Kitchen and Around

Veggie Fritters (Gorengan)

2012-01-14T17:58:00.000-08:00

Indonesians love fried stuffs. And I only learnt when I was 27 that it was not such a good thing. So I tried to reduce my consumption of fried foods ever since but not in an extreme way. Every once in a while I'll have fried foods or gorengan as we call it.

There is always something good in something bad, they say. And it's damn right.

So I decided to do my own gorengan. I made some adjustments that hopefully reduced the "badness" by using vegetables, less frying oil and no MSG. It tasted pretty good. I mean, gorengan is never that savoury snack dish. But it could make a good entree or simply a snack while watching rugby.

In this recipe, I was using white cabbage, green beans and carrots. All were leftovers from the salad the night before. You can make sweet dishes, too, using this batter and make pisang goreng (fried bananas), fried sweet cassava, etc. Just free yourself and experiment.

Ingredients:

white cabbage, chop finely
green beans, cut into small pieces
carrot, grate
1 or 2 eggs depending how much veggies you are going to fry, whisk lightly
all-purpose flour, just enough to thicken the batter to the right consistency
salt and pepper
some drops of water
dried thyme, rosemary, etc. (optional)
frying oil, just enough to cover half the height of battered fritters

Instructions:

Combined the whisked eggs, flour, salt, water and herbs into a bowl. Mix it into a pancake consistency.
Put the chopped vegetables into that bowl and mix well.
Heat the oil in a flat frying pan until it's pretty hot but not close to burning.
Spoon the batter and fry until it gets golden brown. You can fry some drops of spoonful batter in a batch.
Dry on kitchen paper and serve.

Guacamole

2011-10-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

I remember the first time I had guacamole. I couldn't stop eating it! I liked the sweetness, the citrousy tang, and the freshness of this green dip. It's such a perfect Sunday snack when you don't feel like eating big but some munchies would be great as companion to watch your favourite Sunday TV show. Share it with friends and family, chances are they're gonna totally love it!

Serves: 2 persons

Ingredients:

One avocado
One lime
2 or 3 Shallots
One sprig of Cilantro
Half tomato
Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Halve the avocado, take out the seed, and scoop out the flesh.
Cut the lime into 4 avoiding the centre seed part (see picture), and get the juices from the lime from these wedges.
Peel the shallots and cut them into fine little dices.
Take the leaves of the cilantro and finely slice them.
Remove the seeds of the tomato and dice them small.
Put all these in a bowl and crush them roughly until it looks like a proper guacamole dip.
Add salt and pepper and mix well.
Enjoy the guacamole with tortilla or chips.

Stuffed Cabbage

2011-04-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

I am honestly never a big fan of cabbage. White cabbage, red cabbage, whatever cabbage, it's simply not my favourite veggie. My mother used to tell me that cabbage gives nothing but water (not sure what's the truth in that) but my disliking cabbage comes from its bland taste. Unlike carrots that have sweetness or tomatoes that are rather sour, cabbage just felt so... not special for me.

Until I watched French Food at Home by Laura Calder the other week. I was about half time late when I saw Laura making this Stuffed Cabbage. So the recipe I am sharing below won't be by-the-book one. It might be absolutely different in taste with the real Stuffed Cabbage since I substituted the pork mince with the beef mince. But according to the French guy in the family, the dish was an absolute delish! How is that coming from a guy who doesn't like veggies?

Anyhoo, he was right. It was super tasty - and I am not being biased because it was my cooking. Remember that I was supposed to dislike cabbage. But it did indeed blow away my mind.

I also fell in love with the layers of cabbage and beef, not sure if you can see it in the pictures. If only I used the red cabbage as it actually should be, then maybe it'd look much more beautiful in presentation. But I'm telling you, this is already amazing!

You need to serve it on a plate with its delicious broth. Scatter it with fresh chopped scallions. Yumm...

Oh, and did you notice that I put some text on the pictures? It's because my annoying, but kind-hearted friend, Pyorr, said that I should protect my photos in any way possible. I actually used to do that a lot long time ago. But really, if people want to steal photos, they'll steal them. A mere text is so easy to erase with only stamp tool from Adobe Photoshop. But anyway, I think she had a point. If your house is in a thief-prone area, you'll put double locks, hire private security guards and put security cameras all around, right? There is still a chance that your house is going to get robbed, but at least you have put that much effort in protecting it. So, I'm watermarking my pictures from now on, though I still think it makes them uglier. :P

Enough babbling! Here goes the recipe.

Ingredients:

A cabbage head; preferably red (it's got nicer texture and more vibrant colour)
200 g beef mince (real stuffed cabbage uses pork mince, but the beef mince worked too! It's a good substitute for Muslim fellows who don't eat pork)
5 pcs of green beans, cut into small pieces
5 pcs of button mushrooms, cut into cubes
3 pcs of scallions, chopped
a handful of black olives, drained and cut thinly
1 beef cube, crunched
a pinch of ground cumin
2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
salt and pepper to taste

Instructions:

Peel cabbage layer by layer. Be careful as not to wreck it. You need the cabbage layers intact to wrap the meat.
Remove the hard part of the cabbage so that it's easier to wrap.
In a bowl of boiled water, dip the cabbage leaves for about 5 until they are slightly tender. Then blanch them in a bowl of iced water. This will make the leaves elastic and not easy to wreck.
In a separate bowl combine the beef mince, chopped green beans, chopped button mushrooms, half of the scallions, the black olives, half of the garlic, the cumin, salt and pepper. Mix well.
Make the soup from half litre of water combined with crunched beef cube, half of the garlic, salt and pepper.
As the soup is boiling, take one cabbage leaf on to the cutting board and top it with the beef mixture.
Put another leaf on it and top again with the beef mixture. Do this until you have nice layered cabbage and beef and until you use all the beef mixture.
Take another cabbage leave and close the layers from the opposite direction so it will look like a cabbage ball.
Steam the cabbage ball right on top of the soup for about 30 minutes.
Take the stuffed cabbage out and cut from the centre in a pizza-like shape. Serve in a plate with some of the broth/soup you made and garnish with the rest of the chopped scallions.
Eat with cooked rice.

