Oh my God, 4 months without any update 😡 Since I returned to Indonesia, I almost never cooked anymore. It’s really easy to obtain halal foods here, and they’re cheap. I guess my laziness in cooking and my laziness in updating this blog are directly proportional. I’ll just post some old photos I should have posted months ago. Throwback June 6th. That day my Plurkers friends and I went for a day trip to Ciwidey. It’s located on the south of Bandung. After visiting Kawah Putih and Situ Patengan, we had lunch at Saung Gawir restaurant. I ordered Nasi Belang Komplit + Teh Botol. It consisted of three kinds of rice, served with pepes ayam, tahu, tempe, and vegetables. My friends order Ikan Gurame Goreng Cirambay, fried fish served with hot sauce and strawberry (Ciwidey is famous with its strawberry). Actually it wasn’t listed on the menu because it was very very hot and spicy that could get you stomach ache. So only few people know and order that menu. I’ve tried it, and I couldn’t eat it 😯 The other photos are otak-otak (a kind of fish cake) and fish soup.
The trip from Painan to Padang took several hours since my family drove slowly. 😛 We stopped in a restaurant to have dinner. It was a kind of rumah makan Padang (Padang restaurant), but in West Sumatra we never call a restaurant as rumah makan Padang. Padang restaurant has some different serving style. In this restaurant, after we were seated, we did not have to order. The waiter immediately served the dishes directly to the table. All of the plates of food are laid out in front of us and we only paid for whatever plate we ate from. If you need any additional food, you can simply ask the waiter to bring the food you want. So you do not have to eat all of the foods, unless you are able to, haha. It was also my first time to try gulai kepala ikan (fish head curry). I knew that many people said that it’s really delicious, but I’ve never want to try it before, until that day. And in fact, it’s really good. 😀
Hi, long time no update. Actually I had several food photos but I was too lazy to post them, hehe. Let’s start updating this blog again. On April 13th, my family and I went to my father’s hometown in Kabupaten Pesisir Selatan. We spent one night in my grandmother’s house and then we had short trip to Pantai Carocok and Bukit Langkisau. On the way to Pantai Carocok, we stopped at a stall that sold traditional foods from Pesisir Selatan. Anyway, this is palai bada. Palai bada is made from a kind of ikan teri (anchovy), coconut, and traditional seasoning. It is wrapped in banana leaves and then is grilled on hot charcoal. It’s really tasty.
And finally, welcome back to Indonesia, the land where it’s really easy to obtain halal food, yay. 😀 That day Pike and I went to Pasar Baru, Bandung. I would like to buy some stuffs for my new living place. Previously I thought I would just have lunch at food court of Pasar Baru, but Pike didn’t recommend that. Then we went to Istana Plaza because I would also find some other stuffs there. We had lunch at the food court and I order this menu, nasi (rice) with ikan mas bakar (grilled carp). They said that the food vendor was newly open, so the price was discounted from Rp20,000 to Rp16,000. The fish was big, the sambal was OK, and the price was cheap, but what made me annoyed was that the food came 40 minutes after I ordered. Errrr.. 😡
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. 😆
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.
I still go on with a simple cooking. I think salmon is the easiest fish to process yet very delicious. I often cook salmon, but what else I can do with it? I need something different, hehe. Then this sambal dabu-dabu, a sambal from Manado, came to my mind. It’s really simple. I used chili, tomato, onion, lemon juice, salt, and sugar, then finally put a lil bit of hot oil into the mixture. Spicy, sour, and fresh sambal. 😀 And for the salmons, I just marinated them with salt and pepper, and sauté them for a few minutes.
Happy New Year 2013 everyone! Finally we — Sre, Nova, and I — executed our plan to cook and stay overnight together. Our first menu was tofu hamburg, the same menu I learned at Survival Cooking III event. We chose it because Sre couldn’t attend the event but she wanted to try the recipe. Then we made simple salad from vegetables, smoked salmon, and 1000 island salad dressing. The next experiment, my choice, was sweet potato mont blanc. Many efforts were needed to make this dessert, especially the sweet potato cream, haha. The last one was fried tofu, Nova’s idea. 全部, 美味しかった. 😀
Jadi tadi browsing-browsing youtube dan nemu video ini. Jadi terinspirasi deh buat makanan siang ini :p Berhubung ga punya green peas-nya dan malas keluar beli, jadi pake bahan seadanya saja, huehe.
Pertama kali liat pasta dipadu dengan avocado dan smoked salmon dari instagramnya Ega. Nyontek deh 😀 Avocado, pertama kali saya makan sebagai lauk di restoran sushi. Ada sushi yang toppingnya ikan dan avocado. Benar-benar ngerasa aneh waktu itu soalnya di Indonesia kan biasanya avocado ya buat jus dan manis. Tapi di sini ga ada tuh jus alpukat, teman dari U.S. pun pernah icip jus alpukat dan menurut dia rasanya aneh, haghag. Di luar negeri banyakan untuk salad kayaknya. Tapi lama-lama karena udah mulai terbiasa, buat saya ga aneh lagi, walau lidah saya tetap lebih suka alpukat dijadikan jus atau sekedar dihancur-hancurkan lalu kasih gula 😀 Smoked salmon, baru pertama kali beli selama di sini, dan bau asapnya ternyata pol sekali ya. Sebenarnya bisa dimakan mentah gitu aja, tapi saya prefer agak dimasak, jadi smoked salmonnya saya masukkan pas paduan olive oil + garlic + milk + avocado saya masih panas (tapi api kompor sudah dimatikan).