Tom Yam Soup with Salmon

Oh of course I feel lazy to write this down – it was simply because I don’t use any measurement to cook this one. This dish is not really a simple one if you make it from scratch, and usually I make things right from zero – but never with Tom Yam. I guess I just trust the Thai Tom Yam Paste enough to serve this one delicious thing in my life.

So if you ever had Tom Yam before, just trust your tongue and feeling, because really my posting here might be not helpful at all.

Ingredients:

For the soup base:

Tom Yam Paste – use anything you find, I found that the more Thai language on the jar, the more original the taste. I used the one in the glass jar, not the one in the sachet. Basically the paste contains of all the spices needed to make the soup base, but of course to make it tastier, you have to add some things. I used about 5 tablespoons of this paste – just add and add until you got the taste right.

1 medium size onion, slice

4 cloves garlic, smash

1 lemon grass, slice (and I still added many many sprinkles of lemon grass powder – it’s cheaper than buying the fresh one and I found the taste is still satisfactory)

Few cm galangal (again I used the powder one)

About two or three teaspoon of tamarind paste

Two or three tablespoon of lime juice

4 kafir lime leaves, shredded

Many sprinkles of dried coriander leaves

100 ml coconut milk

1 chili padi (poor husband, he loves it hot but my chronic gastric won’t allow me to have it so hot)

In the soup:

About 600 gram of salmon (I used two big salmon steak, slice to medium chunks)

200 gram brown mushrooms cut 4 each

About 7 fish balls, cut 2 each

Note: You SHOULD use prawns and squid (oh dear, I’m dying only to imagine them!). They are wonderful, sweet, and very very delicious. But I have written myself some records of being brought hospital in my sake of loving seafood, so I’m just helping myself to be realistic here by substituting them with anything that doesn't kill me.

How to:

Prepare the soup base first.

Stir-fry the garlic and onion, put in the tom yam paste and everything else, cover with water (about 1 liter or more, to your need), add the coconut milk, bring to boil, and taste, taste, taste.

Throw in the salmon, mushrooms and fish balls, boil until they’re cook. And taste, taste, and taste. Add anything you think necessary to make your tom yam tastes right.

See? I’m not really helpful here (as I wasn’t in many of my recipe :D) anyway you’ll always have Google and all the best for your Tom Yam Soup!

Stuffed Tofu Soup aka Sup Tahu Isi

There were times in my university days, I got submitted to hospitals – and trust me, those days were many. My mom would rush to go to Bandung (she lives in Jakarta, different city from where I studied), and she would stay for a while to take care of me and make sure I was having enough nutrition and sleep.

This soup was one of her weapon to force me to eat. She would by the best stuffed tofu from Chinese Store and she would make the soup – the most delicious soups I had ever had in my life. Well, I don’t know about being a mother – does it make you an excellent cook? Humbly I say that I can cook well – my friends and family say so. And I love to cook. I love to spend hours in the kitchen cooking something for my beloved ones. I even enjoy cooking complicated dishes. But my Mom? She always prefers to cook anything simple and fast. And sometimes she’s too lazy to cook. But this I tell you, her cooking is always waaay more delicious than mine.

Well, maybe it got something to do with being a mother. Hope my daughter would say the same about me :)

So please find the recipe here (I’m too lazy to do this in English, will translate it at another time)

Ingredients:

Stuffed Tofu (Tahu Isi):

4 Tahu putih yang besar, potong dua jadi segitiga (di sini tahu putihnya besaaar dan panjang, jadi saya cuma punya satu, dipotong 4, dan dipotong 2 lagi jadi 8 potong segitiga). Keruk isi tahu, kerukan tahu bias dicampur ke adonan daging nantinya

400 gr ikan (saya pakai fillet pangasius beku)

300 gr daging giling (enaknya ini dicampur udang, tapi saya alergi udang dan teman2nya)

5 bawang putih, cacah

1 bawang daun, cacah

1 wortel ukuran kecil, cacah

1 sendok kecap ikan

1 sendok saus tiram

1 sendok tepung tapioka

Garam, lada putih, gula

Soup Base (Kuah Sup):

1.5 liter air

300 gr leher ayam

5 bawang putih, cacah

1 bawang Bombay, iris2

1 wortel ukuran besar, dipotong agak tebal (ini dipakai di kuah sup supaya kaldunya agak manis)

1 bawang daun, potong2 (tapi jangan diiris halus), hanya untuk kaldu saja

Gula, garam, sedikit ketumbar bubuk, dan sedikit fennel seed (untuk memaniskan kaldu)

1 blok kaldu ayam

How to:

Untuk tahu isi:

Keruk tahu sehingga berlubang dan bisa diisi.