Pork and Vegetable Stir Fry

2011-04-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

I have been busy with so many different things lately that I couldn't be as systematic and organized as before. Not that I am THAT systematic or organized. But I could do better. The reason is because I've been diversifying my works to keep me away from being bored of doing the same routine. However, they have all been coming to me altogether lately that my days were close to crazy. I did try to be organized with the works, though, by making a list of which is important, which is due sooner and which I can postpone. It seemed to work though I still couldn't manage to write long for the blogs.

However, I feel the need to update this food blog. It's been a while.

The good thing is although I've been busy with things, I still found time to cook. I view cooking as a relaxing as well as productive activity. I feel relaxed when I cook, as opposed to my mom who is always frantic in the kitchen. I wouldn't really blame her. She always puts too much pressure on herself than she should. She cooks literally everyday and there is no exception not to. Even when she took a vacation in Bali and stayed at my house, she was never far from the kitchen.

Anyway, during the time when I'm busy, I need to come up with something quick to cook. Like this Pork and Vegetable Stir Fry. It only takes minutes to cook and some more to do the prep. Anybody can do it.

Ingredients:

250 gr of pork fillet, diced
5 baby carrots; diced
3 or more chillies (since Vincent is not allowed to eat spicy food, I substitute it with a red bell pepper), chopped
a handful of peas
2 cms of ginger, finely chopped or grated
3 cloves of garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1 tbs of oyster sauce
1 tbs of light soy sauce
1 tbs of dark soy sauce
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tbs of vegetable oil
water

Instructions:

Prep all the ingredients; chop the pork, baby carrots, chillies/pepper, ginger and garlic.
Have a large wok or non-stick pan ready on a medium hob.
As it pan is smoking hot, pour the vegetable oil together with the garlic and the ginger.
You will smell its goodness not long after, so when the garlic is slightly brown, in with the pork, carrots, and chillies/bell pepper.
Add the oyster sauce, light soy sauce and dark soy sauce. Stir.
Add some water or stock, turn down the heat and let it simmer.
7 minutes before it's ready, put in the peas, and season with salt and pepper. Stir again.
Be careful not to cook the peas too long. You still want the vibrant green colour of the peas when you serve it.
The dish is done.

Strawberry, Carrot and Cherry Tomato Milkshake

2011-03-22T00:04:00.000-07:00

My friend, Pam, says that the Fitness Wii game is bullshit. "It is just a game, not a real sport," she says.

But what is a real sport?

Pam does yoga. According to Vincent, it is not a real sport since one barely moves when doing yoga. But we don't believe so. Keeping the balance in yoga sometimes is heavier than doing the extreme muscle-moving sport. Do we sweat when doing yoga? Yes, we do. We sweat a lot, in fact.

Dancing. Is dancing a sport? I think so. You move your whole body when you dance. Sometimes when it's too hot of a dance night out, you'll even get stiffed muscles the next morning. How is it any different from jogging?

You know, at times when we - lazy bumps - hear the word "sport", we directly assume it's the adrenalin-pumping, no-fun thing to do. But basketball players find it fun. Yogis find peacefulness when doing yoga. My sister enjoys aerobics because there is music to move along. And all are considered sports because at the end of the day, your body is doing exercises.

I think it is no different with My Fitness Coach Wii game. Just because it comes from a Wii game player, it shouldn't be considered as sport? Football is a game. Baseball is a game. Salsa and tango are not a game, but they give you as much fun as playing a game. And do they pump you up? Yes, they do. Does Wii Fitness game pump me up? Yes, it does.

I'm doing sport!

I have to admit, however, that the exercises I am going through now is not of the hardest kind, perhaps due to my end goals. I registered "flexibility" as my primary goal and "lose a size" as my secondary goal. I only do about 30 minutes per day. It is not too tiring, yet I always end up completely soaked with sweat. And I think it is perfect. I once joined a gym near my house where there was a cute personal trainer. I think he did well in training me. But for someone who just started doing sport again after years, you could not shock me with muscle-breaking exercises. You do that and I will never return again, which was what happened. I had stiffed muscles for a week and I could hardly move. I got cranky because everything hurt and none of the tasks I should be doing got done. With 30-minute exercise a day, I keep coming back and doing it. If I think the exercise of the day is not enough, I do another set of express workout. I lost 2 kilos in a week since the last time I weighed myself, so I guess the Wii game does a justice.

There is also a dietary menu suggestion within the game. Recipes and weekly shopping list are also provided. However, these I don't necessarily follow. But I do scan what ingredients are mostly used for breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks, then I get creative from it.

Typical breakfasts are with fruits. Mixed fruit juice, fruit slices with yoghurt, etc. So one day when I saw these beautiful local organic strawberries at Bali Deli and some local organic baby carrots and cherry tomatoes, I used them as my breakfast. I made Strawberry, Carrot and Cherry Tomato Milkshake. It was surprisingly very, very fulfilling. Of course I used a tall glass to contain the milkshake. But who would have guessed a glass of milkshake would be enough for a Carla? :) Anyway, it tasted very good and what more... it's healthy! I think you should also try it.

