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This is our desperate attempt to enjoy Indonesian charcoal grill satay. No oven grill/no frying pan tricks. A real indoor charcoal grilling action, to be more specific, in my teeny tiny Hong Kong flat.
WARNING!FIRE/CARBON MONOXIDE HAZARD!
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME
To those who have a balcony/terrace/garden where you can do your charcoal grilling....damnnnn....I envy you.
To those who do not have an open space, but wish to try indoor charcoal grilling, please take the following precautionary steps:
- If your home/flat do not have good air flow....just forget about it
- Open all windows and if possible, maybe doors (despite the risk of burglary)
- Turn on exhaust fans
- I was also thinking of pre-calling 999 (Hong Kong's emergency number)
or
- Call a friend to give me a call back after an hour. If I didn't pick up, he/she has to call 999 for an ambulance (I was seriously THAT paranoid. Hey, we can never be too safe, right? I was worried there will be no more Mochachocolata-Rita after this charcoal burning action)
Now the challenge...
How do we get the charcoal grill going?
The above was sous chef's idea: roasting a piece of charcoal (one by one), with a BBQ tong over a gas stove. Ehm. It didn't work. It takes forever for the charcoal to burn, and once burnt, it crumbles into pieces. It was dangerous!
Then, we tried to get the fire going by strategically placing a few pieces of paper balls below the charcoal and lit them up. It worked better. Do NOT use too small pieces of paper, a piece of paper flew right onto sous chef's sweater and caused a burnt hole. Dangerrrrrr!!!!
Finally, we have some burning action going. Time to get the marinated satay out.
The meat
I used 3 x chicken thigh fillet, trimmed excess fat, leave some skin on, cut into small cubes. I didn't make the skewers until after I marinated them. I also used lean pork, simply cut into cubes.
I used two different kinds of marinate for the satay:
Lemongrass Marinate
- lemongrass powder (or you can use stalks of lemongrass, chopped), sprinkle generously
- ginger powder (or fresh ginger, crushed), sprinkle generously
- 1 clove of shallot, thinly sliced
- 1 tsp ground corriander seeds
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp sugar
- white pepper
- a bit of grated lemon zest
- a bit of olive oil
Kecap Marinate
- 1 clove of shallot, thinly sliced
- light soy sauce
- dark soy sauce
- sweet soy sauce (this is the dominant flavor)
- white pepper
- chinese five spice powder (or just ground/freshly grated nutmeg)
Mix well, marinate for a few hours or overnight, I just stuck 'em with bamboo skewers about an hour before grilling.
Once we have the fire going, everything's easy. Place skewers on top of the grill, turn a bit to even things out. The surface of the meat will be beautifully charred, while the inner part will stay still juicy and tender.
I actually planned to dress up my satay and take beautiful pictures of them. However, they taste the best when they were just off the grill...so this first batch very quickly disappeared!
Satay Peanut Sauce
You can purchase a ready made satay sauce (if there's any Indonesian grocery shop near you, the Chinese ones are just NOT the same, but it's ok if you're desperate), and add freshly squeezed lemon, grated lemon zest, freshly chopped corriander, chopped chilli, thinly sliced shallot and drizzle a bit of kecap manis (sweet soy sauce).
or, you can make your own adaptation...
- 1 cup ground peanut (use a pressure cooker), or peanut butter
- 2 cloves finely chopped garlic
- 2 cloves shallot
- chopped chilli
- ground cumin
- ground corriander seeds
- palm sugar (or brown sugar)
- salt
- pepper
- a bit of olive oil
Mix everything well and saute quickly, remove from heat, add freshly squeezed lemon, grated lemon zest, freshly chopped corriander, chopped chilli, thinly sliced shallot and drizzle a bit of kecap manis (sweet soy sauce).
Add more charcoal pieces if necessary...
Boy, I was on fire!!! ^_^ Those are the pork satay marinated in sweet soy.
Once they are done, I squeezed lemon juice over them, drizzled them with a lot of kecap manis...
Dipped them into the sauce and dig in! They are perfect with rice or rice cakes (lontong). Finally I didn't get to take pictures of any dressed up satay at all. They were gone within minutes!!!
Thank you for the wonderful Japanese mini stone charcoal grill, Sir A. I love it!
It sounds like quite a lot of work, eh? But , trust me. Totally worth it :)
It's cold. It's past midnight. I was hungry. I was lazy.
The battle in my head:
Angel: "Don't even think about it. Whatever you eat now will go straight to ("she" was eyeing the bulges underneath my giant sweater and gave up)...ah what the heck! Go ahead. Make the devil's day"
Devil: MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! What an easy win!
