Ramadhan, another excuse to invite friends to come over and having dinner together or just having some dessert. This first 2 evenings during Ramadhan, I invited friends to come over. First night I made"Potato Gratin" and "Pasta and Vegetables soup", second night I made "Beef Rendang" and "Mushroom and Vegetables". For dessert I made "Lapis Surabaya" and "Chocolate Mousse"
-> Potato Gratin:
30 gr butter
1 medium onion (sliced ring)
500 gr potato (sliced)
250 ml cream
200 gr Parmesan cheese (grated, separate 1/3)
salt and black pepper
Heat the butter on the pan and cook onion for 5 minute or until soft. Arrange the potato with a layer of the onion ring and cheese. Continue layering in this order until all potato, onion ring and cheese have been used up. Mixed cream, salt and black pepper in a big glass, whisk gently and pour the mixture over the layered potato and onion. At the end sprinkled 1/3 cheese on top and baked for 40 minutes.
-> Pasta and Vegetables Soup 250 gr macaroni 6 medium tomatoes (blendered) 1 medium onion (chopped) 500 ml water 4 cubes vegetables or chicken stock 1 can bean 1 can sweet corn cooking oil salt and black pepper
Heat cooking oil on the pan and cooked onion until soft. Pour tomato and water into onion and bring it boiled. Add vegetables or chicken stock and leave it for 3 minutes. Pu the macaroni inside the mixture and cooked for 5 minutes. Add bean and corn and cook until the macaroni al dante. (I am sorry I don't have the picture for this soup).
-> Lapis Surabaya White cake: 5 egg yolks 3 egg whites 75 gr caster sugar 35 gr flour 15 gr powder milk 100 gr butter (melted) strawberry jam Chocolate cake: (The different just flour mixture, the rest are the same) 25 gr flour 15 gr chocolate powder 10 gr powder milk
Mix eggs, sugar until creamy and fluffy. Mix flour and powder milk (for chocolate cake, including chocolate powder) and put into egg mixture, folded with wooden spoon. Pour butter into mixture of egg and flour. Stir well and pour into cake tin covered with butter and bake paper. Bake for 15 minutes.
Make 2 chocolate cake and 1 white cake or the other way around and layered with strawberry jam in between.
-> Chocolate Mousse 200 gr dark chocolate (chopped) 3 medium eggs (separated) 250 ml whipping cream 2 tbsp alcohol (brandy, cognac, baileys - optional)
Melt chocolate by placing it in a bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whip egg whites until soft peaks form. Whip cream until soft peaks form. Gently whisk egg yolk with alcohol and pour into cool melted chocolate. Add spoonful of cream and egg whites and stir. Continue mix in this order until cream and egg whites have been used up and make sure all mix up very well. Spoon into serving bowl and refrigerate about 3-4 hours. You could serve the chocolate mousse with cream and sprinkled chopped almond or fresh strawberry.
Mix flour, salt and sugar and add water gradually until become a dough. Knead well. Roll for 1 cm thick, cut square and cook until golden brown. Put aside
Mix boiled noodle with mixture of garlic and hot oil, salt and sugar on a bowl. Add chicken on top and sprinkle spring onion. Put pangsit on small plate.
In small bowl pour vegetable stock and sprinkle spring onion. Serve
Cakwe:
300 gr plain flour
5 gr dry yeast
2 tsp sugar
½ tsp baking soda
50 ml hot water
150 ml water
½ tsp salt
Cooking oil
Mix dry yeast with hot water, put aside until bubbled.
Mix flour, salt, sugar and baking soda in a bowl. Add mixture of yeast and water gradually until become dough. Knead well. Cover with cling and leave it for 20 minute and double size.
Roll dough ½ cm, cut about 1 X 5 cm. Put one on top of another and press with chopstick in the middle. Stretch and cook with hot oil.