Ingredients:

10 strawberries
5 cherry tomatoes
2 baby carrots
a splash of milk
3 or 4 ice cubes
a tablespoon of sugar

Instructions:

Peel and cut the carrots.
Put them together with the rest of the ingredients into a blender.
Blend it until well juiced.

Voila, your Strawberry, Carrot and Cherry Tomato Milkshake is ready to enjoy!

Sweet Corn Salad with Cherry Tomatoes and Feta Cheese

2011-03-14T22:14:00.000-07:00

I kind of like salad. As a matter of fact, I can really like salad. It's just when I have to order it in a restaurant, I'm often pretty fussy about it. Making it myself, however, is a completely different story. I can put whatever ingredients I like in there and how much sourness, freshness, sweetness or saltiness that I want.

Personally I like my salad somewhat salty with a bit of freshness and sourness. I love Italian mixed green salad, mostly organic because that's just where you can get the crunchiest loveliest greens. Some additional toasted nuts will be great to add some flavour and cheese is definitely a must. I prefer feta cheese to put in my salad, but shredded cheddar cheese will work as well. As we are now talking about cheese, I find it rather weird that the only place where I want some goat cheese is in a salad. Other than that, I pretty much hate goat cheese. I dislike its strong, strong smell and how it stays inhabiting my fridge for a while if the it's not finished quickly enough. Vincent likes goat cheese so much! He could eat it just like that with some toasted French bread. In the early months when he just moved here, he bought goat cheese almost every time we went out shopping for groceries. I remember how I was rather upset about it because this is one of the most expensive cheese in Bali and yet I couldn't enjoy it as he would! Anyway, put some goat cheese in your vegetable salad or sprinkle it on a tomato together with olive oil, salt and pepper and put it in the oven for a few minutes, it will transform the low profile salad into a posh, most delicious salad ever!

The reason why I am talking about salad is because I just ate one for lunch. A very nice one, if I may add. I originally wanted to make dadar jagung - Indonesian mashed corn cake, but I found out that I ran out of eggs. It had been raining the whole day today so I couldn't go out and buy some eggs either. My stomach was growling angrily and I had to think fast what to do with my sweet corns I just bought a few days ago.

So I came up with this Sweet Corn Salad with Cherry Tomatoes and Feta Cheese. I could have made my normal, full-of-nutrition lunch dish I usually had, but Vincent and I just bought a bathroom scale yesterday so that we could watch our weight and be alarmed if it got too much. He needs to lose weight in a month due to his gastritis condition and I just want my once J-Lo's body back. Okay, I am not that ambitious. Kate Winslet's body is alright too for me.

I did think that I lost some weight when Vincent was in Vietnam. But now that he's back, I eat normally again (when I was alone, I could eat whenever I wanted and there were only a few times that I actually felt hungry). I suppose that's what causes my 60.4 kg weight as proven down here, despite my diligence in having Wii fitness and yoga training!

I swear last night it was only 59 kgs!

I'm actually not overweight with my 157 cms height. But I'm in the borderline between slim and fat with more tendency to fat. And to compare this 60.4 kgs with my once-steady-highschool-and-college weight of 45 kgs, this is a sad fact! So, I've made up my mind to at least lose 5 kgs in the next month. I'll do the Wii exercise everyday and eat more healthy foods. If Vincent protests because I am serving grass on his plate - his reference to green salad - he can be disappointed as he wants. :P

Anyway, enough rambling. Here is my lovely sweet corn salad with cherry tomatoes and feta cheese recipe. It's great to eat with crunchy garlic bread and fruit juice for lunch. This makes one portion.

Ingredients:

10 pieces of cherry tomatoes. Keep them whole.
A handful of fusilli, or other fast-cooking pasta you like
One celery, diced.
One sweet corn cut through. If using frozen sweet corn, take a handful of it.
A big pinch of feta cheese
A knob of butter
Salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
White wine vinegar

Instructions:

Boil some water in a pan. Add salt and fusilli, then stir it around. Cook according to the pasta packet instruction.
On another hob, heat a knob of butter in a sauce pan. As soon as it melts, sauté the celery and sweet corn together. Nearing completion, add salt and pepper to it. Stir.
When the fusilli is done, drain it in a colander and pour the cooked fusilli into the sauce pan together with the celery and sweet corn.
After well combined, put it on a plate. Add your cherry tomatoes and sprinkle with feta cheese.
Add 2 glugs of extra virgin olive oil and a small tiny splash of white wine vinegar. Toss.

Easy peasy...

Brownies a la Carla

2011-03-10T19:52:00.000-08:00

I am not a big fan of sweet things. Every time I say no to candies or over sweet-looking desserts, the most common reaction from the people offering is: "Are you on diet?"

Well, no, I am not on diet, never have been, and will hopefully never be. I SHOULD be. But life is too good to pass worrying about all the food that you are about to eat, how many calories it contains, what about the cholesterols, etc. But I do care about balance. Balance between what gets in and what gets out (read: food versus exercise). Balance between body and soul. Balance between work and rest.

My boyfriend has been recently diagnosed as having gastritis; most probably caused by the excessive alcohol he drank during the past 6 months. I recalled that this seemed to have started since we had our first serious argument, after which was followed by other endless fights that almost ended in a breakup. Those times are over now, fortunately. All we have to do now is to fix the damages what the broken soul causes to our body. Vincent has to go on a big diet (no alcohol, no soda, less coffee, less smoking, no lemon/lime, no onions, and most importantly no stress). The last one is a note for me, too. Stress always leads to health problems!

