Mie Kepiting / Crab Meat Noodle

Crab Meat Noodle /  Mie Kepiting

Me and my family used to go to this area in Jakarta at Jalan Pangeran Jayakarta,

they sell Pontianak 'homefood'.

Pontianak is the capital city of West Kalimantan in Kalimantan Island

(some still called Kalimantan Island as Borneo).

This is my first attempt to try replicate the recipe,

not the same of course, because instead of just using soy sauce,

I added oyster sauce into it.

No regret, still tasted good! :)

Here is my recipe... with photos ... enjoy :)

This is the noodle I bought last week.

I never tried this noodle before, I guess it tasted more like rice noodle.

But I found it quite starchy after boiling them.

I used this crab meat for this dish.

It would look better with a real crab claws

but I can't be bothered preparing the crab from scratch :D

 This is the inside.  Just realized it is from Indonesia!

So I heat oil in a wok,

then fry these baby prawns with shell intact

until they are crispy, the sprinkle a pinch of salt,

fry for few minutes, set aside and drained.

I could eat this just like this, so crispy,,, yum!! 

Use the excess oil from frying the baby prawns,

put 1 clove of finely chopped garlic

and crab meat at the same time,

sautee briefly, add a pinch of salt and ground white pepper,

Set aside.

 In a serving bowl,

put 1/2 tsp oyster sauce,

1 - 2 tbsp of soy sauce,

1 tsp of vegetable oil,

1 tsp or more ready-to-use garlic chips,

boiled choy sum and bean sprouts separately,

drained then into a serving bowl.

 Add chopped red bird-eye chilis (optional),

and finely chopped spring onions.

 Add crab meat, crispy fried baby prawns,

and fish ball & fish cakes soup (I made them a day before).

 After mixing... being me, I added SAMBAL ABC EXTRA SPICY....YUUMMM!!

.... thanks for looking ...  (^_^)

Rempeyek Udang / Indonesian Thin and Crisp Shrimp Fritters

Rempeyek Udang

Rempeyek is the Indonesian Thin and Crispy fritters.

You can use peanuts, shrimps/baby shrimps/prawns, or dried baby shrimps.

Here is my way of making the Rempeyek.

My version is on the lighter side, you may want to add more spices powder into it if you like.

Ingredients:

300 grams of cooked baby shrimps

1 cup of rice flour.

1/4 cup of flour.

1/2 tsp of turmeric powder

Salt and ground white pepper to taste.

1/2 tsp of garlic powder.

1/2 tsp of coriander powder.

Cold water, enough to mix the mixture into a thick batter.
5 kaffir lime leaves, chopped super fine.

chopped chili / chili powder - if you like - i didn't use this.

Why cold water?

Besides rice flour, cold water also helps to make the batter crispy when fried.  Just like making tempura batter, where the batter stay cold because of ice blocks in it.

Why baby shrimps?

I prefer baby shrimps, because it is just easier to eat compare to prawns which are bigger in size and the shells are hard.  Can't eat the shells and I still have to peel them, for me it's not fun eating them.

Why cooked baby shrimps?

Because it is already cooked, it crips to perfections :D when fried.

Don't believe me? Try it! :D

Method:
Mix all ingredients together, except the shrimps.

Taste the batter first if you'd like to add more spices powder/salt.

Add shrimps, mix well.

I made the batter a bit thick, not runny.

 You need enough oil to fry them.

I wiggle the wok just so the oil can "spread" to the sides of the wok.

I took 1 tablespoon of the ingredients and put it on each side of the wok like on the above photo.

 Don't forget to laddle the oil from the middle to each of the frying mixture.

Be careful, it's HOT oil!

Flip them to fry on the other side, fry until crispy.

Ooopppsss my last batch was burnt!  No problem, still yummy for me :D

Here they are and I made "pimped" Maggie Sweet Chili sauce to accompany them.

"Pimped" Maggie Sweet Chili sauce

Ingredients:

2 tbsp of Maggie sweet chili sauce

2 red bird-eye chili, chopped finely

Fish sauce and lemon/lime juice to taste.

Method:

Mix all ingredients together.

Taste before serving.

YYUUUMMMMOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!

My Big and Healthy Lunch!

In general I love all vegetables.

One of the vegetables that is not available locally is 

Kangkung.  

Some people call it Asian Watercress,

or Morning Glory, or Vietnamese Spinach.

Or spelled it in a different way Kangkoong.

If I wish to have these Kangkungs more often means I have to drive up to AKK (DANSY) PTY LTD at Hunter Street, Newcastle which is about 1 hour away.
Or I can get it every Saturday (I think about 11am) from SUN SUPERMARKET at Green Hills, Maitland which is about 30 minutes away.

My husband LOVED these Kangkungs!

