Gudeg (Unripe Jackfruits Stew)

Maybe some of you is asking what is Gudeg? Or absolutely have no idea or never even heard about Gudeg. Well, let me tell you. Gudeg is one of traditional Indonesian food. Maybe it is not as famous as Beef Rendang or Nasi Goreng, but I guarantee you that Gudeg is as delicious as both of them.

Gudeg is Javanese cuisine from Central Java and is made from young or unripe jack fruits boiled together with palm sugar, coconut milk, many of spices, and teak leaves (to make its color become brown). Basially, it is a stew unripe jack fruits. Because the jack fruit is cooked together with a lot of palm sugar, Gudeg is not spicy at all. It tastes sweet and rich. But wait for it. Before you ask where you can get the spicy taste from this cuisine, I will tell you that Gudeg is usually served together with hot steam rice, Opor ayam (chicken boiled in coconut milk), hard boiled egg, fried tofu and tempeh, and sambal goreng krecek (cattle skin spicy stew). See, there is a sambal on it. Gudeg itself is really delicious. But try to eat Gudeg komplit (complete served Gudeg with the opor, fried tofu and tempeh, sambal krecek, boiled egg, and hot steamed rice). It's heaven!! (God. I'm drooling right now)

I really love Gudeg. I could eat a lot of it only with hot steamed rice and krupuk (starch crackers). But too bad, when I was In Indonesia, there were not many places that sell Gudeg. It was not really common in East Java. Even if there were, it was not really cheap and sometime, it was too spicy. I prefer a sweet style Gudeg. (East Java cuisine is more spicy than Central Java cuisine meanwhile, Central Java cuisine is sweeter than East Java cuisine). Years later, I accidentally found a Gudeg recipe from internet. It surprisingly easy to make. And what made me more surprised, that I found out that I could use tea leaves instead of teak leaves. Of course tea leaves is much more easy to get instead of teak leaves. I never even saw the teak trees.

Some people doubt me because I was going to make Gudeg with canned unripe jackfruit (not fresh jack fruit), tea leaves, and canned coconut milk. They said the result would not as good as if I were using fresh ingredients like in Indonesia. But hey! Show must go on. I gave it a try, and I really really satisfied with the result. It was sweet, and rich like I the Gudeg that I wanted. No one will never ever realized if I was using canned ingredients and tea bag instead of teak leaves.

Canned Unripe Jackfruit

The down side for making this cuisine is I needed more than 4 hours to cook it into perfection. Well, it's ok. I can make it once or two times a year is enough for me. I just have to double the recipe and I can enjoy Gudeg for at least 3 days.

Ingredients :

• 3 cans (about 500 grams net for each can) unripe jack fruit, drain the water. 
• 4 eggs
• 2 english tea bags or black tea bags
• 5 bayleaves
• 1 tsp tamarind paste
• 120 grams palm sugar, cut into small pieces
• 1 can (450 ml) coconut milk
• 4 medium shallots (or about 10 Indonesian shallots)
• 6 cloves of garlic
• 10 candlenuts
• 1 1/2 tbs ground coriander seeds
• 1 inch fresh galangal
• 1 tsp salt
• water

Preparation :

1. First, boil the eggs until you get a nice hard boiled eggs. Once the egg is cooked, drain the water and rinse them with a cold water and peel the skin.
2. Blend or ground together shallots, garlic, candlenuts, coriander, fresh galangal, and salt until you get a paste form.
   
3. Put all the unripe jackfruit and tea bags into a big pot. Add some water until almost all of the jackfruit are covered and let it boil. 
   
4. Once the water is boiled, reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes.
5. Add hard boiled egg, tamarind paste, palm sugar, and spices paste into the pot. 
6. Turn back the heat to medium and let it cook for about 1 hours.
7. Add bayleaves and coconut milk into the pot.
   
8. Reduce the heat into medium-low, cover the pot (don't forget to leave a small gap between the pot and the lid), and cook it for another 3-4 hours or until most of the liquid are gone and the spices and sugar are being absorbed by the jackfruits. 

Read More

Honey Glazed Carrot

Getting bored with simple boiled or steamed carrot? Well, try this simple side dish. Honey glazed carrot.

Last week there was a big sale of jumbo BBQ meatball on nearby store. I bought it and served it for dinner together with roasted potatoes. But I still needed another side dish for this dinner and i think glazed carrot would be great. This is my first time i make this side dish and it turned out good. I like the combination of the sweetness of carrot and the taste of honey. I definitely would make this dish again.

