of mine asked me to bring it and she also gave me 3 packages of orange color agar. To be honest, I rarely used orange color one, I prefer using clear, green or red one. This time since I only had orange color, I decided to make something that close to orange...and the choice went to mandarin orange.
So I bought some mandarin orange in an Asian store. Initially the idea was to make 2 layers, the first one contained orange juice with pulp (I remembered I still had some orange juice with lots of pulp at home), and then the next layer just clear orange pudding with peeled mandarin orange as accent. However, when I made the last layer and put it in fridge for a while, Bianca was cranky and I needed to bring her to bed. I thought the agar would not be harden so quick and that Bianca would fall asleep before the agar got to hard for me to attach the mandarin orange...when finally Bianca felt asleep, the agar was hard enough and I could not attach the mandarin orange on top, so I decided to make the third layer. At the end, I think 3 layers look better!



Ingredients:
- 2,5 packages of orange color agar powder
- 3 mandarin orange, peel off the thin skin
- 600ml orange juice with pulp
- 1000ml water (150ml+750ml+100ml)
- 250ml fresh homogenized milk
- 19Tbsp sugar (5+9+5Tbsp)



Dissolve one package of agar powder with 150ml water and 600ml orange juice. Put it on top of a stove under medium high heat. Cook and stir it until boiling. Once it is boiling, add 5Tbsp of sugar and stir it until all sugar dissolved and boiling again. Pour in a molding bowl. Keep it in fridge until harden.
While waiting, make the second layer using another orange agar powder. Dissolve it with 750ml cold water. Cook it as we did for the first layer. Add 9Tbsp sugar and stir. Pour it on top of the hard first layer and put it back to the fridge until harden.
Make the third layer by dissolving half package of agar with 250ml milk and 100ml water. Cook it at the same way and add 5Tbsp sugar and stir. Pour it on top of the second layer. Decorate with peeled mandarin orange. Try to do it while the agar is warm but not hard yet.
Serve it cold and add some vanilla sauce if you like.

Itsy Bitsy Spicy Luncheon Meat

When I did not feel like spending much time in my kitchen, I just prepared the quick and easy meal. I saw one of my friend here cooking it the other day and we had a chance to taste it...hm..it was good. So I stocked up some cans of luncheon meat, in case of "emergency".

Ingredients:
- 2 cans of luncheon meat, cut the meat into small cubes
- 5 cloves of garlic, chop thinly
- 5 cloves of small red onion, chop thinly
- 10 bird's eye chili or chili paddy, chop thinly
- 4cm of galangal
- 4 lime leaves
- 1/2 of lime
- 2Tbsp of fish sauce
- sugar
- oil for saute



In a wok, saute garlic, onion and chili until fragrant. Add galangal, lime leaves, fish sauce and drizzle lime juice. Stir it well. Add a little bit of sugar to taste. Lastly, add the luncheon meat, cook and stir for 6minutes. Serve it with warm steam rice.

Green Jackfruits Gulai

My husband loves this gulai and I just found out that my 15month old daughter is after her father in liking this meal. I did not have to wait for her to ask for the next bites, she said "mau..mau.." which means "I want".
This time around I did not use beef and bones, I added some shrimp instead. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:
- 300gr of shrimp
- 2 can green jackfruit, drain and cut into small pieces
- 6 pieces of tofu, cut into triangle shapes, fry until half cooked
- 1/2 can coconut milk
- 1 lemongrass, cut into 4cm length
- 4 Indonesian bay leaves
- 4 lime leaves
- 6 cloves garlic
- 4 cloves small red onion
- 4 chili paddy or bird's eye chili
- 5 candle nuts
- 4cm of galangal
- 3cm of ginger
- 3cm of turmeric
- 1Tbsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp tamarind (without seed)
- 1/2 block/cylinder of coconut sugar
- 3lt water
- salt
- sugar
- oil for frying



Put garlic, onion, chili, candle nuts, ginger, turmeric and coriander into a blender, and blend it until smooth. Saute it in a wok with a little bit of oil. Add the shrimp and stir it until changed color. Add water and the rest of ingredients except coconut milk and chili. Cook until the jack fruits tender. Lastly add the coconut milk and bring it to boil, stir occasionally. Taste and adjust it with salt and sugar. (I added the chili at last, after I separated some out for Bianca, since she is still too young to eat spicy food).

Sweet Seasoned Grilled Beef

Still in order to use up the roasted beef given by my friend (this was the third batch) and the marinating sauce which left when I made sweet satay, I created this meal.

Ingredients:
- 500gr of roasted beef
- left over of marinating sauce for sweet satay, see the recipe here



In a big container, marinate the meat with marinating sauce and keep it in fridge for at least an hour (I prefer to keep it overnight). And then take it out of the fridge and place meat in an oven bowl or aluminum pan. Pour a little bit of the marinating sauce on top of the meat. Grill it in an oven at high temperature for 15minutes (depends on the thickness of meat). Flip it over after the first 8minutes. Serve it with some veggie salad and warm steam rice.