Haluskan ikan dan daging giling, campur dengan bumbu2 yang lain (I used a food processor so I just threw everything in)

Masukkan adonan yang sudah dihaluskan ke dalam tahu, kemudian kukus sampai matang (warna adonan akan berubah dan hasilnya akan agak mengembang)

Adonan ini jadinya banyaaak sekali, jadi saya pakai untuk pangsit rebus juga. Isi adonan ke kulit pangsit, rebus sampai matang.

Untuk kuah sup:

Tumis bawang bombay dan bawang putih, masukkan leher ayam dan bahan2 yang lain, rebus sampai mendidih, kecilkan api, rebus dengan panci tertutup sampai satu atau dua jam. Saya suka masak kaldu sampai leher ayamnya lunak – they will go for my husband :D

You can add more water so you can have a soup base if you want to eat the stuffed tofu with noodle or bihun. Or you can eat the stuffed tofu and the steamed dumpling with peanut sauce (eat them as siomay).

Yellow Rice Everyone :)

There was a pot luck held in our church last Sunday and I wanted to participate and introduce the beauty of Indonesian food to our friends. Because it was an international church, the idea was to get everybody bring their native breakfast or lunch menu – which left me dumbfounded: Indonesian eats big meal at breakfast, lunch and dinner! If I bring one dish then I must bring the rice… so I decided to cook yellow rice and shredded chicken to bring to the church. It’s the simplest version of real yellow rice I can make (it should be more complete with many other dishes, but it was lovely, and my husband was very very happy because he got a traditional yellow rice as his breakfast :D

Ingredients:

5 cups of white rice (I used the cup comes with the rice cooker, it’s about 180 ml)

4 cups of coconut milk plus 1 cup of water (I used the same cup)

5 cloves of garlic

1 big onion

1 teaspoon of blue ginger powder

1 teaspoon of lemon grass powder

4 or 5 teaspoons of turmeric powder (I’m not a spice-powder type of girl but our previous housemate left a lot of spices powder behind, and the best way to get rid of them is to cook with them :D)

2 Indonesian bay leaves (daun salam)

3 kafir lime leaves

Sprinkle of salt

How to:

Grind garlic, onion, plus the spices powder to make paste.

Cook the coconut milk, water and the spice paste, put in the bay leaves and kafir limes, until it boils.

Put in the rice, cook and stir until the liquid is all absorbed by the rice.

Steam the rice for about 40 minutes until it’s cooked. (I got very nervous and keep peeping to the pan looking if my rice was ready, since it’s my second time to cook yellow rice this way – and the first time was about many years ago and it was a disaster, and especially this time I cooked it for others, so it must be successful! Plus my pan was too small, so you know how difficult it was :D)

Serve the rice with the shredded chicken, fried onion, prawn crackers, scrambled egg – anything you want to add, just add it :D

This would make a bit too much rice for two person (I cooked it for many anyway), you can reduce it as you want. I want to make it again smaller portion using our little rice cooker. I’ll let you know if it works out :D

Bubur Ayam Kuah Kuning aka Chicken Porride with Yellow Sauce

This is a typical Indonesian breakfast, if you live in Jakarta you can find the Porridge Cart almost everywhere, with people in queue for their healthy breakfast (actually it’s not so healthy if you know how those men wash their cutlery, but trust me, it will make you tougher!:D)

