483rd anniversary of my hometown Jakarta

Today is 483rd anniversary of Jakarta. One thing that always happens to celebrate is Jakarta Fair (PRJ). Used to hold in Monas, KM 0 of Jakarta but since few years ago PRJ changes the location in Kemayoran (old airport of Jakarta) where my parents live not so far from that area.

Jakarta Fair is always presenting old and new Jakarta, the cultures, products and foods. Kerak telor is the most favorite among the traditional foods in Jakarta and normally I only could find it during this event. Normally Jakarta Fair is held for 1 month during school holiday. It is like the must attending event for all people in Jakarta, they don’t care about the crowd as long as they could go there, either bny public transportation or by private one.

The other thing is “Ondel-Ondel”, a giant puppet which somehow scary for some children but it parts of Jakarta and it is a symbol of Jakarta.

I remember one song by late Andi Meriem Matalatta called “Lenggang Lenggok Jakarta” in its lyric said “bagai pinggul gadis remaja”, saying that Jakarta is just like a young lady’s hips, which everybody would like to stare and hopefully could touch it.

Jakarta is getting old now, more crowded, more polluted, hot and flooding. It needs the discipline from people in Jakarta to change this not only the government, but somehow it is not an easy way because still a lot of people lack of discipline and littering.

Despite of the crowd, the traffic and flood, Jakarta is still a magnet for people from other part in Indonesia to come and work there. For them it is a prestige and it is a symbol of success that they could live and work in Jakarta but not few of them are failed and become a beggar or do something illegally.

Jakarta… the city where I was born, the city where I went for study, the city where I fell in love for the first time, the city where my family and my friends live, do not give up with all bad conditions. I will still come to visit you from time to time. Happy anniversary Jakarta..!!!

Kabul, 22 June 2010

Afternoon tea and football match

The fever of World Cup 2010 is still in the air, that's why today I invited some friends to come over for afternoon tea and for football match (Germany vs Serbia, which won by Serbia 0-1), so I prepared coffee (coffee “solong” from Banda Aceh given by my friend Dewi Kurniawati - thanks Dewi...!!!), tea and some juices and of course with some cakes.

For this event I made puff cream (kue sus), cinnamon rolls cookies, apple cake and brownies.

I already wrote the recipe of apple cake on my previous post.

For puff cream: boiled250 ml water with 125 gr butter and ½ spoon salt then add 150 gr flour and knead well, put it aside until cool. Add 4 eggs one by one, knead well.

For cream, boiled 200 ml milk with 75 gr sugar, 25 gr corn flour and 1/8 spoon salt until bubbled. Took out from fire then add 1 egg yolk, still well and put it again on the small fire until bubbled again, put it aside. When its cold, put into a spit plastic bag.

Put some puff dough in plastic spit bag and spit on tray covered butter with snail house shape, after all dough finish, bake it for about 25 minutes.

There are 2 ways to fill the cream in the puff, first, made a whole at the bottom of each puff and spit the cream inside or the second way, cut half round the puff in the middle with scissor then fill the cream inside.

For cinnamon rolls cookies, 125 ml milk in the pot put on top of small fire with 125 gr butter, not necessary until boiled, just until the butter melted, add 75 gr sugar, still until cold. Add 1 beaten egg and the mixture of 1 teaspoon yeast and 50 ml warm water.

Mix the milk mixture to 450 gr flour and knead well and leave it for 1 hour.

Roll dough into rectangle spread with butter, layer with brown sugar, cinnamon powder and raisins. Roll up and cut for about 3 cm and put on the tray covered with butter until all dough finish.

Bake for about 20 minutes or until the dough become golden brown. Better to take the cookies out from the tray while still hot because sometimes the melted brown sugar will stik on the tray but you should take the cookies out very carefully.

For brownies, place 125 gr butter and 200 gr dark chocolate (chopped) in a pan or heatproof bowl that stand over a pan of simmering water, stir until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and add 250 gr sugar, 2 beaten eggs and 90 gr sour cream (you could substitute with yoghurt). Put the mixture aside.