Back in the balance discussion, therefore even though I don't eat that much of sweet food, I do indulge myself in the goodness of the bitter sweet chocolate once in a while. Not the overly sweet one. It's the mouthwatering real dark chocolate. I especially prefer to make it myself, so I know what is put and how much is put to conform it with my personal taste.

The brownies recipe I am going to share in a little bit is taken from Crazy for Chocolate cookbook. I loooove every single recipe in this book. However, as always I reduce the amount of sugar called by the recipes. Or substitute it with brown sugar. And even after I do so, these brownies are still my family and friends' all-time favourite. My darling friend, Veve, got a pan of brownies for her birthday a few years ago and she hardly shared it with anyone else. She could eat it all by herself maybe because it was not as sweet as other brownies (too much sweetness makes you drool, but then stop after a few bites). Just enough sweetness hooks you.

Brownies a la Carla

These are soooo chocolaty with a bit of crunch the macadamia nuts give, sort of firm on top but gooey in the inside, making it melt-in-your-mouth brownies, except when it comes to the part when you have to chew the nuts. And I should really just stop babbling and write the recipe now.

Ingredients:

200 gr chopped dark baking chocolate
100 gr butter
2 spoonful of water
100 gr brown sugar (if you like sweet dessert, feel free to add more or change it with normal sugar)
40 gr all-purpose flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
100 gr macadamia nuts (you can replace them with any other nuts you like more), toasted and chopped
vanilla essence

Instructions:

Preheat the oven at 180°C and line a baking tin with butter and parchment paper.
While still in the package, beat the chocolate onto your kitchen counter several times until they are broken into pieces. You can also do it in a less extreme way as the cookbook suggests; i.e. cut the dark cooking chocolate with a knife. But personally I like my way better, it relieves some stress.
Put the chocolate pieces together with the butter and 2 spoons of water in a glass bowl or a small pan.
Put a pan with some boiling water (not much) on a hob with medium heat, put the bowl with the choc pieces and butter on top of this pan. Please note that it is important that the water must not touch the bottom of the bowl.
Stir slowly until the chocolate and the butter melt. This should only take a few minutes.
When it is all melted, pour the brown sugar into the bowl. Stir then remove the bowl from the heat.
Sift the flour into the bowl and add the eggs, the nuts and the vanilla essence. Stir.
Pour this batter into the prepared tin.
Bake for 35 minutes or until the top is firm enough to touch.

Great with a glass of cold milk. Delish!

TIP:

Never ever melt chocolate with direct contact with the source of the heat. This will burn the choc or break it.

Cheese Balls Rolled in Almonds

2011-03-03T09:24:00.000-08:00

I have been in a crazy mood of cooking and baking for the past month. Some I took their photos of... some I just missed doing that. Basically if I cook in the evening, as soon as I am done cooking, I just can't wait to eat it. Except it is something you can eat even when it's cold, like cookies! Also, I have had this strange urge to keep eating cheesy stuff. And the result is I have baked three kinds of cheese cookies from different recipes in the past 2 weeks. THAT I find very peculiar. Definitely out of habit for me.

But then, take a look at the bright sides: I get to eat the cheese cookies I've been longing for and I get to blog about them here!

The cheese cookies I am talking about now are covered by almond pieces. I have to admit that I didn't see the picture well. The recipe calls for crushed almond pieces without skin, but I bought the ones WITH skin.

And then I was too impatient to cut them into very thin slices. That made two third of the cookies were covered by almonds (rather chunky almonds, I must say), and the rest was bare. Both tasted lovely. Vincent loved the ones with the chunky almonds. Me, I preferred the bare cheese cookies. I got to taste the cheese more, unobstructed by the almonds.

Check out this Cheese Balls with Almonds recipe, adapted from "Kue Kering Keju" cookbook by Cucu Cahyana & Yeni Ismayani.

Ingredients:

150 gr margarine
250 gr butter
500 gr flour
50 gr corn starch
125 gr cheddar cheese, grated
1 egg yolk, beat lightly
100 gr almond slices, cut roughly

Instructions:

Whisk margarine, butter and cheese until they are soft.
Put in the flour and the corn starch and mix until they are well-combined.
Preheat oven to 130°C and grease your baking pans with butter and/or line them with parchment paper.
Make little balls (as big as marbles), dip in the yolk and roll them onto the almonds.
Bake for 40 minutes.

My cookies took longer to bake. Perhaps because I made bigger balls (I told you I was impatient). So, I suggest that you take one of the cheese balls as the first batch is done, slice it open and see if the middle of the ball is completely dry and baked. If it is not, put the pan back in and wait a little longer.

You should try this recipe. I love this one the most compared to the other two I made.

Tip:

The better quality of the cheese and the butter you use, the better it tastes.

Happy Baking!!!!

How to Make Your Own Mayonnaise

2011-02-28T22:57:00.000-08:00

Mayonnaise... who doesn't know it? You put it in your sandwich, your deviled eggs, your snack or vegetable dip, and you eat it with your french fries. As an Indonesian, I use saus sambal (chilli sauce) or tomato sauce in almost everything (also with french fries) more than I use mayo. But I always have to have mayonnaise in my fridge in case Mr French Boyfriend wants it or some recipes call it.

However, prices in Bali have gone up so much in this past year that I started to think of making my own everything. And mayonnaise has to be one of the things I should be able to make myself since the ridiculous price of mayo here doesn't always have to be necessarily followed with quality. I only bought one good mayonnaise (called "Real Mayo" if I am not mistaken) once, and I could never find it again. I tried other different types of mayonnaise but nothing I particularly enjoyed. So... I braved myself to start making this very homemade mayonnaise.

