Gudeg Nangka Using Electric Pressure Cooker

This is one of my Indonesian favorite dish. The origin is from Jogjakarta (Java). It is made from young jack fruit (Nangka) cooked with several spices, coconut water, and coconut milk. Gudeg is usually eaten together with steam rice, and other dishes such as opor ayam (chicken opor), sambal goreng krecek (which is stewed crisp beef skin), and tahu/tempe bacem. Whenever we are eating this Javanese cuisine, I will never forget to serve it with sambal/chilli and krupuk (a type of Indonesian cracker).

My children, at the time I am writing this post, love this Indonesian dish, except for the krecek (stewed crisp beef skin). May be the texture is quite strange for them, especially because they are used to western food.

I usually make a batch of Gudeg and the friends, enough for at least 3 times 3 person-serving. I intentionally do that because making a complete Nasi Gudeg is a labor by itself, at least for me. So, if I have to do a laborious work, it is better if I can keep at least one 3-person serving in the freezer for one of the day when I do not have time to cook dinner.

A few years ago, when I started to learn to make this dish, I made it using pots. However, since my husband bought me an electric pressure cooker, I could make the Gudeg Nangka faster - with some modification of the recipe, saving a few hours.

Ingredients:
1 kg jack fruit (not the ripe one), cut into smaller pieces - (I usually use 3 cans of young jack fruit. The drained weight is around 900 grams)
10 eggs (boiled and peeled the shell) - put aside
500 cc coconut water (The original recipe is calling for 1 liter. However, since I am cooking using pressure cooker, I will only need half of it)
8-10 salam leaves (similar to bay leaves, but please use Indonesian salam leaves, the flavor is different)
5-8 slices galangal (or it is around 0.5 cm) - I usually used around 3tsp galangal powder
200 gr palm sugar - shredded (I love to use Wayang brand here, because it is clean and easy to portion)
500 cc thick coconut milk (or coconut milk from 1 coconut) - (I usually use 3/4 of a 500ml can Kara + 1/4 can water and use the rest of the coconut milk for making sambal goreng krecek)

Spices, Ground
12 cloves shallot
12 cloves garlic
1 tsp coriander seed
3-4 tsp salt or to taste
8-10 candle nuts (I usually use the candle nuts paste in jar - about 4-5 tsp)

Method
1. Drained the canned young jack fruit and cut into small pieces.
2. Ground the garlic and cut the shallot.
3. Put all ingredients into the pressure cooker, make sure that it is still below the maximum level allowed.
4. Set the pressure cooker to "High Pressure" and the timer for 30 minutes.
5. In the mean time, boil the eggs. Let it cool and peel the shell. Set them aside.
6. After 30 minutes timer is off, turn off the pressure cooker and open it after you release the pressure according to the Pressure Cooker Manual/instruction book.
7. Move the Gudeg Nangka to a pot and add the boiled eggs.
8. Boil the Gudeg Nangka and the eggs again before serving.

The Gudeg Nangka is now ready to be served with warm steam rice accompanied by Sambel Goreng Krecek and Opor Ayam Tahu.

I seldom cook this, although my husband loves this food. To cook the complete dish I will need a lot of preparation and cooking time. Quite tiring if you are cooking after the children are in bed. That is why I only make this 2 or maximum 3 times a year.

My children find the gudeg nangka is delicious. However, they still find the Sambal Goreng Krecek has funny texture. May be, just may be, I have to cook the complete dish more than twice a year.

If you are having a vacation in Indonesia, do not forget to find the best warung gudeng there.Enjoy!

NB: in the photo above, I have just add the boiled eggs. That is why it is still white. It is best eaten after the eggs is covered by the gudeg nangka for a few hours to make sure the spices also infused the eggs.

Chinese Pork Jerky

I love and missed eating Bak Kwa (Chinese Pork Jerky). When I was a child, my uncle introduced me to this food. He brought it back from Singapore, Usually, tourist will buy this from a famous shop, called Bee Cheng Hiang. This pork jerky is expensive. Over the years, it is getting more and more expensive. I think this is not only the effect of inflation but also the popularity.

