Ayam Goreng Crispy

 

Maybe you will think that crispy fried chicken is not kind of health food that we can include as our family menu everyday. But in my home, this crispy fried chicken is one of menu that is usually served at home. My son love to eat fried chicken and about twice a week he will ask me to cook this. I try to cook it by myself and not buy in fast food restaurant (that is very unhealthy with high MSG, bad oil, trans fat and something like that). For the first time, I don't have any idea how to make delicious crispy fried chicken like fast food restaurant sell. Trial and error each recipe that I find and here is my favorites recipe ever. I feel so comfort when I can cook it by myself, I can control the ingredient, not using seasoning powder who contain high MSG or sometimes if I have to use it I only use in very little amount. Because the one who eat this is my son, I try to use good quality cooking oil for him. 

I got the recipe from book "60 Resep Masakan Favorit Anti Gagal" by Fatmah Bahalwan from NCC. Very easy to make. You can choose which one suit you the most, pan-fry it or deep-fry it. I prefer the deep-fry method because it makes the fried chicken crispier. But of course, deep-fry will need excessive oil consumption. The exact amount may vary depending on cook time and temperature, ingredient density, and the specific type of oil used. Hope one day I can buy my own air-fryer Phillips, can fry something in healthy way, LOL.

When cooking fried chicken, flavor is important, that’s true. But a flavorful fried chicken is a mere shadow of its full potential if it lacks a crackling kick. It’s an unwritten rule: fried chicken needs to have a crispy crust—always! To enhance the flavor of fried chicken just make sure you get enough time to marinade the chicken. If I have free time I will marinade the chicken a night before. But sometimes, if I am in hurry, I just cook the chicken with the spices and some herbs (you can use any herb, I usually use Basil and some thyme). Let them cool for a while then dip in the crispy flour and the batter then fry it ;)

 

Ayam Goreng Crispy (Crispy Fried Chicken)

Ingredients:

• 1 chicken (about 1,5 kg), cut into you desired 
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbs chicken powder
• 1/2 tsp ground pepper
• 1/2 tsp seasoning powder (optional)
• cooking oil

Crispy Flour:

• 1 kg flour
• 2 tbs tapioca flour
• 6 tbs baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp chicken powder
• 1 tsp ground pepper

For batter:

• 1 egg white
• 1 tbs chicken powder
• 500 ml water

Direction:

• Place all the chicken in large bowl and toss with salt, chicken powder, ground pepper, and seasoning powder. Allow chicken to marinade for at least 15 minutes, up to overnight would be better.
• For batter : Whick egg white, add chicken powder and water. Set aside.
• Prepare the seasoned and crispy flour. Iin large bowl, simply mix all the ingredients. Set aside.
• Heat the cooking oil, you can use pan-fry or deep-fry but I would suggest it would be better using deep-fry. If you choose use pan-fry make sure the cooking oil is one inch deep. If you want to deep-fry it, just pour as much oil as is needed to completely cover the chicken parts. Let the cooking oil hot before putting the chicken into the fryer.
• One by one, roll the chicken pieces in seasoned-crispy flour. Then dip them into the batter, then in the flour again for one last time. Just make sure all their parts are covered. Let the chicken rest for a while to allot the coating stick to the chicken and the season come inside the chicken.
• Fry the chicken pieces in batches until they turn in golden brown. Place aside in cooling rack and allow them to drain. Ready to eat! 

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. 

Siomay Bandung (Bandung Steamed Dumplings with Peanut Sauce)

 

I don't know exactly since when I love to eat this street food. Siomay is similar to Chinese Dim Sum. It is an Indonesian steamed fish dumpling served with Peanut Sauce. A word of Siomay itself can be derived from Chinese Shumai (siu mai or shaomai), a traditional Chinese Dumpling that is considered to have originated from Inner Mongolia.

This traditional dim sum is a popular meal in Indonesia as street food. There are so many types of siomay variations in Indonesian cuisine based on the meat that is used for the filling. We can use king mackerel fish, chicken, shrimp, crab, or mixture of chicken and shrimp. As the recipe I share in here is using mixture of chicken and shrimp as filling. Siomay Bandung is the most famous variety of siomay in Indonesian cuisine.

Siomay Bandung is served with tofu, hard-boiled egg and vegetables such as potato, cabbage, bitter-melon, and the most important component, that is Peanut Sauce. We can add some seasoning for peanut sauces such as chili, lime juice and a little bit sweet soy sauce.

