I'm a beginner cook with a very very supportive husband as my kitchen assistant. My foodie blog is where I will share my simple and no fuss recipes that my husband and I like and absolutely easy to try... At least we have tried. I also love taking picture of the food so here it goes... a combination of cooking and photography... Enjoy
Lazy Morning... but definitely need to get things going. So I made this simple breakfast for my lil Tania and I.
Scrambled Egg // Orak Arik Telur
Ingredients:
3 Eggs beaten and seasoned with 3 pinches of salt and a dash of ground white pepper
1 medium Tomatoes sliced or cubes to your liking
2 stalks of seledri (Indonesian parsley, chopped
1/4 of Medium Onion chopped
2 tbsp Vegetable Oil
Direction
1. Prepare the wok (I use rice cooker). Heat the vegetable oil
2. Stir in the chopped onions, Tomatoes and seledry
3. Pour in the beaten eggs
4. Keep stirring it to have a silky result
Rice Porridge // Bubur
Ingredients
1 cup of rice
3 cups of water
1 tsp of salt
Direction:
1. wash the rice
2. Put it in a pan (or rice cooker as I did)
3. Pour the water and add the salt
4. let it boils away.
-- keep watch of it... it may be good to go after about 20 min.
A recipe I inherit from my mom. This brought back memories of when she was still working for SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistic) and life in Poka before Ambon conflict. At one time, we handled the catering for SIL guesthouse and Mom taught me how to made this breakfast entree. I was in Junior high school and this recipe was an easy one. Fool proof for me... hope it does the same to you...
MIX 1
2 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar (Please add if you like it to be sweeter - we prefer it not too sweet)
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/2 tsp Bicarbonate Soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp Ground nutmeg (I find that grinding a fresh whole nutmeg gives better taste and smell to the muffin compares to the ready-grinded nutmeg in bottle)
Mix this well and set aside
MIX 2
1 well mashed ripe Banana (better taste with Eating banana such as Pisang Ambon or Pisang Meja)
1 Egg
1 Cup Milk
1Cup Vegetable Oil
Mix this well and stir into Mix 1... Mix Throroughly then spoon into Muffin Cups or any other baking container you wish to use and bake in the oven lower rack for 20-30 minutes on medium heat. Or until the sides of the muffin is golden. Then move to the upper rack for about 5 minutes. ---
I made this yesterday when Simon is busy catching up his dissertation deadline and I am 1 day away from my due date. Both of us are very anxious. Simon promised to finsih his dissertation before the baby goes into labour. Poor husband of mine is doing all he can to get ahead of time. Unfortunatelly, he started to feel unwell, a bit feverish. The temperature was dropping so it does feel a bit nippy. I suddenly remember that mung bean is good for health and having it with ginger will warm your body and provide extra energy.
I do not use exact measurement... so it's up to your liking for the taste
Ingredient:
2 handful of Mung bean
a big chunk (app. 3 tbsp) palm sugar - or ordinary sugar will also works
2 glass of water (app. 400ml)
1 tsp salt
2 cm ginger, crushed
Condensed milk to serve with
Direction:
1. Wash and boil mung bean with crushed ginger with 2 glass of water until the beans breaks and tender - feel free to add more water if the mung bean is not yet breaks and tender
2. Add Palm sugar and salt to taste.
3. To serve : ladle mung bean to a glass and drizzle condense milk to your desire.
Aaahhh This is this morning breakfast. Remind me of Ambon.
Of course, the sugar I use is not Gula Merah Saparua. but it was OK.
I somehow cook the glutinous rice a bit too soft but all in all... it was yummy.
Ingredient:
250 gr Glutinous Rice
1 pandan leave
1/2 coconut, grated
200 gr Palm Sugar
2 cups of water
Direction:
1. RICE: Wash and soak glutinous rice for 1 - 2 hours. Then drain it and put in rice cooker with a little salt and pandan leave tied in knots. Add the water according to the direction of your rice cooker. But I might remind you not too put too much. Glutinous rice is often too mushy
2. COCONUT: Grate the coconut then steam it with a little salt
3. PALM SUGAR SAUCE : Shave the palm sugar or cut them in smaller bits. Add water and let it boil until the palm sugar chunks dissolve in water. You can add piece of pandan leave too to make it fragrant.
Serve it with glutinous rice topped with steamed coconut and drizzle with palm sugar sauce.
This morning I made myself a very satisfying breakfast which takes me back to Ambon again. Yesterday, we bought Bananas or what they called Plantain. This is the kind of banana we used to fried at home – Pisang Goreng. I love Pisang Goreng or Battered Banana especially when you add shredded cheese and a drizzle of condensed milk on top. Aahh it’s heavenly.