Beside, it was very simple and easy to make. Would you like to try? :)

Ingredients :

• 400-500 grams carrots (preferable baby carrots), peeled.
• 3 tbs (45 grams) unsalted butter
• 4 tbs honey
• 1 tbs lemon juice 
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• salt and ground black pepper

Preparation :

1. In a medium sauce pan or pot, bring water to boil.
2. Put the carrots into the pot and sprinkle some salt. Let the carrots cooked for about 10 minutes until they become tender.
3. Drain the water.
4. Add butter into the pot and let it melt.
5. Put the carrots back into the pot
6. Add honey, lemon juice, brown sugar, and some salt
7. Stir them well until the carrots are covered well with honey and butter.
8. Simmer it for about 5-10 minutes and stir it gently once in a while to make sure all the carrots are glazed well.
9. Turn off the heat, sprinkle some ground black pepper and stir it again.
10. Serve it immediately. 

Read More

Baked Eggplant Sandwiches

Last week, my friend came home and brought an eggplant. It is a really nice, beautiful, big, firm, purple eggplant. Well, to be honest, I'm not really a big fan of eggplant. My mother used to make a fried eggplant when I was a child. But she was using different type of eggplants. The skin was not as tough as eggplants that I find in Netherlands. I don't know. It was just different.

Hmm... what should I do? what kind of dish that i could make out of it?Just make a stir fry eggplant with sesame oil or olive oil? No. I want something else. The eggplant was sitting quietly in my refrigerator for few days. Until I remember one of recipe that I found on youtube few months ago. Chef John's baked eggplant sandwiches. I'm a fan of his dishes and I wanted to remake this eggplant dish for weeks but I never got a chance. I almost forget about it. Until now :)

So, I made it few days ago. Baked eggplant sandwiches. Sliced eggplant filled with cheese and salami, covered with breadcrumbs, and baked for about 20 minutes.

15 minutes after I pulled them out of the oven, I tried one bite. It was delicious. The eggplant was soft and chewy. But at the same time, the breadcrumbs made it crunchy. The salami and melting cheese are great. I never thought that eggplant goes well with salami. Thank you chef John. You're awesome. I serve it on the plate with some green salad. Sweet chili sauce or honey mustard sauce will be great as the condiment.

Ingredients :

• 1 Eggplant
• 14 Small sliced cheese
• 7 Thinly sliced salami
• 2 Eggs, beaten
• 100 grams flour
• 200 grams bread crumbs
• Olive oil
• Some grated cheese

Tip :  The amount of the sliced cheese and sliced salami are depend on the amount of eggplant sandwiches. It is depend on the eggplant that you have. The longer eggplant that you have, the more pair of eggplant spices that you'll get. From my eggplant, I could get 7 eggplant sandwiches and 1 small slice of eggplant. 

Preparation :

1. Preheat oven for 210 C (about 425 F).
2. Prepare a baking sheet, line it with aluminium foil, and drizzle some olive oil on the top. Set aside.
3. Cut the eggplant into about 1 cm thick slices. Make a pair one to another out of it.
4. Put 1 sliced of cheese, 1 slice of salami, and another slice of cheese between on each pair of eggplant.
   
5. Coat the eggplant sandwich with the flour.
6. Dip the coated eggplant sandwich into beaten egg.
7. Coat it again with the breadcrumbs. Make sure all the surfaces are coated well with the breadcrumbs.
8. Put the eggplants sandwiches on the prepared baking sheet.
9. On the top of each of them, drizzle some olive oil and add some grated cheese.
10. Put the baking sheet into preheated oven and bake them for about 10 minutes.
11. Take the baking sheet out and flip all the sandwiches.
12. Add some more olive oil and grated cheese on the top of them.
13. Put them back into the oven and bake for another 10 minutes.
14. Take them out from the oven and let them cool for a while.
    
15. Ready to serve.

Tip : For meatless version, you can just skip the salami. :)

Read More

Lumpia (Spring roll)

Spring roll is one of Chinese dish which is very popular all around the world. It taste great and can be served as an appetizer or a snack. There are so many type and variety of spring roll.  I was born and raised in Indonesia. So, I will make an Indonesian style.