Although most tourist bought their Bak Kwa from Bee Cheng Hiang, I noticed, when I lived in Singapore, that the  many local friends prefer other shop, called Lim Chee Guan. The queue during the Chinese New Year period is always impossible. People can queue for hours, even before the shop is open. I have tried both shop, and I like both. They have different signature taste, but not everybody can distinguish the difference.

Although Chinese New Year has passed weeks ago, I suddenly had a craving for this, especially after browsing the blog of Sonia, Nasi Lemak Lover. To make it worse, our friend tried to make this a few days ago. So, I decided to make this pork jerky. My motivation was quite big, because Sonia made it seems quite `easy´. I used her recipe to make this.

It turned out quite good and similar to what I usually bought back home and not too sweet. Just as I would love to have.

My family love this also, except my oldest son. We ate it with warm rice and also as snack. I will try to persuade my oldest son to give it a try again. We will see if he will love this later.

The recipe and method are from Sonia, Nasi Lemak Lover

Ingredients (with some modification)
500 gr minced pork (the original recipe is 450 gr), with at least 10% fat
100 gr sugar

1 tbsp light soy sauce
1/2 tbsp Chinese rice wine
1/2 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp dark caramel sauce or sweet soy sauce
1/4 tsp Chinese powder 5 spices
a pinch of pepper
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp honey (the choice of honey will affect the taste)


How to:
1. Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix everything until the mixture mixed well and forms a glue like consistency
2. Keep the mixture in the refrigerator for a few hours (I kept it for 1 night, since I have to spread my time. I only cook or bake when the kids are in bed)
3. Take out the mixture from the refrigerator, Line a baking tray with baking paper. I did that to make the cleaning easier and avoid some burned meat
4. Spread the mixture to form a thin, probably around 3 mm thick layer on the baking paper evenly

5. Bake the meat in the middle of the oven at 160 Celcius, 15 minutes.
6. Take out the meat and let it slightly cool. Cut the meat into squares/rectangles/desired shapes
7. Grill one side using top heat at 240Celcius for around 8-10 minutes or until it is golden brown with a slight burnt appearance.
8. Take it out from the oven and grill the other side of the meat for around 5-7 minutes until this side is also golden brown with a slight burnt.

The last step is to let the pork jerky to cool down and enjoy it.
I love to eat it with Indonesian yellow rice. With the result of this trial, I would like to try this method to make Indonesian beef jerky. The problem now is to find a time to do it.

My husband and I brought some to the office for snack and shared them with a couple of colleagues. The respond was quite good. Enjoy!

Purple Yam Rose Steamed Bun (Mantou)

A couple of months ago, I found the video of "how to make a rose steam bun" on the youtube. The rose steam buns are so pretty and the pink colour is intriguing. However, I could not find a good time to try and the thinking of making steam buns is so terrifying. 

I, once made BBQ pork steamed buns, and I felt the work to steam them with my small steamer was too much for me to handle. If you are a regular of my blog, you may know that I am a midnight amateur baker. I bake only after the children are in bed and the morning after, we still have to deal with morning routine, preparing the children to school and getting ready for work.

But, I have bought a bag of steamed bun flour, different brand than I used to buy. And I wanted actually to use that to make salty egg custard steamed buns. However, I did not have the chance to make it. And a couple of days ago, we visited our friends, and I was running out of idea what to bring. So, here it is, I challenged myself to try the rose steamed buns. 

Coincidentally, I still have frozen grated purple yam in my freezer. Inspired by the great posting from Sonia (Nasi lemak lover), pumpkin rose buns, which are so pretty and looks very delicious, I modified a bit her recipe to make my purple yam rose steamed buns. I brought some to our friends, and froze the rest for next occasion. We planned to make chilli crab or something like that to accompany the steamed buns.

My husband did try 1 piece, just after the first batch was finished. He approved the buns. However, the pumpkin ones seem worth to try for the next experiment.


Making the rose buns unexpectedly not too difficult, but it is quite time consuming. The positive side of this shape is, they fits better in my small IKEA steamer than the usual round buns with filling.

