Kepiting Saos Padang (Padangese Hot and Spicy Chilli Crab)

When I was still lived in Pontianak (the capital city of West Kalimantan), crab is one of my family's favorite seafood. If my parents went into local market and found the big crab sell or when came from Singkawang, they would not leave not to buy those crabs. In Kalimantan we can buy big and good quality crab. It is very different what we face in Java island now. It is so hard to get any good quality crab and the price is so expensive, a kilogram crab in here almost as same as a kilogram beef. But don't worry, we still can eat good crabs if we go to a seafood restaurant that get their crabs from Kalimantan. If you live in East Java, of course you will know the most famous seafood restaurant in here who made crabs dish as their signature dish, "Kepiting Cak Gundul". My friend said that they get their crabs from Tarakan, a city in East Kalimantan. 

At home, my mother usually cook crabs by boiling it with garlic and ginger then only then eat those by dipping in sweet soy sauce or tomato sauce. Sometimes she made crab with sweet and sour tomato sauce or corn soup with crab meat. But in Indonesia, actually there are so many recipes that use crabs as main ingredients that you can try at home. One of them is this Indonesian Chilli Crab or Padangese Hot and Spicy Chilli Sauce. I never eat Indonesian Chilli Crab before. Due to my curiousness, then when I went to market, I bought some crabs. Original recipe from Resep Keluarga Nugraha in here. But I modified this recipe to suit me.

I prefer to boil the crab first before mix it in the cooked sauce. Beside boil it you can also fried the crab before cook it with sauce. How to clean crabs? You can check it out in this blog. The tutorial how to clean crab is complete there (added with picture). Great tips for you...

Padangese hot and spicy chilli crab is one of very famous dish from Padang (a city in West Sumatra) beside Indonesian Beef Rendang (stewed beef in brown coconut curry). Of course, because it comes from Padang, the taste of this dish is really hot and spicy. For spicy lover this dish will be one of must-to-eat-in-Indonesia. But despite the frills of "Padang" in the name of the dish, I hope you will not overestimate to get this dish in all Padangese restaurant in all over Indonesia. This dish only common in Chinese seafood restaurant. Beside with crabs, sometimes they use shrimp, clamp or mussel, but as alternatives you can use fish too as main ingredients in this dish.  You can enjoy this Indonesian chilli crab with warm rice or a plate of Mantou (Chinese steamed buns). So yummy...

Indonesian Chili Crab 

(Padangese Hot and Spicy Chilli Crab)

Ingredients:

• 2 big-sized crabs (about 500 gr), cleaned, boiled
• 5 tbs tomato sauce
• 2 tbs chilli sauce (Indonesian chilli sauce)
• 4 tbs oyster sauce
• 150 ml water
• 1 1/2 tbs corn starch, dissolve in a tbs of water
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1/2 tsp lime juice

Finely ground:

• 5 shallots (can be change with 1 small-sized onion, sliced)
• 3 garlic
• 3-4 red chillies
• 3 bird-eye chillies (you can add more bird-eye chillies if you want more spicy)
• 3 cm turmeric
• 1 tsp pepper
• salt and sugar as desired

Directions:

• In a large skillet, heat up the cooking oil in medium-high heat. Saute the ground spice until fragrant. Add the tomato sauce, chilli sauce and oyster sauce. Stirring often and cooked until well done.
• Add the crabs, stir it. Add water and bring to boil in a high heat. Adjust the taste with add some sugar and salt. Wait until bubbling.
• Add the dissolve corn starch, stir it and cook it in low-heat until the sauce come inside the crabs meat and let the sauce thicken. Add lime juice, stir it for a while then turn off the heat. Ready to be served with hot steamed rice or hot Mantaou. 

Pempek (Palembang Stuffed Fish Cake)

Pempek or we can called it Palembang Stuffed Fish Cake is a savoury fish cake delicacy from Palembang, capital city of South Sumatra. It is usually served with yellow noodles and a dark, rich sweet and sour sauce called kuah cuko. Pempek is one of my favourite Indonesian cuisine since I was child. I really love it. I still remember when I got my first pregnant, I ever asked my parents to bring Pempek from Pontianak just because I really want to eat Pempek that is made by my mother's friend. 

Now, I try to make it by myself. So, I don't need to imported  it again from Pontianak, or maybe from the origin place, Palembang. I was so happy because although it was my first experiment to made it I can made it successfully :D But only for Pempek Lenjer, not for the Kapal Selam type, it was so hard to make it perfec.