Sauce:
3 cloves garlic
5 red chilies
5 tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp vinegar
1 tsp corn flour (optional)
300 ml water
Crush garlic, chilies, sugar and salt (not necessary until smooth). Heat pan with water, put chili paste and bring it boil. If you use corn flour, add corn flour (mix with a bit water first). At the end add vinegar and put aside until cool.
Summer is another excuse for the expats in Afghanistan for a party, brunch or BBQ. And I did brunch, invited some friends to come over to have brunch with my home-made foods and cakes.
This time I made fried noodle with vegetables, beef teriyaki, baked aubergine and eggs, baked tofu. Also for desserts I made Devil Food’s Cake and Apple Pie.
Fried Noodle with Vegetables:
500 gr egg noodle (boiled)
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
1 onion (chopped)
Vegetables (carrot, cabbage)
Mushroom
3 sweet soy sauce
3 soy sauce
Water
Sautee garlic and onion until a bit brown, add all soy sauce and a bit water. Put all vegetables, cook for awhile. Add noodle and cook until done.
Beef Teriyaki :
2 cloves garlic (crushed)
1 medium onion (sliced)
1 kg beef (sliced and marinated with teriyaki sauce, oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce and sot sauce)
5 tbsp oyster sauce
3 tbsp sweet soy sauce
5 tbsp soy sauce
salt, sugar and white pepper powder
Cooking oil
Water (if necessary)
2 tbsp sesame oil
Put medium frying pan on medium fire, heat cooking oil, put onion and garlic, cook until a bit brown, add all sauces and beef. Cook until done. Add salt, sugar and white pepper powder. If to dry, put some water. Put aside from fire and add sesame oil.
Baked Aubergine:
1 clove garlic (crushed)
500 gr aubergine (sliced and grilled)
2 medium tomatoes (diced and cooked for 5 minutes)
1 tsp white pepper powder
100 gr cheddar cheese (grated)
Salt and sugar.
12 medium eggs
Arrange grilled aubergine and tomatoes on baking tray.
Mix garlic, white pepper powder, cheese (2/3), salt and sugar with eggs, stir well and pour to aubergine.
Put 1/3 cheese on top and bake until brown.
Baked Tofu.:
1 clove garlic (crushed)
1 spring onion (chopped)
600 gr tofu (mashed)
Salt, sugar and white pepper powder
2 eggs.
Sautee garlic, add tofu and cook for 5 minutes, add spring onion.
Put aside and leave it cool. Then add eggs, mix well. Put on baking tray and bake until brown.
Devil Food’s Cake:
90 gr cocoa powder (mix with 100 ml water)
225 gr butter
200 gr caster sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla powder
300 gr all purpose flour
2 sdt baking soda
1 tsp salt
200 ml milk
Mocha frosting
100 gr butter
50 gr dark cooking chocolate (melted)
2 tbsp instant coffee (mix with 2 tbsp water)
300 gr icing sugar
Mix butter and sugar until creamy, add egg one at the time and mix until fluffy.
Mix flour, baking soda and salt and pour to butter. Put on mix of butter gradually with milk. Stir well.
Pour into 2 baking tray (22 cm) and bake for 30 minute.
Mocha frosting, mix butter, chocolate and coffee well. Add icing sugar gradually. Sometimes you need more icing sugar than the recipe or less.
Put mocha frosting (1/3) on one of the cake. Put another cake on top and cover cake with the rest of mocha frosting.
Apple Pie:
- Pastry
300 gr plain flour
150 gr soft butter
salt
1 medium egg
50 gr caster sugar
Put flour, butter and salt ona bowl and rub together until became fined bread crumbs. Break egg into separate bowl, add sugar and mix lightly then add to flour mix and mix until become together. Wrap the dough and chill for 30 minutes.
- Filling
30 gr butter
3 tbsp brown sugar
½ tsp ground cinnamon
6 apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
Egg washed
Sugar, additional
Ground cinnamon, additional
Roll out pastry and line a 23 cm flan tin, rest for 30 minute and bake for 5 – 10 minutes. Roll out remaining pastry to 25 cm (diameter).