I could not wait to see if the children love this or not. I will update the story, when I managed to make the dish to accompany the buns.

Ingredients
180 gr grated purple yam (steam it first before use)
125 ml milk (I used full fat pasteurized milk, but you can also use the fresh milk)
5 gr yeast
400 gr Steamed buns flour
50 gr sugar (you can increase it to 75 gr if you like it sweeter)
40 gr of vegetable oil

1. Mix half of the milk and the yeast in a bowl and let it rest for 5 minutes.
2. Mix the rest of the ingredients in a mixing bowl, add the mixture of milk and yeast. Knead the the ingredients using the hook attachment until the dough is smooth and does not stick to the side of the mixing bowl.
3. Let the dough to rest for 15 minutes.
4. Weight the dough 15 gram each and shape each portion to a ball. Roll each ball to an extended round shape. You will need 5 x 15 gram portions to make two roses. 
5. Roll the first portion to make the centre of the rose. Put it on top of the other portion, and roll them again. Do this until you get a five layers roll. Cut it in the middle into two roses and put the rose buns on top of the baking paper, in the steamer. 

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all the dough is shaped into roses.

7. Let the dough to rise for around 20 minutes.

8. Heat the water for the steaming and when the water starts to boil, steam the the buns for 15 minutes.

9. Repeat the steaming for all buns.

I noticed that since I was in a hurry (this is my negative side as midnight amateur baker), the first batch was not proven well. The last batch was left longer on my table and therefore the dough had longer time to rise. Nevertheless, I love the results.

One thing that made me a bit disappointed is the colour. I avoided using food colouring, that is why the purple yam. The colour of the end results is not as bright as the raw purple yam that I have used for this. It seems that when it is fully cooked, the colour is fading. Anyway, you can still see a little purple colour of the buns.

Lapis Surabaya (with (Hybrid) Swiss Meringue Butter Cream)

I usually bake cake for special occasion. Hm, correction, also for my boys hungry stomach.

Lapis Surabaya is one of our favorite cake. The last time I baked it was my first son's birthday during Christmas holidays. This time, we had our second's son birthday just before Easter. Since we were going to celebrate Easter together with some friends and their family, I decided to order a cake for his birthday. Why? I have to admit that cake decorating is not my thing. I have no clue and no art sense.

The cake we ordered from a good friend, who is a professional baker, is vanilla cake with strawberry and vanilla filling. That was a good and delicious combination. The decoration was also perfect, just as he wished: Olaf and Sven on the beach in summer. My little boy was very happy that day. All the joy in one day: Easter celebration, eggs hunting with other children, and singing happy birthday in front of the birthday cake. 

However, since I usually baked for my family, it felt strange for me if I did not bake for his birthday. I felt that it was a bit unfair for him. That is why, I prepared the Lapis Surabaya cake two days ahead. The cake consists of 3 layers: 2 yellow and 1 chocolate. I used my grandmother passed down to my mother passed down to me recipe.

The butter cream is a bit tricky. I wanted to try another way to make Swiss Meringue Butter Cream (SMBC). I sometimes managed to make it, but many times also failed. With the easy foolproof SMBC was posted by Summer in her blog. Using her tips and method, I managed to make my SMBC. 

Below you can find the recipe of the Lapis Surabaya. I will post the SMBC method from Summer in my next posting.

*I am using 22 x 22 x 7 cm Lapis Surabaya pan/square pan*

Ingredient A - For 1 layer of yellow

12 egg yolks

2 egg whites

150 gr butter (melted and cooled)

100 gr fine sugar + 1 tsp vanilla 

60 gr cake flour (shifted)

Ingredient B - For 1 layer of chocolate

14 egg yolks

2 egg whites

150 gr butter (melted and cooled)

100 gr fine sugar

40 gr cake flour + 20 gr chocolate powder (shifted together)

Method 

The method is the same for both layers, only the cake flour in the yellow layer is subtituted with cake flour+chocolate powder

1. Prepare the cake tin, line the tin with margarine/butter and baking paper.

2. Preheat the oven at 200Celcius.

3. Melt the butter and let it cool

4. Whisk the egg yolks, egg whites and sugar until thick and leave ribbon traces.

5. Add the cake flour slowly. Remember the speed is at the LOWEST speed, or fold the flour until it mixes well.

6. Add the cooled melted butter, fold it using spatula in one direction. Do not over fold/mix it. But remember the butter should be mixed well. If you do not mix it well, the cake will not be fluffy.

