Serabi Saus Kinca

One of my favorites things to do in Indonesia and Singapore, or if I can say in most of Asian countries I have visited or lived, is getting delicious snacks almost all day long. I love going to the traditional market, looking for local snacks. In Indonesia, we call them: jajan pasar. Jajan means snacks, while pasar means market.

There are different types and styles of jajan pasar. For the same jajan, there could be different styles to prepare it. Why? There are several reasons. One of the reasons is adaptation of the taste to the preference of certain region. Sometimes, it can also be difficult to trace the real origin and history of the jajan.

One of the jajan pasar I like is serabi. In other place, it is also called surabi. The main theme of this jajan is the combination of coconut milk and palm sugar/javanese sugar.

There are a few variants of the palm sugar. I prefer gula jawa/javanese sugar. It is usually darker, and the taste is a bit different than other variants. I have difficulty to describe the taste in words.

Serabi consists of a pancake like snack and the sauce. Both the pancake and sauce are made with coconut milk. The difficult part of making the pancake is to make the holes of the pancake appear. It is actually similar with the trick to make martabak manis, another Indonesian favorite street snack. What I have done to make the holes appear on the pancake is: by beating the batter a few times using the ladle before pouring the batter to the pan. After a few serabis, sometimes we need to add a bit extra baking powder to initiate again the making of the holes on the serabi. It surely needs practice. I still make mistakes that prevent the holes to appear on the serabi.

Nevertheless, we did enjoy eating this during the lockdown time (Covid-19 related lockdown) in our region.

For the kids, since they are not as a big fan of coconut milk and gula jawa (palm sugar) as I am, I modified the serabi. Instead of eating it with the coconut milk/gula jawa sauce, I put different toppings, such as: slice of ham or slice cheese or chocolate, on top of the serabi while cooking the serabi.


Ingredients:
For the Serabi
150 gram all purpose flour
50 gram rice flour
25 gram sugar
1 tsp salt
3.5 gram instant yeast
1 tsp baking powder
250-300 ml coconut milk

For the sauce/kuah Kinca
250 ml santan (coconut milk)
1/2 tsp salt
70 gram palm sugar
2 pandan leaves (you can skip it if you don't have)

Alternative topping: cheese, ham, chocolate sprinkle.

How to make:

1. Mixed all the serabi's ingredients in a bowl until everything the mixture is smooth,
2. Set aside the serabi's mixture and let it rest for a minimum of 30 minutes,
3. Warm a non-stick pan (I used a small teflon pan) without oil/butter,
4. Beat the batter with ladle and pour around 1 ladle of batter into the pan,
5. Wait until holes appear on the serabi, then colse the pan using the lid of the pan. 
6. There are two variants:
• If you eat them with the coconut sauce: check until the bottom of the serabi golden brown before putting it aside.
• If you want to add topping: before you close the lid of the pan, add slices of ham or cheese or chocolate sprinkle. Close the lid of the pan for a while (not too long), check if the bottom of the serabi is already golden brown, then put it aside.
7. Continue with the rest of the batter. 
8. To make the sauce:
• Mix all the ingredients for the sauce,
• Boil the mixture 
9. Serve the serabi with the sauce. If you make the modified ones (with slice ham/slice cheese), serve them without the coconut/palm sugar sauce.

I hope you enjoy them!

Serabi with kinca (coconut milk/palm sugar) sauce

Serabi with cheese topping

Pastel Goreng/Gebakken Pastei/Fried Puff

I loved this snack. We usually bought it at the market. It is available here in some Asian store, but I missed the original taste. I remembered that we had some glass noodle, and since my husband bought me tool to form the snack, I wanted to try to make this snack for the children and husband myself.

Of course, as usual, we would freeze some portion for later consumption.

Ingredients 
(for the skin) - 1 recipe *I make 2 recipes of this skin
250 gr all purpose flour
1 egg
40 gr margarine
60-100 ml water (don't use all immediately, but add it bit by bit)
1/2 tsp salt
oil

(for the filling)
2-3 carrot (cut into pieces)
50 gr green peas (in bottle or can)
200 gr chicken fillet (cut into small pieces)
150-200 gr glass noodle (soak it first in hot boiled water)
3-4 cloves garlic, pressed
3-4 cloves shallot, cut in small pieces
salt
pepper
1-2 tbsp soy sauce
oil

2-3 hard boiled eggs, cut into 6 pieces per egg.

Method:
For the skin:
1. Mix the flour, margarine and egg. Add water bit by bit while kneading the dough until the dough does not stick on your hand or on the wall of the bowl.
2. Set aside.

For the filling:
1. Heat the oil and stir fry the garlic and shallot until caramelized
2. Add the chicken fillet, until it is almost golden brown.
3. Add carrot and pea.
4. Add the glass noodle.
5. Add salt, pepper, sugar, soy sauce to taste. Adjust the taste.