Having this dish in the morning, remind me of my mother-in-law, Mama Nona, in Waai. My father-in-law, Papa Ucu, planted bananas and many other yummy goods and when they’re ripe he brought them home from “kabong”. Then the next morning, the whole house will woke up to the smell of battered fried banana. Usually, some will be still sizzling in the wok and some already plated up on the table together with an army of tea glasses filled with hot tea.
I think for most Ambonesse, they will have similar experience or memories. Either of their mother, grandmother or sister frying the banana at home or buying it from little girls who walk around the village with a tray of fried banana on their head. Of course for this, we don’t put cheese. Cheese is certainly not our culture, apart from it is an expensive stuff. But all the same, the smell and the taste of fried banana remind me of my homeland, to my families, to mothers and women who wakes up every dawn to busy themselves preparing breakfast for their loved one. I wish one day, I can be such mothers too.
This morning, Peanut have a taste of Ambon.
Serve 2 – 3 people
Ingredient:
2 Plantains (big bananas) à My fave, if I am in Ambon, is Pisang Abu-abu
3 tbsp of all purpose four
1 tsp of sugar
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
¼ cup of milk or water à I used semi skimmed milk
1 cup of cooking oil
Topping if desire:
Shredded Cheese, best one is mild cheddar. In Indonesia we use Kraft which I presume a processed cheddar cheese.
Condensed milk to drizzle on top
Direction:
Mix the flour, sugar, salt, milk/water and baking soda until it formed a batter mixture.
Meanwhile heat the cooking oil in a deep pan or a wok.
Peel and cut the banana to the size you desire. I halved it lengthwise and cut into 3 parts.
Dip the banana into the batter and fry it in hot oil until golden brown
Take it out of the oil. Arrange on the plate. Scattered the Cheese on top of the bananas then drizzle the condensed milk on top of everything.
I’ve been wanting to join the event but always fall short on time, ingredients and self-confidence. I always find time to look at the round up result and they are all great. But this time I decided to beat all odds and brave myself to enter. This months theme is Egg based cooking and I happen to see an omelette recipe in BBC Cookbook that I wanted to try. Plus, my landlord always give us fresh egg from her hens almost every morning. So here it is…. I particularly love the taste of feta cheese in it. But I think Cheddar cheese will do just fine too.
Source: BBC GoodFood Cookbook
Ingredient:
4 Eggs
Handful of chopped parsley
1 tbsp of olive oil
¼ Red onion, chopped
1 large plum tomatoes, chopped
Handful of pitted black olive, halved
100 gr feta cheese
Direction:
1.Pre-heated grill on high.
2.Whisk eggs in large bowl with the chopped parsley, pepper and salt.
3.Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan, and fry the red onion on high heat until brown around the edges.
4.Add the tomatoes and olives, stir and coor for another 1 – 2 minutes
5.Turn the heat down and pour in the eggs. Leave it half cooked – about 2 minutes and scatter the feta cheese on top.
6.Slide the Pan under the grill for 5 minutes until omelet is puffed up and golden. Serve straight away.
Note : Sliding the omelets under the grill is just to brown the feta on top. You don’t have to do this. Simply cover the omelet until cook will do just fine.
Ingredient:
2 pieces Chicken Upper thigh
1 cup Rice (any kind of rice available. I used Basmati Rice)
2 Cloves Garlic - crushed
1 small Onion
2 stalk Spring Onion
1 tbsp Butter - or you can just use oil
1 tsp Ground Black Pepper
400ml water
Salt as desired
Indonesian Sweet Soy sauce as desired
Direction:
Make the Chicken Stock:
Boil chicken. Add garlic, salt and pepper. Let it boiled for a while.
When the Chicken is cooked enough take it out from the stock to make topping
Rice Poridge:
Wash the rice and put it in the chicken stock (after the chicken pieces are out from the pan)
Let it boiled away. Feel free to add water when you want more watery rice.
Noting can go wrong in making rice porridge (except if you burn it)
While the porridge is boiling in the pan, we will make the topping
Make the topping :
Shred the cooked chicken pieces - or diced it -
(Don't throw the chicken bones. Put them back in the pan to boil with the porridge.)
Put the butter in a frying pan and sizzle onion.
Put the Shred chicken pieces and keep turning it until it browned.
Put the Sweet Soy Sauce as desired as well as the salt and pepper.
When Serving put the topping and sprinkle some spring onion.
Also fav toppings are Shrimp Crackers, fried onion and thinly sliced omlette
