Indonesian Beef Stew

I always fancy myself cooking "Indonesian" dishes.

That either shows:
- how proud I am of being Indonesian (Ms. Nationalist of the Year medal, I am here) or
- how I miss my home country's food or
- I just have major MAJOR misconceptions about Indonesian cooking, i.e:

a. Not everything drenched in kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)/palm sugar/coconut milk should be called Indonesian cooking
b. Not everything cooked/eaten/loved/missed by someone from Indonesia (i.e. me) should be declared as Indonesia's national dish
c. Not everything I used to eat back home in Indonesia are necessarily Indonesian inspired/influenced

- or all of the above

Conclusion: Whatever. I can call anything Indonesian if I want to. HAHA.

Example: Oh gosh, that cheeseburgers are SOOO Indonesian (yes we have hot dog & burger vendors on bikes in Indonesia, I used to eat it and lots of it after church in Jakarta, so yeah. That makes it Indonesian)

Just like this beef stew. I fancied beef semur (Indonesian beef stew), but I didn't have the complete set ingredients needed for a traditional semur. So...I just used whatever I had and call it semur LOL

Ingredients
- half-1 pound of beef brisket
- 1 medium sized carrot, sliced about 5mm thick
- 2 small potatoes (I love the sound of small potato haha), cut into cubes
- garlic, shallot, ginger (crushed), some for boiling (1 clove of garlic, 2 cloves of shallot, 1-2 pcs of ginger), some for stewing (2 cloves of garlic, 4 cloves of shallot, abt 3 cm ginger, sliced thick then crushed)
- kecap manis, palm sugar, salt, pepper
- nutmeg powder (you can grate fresh nutmeg if available)
- juice of 1 lemon
- 2 tbsp cooking oil (I use olive-canola mix)

Cook beef brisket in boiling water, salt, pepper, ginger for about 5 minutes (or until the excess fat's gone. I was using frozen beef brisket so it took a bit longer), drain, cut into chunks, set aside. Saute garlic, shallot, ginger in 2 tbsp hot oil, add beef chunks, add water, add carrot and potatoes, add more water if necessary, just to get everything covered, add some kecap manis, salt, pepper, palm sugar, nutmeg powder, cook until water's reduced but not completely dry, adjust seasoning, squeeze lemon juice, serve with rice.

Indonesian or not, I love it. :)

Beef & Chinese Kale with Rice Noodles

Learning from my previous wet market saga lesson, a desperate attempt to source for the perfect fresh rice noodles (hor fun), I was determined to get the perfect, smooth and silky rice noodles this time. Armed with bottles of antibiotics, pain killers, sleeping pills, doctor's receipts and rock-hard determination (ok, the truth is I was just on my way back from doctor's office, passing by the market and saw a couple of bags of fresh hor fun), finally I could snatch my noodles this time.

The rest was just a blur of Chinese Kale (aka Chinese broccoli aka gai lan), vendors trying to trick me into buying a whole ton of it, thinly sliced beef, a super strong grandma trying to knock me out of my queue in the frozen meat shop, a kind hero who prevented me from falling, and no. I was not on sleeping pills, at least not yet :)

Ingredients
- half Chinese pound (gan) of Chinese kale
- half pound of thinly sliced marbled American beef (which can be replaced by any sliced beef for stir frying)
- 1 bag of thick cut rice noodles (hor fun), I think it is around half pound
- 3 garlic, finely chopped
- a bit of ginger, crushed
- soy sauce, fish sauce, oyster sauce, shaoxing wine, pepper, kecap manis, sugar, a bit of corn starch (1 tbsp)
- olive oil

Marinate beef with soy sauce, oyster sauce, kecap manis, shaoxing wine, pepper, corn sauce, olive oil, all about 1 tbsp each, oyster sauce more than others. Stir fry the kale with some garlic and ginger in olive oil, add water, cover wok to let the kale cook through (when preparing the kale, cut thick stems in half to speed up cooking), add fish sauce and sugar, drain the water, set aside. Stir fry beef with the remaining of ginger, some of the garlic, add a bit of water to create some sauce, adjust the taste by adding soy sauce/oyster sauce, pour in the kale, stir for a bit, set aside. Pour hot water over the rice noodles in a bowl, use chopstick/fork to separate the noodles, just a minutes, drain. Add a bit of oil in the kind of dirty wok (so the noodles will pick up the remaining of the sauce from the wok), add the remaining of the garlic, stir in the rice noodles, add fish sauce and sugar for taste to retain the creamy color, pour noodles onto plate, pour the beef & kale on top, drizzle some of the sauce, serve.