Mix in one bowl, 185 gr flour, 30 gr cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda and 250 chopped roasted cashew nuts. Make a well in the center.

Pour the chocolate mixture in the well of flour mixture, using a wooden spoon and stir until well combined but do not overbeat.

Pour into cake tin covered with butter and baking paper or flour, bake for 35 minutes, just remember do not bake it until dry because brownies suppose to be a moist cake.

As usual, enjoy cooking and baking.

Kabul, 18 June 2010

World Cup 2010 fever

Maybe you will find it odd to read this article about football among my recipes.

Well…. FIFA World Cup 2010 fever is in the air, whether you like it or not all tv on the world will show the games and people would like to stay awake until morning just to see their favorite team plays.

Even the status of my friends on Facebook, mostly about World Cup but still there are some putting their status being annoyed by World Cup because they don’t like football at all.

Somehow funny to see my friend’s status or comment, a lot of pro and contra but that make whatever event on this world more colorful.

In this World Cup 2010, I almost watch all the games and I keep the points of each country on the table.

First I would like to apologize because I am not the expert of football, this is just from my point of view.

At the beginning, football is not my favorite game to be watched but it is getting interesting more and more especially the players technique are different for each country and interesting to see. It happened on World Cup 2006, after a few months I arrived in Banda Aceh and my office there invited all NGO workers to watch the final of European Championship 2008 together. From my point of view, World Cup and European Championship are the most fair and original football game compare with other football game, like League Championship in Europe or South America because all the player are the native of each country. In League Championship, one club could buy one player from another country. I don’t judge this as a mistake or wrong, I just see that in World Cup all players more showing their nationalism for their own country, but anyhow in League Championship the diversity of players make the game more interesting to be watched.

When I am writing this, it’s the 3rd day of World Cup 2010 even I don’t watch all the games or only partly, I think German team is the best team so far, their technique and team work is very good and very punctual to each player it proofed by beating Australia by 4 – 0. And South Africa seems a good host.

But there are still a lot of games until we find out which country will hold the trophy of World Cup 2010 on 10th June 2010. Like Italy which was the champion for World Cup 2006.

OK… for those who are the fanatic fans of football, enjoy watching each game and hope your favorite country will do the best.

And for those who don’t like football, just keep low and don’t get annoyed, let them talk about football and you can talk about something else that interest you. It is only for every 4 years.

Something else that happens is the habit when you watch game on tv, normally there are some snacks to accompany you beside your friends, maybe I could suggest to make your own snacks, like french fries, pop corn, spicy nuts or some sandwiches. It’s easy and much cheaper then to buy them and of course more fun to prepare, especially you prepare the snacks together with your friends.

Happy watching the games and always enjoy cooking.

Kabul, 14 June 2010

Beef rendang

Today I made “beef rendang”. Like I said in my previous post, to make beef rendang is not that difficult just take a lot of times.

3 cloves garlic, 1 big onion (15 cloves shallot), galangale, ginger, lemon grass, chili (optional, but the original rendang is spicy), process all with food processor until became paste.

Put some cooking oil on the pot, add the rendang paste, lime leave and cook until brown. Add 300 gr beef (dice) and cook for awhile.

Add 800 ml thin coconut milk and cook until reduce for about 4 hours with small fire. After that add 400 ml thick coconut milk, cook until about the half and add tamarind.

Taste rendang before add salt and sugar, because beef and coconut milk will produce sweet.

Since in Kabul cannot find “gula jawa” (palm sugar) I use brown sugar and splash of vinegar as the substitute of tamarind.

Please be informed, the original beef rendang should be cooked until dry and become dark brown.

Have beef rendang with hot steam rice and fried shallot.

I want to thank to Eva Muharti, a friend of mine who came from West Sumatra, where rendang came from.

She added on the recipe with coriander, star anis, cumin, coriander leaf and no sugar. And that is the original recipe from West Sumatra.

For the recipe, please refer to her comment in this post.