Char Kway Teow (Kweetiaw Goreng)

In order to use the roasted beef, I prepared this meal for my husband. And to be honest it was the first time for me to make this char kway teow....The result was good, but I think I should find another brand of rice noodle since the one I used was kinda dry after awhile. Anyway, I wanna share the recipe here...

Ingredients:
- 1 package of flat rice noodle
- 250gr of headless shrimp, peel of the shell
- 250gr of roasted beef
- 200gr of fish ball, cut into 4 each
- 6 cloves of garlic, chop thinly
- 5 cloves of small red onion, chop thinly
- 2Tbsp of sesame oil
- 1Tbsp of oyster sauce
- 2Tbsp of sweet soy sauce
- 3Tbsp of fish sauce
- 1tsp of ground white pepper
- a bunch of pak choi or caisim (Indonesian-sawi hijau), cut into 5cm in length
- 3 green onion, chop thinly
- water
- oil



In a pot, boil some water and then cook the noodle in until tender. Drain off the water with a strainer and add some oil and immediately mix it well. Put it aside.
In a wok, saute garlic and onion with sesame oil until fragrant. Add shrimp, roasted beef and fish balls and continue to cook until the shrimp changed color. Add fish sauce, oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce, pak choi and pepper, stir it well. Add the boiled noodle and stir it well until all the seasoning distributed evenly. Adjust the taste with fish sauce and sweet soy sauce. At last add green onion and remove the wok from the stove.
To serve, sprinkle some fried onion on top.

Sweet Satay (Sate Manis)

We got the first order!! Yup, I am intending to start a home based-cathering business, not a big one though...in my thought it will be words of mouth only...if someone likes my cooking, he/she will tell his/her friends, and that's the way my business would go on.
I saw the possibility when first arrived in this town, not many Indonesian ladies here like to spend their times cooking in the kitchen...and they are missing Indonesian food a lot..so why not providing them with what they prefer?
Our first order was spicy satay and sweet satay. My husband made the spicy ones and you may find the recipe here. And I prepared the sweet ones.

Ingredients:
- 1kg pork meat, cut into small cubes, you may replace it with any kind of meat
- 10 cloves of garlic
- 6 cloves of small red onion
- 6 candle nuts
- 4cm of galangal
- 1 block of palm sugar, grate it
- 1 lime, use the juice only
- 2Tbsp of ground coriander
- 1tsp of ground cumin
- 1Tbsp of ground black pepper
- 6Tbsp of fine-granulated brown sugar
- 100ml sweet soy sauce
- 2Tbsp of soy sauce
- 6Tbsp of fish sauce



In a blender, blend garlic, onion, candle nuts, galangal and palm sugar until smooth. Place it in a big container and add the rest of the seasoning. Mix it well. Marinate the meat cubes for at least 1 hour, the longer it takes the better, in a fridge. I normally marinate it overnightly. Take it out of the fridge and then arrange the cubes on a skewer, 4-5 pieces each. Grill it until cooked. Flip it over as needed. Serve it with spicy soy sauce (Indonesian-sambal kecap) at the side. To make the spicy soy sauce, see the recipe here.

Spicy Roasted Beef (Balado Daging)

I got a full container of seasoned roasted beef from a friend of mine the other day. It can be consumed just by warming it up or putting it in an oven first. However, considering that Christian is not really into Western food, I decided to get rid of the seasoning by washing it up with warm water and then dividing it into 3 zip lock plastic and keep it in the fridge for future usage.
For the first packaged of beef I decided to use it for simple spicy Indonesian recipe.

Ingredients:
- app. 350gr of roasted beef
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 6 cloves of small red onion
- 14 chili paddy or bird's eye chili
- 4cm of galangal
- 4 lime leaves
- 2Tbsp of fish sauce
- sugar
- oil for frying



Since I washed up the seasoning off the beef, it was kinda wet, so firstly I spread the meat on a large paper towel to drain the excessed water and then deep fry it with hot oil under medium high heat for 3minutes.
In a chopper, chop onion, garlic and chili until coarse smooth. Then saute it with a little bit of oil until fragrant. Add galangal, lime leaves and fish sauce and continue to saute for another 2minutes. Add a little bit of sugar to taste. At last add the meat and continue to cook and stir for 3minutes. Serve it with warm steam rice and veggies.

Blueberry-Melon-Mango Pudding

One of my new Indonesian friends here in Edmonton, asking me to make pudding, any kind of agar pudding. Since I got freedom to decide what kind of pudding I would make, I just dig out what I had in stock. I had fresh blueberry and also some melon-mango juice....hm..why not combine the two of them?