The original recipe is come from NCC. But I made some change to the original recipe due to my liking. And also the recipe of Peanut Sauce or Peanut Sambal. I made my own recipe.

Siomay Bandung

Bandung Steamed Dumplings with Peanut Sauce

 

Ingredients: 

• 400 g chicken meat, paste
• 100 g shrimp/king mackerel fish, paste
• 2 tbs shallots, grated
• 1 tbs garlic, mashed
• 2 tsp ground white pepper
• 3 tbs sugar
• 3 tsp salt
• 1 tbs cooking oil or sesame oil
• 3 eggs
• 400 g chayotes, grated
• 450 g tapioca starch
• Wonton skins
• 1 medium sized bitter-melon
• 1 medium sized cabbage
• Some hard-boiled eggs
• Tofu

Peanut Sauce:

• 500 g roasted peanut
• 200 g red chilies 
• 3 garlic
• 3 shallots
• 2 tbs Javanese tamarind juice
• 2 tbs salt
• 7 tbs coconut sugar
• 1,5 liter water

 Directions:

1. In a bowl, combine chicken meat and shrimp paste with shallot, garlic, white pepper, sugar, salt, and cooking oil. I used food processor to combine it. Then add egg and mix well. 
2. Add grated chayotes and mix well. Add tapioca starch, mix well. Set aside.
3. Grease the steamer with small amount of cooking oil to make the dumplings will not sticky when steaming. 
4. Siomay : Take a piece of wonton skin, scoop about 1 tbs of filling, shape it using hands. Repeat until all the wonton skin are used up. Steam for 20 minutes.
5. Potato :  Boiled potatoes until half-cooked then peel the potato's skin. Cut in half and scrape a portion of potato side and fill it with the filling. Steam it. If you want simple way, just boiled it and peel the potato skin without fill it with the feeling.
6. Tofu : Cut in half and scrape a portion of tofu and fill it with the filling. Steam. You can also just cut in half and directly steam it.
7. Bitter melon : Cut in several pieces (as your liking). Scrape the seed portion and fill it in with the filling. Steam it.
8. Cabbage : Cut in several pieces as your liking and steam it. Some people usually make the cabbage roll and fill it with the filling. But I choose simple way, just steam it with fill nothing.
9. Egg : hard boiled eggs 
10. Peanut Sauce (Peanut Sambal) :
    
    • Process the peanuts in food processor until smooth. Transfer it into a medium bowl. Set aside.
    • Process red chilies, garlic and shallots until smooth. 
    • Heat a skillet and add some cooking oil. Stir fry the smooth red chilies, garlic, and shallot until fragrant. Add the ground peanuts, mix well. Pour water, mix it. Add salt, coconut sugar, tamarind juice, mix well. Wait until the sauce become thick then turn off the heat. Set aside.

Serving suggestions: place all dumplings on a plate. Pour some peanut sauce and drizzle over lime juice, sweet soy sauce, and some ground chilies or you can use chili sauce from the store. 

Blueberry Cheese Streusel Cake

One thing that I can't refuse to do is when my son asking me to cook or bake something for him. He usually accompany me when I read recipe book or searching new recipe to try in my little kitchen. He doesn't just accompany me, but he also randomly pointed cake or bread that looks interest and yummy in his opinion then said "Bunda, please make this cake/bread". So here it is one of the cake that he pointed when we saw cooking magazine together.

This cake is so yummy, truly i love it. I always tempted to any cake with cheese inside. The streusel gives the cake that extra crunch and sweetness while on its own, it tastes nice and light. This cake suitable to eat in the morning with your tea or coffee. I can't say no to eat this cake, for temporary just forget your diet program, LOL. The recipe is so quick and easy to make, everyone who is still in beginner level of baking like me will love this recipe.

It was so difficult to find frozen blueberry in my city. Sometimes i can find frozen blueberry in famous Asian market in here, Lai-lai but if i am not mistaken it has been 6 months later since the last I see frozen blueberry pack in frozen food section. Poor me.. It would be so nice if I can make my own blueberry jam but it's okay. I still can use any kind of blueberry jam that I can find in local market. Then I use St. Dalfour from France, my favourite fruit jam's brand.

Happy weekend!!