Put on frying pan, butter, sugar and cinnamon and stir until melted. Add apples, cook for 5 minute. Pour into baked pastry and cover with remaining pastry, pushing down and crimping the edge. Make a small cross in center of the pastry to allow steam to escape. Brush pastry with egg and sprinkle with sugar and ground cinnamon.
Bake for 20 minutes or until golden. Allow to cool for 20 minutes.
For sushi recipe, please see from my previous post.
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..!!!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Today I made another simple dessert, which is I got this from someone I know long time back. Its very easy to make and again, I use the unusual measurement for Indonesian people but like I said don’t be worried just do like in the recipe. 2 cups of flour, ½ cup of sugar, 2 eggs (beat for awhile), 2 spoon rum (you could use non-alcohol rum), 1 big apples (sliced), pinch of salt, 1,5 glass of water (you could change to apple juice, if you do this, you should use less sugar), 1 teaspoon baking powder, additional sugar and cinnamon powder. Mix all ingredients except additional sugar and cinnamon powder. And put on 20 cm diameter baking pan covered with margarine and flour. Arranged sliced apple on top and sprinkle the additional sugar and cinnamon powder, bake it for about 25 minutes. It will be a thin cake. Add vla if you want. 200 ml milk,75 gr sugar, 25 gr corn flour, pinch of salt, 1 egg yolk. Cook all the ingredients except egg yolk until smooth and bubbled. Add the egg yolk and stir it well.
And for dinner, I cooked spaghetti until al dente and dry it. Preheat the pan and put some cooking oil or olive oil, 1 clove crushed garlic, chili (optional), zucchini and grated carrot and cook for awhile. Add the spaghetti, cook for 3 minutes, add grated Parmesan, salt and sugar.
Remember, don't be afraid to try to cook or bake, and sometimes you would get your own signature of food or cake.
Today I had a mood to make cookies, I grabbed one of my recipe books and unfortunately all the recipes are using unusual measurement for Indonesia (cups, etc) of course you could see from the internet to convert in kg or ml and etc.
But if you don’t have time to look at the internet, don’t be afraid, just take 1 cup (for coffee or tea) and use that cup as your measurement tool as per recipe. But you have to use your feeling about half of cup or one third of cup. And you will get almost exactly like in receipe.
I made an easy cookies, it’s 2 cup of flour, ½ cup of sugar, 1/3 cup of cooking oil, pinch of salt, almond, 3 spoon of white wine and 2 spoon of Pernod (you can change to other liquor). Mix all the ingredients into dough for cookies, roll about 1 cm and shape as you wish. Place on bake tray covered by butter or margarine and put some almond on top the cookies then bake it for about 20 minutes.
For dinner, tonight I made very simple dishes, sliced chicken, fresh mushroom, spinach, spring onion, tomato, garlic, onion, oyster sauce, salt and sugar and I stir fry them (you could see from my previous post how to make stir fry).
Also, I have tempe (thanks to Donny, a friend in Kabul who gave me tempe forced by me) and fried it, before soak tempe with mix of garlic, salt, white pepper and water.
One day I woke up and thinking about the movie “Julie & Julia” base from a true story about two women (from different time) who could not cook at the beginning not even able to cut onion properly until creating a cook book and a blog about how to cook.
And also Martha Steward, a woman (as far as I know) who know the opportunity to become big. Even she jailed once because of inside trader but she always gives inspiration to people about cooking and other domestic jobs.
Everything happened because of my mother, a woman who taught her children to be domestically independent by doing everything at home our own without a maid.
When I was a kid, I used to wash the dishes, broom the floor, crawling on the floor to wipe the floor.
Even my mother taught us how to clean the floor with shredded coconut. After she made coconut milk, she did not throw the coconut but use it to clean the floor. Well, messy of course but made the floor clean and shine.
When we were kids, cooking was the job of my mother but we helped her, for instance I steam the rice, with a pot for 30 minute (or at least until reduce) and steam the rice for another 30 minute. So to make a good steam rice, actually it is not that easy, well nowadays we could use rice cooker but I could still taste the different of those steam rice.