Ingredients:
- 2 packages of agar powder (red and transparent/clear one)
- 1 small bowl of fresh blueberry
- 600ml of melon-mango juice
- 500ml of fresh homogenized milk
- 100ml+200ml of cold water
- 9Tbsp+5Tbsp of sugar



Dissolve the clear agar powder with milk and 200ml cold water. Put it on top of a stove under medium high heat. Cook and stir it until boiling. Once it is boiling, add 9Tbsp of sugar and stir it until all sugar dissolved and boiling again. Pour in a molding bowl. Add the blueberry and keep it in fridge until harden.
While waiting, make the second layer using the red agar powder. Dissolve it with juice and 100ml cold water. Cook it as we did for the first layer. This time add less sugar (approx. 5Tbsp), since the juice is sweet enough. Pour it on top of the hard first layer and put it back to the fridge until harden.
Serve it cold and add some vanilla sauce if you like.

Green Chili Chicken (Ayam Sambal Ijo)

I made this chicken menu 2 weeks ago, the first week we arrived in Edmonton. Since I only did a little grocery shopping, I did not have much stuff in the fridge and chicken always become good choice for simple recipe. I think this menu originally came from Padang, West Sumatra Indonesia correct me if I am wrong..

Ingredients:
- 10 chicken drumstick
- 2tsp of tamarind, mix with half glass of cold water
- 10 small green chili
- 8 cloves of garlic
- 6 cloves of small red onion
- 1 lemon grass, cut into 4cm in length
- 4 lime leaves
- 4 Indonesian bay leaves
- 4cm of ginger
- 4cm of galangal
- 3cm of turmeric
- 1tsp of ground coriander
- 5 candle nut
- salt
- sugar
- 1/2 can of coconut milk
- water
- oil for saute



Marinate the drumstick with tamarind juice for 15minutes. While waiting, crush all of the ingredients except lemon grass, lime leaves, bay leaves, and coconut milk in a blender until smooth. In a wok, saute the smooth seasoning with a little bit of oil until fragrant. Add lemon grass, lime leaves and bay leaves and continue to saute for another 2minutes. You may add some whole chili if you like. Add the drumstick together with the tamarind juice and continue to cook until change color. Add coconut milk and a little bit of water and cook until boiling, stir it occasionally. Adjust the taste with salt and sugar. Cook until the chicken tender. Serve it with warm steam rice.

Our Farewell Menu

Oh....it is so good to have my internet back, after almost a month without it. We have been staying in our friend's house since we arrived in Edmonton at the beginning of June, and I've been using their computer with the internet connection as well. However, two days ago the computer got crashed after someone else using it. At the first place, I thought it was a bad thing...meaning that I would not be able to use the internet (well I used it for light internet usage only such as checking email and leaving comment for other blogger's page, not for blogging or downloading though). But then what I thought bad, turned out to be good (not that I am happy that my friend's computer got crashed), after I desperately plugged in the ethernet cable to my laptop and wuusshhhhh...it works!! I was so excited!!
Now I can freely download and upload photos and type recipe without worrying about disc space, since it is my own.

Anyhow...We left Montreal, QC on May 23, 2008 and after 7 hour driving we reached Missisauga, ON where we were staying with Christian's parents for 4days. On the last day, we went for brunch in a Chinese restaurant nearby. It was for our farewell with Christian's family, since we would not see each other for quite sometimes after this...and we do not know for how long we will see each other again coz the distance now is further than before. I managed to take some pictures of the food. And here are the pictures, enjoy!!



When we were waiting for our order to arrive, I took picture of hot chili oil and a clean tea cup. Christian and I like to eat the hot chili oil with what we order and we always ask for it whenever we eat in a Chinese or Vietnamese restaurant. The taste is better than sambal oelek.



These are typical tools you would find at any Chinese restaurant.



The restaurant is known for its specialty in serving conge (Chinese rice porridge), so we ordered the chicken conge plus you char kway or Chinese cruller (cahkwe). It was so good...I could have some more...and Bianca loved it too.



Actually we ordered Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, but when it came it was just garlic sauted one. But still it was very good as expected.



The squid was crunchy and tasty. All had gone in few minutes..



This is char kway teow or fried flat rice noodle (kweetiaw goreng-Indonesian). It was a bit greasy but the taste was delicious...I did not mind to add some more weight for this yummy kway teow...



And at the end, this was what we see...
You may see a little bit of a black tip tray on the left, for you to know, in Canada restaurant tipping is suggested as much as 10-15% of the total purchase.

Well..that's it folks...hope it gives you picture of what we had for our farewell with my in law's.

Extended Leave

Dear friends and readers,
Just a quick note to let you know that I am extending my leave for another month, since the moving in process is not as smooth as I thought. The good news is we have found our own apartment...quite nice one compared to the one we had previously. The bad news is it's only available on July 1, and we have not got any land line phone nor internet connection.
I've never imagined I would miss blogging this much..
Well, hang on there...bear with me for another month, okay? and I will come back with some fresh recipes from my new kitchen...