Basically all you need are egg yolk(s) and oil. Of course with salt and pepper to season it in the end. And, oh, confidence. ;)

Ingredients:

egg yolk(s) - I used one since homemade mayonnaise doesn't last that long (about 3 days) and there is no point of making a lot of mayonnaise for the consumption of 2 people
a cup of oil - I used vegetable oil, but you can use other
a teaspoon of mustard
a drop or two of white wine vinegar or lemon juice
salt and pepper for seasoning

Instructions:

Put the egg yolk and the mustard into a bowl and beat it lightly with your whisk.
Put a drop of vinegar or lemon juice together with the yolk. The acidity of the vinegar or lemon juice will help stabilize the emulsion process.
Slowly (and I mean very, very slowly) add a drop of oil into the bowl and whisk it as fast as you can.
Add another drop and whisk again. Repeat this until the yolk thickens and gets sort of creamy.
At this point you can add the rest of the oil in a quicker manner, but still not too quick. In the mean time, never stop whisking. You still need to whisk as you drib the oil into the mixture.
When it reaches the right mayo consistency and you have finished your oil, congratulations! You have just made your first homemade mayonnaise. The last touch is to put salt and pepper, and perhaps more lemon juice if you like.

My arm felt like it was gonna fall off the joint when I finished making my first mayonnaise. But it felt good to know that I could make my own mayonnaise. Maybe you will, too.

Tips:

Save your arm from tiring by using a food processor if you have it. It's also much easier and much quicker that way.
If the consistency is too thick for you, add a little bit of cold water. That will loosen it up a bit. If it is too thin, add more oil.
Don't add the seasoning before the mayonnaise is formed. It will break the emulsion before you even get it.

Check out this video of how to make mayonnaise by Gordon Ramsay. He is using the food processor here. A note: he is using 3 egg yolks instead one, so that's why he could add more than a drop of oil in the first whisk.

Guest Contribution: Chicory Pie

2011-02-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

My good friend, Annerie, just successfully made this Chicory Pie (Witloftaart). She was so proud of it that she posted the photo of the pie on Facebook. Since it does look yummy and I may want to try it out myself one day, I think it's worth posting the recipe here (she doesn't have a blog).

chicory pie

Ingredients:

6 slices butter puff pastry (450 g pack, frozen), thawed
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 red onions into rings
500 g chicory
300 g cream brie, chopped
3 teaspoons oregano

Material: Parchment paper

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 200 ° C. Line a baking plate with parchment paper. Put the slices of puff pastry into a rectangle, with the floured side down. Let them overlap and press the seams tightly. Prick holes in the dough with a fork. Bake 10 minutes in the middle of the oven.
Meanwhile, heat the oil in a frying pan and stir fry the onion on medium heat for 10 minutes Cut the bottom of the chicory and halve them in length. Remove the hard core. Cut into strips. Add to the onion and fry for 5 minutes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Spoon the mixture onto the puff pastry. Divide the brie and oregano on top. Bake for 20 minutes in the oven. Serve with a green salad.

Tip: Replace the brie by a blue cheese for an extra spicy pie.

Suggestion for mixed green salad:

Rocket salad

Cucumber – small cubes

White seedless grapes – in quarters

Spring onion

Pain Perdu / French Toast

2011-02-16T00:09:00.000-08:00

I've always known French toast (or in French is called Pain Perdu) but I was never really interested in making it because it just looks so sweet. However, a few weeks ago I was watching French Food at Home hosted by Laura Calder. She was making the French toast and Vincent, who happened to watch the show too - because I got the remote control so he couldn't change it to Tivi5 - said that he wanted it.

Then it is a different matter when your most loyal customer demands it.

A little bit background about Pain Perdu.... Back in the old days when bread was very expensive, people believed that nothing should have gone wasted in the kitchen. Since most bread only last for a few days, the stale bread is "rejuvenated" into this delicious edible French toast only with the help of egg and milk. Although the name is French toast and ideally it is made of stale French bread, it is not originated from France. It was believed to have come from the 4th century Roman recipes.

If I told you before that I thought French toast looked so sweet, well I was wrong. It COULD be sweet; like most American French toast with the syrup or sugar topping, but you can opt for the salty one too. You just need to top it off with a knob of salted butter (like on pancakes). Anyway, here is the recipe.

French Toast/Pain Perdu

Ingredients:

Stale French bread (normal bread is fine, too), cut diagonally
One egg, beat lightly
Some milk
Some salt (and sugar if you like)
Pepper
a knob of butter

Instructions:

Mix the egg, milk, salt and pepper and beat lightly.
Dip both sides of the bread into the mixture.
Melt the butter in a pan.
Fry away the bread until nicely brown.
You can stop here and directly serve the French toast. But I like to put it in the oven for 5 minutes to get a little bit crust on the outside of the toast.
Top with powdered sugar or butter or syrup, or any kind of fruits you like.

Super easy, delicious and money saving. Crunchy on the outside, lovely soft in the inside. Yumm...