About the cooking actually now become my favorite thing to do, it began when I was in Banda Aceh, my first job far from my mother and the taste of Acehnese food were different, so I tried to cook myself and I did.
From there I know the basic to make “tumis”.(stir-fry). Sautee garlic, onion or shallot, “lengkuas“ (galangale) andif you like you could put oyster sauce. With that basic for tumis you could add whatever you like, vegetables mixed with meat or seafood.
Its normally happen to me when I don’t know what to cook, I am just using what I have in the fridge and do the tumis.
Just do not cook the vegetables to well or overcook, even for vegetables we should cook them al dente.
When you use beef, do not put water at the beginning, because beef would produce juices when you cook it, so wait until the beef cooked then see if you still need water or not.
When I was in Banda Aceh, I was always thinking that make beef rendang is very difficult, actually not (and there are a lot of ready made or instant spices) but to be honest I don’t like use it because I always want to make all my foods original.
Back to beef rendang, it is not difficult to make, I just need onion or shallot (better than onion but you still could use onion), ginger, lengkuas, lemon grass, chili (a lot if you like very spicy like I do), salt, sugar, tamarind and coconutmilk.
I started to make beef rendang when I was in Kabul, Afghanistan and all my friends love it.
My other signature is “sambel bawang”, it was popular in Banda Aceh and it was very easy to make. Sautee the bird eye chili and garlic with very less cooking oil, and mash them with salt and sugar.
Please be noted that I never use MSG for all my foods, which normally in Asian food, as the substitute I always use salt and sugar, the right composition will bring the right taste for my food.
So many times I tried to make bread or rolls and never succeed until one day I did very nice rolls, from there I know that to make bread or rolls I should mix yeast with warm water separately until bubbled then mix it with flour and other ingredient.
I watched Indonesian food program in Banda Aceh once and I was surprised that making sushi is not as difficult as I thought. Just mix and cook normal rice and sticky rice (2:1), after cooked, add rice vinegar, rice wine, salt and sugar. Put on roasted seaweed and you could use everything inside, seafood, vegetables, even chicken or beef, roll it. Voila!!! your own sushi.
From that program I also learned how to make some easy desert, I remember when I was a kid, me, my brothers and sisters had bread for breakfast, but we never ate the edge of the bread because it was hard, so my mother collected them and mixed it with boiled milk and sugar, egg, raisin, a bit of melted butter or margarine and cinnamon powder, then she baked it. It’s a bread pudding.
And I know from that program that to make a cake, you could substitute flour to ground almond or cashew nut.
I had a friend and he was allergic with flour, so this kind of cake was safe for him.
Every time I go home to Indonesia, I always bring some snacks back, like “peyek” and when it finish I normally make “peyek” my own with green bean, I don’t remember who taught me, either my sister or my mother, that for “peyek kacang hijau” I should soak the green bean at least for 24 hours and the green beanswill not hard when you make “peyek”.
The other thing that I learned about cooking, you have to have a happy mood and willing to cook, because you will never make anything with your bad mood, for me cooking is always improving my mood.
Don’t get wrong, sometimes when cook or bake, mistakes could happen, but it suppose not to let you down and make you crazy so you don’t want to cook or bake anymore.
I made a lot of mistakes (people always do) but I still cook and bake, like today I had a plan to make puff cream to bring to my friend’s BBQ party, but it was completely failed and I threw the whole dough. I was a bit upset but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to make puff cream anymore.
Being away from my hometown, somehow making me to be creative, I painted when I was in Banda Aceh, decorated the house, this still on here in Kabul.
And that (to be honest) could distract me from being homesick or depress, especially with the situation in Afghanistan.
After all, making friends is the greatest thing on earth and being in Humanitarian Community is the opportunity to have friends from all over the world.
Next time I will write again about my cooking activity and for sure share some tips of cooking or baking.
Just don't give up only because your plan is not happening, if you have a will there is a way.