How to combine:
1. Take a portion of the dough. Roll the dough until thin and place it in the pastei form.
2. Put 1 table spoon of the filling and a piece of egg and press the sides together to form a nice half circle shape.
3. Heat oil in a wok and fry the pastei until it is brown.

I am a bit dissapointed with the skin. Although the taste is quite OK, but the skin is not as crispy as the ones I used to buy at the snack shops or markets in my home country, Indonesia. I am considering another trial, however, since there are more projects coming these few months, I think I have to delay the next trial. Now, it is time to enjoy the pastei with chilli sauce.

Potato Doughnut

This is a late post. A couple of weeks ago, we had extra potatoes. I wanted to make snacks for the children. I like doughnut but to be honest, I have not found the delicious ones here. (I really miss Asia with the shops, food chains and malls, especially the traditional food shops in this situation). Since we cannot just buy any good snack easily somewhere here with reasonable price, I decided to make a batch of potato doughnuts.

Ingredients
500 gr all purpose flour
200 gr potato (mashed)
11 gr yeast
50 gr milk powder
100 gr sugar
4 egg yolks
100 ml (cold) water
75 gr butter
a pinch of salt

Decoration
Butter
Grated (cheddar) cheese
Chocolate sprinkle

Method
1. Steam or boil the potato. Mash the potato and put aside until it cools down
2. Mixed the flour, potato, milk powder, sugar, yeast together.
3. Add the egg yolks one by one, while kneading the flour mixture (low speed or using hand).
4. Add the water (I use 100 ml cold milk instead because milk powder is uncommon here) and keep kneading the dough until it is almost smooth.
5. Half way kneading the dough, add the butter and salt. Knead the dough until it does not stick to the side of the bowl and not stick to your hand. It should be smooth.
6. Make it as a ball and leave it in the bowl, covered with cling film for at least 15 minutes or more.
7. Devide into portions of 50 grams and roll it with hands into a ball shape and flat it a bit on the baking paper lined surface. Or you can make other shapes also.
8. Let it rest for at least 30 minutes
9. Make a hole to form a donut shape if you like.
10. Deep fry the donut or fry it in a wok filled in with oil until both sides golden brown
11. Let it cool on the kitchen towel to absorb the excess oil.
12. Decorate the surface with a little butter and grated cheese or chocolate sprinkle.

The children and my husband love this potato doughnut. Let me know whether you like it also, if you try to make it.

Enjoy!

Sugar Cookies For Patrick's 4th Birthday

It is almost Christmas and I feel that (decorated) sugar cookies are appropriate treat for Patrick's friends at the daycare. So, we are doing the this project. First, looking for the recipe and cookie cutter. After that, start with the baking.

I am glad that I ended up with not-so-sweet cookie recipe but tastes good. I used the so-called A-merk (the so-called good brand) butter for the cookie. I avoid using not-known brand for butter, since I tasted the difference of the taste when I used certain random butter. Consequently, the cost of the ingredients is increased. But not significantly, fortunately.

Here is the recipe I used with some modification.

Ingredients:
750 gr. all purpose fluor (*I used this time only 700 gr)
475 gr. butter at room temperature
400 gr. fine granulated sugar (*if you want sweeter cookie, you can add the amount of sugar)
2 eggs at room temperature
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp vanilla extract

Method:
1. Mix the sugar, vanilla and butter using the mixer at low speed while adding the butter. Mix it until it looks creamy.
2. Add the egg one by one and mix again at low speed until the dough mixed well.
3. Mixed the flour and baking powder in another bowl.
4. Add the flour and baking powder mix into the mixer bowl in several parts and mix it until it mixed well using the low speed.
5. Roll the dough between two sheets of plastic foil until it reaches the desired thickness.
6. Let the dough rest in the refrigirator for at least 1 hour.
7. Cut the dough using cookie cutter and bake the cookies on the baking sheet in the (at least half an hour) pre-heated oven (180Celcius) for around 10 minutes.

A tips: keep the rolled dough between the two sheets in the refrigirator while you cut the cookie dough. Roll the left over dough between the two sheets again and keep it in the refrigirator while waiting for the batch before baked in the oven. This will minimize the mess.

Here are the cookies, fresh from the oven.

You can decorate the cookie if you like to. In this picture, I used te Dr. Oetker ready to use marzipan in three colours. It was only a simple decoration. But it has made Patrick's birthday a good one.
My husband helped me to wrap the cookies in individual plastic bag and tied the bag with colour ribbon.

The theme was Christmas because Patrick's birthday is 24th December. We shared the cookies with his day care friends during his birthday celebration at the day care which was also a good bye because Patrick would go to school. This cookie is crunchy and not too sweet. That is why I love it and will definitely make it again.