Pempek dough is made from a mixture of boneless ground fish meat, commonly Indonesian uses Ikan Tenggiri (kind of Wahoo or Spanish macakerel) with water, salt and tapioca. But some of others uses Ikan Gabus (Snakehead fish) or Ikan Belida (Featherback fish). Many people said the best tasting pempek are made from Ikan Belida, but it is so difficult to find that fish in Malang, very rare, so I use the usual thing and easy to find, Ikan Tenggiri.

The other important part of this cuisine is Kuah Cuko. The colour of this sauce is dark brown. Just make sure you made the sauce from palm sugar (gula aren), because it will give good colour of the sauce better than if you use brown sugar/coconut sugar (gula merah). But the best thing will always gula merah Linggau, palm sugar from Palembang.

 

Pempek (Palembang Stuffed Fish Cake)

Source: NCC

Ingredients:

Basic Dough:

• 500 grams boneless ground Ikan Tenggiri (Spanish macakerel) meat
• 100 milliliter icy water
• 1 egg
• 25 grams wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 4 clove garlic, minced
• 100 milliliter water
• 400  grams sago flour (Tepung sagu tani)
• 3 tablespoons Tang Mien Flour (wheat starch flour)

Kuah Cuko:

• 250 grams palm sugar
• 50 grams tamarind
• 1 teaspoons ground dried shrimp
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 750 milliliter water
• 2 tablespoons rice vinegar
• bird eyes chilies, ground 
• salt

Directions:

Basic Dough:

• In a bowl, mix boneless ground fish meat, icy water, and egg. Mix well (use your hand better than spoon). Take in chiller until thicken.
• In a bowl, mix wheat flour, sugar, salt, minced garlic, and water. Stir it while boiled in small heat. Stir continuously until thicken. Leave it cold and take in chiller after that.
• After 30 minutes, take out all the ingredients that you put in chiller. Mix all ingredients in different two bowl into one bowl. Mix well (use your hand again).
• Add sagu flour and tang mien flour gradually while you knead the dough slowly until smooth and not sticky in the hand.
• In a big pot, boil water. Add some cooking oil to make Pempek looks shiny and didn't stick each other while boiled.
• On your work table, dust sagu flour. And also don't forget to dust your hand also with sagu flour.
• Take a small amount of Pempek dough, shape it into ball (if you make Pempek adaan), or shape into long cylindrical (if you make Pempek lenjer), and you can also add chicken egg wrapped within the dough (Pempek kapal selam).
• Plunk Pempek into a pot of boiling water. Let pempek float. Take it and leave it cold.
• Deep fry until golden brown. Serve with kuah cuko and cucumber chopped. You can also add some noodles or ground dried shrimps to enrich the flavour.

Kuah cuko:

• In a saucepan, add water, tamarind, palm sugar. Let the sugar dissolve and wait until boil.
• Add minced garlic, ground dried shrimp, ground bird eyes chilies, salt. Bring to boil. Turn off the heat. Add vinegar. 
• Strain it. Ready to be served.

Tekwan (Palembang Fish Ball Soup)

Tekwan is a fish soup typical of Palembang, Indonesia. The fish cakes are made from the dough of fish and tapioca (or sago starch) similar to Pempek. The fish cake is cut in small sizes and presented in shrimp broth with a distinctive flavour, served with rice vermicelli, mushrooms, sliced jicama, and sprinkled with sliced fresh celery, scallion, and fried shallot. Some people made the fish ball from ikan tenggiri (Spanish mackerel), but the other made it from ikan belida (Featherback fish) or ikan gabus (Snakehead fish). All of them are freshwater fish.

Actually I have been several times made this tekwan. But I don't know why the texture of the fish ball never been same as what my mother's made. Maybe I add too many fish in the mixture or something like that. My mother gave me tips to not add so much fish to the mixture to make it more chewy and mix it with ice/cold water. Maybe when I made this in the next time, I will revised the recipe.