Basically this is rice porridge with Soto Sauce, it’s not so simple to make but trust me, it’s not THAT difficult. If you want to save some energy and get double result, I suggest you make Chicken Soto, put aside some of the broth and make it thicker, and serve it for the porridge. Keep them in the fridge so you’ll get Soto and Chicken Porridge ready for a couple of meal times :)

Ingredients:

For the porridge:

Rice about 2 cups

2 or 3 liters of water, just add when you feel your porridge needs them

A sprinkle of salt

3 Indonesian Bay Leaves (Daun Salam)

For the yellow sauce:

4 or 5 shallots ( I used one big onion or bawang bombay)

6 cloves of garlic

2cm turmeric

2cm blue ginger (laos)

1cm ginger

2tsp coriander

5 candlenuts

Salt, white pepper, lemon juice, sugar to taste

2 or 3 kafir lime leaves

2 stalks of lemon grass, crush the white bottom

About 10 pieces of chicken necks for the stock. I know this sounds a bit scary, but that’s the cheapest and easiest way to get a real chicken stock for me here, instead of buying the whole chicken only for the stock :D

For the topping:

1 fillet of chicken breast (boil along with the chicken broth)

Cakue (you can buy in the Asia store, my friend said it’s in the freezer section – will definitely try it next time)

Fried soy bean (I didn’t have it and it was too cold to go out, but next time will get it :D)

2 stalks spring onion and celery, finely sliced

Fried onion

Melinjo creakers (Emping) and Shrimp Creakers

Boiled Egg (if you want ;D)

How to:

Cook the rice with the water and bay leaves until you get the porridge with the nice texture. I suggest just used cooked rice to cut the times shorter.

Grind the shallots, garlic, turmeric, ginger, blue ginger, coriander and candlenuts into a paste, sauté the paste with two or three table spoon of cooking oil until it smells good. I added kafir lime leaves and lemon grass too and stir fry them again until it smells good.

Add the chicken necks and the chicken, stir fry for a while and add 1 or 2 liters of water. Bring to boil (you can use high heat) and after some times, lower the heat and boil the stock for another one hour until the chicken become soft. Personally, I don’t eat chicken neck. I fear them. But my husband loves it so I will cook them until they are soft and bitable.

Shred the chicken breast – if you cook it until very soft, you don’t have to shred it, just press it with a fork and it will be shredded :)

Serve porridge in a bowl, add yellow sauce (the chicken broth), shredded chicken, sliced spring onion, Asian celery, fried onion, fried soybean, cakue, and the crackers.

The original Abang-abang (Porridge man) will use a kind of salty soya sauce, which taste differently with the one we buy at the store. So this recipe doesn’t make the porridge exactly taste like theirs (and I always wonder why), but it is close enough and it can make our family happy :)

Bruinebonen Soep aka Red Bean Soup

I had a few grams of pork meat stayed in my freezer – and I was running out of ideas of what to do with them. Then I remember my mother often cooked red bean soup with meat, which I love so much, and plus several cans of kidney beans left by our ex-housemate in the kitchen – I think the red bean soup will be a great idea for today.

I learned that red bean soup in Indonesia was originally inspired by the Netherlands colonial. And now I’m myself living in the Netherlands, I want to make the original version of the Bruinebonen Soep that had been so famous in my own country. There are various recipes and techniques can be found in the internet, and since I’ve never eaten the soup made by locals here, so I had to choose which one I thought is the closest to the original one. And I couldn’t make up my mind.

But since I noticed that mostly the soup here is thick and made by puree, so I decided to make my own version, combining those recipes I read last night before we went to bed.

Ingredients:

400 gram of pork meat – it is said that I should use bacon or meat with more fats, but I just used whatever I had in hand. Cut in small cubes and boil in 500 ml of water.

3 medium size carrots – 1 was cut as big chunks and I boil with the meat, then I made them to be puree using blender. Slice 2 other carrots.

6 or 7 cloves garlic, 1 big onion – instead of slicing/cutting them, I just used my blender to grind them.

3 pieces of cloves

3 pieces of cardamoms

A medium chunk of cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon of nutmeg powder – or to taste

Some sprinkler of chili powder – I used cayenne pepper, that’s what I had anyway

Dash of salt, white pepper and sugar

3 tomatoes, 2 made to be puree using blender, 1 cut in small cubes.