In Indonesia we call it Lumpia. Dutch people call it Loempia. Indonesian lumpia is commonly filled with chopped bamboo shoots with minced chicken or prawn, served with fresh leeks and sweet tauco (fermented soy) and garlic sauce.

This week, I'm going to make some spring rolls for my family. I still have some prawn and spring roll pastry skin on my fridge. I only need to buy some vegetables, do some magic, and I can't wait to see my daughter's smile when she sees spring rolls served on the table with some sweet chili sauce (I do not have any tauco available on my kitchen at this moment). Yum!! She loves it. And so do I. :-)

First I need to make the filling.

Ingredients :

• 2 shallots, cut stripes
• 1 clove of  garlic
• 1 Egg, whisk
• 20 grams Chicken, cut stripes 
• 20 grams Prawn, roughly chopped 
• 200 grams Carrot, cut thin stripes
• 1 can (340 grams net) Bamboo shoots, cut thin stripes
• 100 grams Bean sprouts
• 3 sticks Spring onion, choped 
• 2 tbs Sweet soy sauce
• 1 tbs Soy sauce
• 1 tbs Tomato sauce
• about 1/4 cup (70 ml) Water
• 1/4 tsp Ginger powder (or grated fresh ginger)
• 1 tsp + 1 tbs Sesame oil
• 1.5 tsp Sugar
• Salt and pepper (white pepper)

Tip : If you want to make a vegetarian version, you can skip adding chicken, shrimp, or egg in the filling. It will be just fine.

Tip : For the bamboo shoot, if you're using fresh bamboo shoot, before cut it into stripes, boil the bamboo first for a few times to reduce its sour smell. In Netherlands, where I'm living now, it is hard to find fresh bamboo shoot. That's why, i use canned striped bamboo shoot.

  

I bought it in Asian grocery store. Before usage, drain and rinse them with water. 

Preparation :

1. In a big pan, preheat about 3 tbs vegetable oil
2. Pour whisked egg into the pan and scramble it. Set it aside
3. In the same pan, preheat again 3-4 tbs vegetable oil and 1 tbs sesame oil
4. Put shallot and garlic into the pan and saute them until translucent
5. (Add grated ginger IF you're using fresh ginger. If not, go to step 6)
6. Add chicken and prawn, stir until they're cooked.
7. Add stripped carrot, bamboo shoot, and bean sprout into the pan.
8. Stir fry vegetables until they become tender
9. Add water, both soy sauce, tomato sauce, ginger powder, sesame oil, and sugar
10. Keep stirring until the vegetables are cooked, tender, and seasoned well
11. Add scrambled egg, spring onion, salt, and pepper, stir well
12. Adjust the taste if needed
13. Transfer them into a big plate or bowl

Sometimes i just stop the process until this step. I will eat this stir fry vegetable just with hot steamed rice and store bought szechuan chili. It's delicious. But now, my topic is spring roll. So, let's make a spring roll.

For making spring roll, let the filling cooled for a while before wrap them up with the skin. I use store bought skins. They are called spring roll pastry. They are available at various size. I'm using approximately 21,5 x 21,5 cm skin, but you can use any size you want.

Ingredients :

• Spring roll filling
• 1 pack Spring roll pastry for skin
• 1 egg, beaten
• Vegetable oil 

Preparation :

1. Put about 1-2 tbs filling on spring roll pastry
2. Wrap them up
3. Use egg wash as a glue to seam the end of the skin
4. Deep fry the spring roll (at 175 C or 350 F preheated oil)
5. Once they become golden brown, remove them from the oil, and drain well the oil.
6. Remove the excess oil from the spring rolls using kitchen paper.
7. Serve them hot with sweet chili sauce, or tauco and garlic sauce.

Tip : If you don't have deep fry thermometer, you can always use a traditional way. Put wooden spatula or wooden chop stick into preheated oil. If there're a lot of  bubbles appears around that wooden spatula or chop stick it means that the oil is hot enough. Or you can always drop a piece of bread into the oil to check if the oil is hot enough. 

How to wrap spring roll?

This is the pictures how to wrap spring roll. It's easier to explain it using pictures than words. 

Done! Spring rolls are ready to be fried :)

Tip : If you have some leftover or unused skins, wrap them all using aluminium foil before put them back into the package or plastic bag. Don't forget to seal them tightly using sticky tape. This will prevent the skin's edge become too dry. 

Read More