Blueberry Cheese Streusel Cake

from: Sedap Magazine

Ingredients:

• 100 g white cooking chocolate, melted
• 200 g unsalted butter
• 125 g castor sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 4 eggs
• 180 g all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 50 ml fresh milk
• 50 g cheddar cheese, grated
• 100 g blueberry jam

Streusel topping:

• 60 g cold unsalted butter
• 1 tbsp sugar powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 100 g all purpose flour

Directions:

• Streusel topping, in a medium bowl, mix together sugar powder, flour, and salt. Cut in butter using fork until well combined and mixture resembles course crumbs.
• Preheat the oven 180 degree Celcius and grease a 22x22x4 cm baking pan with parchment paper.
• In a medium bowl, mix using mixer in medium speed unsalted butter, castor sugar, and salt together. Add melted white coking chocolate. Mix well.
• Add egg one by one alternates with some of flour and mix well. Add the rest of the flour, baking powder and fresh milk, mix until combined. Add grated cheddar cheese. Mix well.
• Add blueberry jam in some part of dough, whisk the jam in dough only for a while, until you can see the tinge of the jam in the dough. Pour into prepared baking pan. Sprinkle the streusel topping on top.
• Bake for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into centre of the cakes come out clean. 
• Allow to cool at least 10 minutes before cutting it into desired size.

Roti Kasur (Sweet Bread Rolls)

Making bread for me is like a nightmare. I never succeed make it without history of failure, except when I made it with my mother. Don't know why every time I tried to knead the dough it was not go well. I am not expert in kneading the dough. I am hopeless in bread making. 

But you know, my son really love bread so much, and always ask me to buy bread for him. Whenever we pass by our favorite bakery shop, he always said that "Mom, bread....". Then, I try to force myself to boost my spirit to learn how to make bread well. I bought baking book, read many resource in internet about that and of course learning by doing. However how hard I tried it ended nothing. Hence, I choose shortcut way, I bought a bread-maker machine, LOL. That machine will be my savior in making bread.

And here it is finally I CAN MAKE BREAD by myself and assisted by my Kenwood bread-maker machine, LOL. 

I made this bread using Komachi, a wheat premium flour brand from Japan. Actually you can use any kind of high-protein wheat flour that is available in your city. I am using dark cooking chocolate and cheese for the filling. But you can use anything that you like such as jam, melted chocolate, and so on. Above the bread roll I only spread chocolate jimmies and grated cheese. I got the recipe from Natural Cooking Club. It turned out really god, I love the tenderness of this bread. This bread is a good choice if you want to make bread as your family breakfast menu.

 

Sweet Bread Rolls

Source : Natural Cooking Club

Ingredients:

• 500 g bread flour
• 3 eggs yolk
• 100 g sugar
• 30 g milk powder
• 11 g instant yeast
• 5 g salt
• 250 ml cooking water
• 100 g butter
• 1/2 tsp bread improver (optional)

For filling : 

• Dark cooking chocolate
• Grated cheese

For the topping:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs cooking water

Directions:

1. In a bowl, combine bread flour, sugar, milk powder, and instant yeast. Make a well in the center. Whisk and combine well all egg yolk and water, then add into the well of dry ingredients. Mix and knead it until half elastic, add butter and salt. Continue to knead until the dough is no longer sticky but elastic enough. You want the dough to be elastic. So if you were to take a part of it and stretch it out, you can stretch it to a very thin membrane without it breaking. When you poke a hole in the thin membrane, it should form a close to perfect circle.
2. Divide the dough into small pieces of dough about 40 g, make ball shape. Cover with cling wrap and let rest for 15 minutes. Deflate the dough, fill with the filling, make ball shape again and place the balls into baking pan that has been spread by butter or lined with parchment paper. Leave it for second round of proofing about 30 minutes until double in size.
3. Whisk the topping ingredient: egg, salt and water in a small bowl. Brush egg wash on the surface of the bun and spread chocolate jimmies or grated cheese. Bake in a preheated oven 180 degree Celsius for 15 minutes or until the surface golden brown. Transfer into wire rack and let cool completely.

Directions if using bread machine:

• Put in the order listed below:
• Eggs yolk, whisked with cooking water
• Bread flour, milk powder, bread improver. Combine well and put inside the machine.
• Sugar (on top of the flour in one corner)
• Salt (on top of the flour in another corner)
• Butter (on top of the flour in corner, at other side corner where you put salt)
• Instant yeast (on top of the flour in center, make well and put into the well)

• Set the setting to "Dough"
• Wait until the dough process done and continue with manual directions as you can read above.