2 cans of kidney bean – I’m not a big fan of canned food, but that’s what I had and since the stores are closed on Sundays so as the parents told us, ‘you gotta live with whatever you have with you’ :P

2 green onions, slice.

How to:

Cut and clean the meat, boil them in 500 ml of water. Slice big one of the carrots and boil it for a while, then make it a puree using blender. Do this while you do the other preparations, so your meat has some time to tender itself.

With different wok, stir-fry garlic and onions using some amount of butter or margarine (I used margarine here). Pour in the meat and the stock into your wok (make sure you work with a big one). Add some water if you like.

Add in the spices and the tomato puree. Add the sliced carrots and the tomato cubes. I blendered little amount of the kidney bean too to make the soup thicker.

Add in the kidney bean – minus the canned water.

Taste the stock, and add in spices up to your taste. I’m not a so responsible recipe writer as I never really measured my ingredients and spices, but trust yourself honey, and your cooking will even be better than mine J.

Wait until the ingredients blend in the soup and the meat become tender, and near the end, add in the green onions. I waited about more than half hour then I laid myself in bed and writing down this recipe before I got too lazy to do it.

I believe the Dutch serve this soup with hard-crust bread, but this either is not available at home so I think we’ll eat the soup with rice. We’re Indonesian anyway ;D

Oh ya, please don’t be intimidated with the amount of the spices and the many steps. My mother’s red bean soup was much simpler than this, but no one can beat the wonderful taste of her soup. I said no one. Not even the most expensive restaurant. So, remember, we gotta live with anything we have instead of those things we don’t have ;)

Fried Dumpling

Today is surely a tiring Monday, but a half-pack frozen fish is waiting for me, so I got to get myself in the kitchen anyway. So this is what we’ll have tonight on our table – inspired by our visit to a Chinese restaurant yesterday. Enjoy :)

Fried Dumpling

PS: Recipe will follow, Cinderella is still busy in the kitchen :D

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*As promised, please find below the recipe (again in Indonesian)

But before that, maybe I should let you know why I don't like to write recipe and cooking instruction in English. OK, I would say when you read my blog, you might think that my English is just on 'average level'. Well, it's true. I guess it's not so bad, and it's not perfect either. But in general, I can use English well both in written and oral. Expect on food (and many other things like using those strange terms in Economic articles or Architectural Report *did I told you I was an architect once? :D* or any other difficult matters). But I went through some oral tests at the English course back in school times - and the most dreadful part was when we had to talk about food. Food names, ingredients and how to prepare them is a big NO NO for me. I just didn't know what to say... I was hardly able to express those words - cut, slice, peel, - arrrrggh it was sooo confusing. Luckily I managed to pass the tests and went to higher levels. As I grew up, foods and recipes in English are less intimidating to read, but still I find they're difficult to write. Let say my lowest IELTS test was on writing :D

So here is the recipe in Indonesian - maybe someday I'll do it in English :D

Bahan:

400 gr ikan (daging putih) *saya pakai ikan beku

150 gr daging giling

1 bawang bombai

4 siung bawang putih

satu ruas jari jahe

1 wortel (selalu ada wortel di kulkas saya hehehe)

1 batang bawang daun

garam, gula, lada

kulit pangsit siap pakai (saya pakai khusus buat yang digoreng)

saus tiram

Kikkoman sauce

Caranya:

Potong2 bawang putih, bawah bombay, daun bawang dan wortel

Haluskan daging ikan

Campur ikan, daging dan potongan bawang/wortel

Bumbui dengan garam, gula, lada, saus tiram dan Kikkoman sauce (akan lebih enak kalau ada kecap ikan, tapi saya ga punya hehehe)

Adonan ikan ini dimasukkan ke dalam kulit pangsit kira2 satu sendok makan, lipat dua kulitnya (jadi segitiga). Goreng dalam minyak dengan api sedang, sajikan dengan saus tomat. Jadi kira2 30 pangsit goreng.

Mengutip email Mama saya - akan 'maknyuussss' rasanya :)