And Today I had late lunch, it was BIG and HEALTHY Lunch

with lots of Kangkung :D

Here are the recipes:

PAN FRIED TEMPE

1 block of Tempe / Indonesian Soy Bean Cake.

Cut to pieces, then pan fried, drained on paper towel.

STEAMED KANGKUNG

Chopped kangkung (I used almost from 1 whole bunch).

Wash thoroughly (I washed it at least 3 times)

Prepare enough water for steaming in the sauce pan.

Once the water is boiling, add kangkung in the steamer.

Steamed until kangkung is wilted, but not overcooked.

Drained any excess water and placed on a serving plate.

CRISPY GARLIC BABY PRAWNS

This is soooo Crispy, I could ate the heads too, JUST CRISP TO PERFECTION! :)

Ingredients:

+/- 100 gram baby prawns with shell and head intacts.

1 small clove of garlic, chopped finely.

1 tbsp of oil.

salt to taste.

Method:

Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan,

add baby prawns,

let it fry for a minute then add finely chopped garlic,

fry until the garlic is fragrant and crispy too,

stir lightly, then sprinkle with sea salt a little bit just to taste.

Strained and put on serving plate.

Save the oil for Fresh Tomato Sambal.

FRESH TOMATO SAMBAL

SAMBAL TOMAT SEGAR

Ingredients:

3 large tomatoes / 3 tomat besar

1/2 red paprika (bell pepper) / paprika merah

1 large red chili / 1 cabe merah besar

5 red bird-eye chilis / cabe rawit

1 small clove of garlic, finely chopped / 1 siung bawang putih kecil, cincang halus

5 tsp of baby prawns oil

1/4 tsp of roasted shrimp paste / 1/4 sdt terasi bakar

2 tbsp lemon juice / 2 sdm air perasan jeruk lemon

1 tsp flat of salt / 1 sdt rata garam

1/2 tsp of caster sugar / 1/2 sdt gula halus.

Method:

Place tomatoes, paprika, chilis, garlic in a food processor,

blend roughly, moved into a serving bowl.

Fry shrimp paste then crushed it with mortar and pestel, moved it into the same serving bowl.

Mix all ingredients together.

Add 1 tsp flat of salt.

Add 1/2 tsp of caster sugar.

Add lemon juice, mix all well.

Taste before serving.

Taruh tomat, paprika dan cabe di blender, blender kasar saja, kemudian pindahkan ke mangkuk saji. Terasi digoreng, haluskan dengan tumbukan, pindahkan ke mangkuk saji yang sama.  Campur adonan sampai rata.

Tambahkan garam, gula dan air perasan jeruk lemon.  Campur lagi, cicipi sebelum dihidangkan.

... thanks for looking :)  ....

Udang, Petai dan Tahu masak Sambal Balado

I have been craving for SAMBAL BALADO for some time,

now that I am pregnant I am craving even more!

I got the cooking technique from my old friend, Rosa Damborg.

And recipe from FOOD SAFARI, a culinary program of SBSONE TV.

My version is the combination of two of them:

Ingredients:

- I used about 634 grams of Australian Banana King Prawns,

- 10 pcs of small red asian eschallots,

- 2 large roma tomatoes,

- 1 large red paprika,

- 10 pcs of big red chilis,

- 10 pcs of whole bird-eye chilis.

- Rice bran oil.

- 3 tbsp of sugar.

- 2 tbsp of salt.

- juice from 1/2 lemon.

- 1 block of bean curd, cubed.

- 10 kaffir lime leaves, shredded.

- 1/2 can of petai, drained, sliced thinly.

(pete / petai = stinky beans / sator / parkia speciosa)

- Fresh cucumber, sliced.

Method:

Pan-fried cubed bean curd in a hot pan, then set aside.

Cut-off excess "legs" of prawns, washed, drained.

I use the whole prawns.

In the meantime use food processor to process:

chili, paprika, tomatoes and shallots.

Leave the bird-eye chilis in whole.

 Heat pan over high heat,

once hot, add generous amount of oil,

fry prawns until crispy.

Then set aside, leaving the prawns infused oil in the pan.

This is the cooking method I learnt from Rosa Damborg.

 Use the same oil to cooked the blended ingredients,

add prawns head into it for flavor.

Mix well and cooked until the chili cooked thoroughly.

 Add fried tofu and petai.

 Mix well.

Add the prawns and kaffir lime leaves.
Add salt and sugar.
The amount of salt and sugar is very important for this dish,
I found a recipe from FOOD SAFARI is the correct one,
and fool proof, tasted REALLY GOOD!!
Mix well and bring to boil.

Once all cooked through, switch off the stove.

Add juice from 1/2 lemon.

Mix well.

Ready to serve.

... thanks for looking :) ...