7. Pour the mixture into the pan/tin and bake it at 200 Celcius for around 20 minutes using lower heat source. Around 5 minutes before it is fully baked, turn the upper heat to brown the surface of the cake if necessary.

8. When it is done, wait until it cool down in the oven with the door slightly open for around 5-10 minutes before taking the cake out of the oven. 

9. Arrange the cake and use the filling you like: either jam or butter cream.

I managed to take a shot of the cut cake this time. My boys love it, but they sometimes put the butter cream away and do not eat it.

Happy Easter!

Japanese Cotton Cheese Cake - Encore

My family really loves this cake. It is soft, just like sponge cake, but it has a soft cream cheese taste. A perfect combination.

I have not made this cake for at least 1 year, since I am now in love with bread making and I do not have enough energy to play around with cake making. Although, there are many recipes, that I want to try or to repeat.

Last weekend, we got dinner invitation from our friend. We used this occasion, for our children play date. I did not have an idea what to bring there. However, when I checked my refrigerator, I immediately saw that I just bought two packages of cream cheese, just more than enough to make this cake.

So, I tested my hand if I still could remember how to make this cake. It was not easy for me to make the cake perfect. Before I could ever get it right, I did produced at least 4 failed cake.

The recipe of this cake, can be found in this page.
I have added some notes there.

It turned out, that I still can make this cake right. The cake was almost finished that day. My youngest boy even ate 2 slices. He climbed on to my lap and sheepishly said that he was still  hungry. He just wanted one more slice of cake.

Baked Bulgogi Pao

Instead of making steamed pao/bread, I decided to make experiment with my leftover bapao flour. Why? Because the idea of steaming a few batches of 4 steamed bread for 1.5 hour, exclusive the preparing and proofing time, is already killing me.

So, I am going to try baking it instead and I used the water roux method to make the dough. I managed to squeeze some baking time yesterday after we cycled to the city and back (it was around 16 km). As a note: the cycling was not my idea, it was my husband's idea. He said, the weather was very nice and after a few months of cold, wet and windy winter, it was time for us to go out and we did not have to think about paying the parking ticket. Yes, he was right about not having to pay the expensive parking ticket in the city center, however, how could I trapped by the idea of cycling for 16 km, after the day before we have cycled also for around 12 km to the market.

Anyway, I was glad that we have a kind of trailer that we can attached behind the bicycle so the children could sit there and if they fall asleep, I would not worry whether they sit safely on the bike or not.

After we arrived home, I prepared food for our dinner and squeezed in some time to prepare the dough. I was also baking a potato dish for the day after. To accelerate the proofing time, I put the dough in the oven for a while, while the oven is cooling down after I baked my potato dish. It worked great, the proofing was quite fast. But, be careful not to cook the bread in the hot oven.

For the filling, I used a ready to use bulgogi marinade. My husband loves the filling better than my usual BBQ pork filling. And the children finished their breakfast (and lunch) today. I am also happy that we have extra snack stock.

This is the recipe I used.

Ingredients
Filling
600 gr pork (I do not use lean pork, we love it a bit fatty, but not too fatty) - if you do not eat pork, change it with other meat
Bulgogi marinade
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
pepper to taste
1/2 tsp 5 spice powder
a dash of sesame oil
1-2 tsp of corn starch
3 tbsp water

How to make the filling
1. Marinade the meat for a few hours and baked it for 30 minutes in the middle of the oven, 200Celcius.
2. Let it cool and cut the meat into small cubes.
3. Cook the meat again in a pan/wok, add the oyster sauce, soy sauce, 5-spice powder, pepper and sesame oil.s
4. Dilute the corn starch with the water and add into the pan.
5. Let it cool and keep it in the refrigerator while you prepare the dough.