I am submitting this for Presto Pasta Nights hosted by Ruth of Once Upon A Feast


After downing the noodles, I guess I won't be needing the sleeping pills anymore ;)

Double Chocolate Pancakes

I've never posted anything mocha, so at least I tried posting more chocolata, even if I don't know how to bake (I promise to start learning soon ^_^). Why the heck my blog name is Mochachocolata-Rita then? Ehm...it's a phrase from Lady Marmalade:

Gitchie, gitchie, ya ya da da
Gitchie, gitchie, ya ya here
Mocha Chocolata ya ya => change to Mochachocolata Rita
Creole Lady Marmalade.....

How cheesy is that? ^_^

Please don't mind my amoeba-shaped pancakes, after few hundreds of practice, I might be able to handle hello kitty-shaped pancakes later ^_^ (just buy the mold?). Out of 8 pancakes, there were only about 3 which are quite nicely round...the ones which you can't see below are more amoeba-esque hehe

Ingredients
- 1 cup of self raising flour
- half cup of cocoa powder
- half cup of chocolate milk
- 2 tbsp cooking oil
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsp sugar

Mix eggs, oil, and chocolate milk, mix flour, sugar and cocoa powder in a separate powder, make a well in the middle, pour egg mixture, whisk until you get the desired consistency, it should be a bit runny, add milk if you find it too thick. Grease a small frying pan with butter, pour the mixture, fry on low heat until you see some bubbles, turn, serve with anything you like...

...for me, that means more Chocolata? YAYA!

Braised Ox Tongue

This might creep some of you out. The only tongue you like is probably in a french kiss? ;) But I love it since I was young. I was referring to the braised ox tongue...well I learnt about the french kiss a lot later HAHA (too much information alert! too much information alert!).

I love the tender, juicy, melt-in-your-mouth texture of the ox tongue and I love it cooked in many different ways, it could be charcoal grilled just with salt and pepper, or braised with lots of spices. But I love them thick (at least 1 cm thick), for me, the paper thin ones just missed the whole point. Since I have a lot of time on my hand recovering, I could do this braised ox tongue.

Ingredients
- 1 ox tongue (or pig)
- ginger, shallot, garlic (crushed)
- chinese five spice powder, salt, pepper, rock sugar
- kecap manis, soy sauce, oyster sauce

Throw garlic, shallot, and ginger into boiling water (the water should just be enough to cover the tongue), followed by the tongue, add salt, pepper, rock sugar, chinese five spice, cook until the tongue is done, pierce the tongue with fork for more absorbing action, add kecap manis, soy sauce, oyster sauce, cook on low heat for about 1.5-2 hours (when am I gonna get a pressure cooker????) or until the tongue is tender, and the sauce is caramelised. Cut thick pieces and serve. This can be eaten hot or just room temperature as snack/side dish.

Call me a pervert (again), but I think I love this more than a french kiss?

Peanut Butter Chicken Wings

The name says it all...how could this be not yummy? I think almost impossible hehe. This is a part of my continuous effort to keep my sous chef hooked on chickens *wink*. Luckily, I didn't have to put too much effort, as this peanut butter chicken wings are sooo easy peasy to make.

Ingredients
- 10 chicken wings (I could eat all 10, but I have a budget to stay within)
- peanut butter (a few tablespoonfuls)
- salt, pepper, sugar
- garlic, shallot, ginger (you can skip this altogether if you want)

I love boiling my chicken wings until they are pretty much thoroughly cooked before grilling to brown/crisp the skin, mainly because the sight of bloody undercooked chicken meat will make my sous chef swear off chickens forever and that is not good for me *grin* but you can skip this step if you wish.

Boil chicken wings with garlic, shallot, ginger, salt, pepper until thoroughly cooked, drain. Sprinkle salt and sugar, rub peanut butter all over the wings, grill until golden brown...and indulge. :)