Coconut Pancake with Coconut and Palm Sugar sauce

One of Mum's recipe that I loved.  

No I think I love all of her recipes ;)

This is based on her recipe with me adding my own twist into it :)

Mum's recipe is:

- Plain flour,

- 1-2 eggs,

- milk or coconut milk,

- vanilla sugar,

- dessicated coconut.

- salted butter.

Mixed all ingredients together,

the mixture should be a bit thick.

Heat pan over medium heat,

add unsalted butter,

pour a ladle, 

and fry on both sides until thoroughly cooked.

Of course, my Mum's recipes - all come with no measurement.

So if you would like to try it, use your own judgement/expertise.

Here is my recipe for the pancake:

Ingredients:

- 2 tsp of Natural vanilla extract

- 1 cup of self-raising flour

- cold water, only a little bit

- 1 egg

- 1/4 tsp of salt

- 1-2 desiccated coconut, plus more for garnish.

I used the mixture of desiccated coconuts and moist coconut flakes.

- salted butter.

Always use good ingredients,

real Natural Extract instead of essence,

essence taste horrible to me.

Mix all ingredients together.

Don't forget the desiccated coconut, too!

Mix well.

Heat pan over medium heat and add salted butter.

I use a small/egg frying pan.

Pour a ladle.

Close with a lid for about a minute or so.

This is what it looks like once you opened the lid.

The mixture will be cooked underneath and plumped up on top.

Flip back, fry briefly then flip it out of a pan.

Recipe for the Sauce:

You will need:

- Gula Jawa / Indonesian Palm Sugar

it is darker and more intense flavor and nicely sweet.

I prefer Indonesian Gula Jawa than same product from other countries.

- 400 ml of light coconut milk.

- 1/2 tsp of salt

- 1 to 2 tbsp of raw sugar

put more sugar if you like it sweeter.

Method:

Mix all ingredients together in a sauce pan,

over low heat, slowly heat all ingredients,

keep stirring and be careful not to "split" the coconut milk.

Once Indonesian Gula Jawa all melted,

pour it over a freshly cooked pancake,

topped with desiccated coconut.

The garnish can be toasted too, if you like!

... thanks for looking :) ...

How Much Quantity of Ganache I need?

This question came to my mind a lot when I just started caking.

I did ask around I get answered like:

"If you make ganache from 2 x 900 ml of cream plus the chocolate,

it should be enough.  If not, just make more."

I appreciated it but not quite satisfying,

so I begin to write down the ganache quantity I used

everytime I ganached the cake.

So based on the above, I would like to share my experienced

to those who need it, hopefully it will be useful,

just remember: every cake decorator has different was of ganaching their cakes.

Below are mine and always enough for me to cover 2 cakes each to achieve 4" height for each cake:

For 6" round: you will need 300 ml of cream.

For 8" round: you will need 600 ml of cream.

For 10" round: you will need 900 ml of cream.

For 12" round: you will need 1,200 ml of cream.

The Cream: use liquid cream, not thickened cream.

For Semi-sweet or Dark Chocolate Ganache:

you will need 1 :2,

means: for 300 ml of cream, you will need 600 grams of chocolate.

For White Chocolate Ganache:

you will need 1 : 3,

means: for 300 ml of cream, you will need 900 grams of chocolate.

^^^ thanks for looking ^^^

Mie Ayam Nicolas

Not far from Mum's house at home, there is a noodle seller, they sell it from home and we call it Mie Ayam Nicolas.

Mie means noodle, Ayam means chicken and Nicolas is the name of their son.

Mostly during weekends we would order by phone, the wife/husband will take the order, and the husband will deliver the order to us, o yeah a good service door-to-door.  Until lately I heard from Mum and from my Niece that they don't sell Mie Ayam anymore.  They were disappointed.

I have been living here for almost 5 years and it was just since last year that I know there is an asian grocery about almost 1.5 hour away from where we live last year.  Lucky we moved to a big city and now it is only about 45 minutes to 1 hour distance to AKK (DANSY) PTY LTD, 643 Hunter Street, Newcastle, NSW.

But then I found another asian grocery near Greenhills Maitland called SUN SUPERMARKET, Shop 11/4A Garnett Road, East Maitland, NSW 2323.  I like this shop not only because it is closer to home but the owner is VERY friendly.  I must say that AKK has more varities but so far I can find all that I need in SUN SUPERMARKET, no complaint at all.

So back to Mie Ayam Nicolas, I bought this fresh egg noodles, this time I bought it from SUN SUPERMARKET.  I bought and made this Mie Ayam Nicolas before but I bought the fresh egg noodles from AKK.  Well they are the same.  Happy to see SUN SUPERMARKET has this type of noodle too.

