It is really hard for me to explain how to cook a very nice homely mie goreng in this blog. As long as you do your stir very quickly, then you got a nice mie goreng. I guess you have to use your senses. Good luck

Ingredients

• 300 gr egg noodles (treat according to the packet instructions)
• 100 gr chicken breast, slice thinly
• about 1 cup meatballs, slice thinly
• 1 tbsp mince garlic
• 1 medium shallot, slice
• 1 large carrots, julienne cut
• 1 small green capsicum, slice
• 1 stalk spring onion, slice
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce or just enough to achieve the light brownish colour
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• salt and white pepper, to taste
• oil for stir frying
• deep fried shallot to serve

Instructions

1. Heat oil in the wok. Add in garlic and shallot, and stir until the fragrance is out.
2. Add in chicken slices and stir until the chicken is almost cooked through.
3. Add in meatball slices and do a quick stir.
4. Make a well in the middle and break in eggs in the middle. Add in about 1 tsp salt (you could add some more later on if it is not salty enough). Do a stir  every few seconds.
5. When the egg mixture is still wet, add the carrots and stir.
6. Add the cooked egg noodles and green capsicum and stir.
7. Add in sweet soy sauce and fish sauce and stir.
8. Add white pepper and stir.
9. Now it is time to taste your noodle. Add salt accordingly.
10. Add in spring onion and switch off your stove. Stir.
11. Serve with deep fried shallot.

Culinary tradition: Chinese, Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

Here are some notes and tips that you may consider before you try to make this cake:

• The original recipe doesn’t state the temperature, so I tried 170. Next time I preheat my oven around 190-200 C. (will keep you posted on this)
• Both of the cake layers weren’t rise as they suppose to be. One of the reason was because the oven wasn’t hot enough. The first layer that was bake sunk slightly after cooling down.
• When the first layer was cooked and removed from the tin, I quickly poured the remaining batter into the baking tin. What I found was breaking my heart. I found a thick residue of melted butter on the bottom of the mixing bowl. I just knew that the second layer wouldn’t be spongy at all. My conclusion, it is winter now and the recipe requests a melted butter. The melted butter just couldn’t wait to be butter again because of the weather. Next time I will divide the ingredients into two portions and whip them individually. Unless your oven would fit two baking tins at the same time, you better consider my suggestion.

Overall, the cake was pretty soft and spongy, but honestly the credit was all for the cake emulsifier. You have a peace of mind when you use cake emulsifier

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Natural Cooking Club : Cake Pandan Vla Pandan, for details click here

• 6 eggs
• 2 egg yolks
• 200 gr sugar (I used 150 gr instead)
• 1 tsp cake emulsifier (I used 12 gr)
• 200 gr plain flour
• 100 gr butter, melted (I used reduced salt butter)
  
• 1 tbsp pandan paste
• Custard mix with a little bit pandan paste for in between the layer (or just omit the pandan paste)
• Swiss Meringue Buttercream to frost

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

My busy Monday started with preparing my oldest son morning tea and lunch box, then dropping him at kindy. Then off I went to the kitchen preparing this cake with few pauses because the little one waking up. Sorry baby, probably you are not used to the loud mixer sound, well you better get use to the sound as you will hear it most of the time in the upcoming future. I will post the recipe later with few notes and tips as I didn’t do so well with this cake.

How my oldest boy felt so happy looking at the cake. He always excited looking at cakes because he loves singing the birthday song and blowing off the candles. This time, he did like uncountable times of singing, blowing and clapping hands. I guess it was kinda like a little practice before his upcoming birthday at the end of August.

Tuesday was all about planning, scheduling and shopping. Garlic, shallot, ginger, turmeric, candle nut, lemon grass and chillies for pounding, grinding and pureeing. Banana leaves, garlic shoots, broccoli, spring onions, parsley and carrot for decoration. Glutinous rice and flour, coconut milk and cream, potatoes, tofu, chicken eggs and quail eggs, prawns, can of petai in brine for the ingredients.

Buzzz… grrrrrrr…buzzz…. grrrr, that was the sound of Wednesday. Oh not to forget the hwaaaaaa… ooowaaaaacccchhhhh… (baby crying) and mommy look at this… mommy I want this that and it goes on and on and on…

Thursday, let’s the kitchen war begin!!! YAY and hubby had a day off, meaning that lots of lots of help with my two boys. Early in the morning, hubby and the oldest one went to the embassy to renew the passport and that made me so much easier in arranging banana leaves on platter. This was my third attempt in making the platter.