Milo Sandwich Bread

I felt very satisfied for making my own sandwich bread. All this time, my family usually consume sandwich bread that is produced by one of famous bread factory in Indonesia that we always but in the local supermarket. Sure, it is so easy for us, just go to the nearest supermarket and bring home the bread. But sometimes i feel not so comfort about it, however there must be many preservatives and other chemical additives inside the sandwich bread that we usually buy, we can't avoid that. Then, i just hope i can make my own sandwich bread that is healthier and tastier. Ya, you can control the ingredients that you use when you make it homemade.

You know, i am still in period of euphoria of having a bread maker machine. So, i try to make any kind of bread that I want, LOL. Hence, i take my time to search in internet the sandwich bread's recipe and I found this recipe, so easy to make (of course easy if using bread maker). Actually the real recipe this sandwich bread is a white bread. But i did some experiment, because of my husband and son love to eat anything than contain chocolate so in the first time i want to add some cocoa powder to make it chocolate sandwich bread. Unfortunately, when i went to kitchen, my cocoa powder stock was run out. So, I just used Milo powder as a substitute of cocoa powder. But i little bit disappointing with the result because it is not too chocolate-taste or Milo-taste. Just spread the Nutella hazelnut chocolate spread or any kind of spread that you like. I prefer the chocolate spread.
 
Generally when i use my bread machine i choose sweet bread setting. Now, i try to use white bread setting (or in other bread machine brand, sandwich setting). So, what is the difference between this two setting, sweet bread and white bread? If I see in the manual book, it is written there that the process time with sweet bread is longer than white bread. Actually, i do not really understand why this one is longer than the other. In my humble opinion (after some experience), i taste that if I use white bread setting, the bread become more dense and even use flour by the same amount, the bread result of basic bread is not as large and as fluffy as sweet dough.


If you want to make like I make, just try this recipe

Sandwich Bread Recipe

Taken from Monica's blog

Ingredients (put in the order listed below):

• 1 cup warm water
• 3 tbsp vegetable oil
• 3 cups bread flour
• 4 tbsp sugar (on top of the flour in one corner)
• 1 1/2 tsp salt (on top of the flour in another corner)
• 2 1/2 tsp instant dry yeast
• 3 tsp Milo powder (optional, you can change it with cocoa powder)

How to make:

• Set to setting: sandwich (1.5 loaf, light crust)
• Wait until 5 minutes before taking the bread out of the bread pan
• Let it cool
• Slice and enjoy

 

Banana Chocolate Chip Cake

Here it is the recipe of Banana Cake that I have ever baked (beside the other recipe that I posted before). Actually I love this one than another. Maybe because I am not into chocolate and prefer this one that is didn't use too much chocolate as a part of the cake and only use chocolate chip, LOL. I baked this cake to bring at office and you know what my colleagues comment about this cake? All said that this cake was so yummy and one of them ever said that this banana cake is bakery-like cake than a homemade one. 

I got this recipe from Mbak Ienas Tsuroiya, my old friend in Multiply who ever share the recipe in her blog. If you love banana, this cake is a must. Just try to bake it then you will never forget this amazing cake. You can decrease the amount of sugar, just adapt to your daily taste and suitable for you. Actually i try to decrease the amount of sugar if I think the banana is over-ripen so much and the original taste of banana is over-sweet.

BANANA CHOCOLATE CHIP CAKE

Original Recipe of Julie Hasson in 30 Best Chocolate Recipes

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil and sometimes coconut oil)
• 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 4 eggs, medium sized
• 2 cup ripe banana,  mashed
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
• 3/4 cup toasted walnut/almond

Directions:

• In a bowl, combine flour, baking soda, and salt.
• In other bowl, mix vegetable oil and sugar. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add mashed banana and vanilla, mix well. 
• Add flour mixture, beating just until smooth. Stir in chocolate chips and walnut/almonds (if using).
• Preheat oven to 180 degree Celcius.
• Use any loaf pan that you want. I used 24x10x7 cm loaf pan, lined with parchment, greased. Spread the batter in that pan. Bake in oven for 60 to 65 minutes or until a tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean.
• Let cakes cool in racks for 15 minutes. Remove from the pan and let cool completely.
• Ready to be served.