Cheese Muffins

2011-02-10T20:51:00.000-08:00

I have been in the mood of muffins this past week. I've already made two kinds of muffins in a week, which was very rare for me to do. I usually only bake at the weekends as a way to treat myself and to withdraw from the usual stuff (work, feed the kitten and cook dinner). My first muffin was lemon muffin, but it was way too lemony for my taste. Turned out that I only put half of the flour needed, that was why. But the second one was meant to be chocolate muffin. I'm normally not a sweet-tooth person but I do crave for some sweetness when I'm PMSing. :P And, like the first one, it was not a chocolate muffin at all. It appeared that my chocolate powder had already expired so I had to throw it away. I thought, ok let's make normal muffin with chocolate chips then. But I couldn't open the choc chip jar!!!! And I wanted muffins. And when I wanted it, I had to have it. So I used the ingredients of the chocolate muffin but using grated cheddar cheese as a filling instead of chocolate. Here goes the recipe (originally from Nigella Lawson's chocolate chip muffin recipe).

Cheese Muffin

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cup of all purpose flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder (I ran out of baking powder, but it still worked)
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
3/4 cup of sugar
1 cup milk
1/3 cup plus 2 teaspoon vegetable oil
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
grated cheddar cheese (you can use as little or as much as you want)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 200° C.
Put the muffin cases into the muffin tin.
Combine all the dry ingredients together (flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar, grated cheese and vanilla sugar).
Combine egg, milk and vegetable oil in another bowl and mix them lightly.
Pour the wet ingredients to the dry ones and combine until they are just well mixed. Don't overwork or overstir muffins. It's a bad news if you do it.
Spoon the muffin batter into the paper cases until just almost reaching the top. You want to give a space to it to rise.
Sprinkle some of the grated cheese on top. This will give a nice crunchy cheesy texture.
Put in the oven for 20 minutes.

Some ovens work differently with the others. So check out your muffins when it's already 15 minutes. If it's ready (you put a skewer an it comes out clean), take it out.

Yumm....

Cream Soup with Chicken and Sweet Corn

2011-01-07T04:29:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling like eating soups lately. I always like soup. It's warm, it feels good in the stomach as well as the tongue and it's comforting. But Vincent doesn't like soup. That's why I don't make it that much. I did once in a while, but that was when I was ready to eat the soup on my own for three days in a row. :P Now that he is in France, I should be eating healthy soup than the normally fatty dishes.

I made my favourite cheese cauliflower soup when my brother was here (recipe coming soon). But the other day I cooked this cream soup with chicken and sweet corn. I'm not sure if it is the same chicken corn soup I usually order in the restaurants, but it tasted just as great. Since the ingredients I put were not measured, use your own sense and taste for it.

Cream soup with chicken and sweet corn

Ingredients:

Chicken fillet
Fresh or frozen sweet corns
1 spring onion
Milk
Water (almost as much as the milk)
2 teaspoons of flour
3 cloves of garlic
Your prefered vegetables: I put organic baby carrots. I would also put green beans if only I had them
Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Slice the garlic finely
Cut the chicken fillet into cubes
Cut the carrots and other vegetables
Slice the spring onion, set aside for later
Get a soup pan and put it on a medium heat.
Pour a lug of olive oil and throw in the garlic
Not long after, put the carrots, chicken and sweet corns in. Cook until the carrots are a bit tender but still holding their shape
Add the flour; it will help thicken the soup
Pour the milk and the water
Season with salt and pepper
Let it come to boil, then lower the heat and let it simmer
Have a taste when the soup is at the thick consistency that you are happy with. Add salt and pepper if necessary
Lastly add the spring onion.

It's great to eat with rice, toasted bread or salty biscuits.

Cookies (chocolate chip and lemon)

2011-01-05T16:28:00.000-08:00

cookies baked in a pan

As I said in my last post, my oven was broken on the day my brother and his girlfriend came from Surabaya, my hometown. I already made the cookie dough and I had to put it in the fridge until I could figure out what I should do with it (or with my oven). After 2 days passed by, I thought I couldn't keep the dough too long in the fridge and it didn't seem that any electrician was working during the Christmas week. So I experimented with my non-stick pan.

It worked!!!

What I did was to line the usual baking cookie tray with baking paper and arrange the dough on top of it. In the mean time, I reheated a large non-stick pan on a hob with lid closed. Very quickly I put the cookie tray inside and close the lid again. Wait for 10 minutes, voila!!! The cookies were ready. Okay, you need to do more batches this way, but in case one day your oven breaks down and you are ready with the dough, this is an alternative way to "bake" your cookies.

Ingredients:

125 g butter
100 g unrefined sugar
1 egg
100 g plain flour
25 g porridge oats
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Optional flavour between citrus cookies and chocolate cookies. For citrus cookies, you need zest of 1 lemon and 1 orange. For chocolate cookies, you need 50 g chocolate chip (Jamie suggests 50 g each for white and dark chocolate, but I prefer not-too-sweet cookies)

Instructions:

Soften your butter first by taking it out of the fridge at least 15 minutes before you start making your cookies.
Combine the butter and the rest of the ingredients in a food processor or if you do it manually, leave out the egg and flour, and stir them until it has thick creamy consistency. Whisk the egg and add it to the mixture. Sieve the flour in. Mix well.
Put the flavour you want (citrus or chocolate). I made both flavour so I just doubled the above ingredients. However, given that I am not a sweet-toothed person, I like the citrus one better. But my boyfriend likes the chocolate one.
Spoon the dough onto a clingfilm and roll it into a sausage shape.
Rest it in the freezer for at least 30 minutes.
After 30 minutes, the previously soft dough becomes hard and is easy to cut.
Preheat your oven to 190° C and line your baking tray with baking paper.
Cut the dough and put the slices on the tray.
Bake for 10 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are golden brown.

If at step 7 you find out that your oven is broken, get a big non-stick frying pan and put a lid on it. Reheat it on a hob while you are cutting the dough. When ready, put the tray carefully as to not destroy the teflon and quickly put the lid back on. Wait 10 minutes and exchange it with the next batch.