• The first one was last year on my boy’s birthday. Result: unsuccessful because of poor time management.
• The second attempt was last December on hubby’s birthday. Result: unsatisfied because of lack of research on how to arrange and decorate your dishes on the platter.
• The third attempt: Satisfied, however still need to improve on decoration varieties and perhaps bigger platter will be result in a much more attractive looks.
• Note to myself: find a storage space in the tiny apartment to store a new big platter

Here are the dish starting from yellow rice clockwise: Nasi Kuning (Festive Yellow Rice), Sambal Udang Pete Balado (Prawns with Petai cooked in Sambal Chilli), Perkedel (Fried Mashed Potatoes), Telur Dadar Gulung (Rolled Omelet), Tahu Bacem (Fried Tofu Marinated in Palm Sugar and Herbs), Sambal Bajak Terasi (Sambal Chilli with Shrimpt Paste Bajak style in Tomato Basket), Mie Ulang Tahun (Fried Egg Noodles with Red Boiled Quail Eggs), Ayam Panggang Kremes (Grilled Chicken).

Conversation with Hubby while preparing those Tumpeng dishes around 4 PM:

Me: OMG we ran out of rice. We need to buy them ASAP.

Hubby: Ahhhh… I don’t wanna go out anymore today (answering with sleepy eyes, laying on the carpet)

Me: Oh well I suppose I could go tomorrow buying rice (25 kg) and chicken for Saturday (about 28 pcs of Chicken Maryland, those are for Theo’s one month things. We usually gave a packet of yellow rice with chicken, red egg, red traditional cake, and sweets to close friends and relatives. Traditionally, this thing is done to let them know that there is a new baby born in the family)

Hubby: Zzzzzzz… (snoozing already on the carpet while the toddler destroying the house with all of his toys all over the house)

Friday, lots and lots and lots of thing had to be done. First thing, feed all the boys then bath them and myself. Before we went out, it was already 12.30 PM. I was in a panicking zone. We all went to the city and darn it.. as usual no parking spot. Thank God I had a help that day from a friend. She watched the boys while I parked my car in a no parking zone (hoping that no parking office will pass and give me a ticket). I ran to the shop telling to the housekeeper that I need a 25 kg rice and then straight to the butcher asking him to give me 28 pieces of chicken maryland. I told them to be quick as I parked in the no parking zone. The porter carried the rice to the car, but there was no sign of the chicken from the butcher yet. I ran straight to the car and I was so lucky to spot a parking spot, although it meant that I had to drive backward about 5 metres on a busy zone. Back to the butcher asking him where the hell was my chickens. Surprisingly he handed me a big box of chicken.

Me: (still looking surprised) OMG how come you gives me the box? I only asked for 28 pieces of chicken.

Butcher: Yes 28 pieces of chicken maryland.

Me: (wondering how big those chicken pieces hidden inside the box) Mmm.. I need someone to help me carry this box to the car

Butcher: Okay.. no worries

Me: Hang on a second, I need to buy extra lemon grass

(Butcher kept going and went out of the store without me while I was paying the shopkeeper. Me following behind him and running)

(Me Arrived at the back of the car panicking and worrying that all those salmonella leaking and dripping from the wet box would contaminate my beloved car. I quickly placed lots of plastic bags on the car so the butcher could place that salmonella box on top.)

I think the box weighs almost 20 kg and don’t ask me how I get them all up to my apartment. A very hard work indeed. I had a very busy day and night after the chicken arrived on my kitchen station.Lots of chopping on the extra chicken fat. Lots of pinching the extra feather left on the huge chicken pieces. I wonder how big the chickens were when they were alive. I had to finish at 1.30 AM in the morning since my brain wasn’t really synchronized with my doing anymore.

All I can say about Saturday was busy hectic and kind of panicky, not so much for the cooking but for my two nagging boys. We started the delivery at 12.30 PM and arrived back home at 7.30 PM at night. What a journey, starting from inner west, eastern, northern, west, and city. Well thank God both of my boys was behaving nicely, especially the little one who slept all the way through and only woke up once for a fed.