 

Tekwan (Palembang Fish Ball Soup)

Source :  "Resep Keluarga Nugraha"

Ingredients:

Fish balls :

• 325 grams boneless ground Ikan tenggiri (Spanish mackerel) meat
• 100 grams tapioca starch 
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper

Soup :

• 250 grams prawns
• 25 grams dried black fungus, soaked with hot water
• 2 medium sizes of jicama (bengkoang), peeled and slice into long and thin shape as you wish
• 20 grams dried lily flower (bunga sedap malam kering), soaked with hot water
• 1 stalk of Chinese celery, chopped finely
• 6 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoons pepper
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 liter water
• 5 cloves garlic, chopped
• 1 medium size of onion, chopped
• cooking oil

 Other ingredients:

• 2 stalk of green onion, chopped finely
• 1 stalk of Chinese celery, chopped finely
• fried shallot flakes
• dried rice vermicelli, soaked with hot water
• soy bean sauce (optional)
• slices of lemon (optional)

Directions:  
Fish ball:

• Add all the ingredients to make fish ball and mix it well. 
• In a pot, boil water, reduce the heat. Take a tablespoon of fish ball dough and shape it into small balls by using two tablespoons. Drop into the pot until the fish ball floated. Then take away the fish ball and set aside.

Soup :

• Add 2 tablespoon of cooking oil. Stir fry garlic and onion until fragrant. 
• Peel the prawn shells of, add the shell and head. Stir it well until the shell and head turning into red.
• Pour the water, boil it. Then strain the prawn soup.
• Boil again prawn soup after you strain it. Add chopped prawns, jicama, soaked black fungus, and lily flower. Add sugar, salt, pepper, and Chinese celery. Cook until all the ingredients well-cooked.
• Add fish ball, take the soup into re-boil. Turn off the heat.
• Ready to be served with green onion, Chinese celery, soaked rice vermicelli, fried shallot flakes. If you like you can add some soybean sauce and slices of lemon juice and some chili sauce.

Ekkado Udang (Prawn Ekkado)

Ekkado is one of Japanese cuisine that is very simple to make. Long time ago, one of Japanese family restaurant in Indonesia, Hoka-hoka Bento, still didn't get "Halal" label from MUI (one of government institute which the member are Indonesian Ulama). So just because I really want to eat this, I try to made it by myself after I read the recipe from this blog.

Ingredients:

• 200 grams prawns, chopped finely
• 5-7 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 eggs, take the egg white only
• 2 tablespoons corn starch
• salt
• pepper
• sugar
• 1 sheet bean curd, cut into 10x10 centimeter, or as you like. Immerse it in warm water. Remember not to long to immerse it, it could make the bean curd fragile and hard to shape)

Directions :

• Add chopped prawns, garlic, corn starch, salt, pepper, sugar, and egg white. Stir well.
• Once the bean curd are soft, lay them flat. You can spread/sprinkle small amount of water to the sheet. Put some of the chopped prawn base recipe in the middle. Then make a wrap of the bean curd so it form a money bag. Tie the top with cooking string.
• Prepare the steamer, and make sure the steamer has been hot enough before you put it. Steam it for 15-20 minutes. Set aside after cooked and put off the cooking string.
• Deep fry them in the hot oil until golden brown. Just make sure that you lower the fire once they are hot so you don't burn the wrapper before the filling is cooked. Ready to be served.
• To make them look pretty, change the cooking string with shallot cut into strips or use green onion or chives once they are cooked.

Brokoli Siram Saus Cumi

Love squid so much.. I took the recipe from Blueband's wrap, hehehe...

Ingredients:

• Brocoli (medium size), cut into small pieces, I would like to cut it each florets
• 500 g squid
• Small lime, squeeze to get the juice
• 150 g oyster mushroom, cut into small pieces that you like (you can substitute to others mushroom)
• 300 ml of water
• 3 tbs oil

Seasonings:

• 5 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1 onion (medium size), thinly sliced
• 2 cm ginger, crushed
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 3 tbs chili sauce
• 5 tbs tomato sauce
• 1 tbs soy sauce/fish sauce
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1 tbs cornstarch, dissolved in approximately about 50ml water

How to Make:

• Discard skin and squid guts. Cut in half, then slice cross each other. Cut about 3 cm. Sprinkle with lime juice and let's stand it for 10 minutes. Then wash it with half-boiled water.
• Boiled broccoli, add salt into the boiling water (don't add to much, you can estimate how much that you need by yourself. It just to enhance the taste of broccoli and to make it stay looked green after boiled). Boiled it until wilted. Drained after that.
• Saute garlic and onions until fragrant. Add the squid and ginger. Stir it.
• Add water, pepper, chili and tomato sauce, soy sauce/fish sauce, salt, and sugar. Stir until boiling.
• Add mushrooms and cook until all the ingredients cooked well.
• Pour the cornstarch solution while stirring constantly. Cook it until you can see the water bubbling. The the squid sauce has been finished.
• Pour the squid sauce over the steamed broccoli that you have been arrange on the plate. Serve while warm would be better....