Finally I had chance to make this red velvet thingy. It’s been looong time I want to try making red velvet cake, but this time I made the cupcakes version. I’ll make the cake version later. 😛 Today we had PPI Waseda gathering at TIEC Odaiba, and I think that’s a nice timing to try making this cake and bring them to the gathering. I planned to make the cupcakes early in the morning, but in fact I overslept, haha. I started preparing the ingredients and everything around 10 am. My oven is quite small, so I should bake the cupcakes in 2 batches. Rush, rush, rush, and in the end, the shape was not as I expected, haha. I finished around 12 pm, and therefore late to the gathering, hihi. I like the taste of this cake. At least I got this comment from Amil: the cake was soft and not too sweet, with sweet and sour taste from the cream cheese frosting, they produced a really nice combination. 😀
You can find the recipe here. (I substitute vinegar with lemon juice)
Several months ago, I asked Eva to bring tapioca from Indonesia. She brought tepung sagu, flour made from sago (well, Wikipedia Indonesia said that it has similar characteristic to tapioca :P). I wanted to try making pempek, but I still didn’t have any will chance to make it, until two days ago Eva asked me if I had time today to conduct the experiment on pempek using that flour. 😆 Pempek is a savoury fishcake delicacy from Palembang, Indonesia, made of fish and tapioca. Pempek is served with a dark, rich sweet and sour sauce called kuah cuko (lit. vinegar sauce). So this was our experiment. The pempek was still not so good, haha, but the sauce was good. Maybe someday I’ll learn how to make pempek properly to friends from Palembang. 😆
It’s been long time I want to try making something using puff pastry. I’ve never found it in the nearby supermarket, and I didn’t have enough will to make it from scratch since it would need looong time, hehe. Until one day Sre introduced me to a frozen pie sheet in OK Store. I guess it’s similar to puff pastry, haha. So here we are, my first experiment result. Mille-feuille, also known as the Napoleon, is a pastry of French origin. I first knew this dessert from Masterchef Indonesia. There was a challenge where Chef Marinka made a beautiful Napoleon and then the contestants should make it. My mille-feuille is made up of three layers of puff pastry (pâte feuilletée), alternating with two layers of pastry cream (crème pâtissière). The top pastry layer is dusted with powdered sugar and cocoa sugar. Well, still not perfect yet, but not bad for a first experiment. And trust me, if you have frozen puff pastry, this one is really easy to make. 😀
You can find the recipe here.
This was my first time making chicken nugget. Most of the nugget’s recipes require us to steam the chicken mixture before coating the nugget with egg and breadcrumbs. Other way, we can bake the mixture in the oven or using microwave. This time I used microwave, since it’s the quickest way. Recently I’m really lazy to cook, haha. 😛 I guess the texture will be different if we use different way. Later I’ll try another method. 😀
After Ume’s visit, another IF’05 friend came to Tokyo. This time is Riftadi. He took a test to obtain Cisco Certification (すごいですね). Previously, Gibran and I brought Ume to Sushiro. And for Riftadi, we chose okonomiyaki restaurant. Actually I chose it because I’ve never been to okonomiyaki restaurant before, haha. First, we ordered one seafood monjayaki and one seafood okonomiyaki. I know how to make okonomiyaki, but I know nothing about monjayaki. So we asked the waitress to make them for us. Interesting. Monjayaki is similar to okonomiyaki, but monjayaki dough has more liquid than okonomiyaki. If you are really hungry, in my opinion, monjayaki can’t make you full, haha. Of course one monjayaki and one okonomiyaki weren’t enough for three of us. Then we ordered two seafood okonomiyaki. Later Asri joined us, and we ordered one more okonomiyaki, haha. Full enough, and finally I experienced okonomiyaki restaurant. 😛
I want to cook chicken, but have no idea what to do. Then I randomly look some Laura Vitale’s cooking video that use chicken as the main ingredient, and I found this. I have all the ingredients and it’s really easy. Comparing to Laura’s, of course my chicken looks horrible, haha. Well, this is another sour food I made. Somehow I feel sour taste is not suitable for my tongue.
You can find the recipe here. (I skip wine)
Several days ago I got a visit. Ume traveled to Japan and stayed in my apartment for several days. Everyday we prepared simple breakfast, and this one was Ume’s cooking. やっぱり, spaghetti aglio e oilio is really simple yet delicious. I think I’ll make this again later if I’m really lazy to cook, haha..
This is my dinner tonight, tofu soup. 😀 I remember that when I just arrived in Japan, I tried to cook Japanese silken tofu for the first time. I fried the tofu and it came out really strange for me. Actually that was because I used the wrong tofu to be fried. I didn’t know that there are many kinds of tofu here, haha. But after that time, I didn’t want to cook tofu anymore. Trauma maybe, haha. Until my Hokkaido trip last summer changed everything. In one hotel, I ate tofu that was very very delicious for me, haha. Then I tried to eat tofu again. I think make simple soup for the silken tofu is one of the best way to process tofu. And I will never fry the silken tofu again. 😆
You can find the recipe here. (I skip some ingredients because I don’t have them)
Several times ago I found a cake named Lamington, a dessert of Australian origin. I think it’s really easy to make. It’s simply a sponge cake coated with chocolate icing and desiccated coconut. So finally I tried to make it yesterday, and this is my result. 😛 Actually I feel the icing is too sweet for me (maybe because I’m more familiar with Japanese cake recipes which are never too sweet). No wonder, it contains much sugar. I think it’s better to replace some of the sugar with melted chocolate, but I don’t know if it still could be called as Lamington or not, haha.. By the way yesterday I used dark cocoa powder instead of cocoa powder. It’s my first time using dark cocoa powder, and it came really dark, almost black, haha.
You can find the recipe here.
So this is my first update here after moving all of reisha.posterous.com contents here. Several days ago I bought fish that looks like fresh teri (not teri of course). I planned to try making pepes ikan but in fact I was really lazy to do that, haha. And finally I just make a kind of curry. I could simply name it gulai ikan, but let’s make clearer name, haha. So this fish name is チカ in Japanese, or Japanese surfsmelt in English. It is a kind of smelt fish. I don’t know its name in bahasa Indonesia though.