Dough Ingredients
For the tangzhong (water roux) - Note: my grandmother called it "biang" in Indonesians

• 50 g bread flour
• 200 ml milk

For the bread dough

• 125 ml milk
• 7 gram instant yeast 
• 65 g sugar
• 450 g bread flour*
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs, medium size 
• all of the tangzhong (water roux) 
• 50 g melted butter, cooled

To brush

• 1 egg, beaten

Method

1. Prepare the tangzhong (water-roux), in advanced. Mix the bread flour and milk in a pan, until it is well mixed.
2. Cook the mixture over medium-low heat. Stir it constantly with a whisk or spatula until it becomes thicker. When you see lines behind the whisk or spatula trail, remove it from the heat.
3. Place the tangzhong in a small bowl and cover it with cling film (plastic wrap). The plastic wrap should stick directly onto the roux to prevent it from drying. Let it cool for a few hours or put it in the refrigerator until you are ready to make the dough.

4. To make the dough, combine all dough ingredient (note: this can be done because the yeast used here is instant yeast) except the butter in the stand mixer bowl. Add the tangzhong/water-roux into the bowl. Using the hook attachment, knead the ingredients until you get a dough form and the gluten begins to develop.

5. Knead in the butter until it the dough is smooth and does not stick to the wall of the bowl and to your hand. To double check if the gluten has developed enough, you can stretch the dough. If the dough can be stretched easily to form a thin membrane, and you can light through the membrane, then the dough is ready.

6. Shape the dought into a ball shape and lightly oil the dough (I usually forget to oil it and it still works good for me). Put it back into the bowl, cover with cling film (plastic wrap) and place it in the refrigerator to proof until the next day or put it somewhere warm until it's doubled in size. As an alternative, proof it in a warm environment (the best is 28 degree Celcius) for 1 hour, or until it's doubled in size.

7. After the dough rise double in size, punch down the dough and roll into a long shape. Cut into 16 equal size pieces (around 55-60 grams per piece).

8. Roll the dough into a thin layer and fill in the dough with filling. 

9. Cover the filling with the dough and pinch the edges and press it to make sure that the filling will not leak out.

10. Carefully pinch up the edges and press together, ensuring the filling is well sealed.
11. Place the pressed side down onto the baking trays lined with baking paper. Cover them with damp tea towel and let them rest for around 1 hour for last proving. (I sometimes use cling wrap to cover them and keep them in a warm cabinet. At least that method works for me).

12. Preheat oven to 180°C.
13. Brush the top of the bread with beaten egg and bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown. I usually bake two trays with upper and below heat sources and exchange the positions of the trays halfway the baking time.

Cheese Sagu/Tapioca/Maizena Cookie

Usually, during certain festive season, we provide different types of cookie and other food to welcome family and friends who come to visit us or to share some happiness with others. This year, the Lunar/Chinese New Year fell in February. Since we are far away from home, we plan a dinner together with our friends. This time, it is a quite big group.

Usually, the reunion dinner is at the new year eve. However, since a few friends wanted to watched K3, a singing group popular with young children here, we plan the get together, 1 week after.

I had this urge to make cookie. This time, I wanted to try the sagu/tapioca/maizena cookie. Instead of sagu or maizena, I used tapioca. I got the recipe from a high school senior, who is good with cooking and food photography.

This cookie reminds me of my childhood and the festivities back home. Unfortunately, this is not the favorite of my children. They have slightly different taste than me.

Here is the recipe and the method.

Ingredients
300 gr sagu/tapioca/maizena flour
50 gr butter
100 gr margarine
2 pandan leaves
100 gr grated cheese (oud)
50 ml coconut milk
100 gr icing sugar
1 egg yolk

Method
1. Heat the flour and pandan leaves in a wok WITHOUT any oil for around 15 minutes. Put aside.
2. Whisk the butter, margarine, and sugar.
3. Add the egg and sifted flour.
4. Add the grated cheese until it is mixed well.
5. Line your baking pan with baking paper and put the mixture in the bag and use the big star tip to form the cookie.
6. Bake the cookies in the oven 170C for around 20 minutes.


Enjoy!