Mum gave me the recipe on roughly how to make a similar noodle dish that taste like Mie Ayam Nicolas.  So here is the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast, small cubed

1 spring onion, finely sliced

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

about 1 litre of water

1 bunch of choy sum, washed, chopped

1/2 package of bean sprouts

1 tbsp MASSELS chicken stock powder

salt and pepper, to taste

1 tbsp of oyster sauce

1 tbsp of light soy sauce

1 tbsp of fish sauce

1 egg

RICE BRAN vegetable oil.

Method:

Put chicken, garlic, salt and pepper into a bowl.
Mixed and marinate for half an hour.

Heat pan over medium heat,

add chicken mixture and saute.

In the meantime, heat 1 litre of water,

add garlic chips and MASSELS.

Bring to boil.

 Once the chicken almost cooked, add a ladle of MASSELS stock into it,

and continue cooking until chicken are fully cooked.

In that way the chicken will still tender, not dried out.

 In another sauce pan, prepare water just enough

to boil the fresh egg noodles. Add a touch of salt if you like.

Then Bring to boil.

 Add fresh egg noodles, cooked for half a minute

(as the package says). Drained.

 In the other pan, once the MASSELS stock is boiling,

add choy sum and bean sprouts.

 Mixed and cooked briefly.

 Prepare serving bowls.

Add 1 tbsp of RICE BRAN vegetable oil,

sauces and ground white pepper.

I don't like mine with raw egg, but my husband does.

So just add a raw egg at this stage, if you like.

Then add drained noodle, boiled vegetables

with a little of the MASSELS stocks in it.

If you like it a bit soupy, you might want to add more sauces to bring out the flavor so it won't be tasteless.

Add cooked chicken,

then sprinkle garlic chips on it.

Add finely chopped spring onion too.

Mine was the same as above

but without egg and I add finely chopped of 3 bird-eye chilis.

This is also Mie Ayam Nicolas,

I made this some time ago with bok choy,

I add sambal oelek into it.

Thanks for looking (^_^)

Delima Restaurant, Indonesian Cuisine at Chinatown Sydney, Australia

Just after Christmas last year we had a trip to Sydney... Chinatown again... was planning to go to one of Indonesian restaurant at Essex St. just by foot from Haymarket but we got lost :D

On the way there we passed Delima Restaurant at Dixon Street, then Pinangsia Noodle House and next to it is Cafe Joy, both at Quay Street.  I was 20 weeks pregnant and was quite hungry when we were in front of Cafe Joy and said to my husband that I don't mind to eat at Cafe Joy.  It was about 1pm, I told my husband I could "eat a horse"!  He was laughing.

He said we better go back to Delima Restaurant, so we went back.

Once we arrived there, we took steps up and greeted with a little pond of koi fishes which my son loves and hanging around the pond.  In front of it is an aquarium with (I think) barramundi fishes in it.  

We waited for awhile, not very long, seems like a group of people is leaving the restaurant.  Once they left one of the waiter who is very smiley and friendly greeted us and lead us to our seats.  It has a la carte and banquet menus.  I was so excited, it was my first time in a proper Indonesian restaurant, normally we only go to food court which is quite good too but the food is always the same. 

We got free entree which is prawn chips with sambal and sweet soy sauce.

Then for starter I chose otak-otak which is Indonesian grilled fish cake wrapped in banana leaves with peanut sauce.

Otak-otak $13.95

Honestly it was not as good I imagined it would be,

a bit tasteless, maybe I should have ordered Tahu Kipas instead. 

Ayam Panggang Kalasan $18.94

Beef Rendang $18.94

Cah Kangkung Terasi $17.94

Those were our mains they came with a bucket of rice.

Beef rendang was exactly what I am looking for,

rich, flavorsome, not too spicy, and the meat is so tender.

I would order this again if we go back.

Ayam Panggang Kalasan is Indonesian grilled chicken using soy sauce and some spice.

It's not spicy at all so my son can eat it, but the chicken is very small.

We believe it's a baby chicken .. LOL...

Cah Kangkung Terasi is Asian Watercress / Morning Glory stir-fry with a little bit of prawns and shrimp paste (terasi).  Not bad but for that price, the portion is way too small.  Look at the price compare to beef rendang and ayam panggang kalasan, only $1 different.  

My old time favorite: Ice Lemon Tea!!

Was sooo good, coz it was a hot day!

Es Campur $8.95

This was ordered for my husband and he loved it!

Durian Pancake $11.95 was mine

My husband tried it but he didn't mind it,

but he prefers Es Campur.

I love it, so creamy and yummy... I would order this again :)

For 2 adult and a 3 year-old, we paid $108.-

which I think quite expensive but hey! it's a restaurant

not food court!  And overall I still love the food.

Next time won't order vegetable course, just meat & desserts! LOL..

 thanks for looking ;)