I love learning about other cultures through something I hold dear to my heart: FOOD Learning about the procedure and produce Indonesia use to create culinary excellence has been an eye opener. I am pleased learn that the techniques are simple and easily doable in the comfort of your own home. In fact I have dusted off my mortar and pestle which I now get frequent use out of.
What's Cooking Indonesia?
Here are a few of my favourite Indonesian recipes which I learnt on my trip to Bali.
First of all the basic staple, used in many dishes: Basic Yellow Sauce
Ingredients 10 shallots
15 cloves of garlic
2 thumb sized pieces of lesser galangal, galangal, ginger AND fresh tumeric (both of the galangal are native to indonesia, so if you have difficulty finding this use extra ginger. If you cannot find fresh tumeric use 1tspn of powdered.) 2 hot chilies
4 candle nuts or macadamia 1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon white pepper
2 cloves
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon palm sugar (brown sugar) 1 stalk lemongrass
2 salam leaves (bay leaves)
2 tablespoon shrimp paste (or fish or oystersauce) 3 table spoon of coconut oil
method: Chop all ingredients into small pieces. Mash together all ingredients except lemongrass, salam leaves and palm sugar, in mortar and pestle or a conventional food processor until a fine paste is formed
Saute paste in coconut oil, add remaining ingredients. optional to remove lemongrass and salam leaves, or blend together once more. Paste will last about 2 weeks in the refrigerator.
Barbequed Minced chicken bamboo sticks
Ingredients: makes 15 sticks 500g minced chicken
1/2 cup fresh coconut
2 tablespoon basic yellow sauce
1 tablespoon palm sugar (or brown sugar)
1 lime wedge
1 table spoon of deepfried shallots
salt and pepper to taste.
15 bamboo sticks (or popsicle/ chopsticks)
Method: Add minced chicken, basic yellow sauce, coconut, palm sugar, fried shallots, salt + pepper into a bowl. Squeeze lime over the mixture. Mix thoroughly using gloved hands. take about 1 table spoon of mixture and form a ball. mould the ball onto the end of the bamboo stick. repeat untill all mixture is used. Grill the sticks on over a hotplate/ bbq/ grill. Cook until the meat is cooked all the way through and is browned.
Vegetables in Peanut Sauce
Ingredients: serves 4-6
Vegetables: 2 cup cabbage, shredded
2 cup string beans cut into 5cm pieces
2 cup bean sprouts
1 packet hard tofu
1 small cucumber
Sauce:
1 1/2 cup fried or roasted peanuts
1 thumb sized piece of lesser galangal (or ginger)
2 candle nuts (or macadamia)
2 cloves garlic
1 hot chilli
1/2 medium tomato
5 tablespoon sweet soy sauce
1 lime
1/2 cup water
salt and pepper optional
method:
To make the sauce: Slice chili, remove seeds. blend together peanuts garlic, nuts, galangal, chili and tomato. bled together until forms a fine paste. Mix paste with water on a low heat. Add sweet soy sauce, lime and salt + pepper. Stir until thoroughly mixed.
For the vegetables: blanch cabbage, bean sprouts for less than 1 minute. Boil string beans for no more than 3 minutes. Thinly slice cucumber. Cut tofu into bite size pieces. Fry tofu in coconut oil until golden.
Finally mix all ingredients together and toss through the sauce.