It's yummy, trust me. Everyone who has tried these cookies I baked loved it!

Poulet au poivre

2010-12-27T17:01:00.000-08:00

My Christmas dinner was almost ruined when I found out that my oven was broken that very morning. I planned to make Roasted Chicken and Apple Berry Crumble, but obviously no oven-related foods should be served that night. So I thought hard what I would do with the whole chicken that I already bought and I came up with cooking le Poulet au poivre that my boyfriend's mother taught me when she was here in July. Here's how to cook this simple but very delicious dish.

poulet au poivre

Ingredients:

One whole chicken (that's because I bought that whole, but in normal situation I would go with the chicken pieces or chicken fillet)
Liquid creme. I used creme fraiche, but any other cooking creme will do
Salt
Garlic (I used 3)
A lot of freshly ground peppers
Some water

Instructions:

Cut the chicken (obviously skip this part if you already have your chicken cut nicely by the butcher)
Cut the garlic finely
Heat a big sauce pan for a few minutes
Add just a lug of cooking oil just to get it going
Immediately put the chicken pieces in the pan to brown them. Turn them after a few minutes
When you are happy with the colour, remove the chicket and put them in a bowl. Don't turn off the heat
In the same pan, throw in the finely sliced garlic
Pour the cream and scrap the left over chicken base with a wooden spoon
Get the chicken back in and put some salt and a lot of pepper
Add some water and add more pepper
Wait until it is sort of boiling, then put the hob into low heat and close the lid.
Check it every 5 minutes and add peppers every time you do that. The more the better.
I can't tell you how long exactly it should finish, but as you feel that the sauce thickens and the taste is great, it is ready to serve.

There it is. Dead simple but soooo delicious. Since I didn't get this from a cookbook, I'm sorry I couldn't give the exact measurement of everything. I was just watching Nicole cooking and I was guessing the amount she put inside. The rest relied on my taste of good food. You should do the same technique too. It really works.

Apple Berry Crumble

2010-12-21T22:56:00.000-08:00

Apple berry crumble

I was invited for an apéro evening at Sandrine's house a few weeks ago. There were many delicious finger foods served but there was one thing that I couldn't forget: the berry crumble. It was so delicious, rather strong blend between sweet and sour for my taste, but very, very delicious still. So I decided that I had to be able to make that, too. I looked up some recipes on the internet and basically they were suggesting almost the same ingredients and techniques. But as a huge Jamie Oliver's fan and because of the simplicity of his crumble recipe, I chose that to begin the experiment. The original recipe is here, but I doubled the crumble recipe since I had a bigger baking plate. And instead of only apples, I added some strawberries for an addition of sour taste. Oh, and I also added some cinnamon ground just because I liked it. Below is my apple berry crumble recipe.

Ingredients:

For the fruits:

50 g caster sugar
300 g of apples (I used two granny apple smith)
strawberries
a drop of water
some cinnamon

For the crumble:

40 g sugar
70 g oats
70 g flour
70 g butter, diced

Instructions:

Preheat oven at 190° C.
Peel and cut the apples in chunks and halve the strawberries
Put them in your oven proof dish and add the sugar, water and cinnamon
Cook on a burner over low heat for 5 minutes
In the mean time, put all the crumble ingredients in a bowl
Then crunch the butter together with the other dry ingredients until it looks like crumbles. It shouldn't take long
As the fruits are ready, spread the crumbles on top evenly
Bake for 20 minutes.

Beautiful golden crumble. Very crunchy, too, thanks to the oats

My first try was successful with no sweat at all! It was very easy to make and it tasted sooooo good. You should try it too. Don't be afraid changing the apples into something else. But I do think that the berries make a great mix with the sugary crumbles.

Grape Gelatin

2010-11-04T03:31:00.000-07:00

Here is my newest easy dish for dessert. Grape Gelatin. The only skill you need to have is boiling water skill - which is hardly any skill at all. :) The nice thing about this dish is that you can prepare it well long before the serving time to get it solid. So you don't need to frantically juggle between your main dish and this dessert.

Ingredients:

A packet of unflavoured and uncoloured gelatin powder
Green grapes
Purple grapes
125 gr of sugar (feel free to add more if you like sweet)
A few drops of booze (I used fruity German booze I got from Sheila)

Instructions:

Boil 4 glasses of water (or read what the gelatin packet tells you)
Add your gelatin powder and stir continuously to keep it from catching.
When boiled, add the sugar and the booze.
Keep stirring until all is well dissolved.
Remove the pan from the heat and start working on your grapes.
Wash and dry them clean and arrange them in icecream bowls or wine glasses.
Pour the gelatin water into the glasses.
Store in the refrigerator until they are hardened.

Voila. Your 5-minute dish is ready.

Tips: grapes can be replaced with other bright-coloured fruits like kiwis, strawberries or pineapple, or a mixture of everything.

Lazy Sunday Lunch

2010-08-22T02:08:00.000-07:00

This is my not-quite new invention in preparing easy lunch that features a fusion between Indonesian and Western food. A perkedel sosis (fried mashed potato with sausage) and buttered peas and bacon.