Kabul, 12 June 2010

Japanese food

Tonight I had a plan to make Japanese food, I was thinking of Chicken Teriyaki and Tofu Miso Soup but I didn’t have miso paste and teriyaki sauce.
Well, it didn’t stop not to make those foods. Instead using miso paste, I made bean paste and instead of using teriyaki sauce, I use mixture of oyster sauce, soy sauce and sweet soy sauce.

For tofu miso soup, boil 2 tablespoons of bean paste with 500 ml water (better using fresh vegetable stock), add 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 200 gr dice sliced tofu if you don’t have fresh vegetable stock, you could use vegetable cube, add it at the boiling bean paste, add chopped spring onion, salt and sugar. At the end put the roasted seaweed.

And for chicken teriyaki, 200 gr thin sliced chicken breast mix with salt and white pepper and 2 beat eggs, put chicken slice by slice on the corn flour until covered then deep fry all the chicken till finish.
Sautee 2 cloves sliced garlic, 1 big onion (thin sliced), some sliced of ginger until brown, add 5 tablespoons oyster sauce, 5 tablespoons of sweet soy sauce, 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and 100 ml of water.
Add sliced spring onion, sesame seeds, salt and sugar. Stir well. Add deep fry of chicken covered with corn flour, stir well until all the sauce covering the chicken, cook until ready. Turn off the fire then add splash of sesame oil.




Kabul, 10 June 2010

Flourless chocolate cake

In my previous post, I mentioned that to make a cake we could substitute flour to grounded almond or cashew nut. Today I made a “Flourless Chocolate Cake”.
Melt 250 gr dark cooking chocolate with double pan, lower pan filled with water (it avoids the chocolate from burn), then mix with non-alcohol rum and 130 gr gounded almond. Put aside.

Beat 250 gr butter and 220 gr sugar until light and creamy, add 6 egg yolks and beat again. Add the melted chocolate and almond mixture, stir lightly.
Beat 6 egg whites with 2 tablespoons until stiff. Then add gradually to the butter and chocolate mixture, gently fold until the egg whites finish.
Put on bake tin covered by butter and bake paper. Bake it for 50 minutes or until ready. It’s kind of brownies cake.

Kabul, 4 June 2010

Wrap, vanilla cake and leftover

We were locked down in Kabul because of the Peace Jirga (Big Assembly) opened by President Karzai, some of offices were closed including mine and some were not. I invited some friends who came to their office for lunch and I prepared “Wrap” and Simple Vanilla Cake.

One of my friend is vegetarian, so I prepared “vegetable wrap” for her, actually it was the same, I just didn’t put the meat inside the wrap.

You could fill the wrap with almost everything, fresh vegetables (tomato, lettuce, cucumber), stir fry chicken, beef or mushroom. Better you seeded the fresh vegetables first and sliced very thin.

For the wrap, mix 3 tablespoons corn flour with 3 tablespoons fresh milk, then add 200 ml hot water and 75 gr butter, stir until butter melted.
Add 300 gr flour and fold it and make dough. Keep it for 1 hour before you roll it into medium round shape then bake it on teflon pan without oil, both side until well cook.

Fill with the filling, add dressing - mix yoghurt and mayonnaise (1:1), on top the filling and wrap it. (Unfortunately I forgot to take some pictures of it, next time)


For dessert, I just made a simple Vanilla Cake, place in a bowl 250 gr butter and 225 gr sugar, beat until light and creamy. Add 1teaspoon vanilla extract and 3 eggs and beat well. Sift together 230 gr flour and 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder and fold into the butter mixture. Pour into cake tin and bake it for 1 hour. Please be informed that it would be a dry cake, so if you want to keep it for awhile, don’t forget to cover the cake with plastic cling, otherwise it will be dry.

From the filling of wrap, I had some leftover of the beef and some vegetables, and I decided to mix them for dinner tonight.


1 clove crushed garlic, shredded carrot, beef and shredded cabbage, stir fry them and add pinch of salt and sugar and also 1 tablespoon of tomato paste. You could add some chili if you like. I had it with “peyek kacang hijau”. Mix flour and corn flour (1:1), some sliced lime leave, pinch salt and sugar, add water. Fried soaked kacang hijau with the mixed flour.


Kabul, 2 June 2010