This is one of the packet we delivered to relatives and close friends. I made 25 packets of them, each consists of Nasi Kuning (Festive Yellow Rice), Ayam Panggang Kremes (Grilled Chicken), Telur Merah (Red Boiled Egg), Kue Ku (Glutinous Rice Cake filled with Mung Bean Paste).

A little background story behind this pudding. When I was little, I remembered that our close family friend who owned a bakery back in Indonesia always send us this pudding on Chinese New Year. They usually delivered this pudding a day before the Chinese New Year and we (or at least me) can’t wait for tomorrow to come so I could have a big chunk for myself. Well you see, I slept at my grandparent house on new years eve because it was a big family dinner. My grandmother is a fussy woman (sorry ama, but you really are). She won’t let us touch all the cakes until the actual day of Chinese New Year. I never understand why or how she thinks, because she didn’t serve the pudding to the guests who visit her house anyway. She kept all of her grandchildren favourite foods in a safe place so no one could had them. So, why didn’t she let us have the taste before the day Ama? Oh well, I think she likes to have lots and lots of various foods serve on her table at the same time on the important day.

I did an attempt to make this pudding before with a recipe listed on some packet instruction (forget what is the product..) a long long time ago. I don’t think I need to describe how was it, because it was surely a big disaster, ended up with the whole chunk of mess in the trash. So, I am a little bit traumatized to try.

I found this recipe, read the instructions all the way through. I thought to myself, well I have nothing to lose because the egg whites is going to the trash anyway if it is unused. If you look at the original recipe (if you could understand Indonesian), you will notice that she whipped all the egg whites and mix it with the agar-agar mixture. Then she divide the mixture into three batches and mixing them with colours. Then she arrange it colour by colour. Well, I thought it was a chance to fail for me. I am not that big of a risk taker. So I decided to do two tins so I don’t have to weight the agar-agar every time I cook them. I am really surprised on how quick the layer set, and I am relieved that I didn’t do as the original recipe told.

Note to myself:

• Reduce the amount of milk so the texture is much harder.
• The sponge cake recipe is OK, but next time I will use sponge cake recipe from egg whites.
• The top layer is better with Nutrijel (jelly) as this agar-agar is too hard and break the colourful layer as you spoon them.

Ingredients for the Sponge Cake

Recipe adapted from dapur DiFa : Sponge Cake with Toppings, for details click here

• 4 eggs
• 80 gr plain flour
• 20 gr corn flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 50 gr reduced salt butter, melted
• 1 tsp cake emulsifier

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Ingredients

• 1.8 kg or 10 pcs yellow tail fish, clean, gutted, and chopped into 3
• 1 lime, strain the juice
• 2 tsp of salt to marinate
• 1 1/2 tbsp of garlic puree
• 1 1/2 cup of red long chilli puree
• 1 tsp of salt or to adjust accordingly
• 1 tbsp of vinegar or to adjust accordingly
• 2 tbsp of sugar or to adjust accordingly (see note)
• 1 tbsp tomato sauce
• oil for deep frying and stir frying

My verdict on the cake is absolutely soft and spongy even without the cake emulsifier. Amazing really, how can it be that soft without the cake emulsifier. I still couldn’t explain the reason.

As the recipe suggested, do not buttered the baking tin. I wouldn’t be so sure about that. The side of the cake is not that difficult, but as for the bottom one, I rip part of my cake and left it on the pan. Next time I will definitely butter the pan very lightly especially the bottom of the tin.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Passion (Ibu Tio Blog) : Chiffon Chocolate White Egg, for details click here

• 125 gr plain flour
• 25 gr cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 25 gr corn flour
• 75 gr oil (I used 75 gr melted reduced salt butter)
• 75 ml full cream milk
• 100 gr egg whites (to be mix to the mixture)
• 400 gr egg whites (to be whipped)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 175 gr sugar (I used 150 gr)

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

This is one of my trial recipe. the recipe is definitely a keeper. The cake is super soft and has a beautiful texture. It is really different compares to the baked cakes. It is also beautiful in appearance. This steam cake is a sudden hit to my house members. When I asked my husband whether I should actually give some of the cake to my neighbor, he simply replied : “Hmmm… not this one, I think we could finish it very quickly”. He was right. We finished the cake in a day. My boy loves the pink one as it has a strong strawberry essence. My husband loves the green one. I love them all.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Passion (Ibu Tio Blog) : Bolu Kukus Pelangi, for details click here