Ingredients:

One egg, beat lightly
6 potatoes, peel and cut by 4 or 6
2 pieces of bratwurst sausages
a handful of peas
4 stripes of streaky bacon
3 garlic
salt and pepper
good quality salted butter

Instructions:

Boil or fry the potato pieces. I prefer boiling to frying them, just because it is less fattening.
When ready, take out from the heat and mash them while they are hot.
Crush the garlic, some salt and black pepper, then put the mixture into a bowl with the mashed potatoes.
Mix until well-combined.
In the mean time, season the sausages with salt and pepper.
Fry them until well-cooked with a little frying oil.
Wrap the cooked sausages with the mashed potatoes and plunge them into the egg mixture.
Carefully pick them up and put them back into the frying pan until they get a nice brown colour.
Cut the streaky bacon into pieces.
Fry them with half a spoon of oil, just to get them going. When done, pick them up and put on a paper towel to get the excess oil out.
On the other hob, boil some water.
Put the peas into the boiled water, and cook not more than 10 minutes.
Very quickly drain the cooked peas, put into a bowl, and put a knob of butter together with the peas.
Stir until the butter melts with the peas.
Put the fried bacon together with the buttered peas and add some freshly ground black pepper.

Looks complicated but it is actually not. It is definitely a yummy lunch, though.

Yorkshire Pudding

2010-07-12T02:07:00.000-07:00

It is weird to first get introduced to Yorkshire Pudding. In Indonesia, I was brought up learning that a pudding is a gel-like type of food using gelatin as the main ingredient. But the English pudding appears to be a type of light bread. Here is my first attempt to bake it.

Country of origin: England
Servings: 12
Taken from Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals

Ingredients:

285 ml milk
a pinch of salt
115 g of flour
vegetable oil

Whisk together the milk, salt and flour until smooth.
Leave it for 30 minutes to make the texture even smoother.
Warm the oven to its fullest temperature, put empty muffin pan inside to warm it up. In the picture above I used small disposable baking pans as my muffin pan mysteriously disappeared.
When it is hot, pour a table spoon of vegetable oil in each hole of the pan.
Wait 5 minutes, and carefully but quickly take the muffin pan halfway out and pour the batter.
Close the oven carefully, don't slam the door!
After 15 minutes, the Yorkshire will be ready with crunch on the top and fluffy on the inside. If you want to make it crunchy all the way, put the temperature down to 150 degree celcius and leave it there for another 10 minutes.

Tips: It is better to use the muffin pan only for Yorkshire pudding. Clean with kitchen paper after use and do not wash it. The quality of the pudding will improve everytime you make it.

Normally Yorkshire Pudding is eaten with roast dishes. But it is also lovely with sweet treats. I proved it by eating it simply with refined sugar on top and a little bit of whipped cream. Yum.

Steamer

2010-06-11T19:23:00.000-07:00

To be honest, I don't know what this is called. But I do know that it is a part of dandang (Indonesian traditional rice steamer). Well I don't need this to cook rice since I have already got the electric modern rice cooker. My mother may not have approved the use of it against the glorious dandang, but electric rice cooker is just so practical. So why waste time and energy with the old one?

Anyway, I do not have a proper steamer in my kitchen. I have pans of different sizes but a steamer is not there yet. And with my present irregular money flow, I can't afford one just yet. But I need it. SO when I came across this cute little shiny thing at Ace Hardware, how could I not buy it? It's not expensive either. Just over Rp 20,000.

To use: pour some water into a pan, put this steamer on top of it but don't let it touch the water. Put the food you want to put on it. And voila, you are off and steaming. :)

I am happy with it. And now I am thinking of a list of food I can cook with it. Kue bolu, pepes ikan etc. etc.

One day when I have a proper big kitchen, I am so going to fill it with other cool kitchen gadgets. Like this.

Egg Mimosa

2010-06-04T22:16:00.000-07:00

This is one of the easiest thing I have ever made. Delicious too! It is best served as an appetizer or finger food at house party.

Country of Origin: France

egg mimosa/deviled egg

For 2 servings

Ingredients:

4 eggs
Best quality mayonnaise; to make your own mayo, click here
A little bit salt and pepper

Instructions:

Boil eggs in a pan full of water until they are firm and cooked.
Rinse and peel the eggs.
Halve each egg and take out the yolks carefully.
Put the yolks and mayonnaise in a bowl.
Break them and mix until well-combined.
Take a dollop of the yolk mixture back to the egg whites.
Sprinkle just a little bit of salt and freshly ground black pepper

Tip: you can add a little bit of more taste with chopped parsley or crispy bacon pieces as a topping.

For more French cooking recipes, check out French Food at Home.

Book Review - Jamie Oliver's Ministry of Food

2010-06-04T18:18:00.000-07:00

Jamie Oliver is definitely my biggest inspiration in the wonder world of western cooking. He is low profile, his instructions are structured and easy to follow, and of all his recipes that I have tried out in my kitchen, hardly any fails!

However, compared to his other previous cookbooks, the latest Ministry of Food - or here, Jamie's Food Revolution, is the best of all. Very simple, easy to understand and most do not need any complicated ingredients.

Also, the idea of the book is so humble, generous and educating at the same time. Jamie basically wants us to try out one recipe, do it over and over again until we master it, and once we do, share the recipe with other people - close friends, family etc. It reminds me of a short story I read when I was little that I loved the most - about spreading goodness and how that goodness will eventually come back to us one day.

If you don't have it, check it out here: Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals. It is really worth every penny (and mind you, imported books in Indonesia are SO expensive I paid more than twice the original price) but I never regret it. For now and for a long time ahead, this book is my kitchen bible.

Welcome!!! Selamat Datang!!! Bienvenue!!!

2010-06-04T17:50:00.000-07:00

Hi guys,

So this is my new Kitchen And Around blog. I am thinking to put my favourite recipes here to share with you, great kitchen layouts and useful tips. I will try to post regularly at least once a week on Saturdays. Please don't hesitate to drop me a line so I know that this blog is read and useful for you.

Till later!

Carla.