Biji Salak/Sweet Potato Snack in Palm Sugar and Coconut Milk

Last week, I saw the photo uploaded by a good friend of mine, Fransisca. We met for the first time when we were very little, I think. My childhood friend, mostly because of our mothers who were schoolmates and best friends.

Fransisca uploaded an Indonesian snack called Biji Salak. Literally translated: seed of salak fruit. But it is technically not from the fruit. It is called biji salak because of the shape, I think. Anyway, I did not check the history of the food.

Her photo gave me inspiration (Thanks, Sis!). I had sweet potato at home. But since usually I only served it as steamed sweet potato, I have not made any for some time. A little bit boring, I think, every time serving it as steamed one. But, seeing her photo, I wanted to try to serve it as Biji Salak for Patrick and my husband. So, this was my last weekend project, hm part of the project, since we made also Gudeg. But that one is another story.

Here is the recipe.

Ingredient

Sweet potato *(depends on how much you want to make or have, I used around 650 grams, and it served around 7 portions)

Tapioca flour *(There are different proportion between sweet potato and the flour in different recipes, I used the following ratio 1:10 for the flour:sweet potato)

1/4 tsp salt

1000 ml water

150 gr palm sugar

2-3 tsp brown sugar

200 ml coconut milk

1/4-1/2 tsp salt

How to make

1. Wash the sweet potato

2. Steam the sweet potato and than peel the sweet potato

3. Mash the steamed sweet potato

4. Add the 1/4 tsp salt and flour to the mashed sweet potato. Mixed it using hands until uniform

5. Shape the mix into balls by rolling it using hands

6. Boil water *(use water as necessary, the amount of water should be able to cover the sweet potato balls)

7. Wait until the water is boiled *(do not put in the balls when it is not yet boiled, it will make the balls break)

8. After the water is boiled, put in the balls inside the boiling water. Do not turn off the fire.

9. When the balls are floating on the water surface, wait for 1-2 minute before taking them out of the boiling water.

10. Keep around 1 ltr of water and boil it again with the palm sugar and brown sugar.

11. After it is boiled, add in the sweet potato ball.

12. In other pan, boil the coconut milk and 1/4-1/2 tsp salt. Put it aside.

How to serve

1. Serve the sweet potato in the palm sugar soup

2. Add 1-2 tbsp coconut milk *(you can use it to decorate also if you like)

And, it turned out that Patrick found it nice. Hm, may be he was just hungry. But I am happy that my friend's photo has given me additional food variation idea for Patrick, although we live thousands of kilometers away. I miss you a lot, my friend. GBU.

Kukus Singkong - Steamed Cassava

Being a mom also means being a cook for the little boss. That is how I call my son. Sometimes I also call him with other names.

I love to cook, but I am not a good cook. I love to eat and am critical to what I eat. Don't get me wrong, I am always grateful of what is served in front of me. However, having tasted variation of foods from so-so quality to quite good quality (do not dare to say I have tasted the best, since I am not a qualified cook or food critic), I manage to from-time-to-time differentiate the better one from the not-so-good one.

Anyway, I am trying to record what I have served for my family and friends. And will use this to improve what I can provide them. I hope everybody enjoy the food and process.

The following is a snack I tried to serve to my 1 year old boy. I was looking for something Asian, which is not easy to get in our living place, but suitable for a new toddler. One Sunday afternoon, I made this. Turned out that my baby boy quite liked it. It is easy to do.

The recipe is taken from www.detikfood.com. It is reposted below in Indonesian. If I have time I will post the translation.

Bahan:
1 kg singkong, kupas, parut *(I used frozen grated cassava, thawed)
1 bungkus agar-agar bubuk putih
300 ml santan *(I used 400 ml coconut milk since I do not want to waste the extra 100 ml from the package)
150 g gula pasir *(I used only 100 gr sugar)
Pewarna makanan, sesuai selera
Taburan, kukus jadi satu:
100 g kelapa kupas, parut memanjang
½ sdt garam

Cara membuat:
•Peras singkong, sisihkan.
•Siapkan loyang segi empat 20 cm, olesi minyak.
•Campur santan, gula dan agar-agar, aduk rata.
•Masukkan singkong parut, aduk rata.
•Bagi menjadi 3 bagian, beri pewarna sesuai selera. *(I used only 2 colors)
•Tuang satu bagian adonan dalam loyang.
•Kukus dalam kukusan panas hingga matang.
•Lapisi dengan adonan kedua.
•Kukus dan kerjakan yang sama dengan adonan ketiga.
•Kukus hingga seluruhnya matang.
•Angkat dan dinginkan.
•Potong-potong setebal 1,5 cm. Taburi kelapa parut.

And I do not have a big enough steamer. So, I heated my oven for 15 minutes with a pyrex bowl full of water at 200C, and after that put the cassava in the oven. It worked!

Here is a picture of my son enjoying the food.



And here is the whole loaf of the steamed cassava cake.