• 500 ml egg whites
• 325 gr sugar (I used 300 gr)
• 1 tbsp cake emulsifier (I used 15 gr Ovalet Kupu Kupu brand)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 100 ml full cream milk
• 50 gr melted butter (I used reduced salt butter)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 250 gr plain flour
• 25 gr full cream milk powder
• strawberry essence + red colouring
• lemon essence
• mocha essence
• pandan essence

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

As usual, in making the bread, I rested the dough twice before baking them in the oven. The silliest and dummies thing that I did was by not resting the cake on the baking tray in its final stage. When they were ready, I had to carefully picked them up and moving them to a baking tray. A big NO NO, the dough just kind of shrunk and out of shape. So the dough ended up with three times resting time, which I think make the taste of the bread kind of yeasty. This is a very important lesson that I learned.

It is time now for the verdict. When they just came out of the oven, they tasted really good. Because of the butter in the middle, the middle texture that is close to the butter has a crunch bite to it. I ate two buns straight away. However the next morning, they didn’t taste as good ad they were warm. The topping became a little bit sticky. I think the stickiness was because I stored them in a tight container while they were still a little bit warm. In conclusion, I think it is best to finish all the buns on the day of  making.

As for myself, I like the buns and will be happy to make them again. However, since my family members especially my husband doesn’t like the thought of chunky butter in the middle of the bread and there is no chocolate involvement in this bun. There is a slim chance that I will be making this bread again in the future.

Ingredients for the Bread

Recipe adapted from Natural Cooking Club : Roti Empuk, for details click here

• 500 gr high protein flour/bread flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 100 gr butter (I used reduced salt butter)
• 11 gr dry yeast
• 1/2 tsp bread improver (I didn’t use this)
• 4 egg yolks
• 300 ml ice water (just use 200 ml first, and the rest is just in case the dough is not wet enough)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• cold butter about 10 gr each for each individual dough (for Roti Polo)

Ingredients for the Topping (Roti Polo)

Recipe adapted from Natural Cooking Club : Roti Polo, for details click here

• 50 gr icing sugar
• 50 gr palm sugar (I used dark brown sugar)
• 100 gr reduced salt butter
• 80 gr egg
• 130 gr plain flour
• 5 gr coffee + 1 tbsp hot water
• 5 gr coffee essence

Instructions for the Topping (Roti Polo)

1. Using hand held mixer, mix butter, icing sugar, egg until soft.
2. Add in plain flour and mix until well combined.
3. Add in coffee mixture and coffee essence and mix until well combined.
4. Using a triangle plastic decoration, the topping is ready to be put on top of the bread in a coral motion.

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Butcher: How many kg for the spareribs?

Me: ehhhmmmmm…. give me 3 kg please

Butcher took 4 big pieces of ribs and weight, and they were about 2.3 kg. Suddenly I thought to myself, OMG it was a bit too much if she added more ribs. I shouted my change of mine.

Me: so sorry.. I changed my mind.. that would be enough thank you (fiuhhhh… what a relieve)

On Sunday morning, I thought this BBQ type of thing would be just perfect for our weekend brunch. So there I was, standing in the kitchen at 9 o’clock, peeling my herbs and pureeing them. By 10.30, my toddler had his ribs with steam rice, and he absolutely loves it. I don’t think the chilli affect him because you can’t really taste the spiciness because of the other herbs. We all had a lovely and full-filling brunch. I suddenly regret myself forbidding the butcher to give me 3 kg instead of 2.3 kg. My husband kept coming back to the kitchen to get some of those sticky juicy spare ribs. When I asked him whether I actually need to cook them twice as much quantity, he agreed. Ehmmm… so I actually should ask for 5 kg of spare ribs to satisfy all the meat eaters at home.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from The Around the World Cookbook

• 1 kg American pork spare ribs
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• 2 cloves shallot
• 2.5 cm fresh ginger
• 1/3 soy sauce (half sweet soy sauce and half the salty one)
• 2 red chillies
• 1/3 cup of tamarind juice (soaked about a thumb size of tamarind in hot water)
• 2 tbsp palm sugar
• 2 tbsp oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation time (duration): 30

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Another thing I want to warn you is that, don’t try to fit them all in one baking tray like mine. Because after about 10 minutes, all the middle buns slightly dropped and sunk.  The middle part tasted really doughy and under cook. I had to be honest though, I only baked mine for 15 minutes because I was distracted by my toddler who woke up in the middle of the night. So, I just kinda took them out of the oven, because I didn’t want the bread to be dried and over baked. So, I think that was one of the reason the middle part dropped. However, I will do them in loaf pan to be safe.

This is the looks just before the middle part slightly dropped.

Ingredients

Recipe adapted from Rumah Ningnong : Roti Sisir, for details click here

• 500 gr high protein flour/bread flour
• 100 gr sugar
• 1 sachet dry yeast
• 5 gr bread improver (I didn’t use this)
• 5 gr salt (I didn’t use this)
• 1 tbsp emulsifier (TBM/Ovalet/SP)
• 50 gr egg yolk or about 3 egg yolks
• 75 gr reduced salt butter, melted
• 175 ml water
• chopped dark chocolate for filling
• fresh milk for brushing

Cooking time (duration): 30

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Cap Cai is a common vegetable dish to serve at Indonesian Chinese dining table. It consists of various vegetable stir together and complemented with quail eggs or meatballs or chicken or meat. The sauce is slightly thickened with diluted corn flour at the end of cooking process. This is also one of the must dish which is always ordered by my grandparents when we dine out at Chinese restaurant.

Ingredients

• 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
• about 2 cups of cuts chinese cabbage
• about 1 cup of sliced carrot
• about 1/2 cup of snow peas
• about 1 cup of cuts cauliflower
• about 1/2 cup of cuts spring onion
• 1/2 cup of water
• 1 dozen of quail eggs, boiled and peeled
• about 2 cups of meatballs
• salt to taste
• diluted corn flour to thicken the sauce
• oil for stir frying

Cooking time (duration): 20

Culinary tradition: Chinese, Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

Back to the chicken wing journey from Woolworths to my kitchen. Woolworths sold this bulk pack of chicken wings which sounds economical and ended up me on buying them. I had no idea at that time what I am going to do with them. I thought just buy them first and figure it out later what I can do with them. Anyway, I ended up making this dish because it was almost 2 o’clock in the afternoon and I had to pick up my toddler at kindy. I need something quick and easy for my lunch and there was it Fried Chicken with Sweet Soy Sauce.

If you would like to share this dish with the little one, don’t slice the chillies up. Leave them as whole, so the adult could still enjoy the spiciness of the chillies on their own plate.

Ingredients

• 1.5 kg of chicken wings
• juice from 1 lime to marinade
• salt to marinade
• 2 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 clove of shallot, sliced
• half punnet of cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• small chillies, according to your preferences
• 3/4 cup of sweet soy sauce
• salt to taste
• oil for deep frying and stir frying

Cooking time (duration): 20

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

However, I was saving them because I only made one Lapis Legit. I could use them for many things, for cakes, cookies, coating the meat/chicken, making an egg omelet (of course by mixing them the yolks as well, only lots and lots of egg whites), steaming the egg whites with mince meat and vegetable, and some people even use it for a face mask for tightening the skin.

I was sitting on the couch playing with my toddler on a rainy afternoon. Winter season is here and I need a warm simple cake with hot cup of tea so bad. So, here it was a very quick and easy cake to make. They are not as light and fluffy as the cake with yolks but they are pretty good for egg whites cake.

Ingredients

• 400 ml egg whites (or about 10 eggs whites)
• 175 gr plain flour
• 25 gr corn flour
• 150 gr sugar
• 200 gr margarine, melted (I used Blue Band margarine)
• 1/2 tsp emulsifier
• cocoa powder as needed

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken (about 1.6-1.8 kg), cut into small bites about 20 pcs
• 2 tbsp lime juice to marinate
• 1 1/2 tsp salt to marinate
• 250 gr green long chilli, puree
• 1 /2 tbsp garlic puree
• 3/4 tsp salt or to taste
• 1 tbsp vinegar or to taste
• 1/2 tbsp tomato sauce
• 1 1/2 tbsp sugar or to taste
• oil for deep frying and stir frying

Ingredients

• 1 kg of calamari/cuttle fish, clean the translucent bone, ink and skin, cut
• 3 tomatoes, cut in cubes
• 1 capsicum, cut in long strips
• 2 green long chillies, slice
• 2 cloves, sliced thinly
• 1 onion, sliced
• 1 cup tomato sauce, more or less
• 1 tbsp chilli sauce, more or less
• salt and sugar to adjust
• oil for stir frying