"When you wanna do something wrong, you gotta do it right" - Joey Tribbiani from Friends.
The perfect crime would involve a huge steamy bowl of spicy noodles, with accessories such as cheese sausages, meatballs, topped with an egg. However, I couldn't even be bothered to turn on my stove, let alone wash the pots and bowls afterwards. The idea of toiling for my midnight crime almost had me crawling towards my bed, under my thick blankets.
Devil: Wait wait wait wait....(panicking)...you have some cup noodles! They are (almost) as delicious, and you DON'T have to do any cooking and washing at all! Just pour some hot water into the cup and you'll get what you wanted (all said in a very persuasive tone)
Me: You had me at cup noodles
Angel: You can still fix this! Just attend a body combat class, a hip hop class and an aerobic class back to back tomorrow! (I don't think that's ever gonna happen)
The spicy curry seafood cup noodles had me all thristy for more! I want something sweet to counter attack all the MSG action from the noodles. Hmmm, nothing's better than this tall glass of black cow. 
What the heck is a black cow?
Normally, we get coke/root beer float from A&W with vanilla ice cream, right? I first learnt about this black cow in Hong Kong's pizza hut.
Black cow = Coca cola + Chocolate ice cream float
What????!!! Yep. That's what I thought too. But, you gotta try it. It works.
Now, would you excuse me while I crawl back under my blanket and grow myself even bigger.
I am keeping it simple this time.
I love the four S(es) in food: Spicy. Sweet. Sour. Savoury.
Spicy = tiny bits of red chilli
Sweet = ripe pineapple, onion and green peas
Sour = still from the pineapple
Savoury = garlic and minced beef
This was done when sous chef was still in low iodine diet. I was amazed how little seasoning I had to add to make this dish flavorful. For your information, sous chef is now like a culinary prisoner on the loose, ravishing everything he was not allowed to eat. Ehm. That can't be good.
Easy Spicy Pineapple Minced Beef with Green Peas
Recipe
- 1 small ripe pineapple (you can replace it with canned pineapple, but it is best if you can get fresh, ripe pineapple), cut into bite sized chunks
- 3 chilli, chopped (adjust to match your heat tolerance)
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 lb minced beef
- 3/4 cup green peas
- olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar
Saute garlic, chilli, onion in hot oil until fragrant, throw in minced beef, you will see it change color, add pineapple chunks, add green peas, season, done.
You can also incorporate rice/noodles/pasta into this dish. Ah, it's more than just 4 S, it's SSSH! H for healthy ^_^ (oh man, can someone stop her from being so cheesy?).
My telephatical-mind readerish radar sensed that sous chef is sick of my cooking and will want KFC for tonight's dinner. Yum! Oh, maybe that's just me.
You won't believe how many disasters have happened in my kitchen. Disaster. Disaster. Disaster. Too many ot them! This is getting too boring, even for me. Sigh. But I feel the need to share the gospel with you guys. I MUST let you feel what I felt when I took a bite of this disastrous rice dish. MUHAHAHAHAHA!
What the heck happened?
From Raw to Mushy:
My Disastrous Spicy Chicken & Mussels Rice
It all started from one word: LAZY
If you heard any of the following phrases coming out of my mouth/appearing on my blog, they generally mean one thing:
"I don't have enough time" = lazy
"I want to create a one pot wonder" = lazy
"I want to try an easier/more innovative way to do this" = lazy
Cuting a long story short, I wanted a spicy rice dish, which include chicken and seafood of some sort (I chose mussels), and planned to dump them all into my wonderful and trustworthy rice cooker.
I prepared all of the ingredients:
- 2 chicken leg fillet, skin removed, cut into bite sized chunks
- 6 pieces of large mussels, remove from shell
- 200ml chicken stock
- 3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 bell peppers, remove core, remove seeds, diced
- 1 small can of tomato paste
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp ground corriander seeds
- salt, pepper, sugar, chilli powder, olive oil, water
- 2 cups of rice
Here's the method that caused the disastrous rice:
Marinate chicken pieces with a bit of salt, pepper and olive oil. Pour rice grains into rice cooker, add chicken stock and water up to the required level, add everything else, mix and press "Cook" and wait until the rice cooker beeps, which means "Your delicious dinner is ready!"
Oh....I wish!
I opened the lid of my rice cooker after the beep, and I saw a beautiful looking dish. It was gloriously red, it smelt fantastic, the chicken meat looked succulent and juicy. Then I saw the grains of rice, and I knew something's wrong. They looked RAW. I took a bite. They WERE RAW!!! Uh oh! SOS! Helppp!!!
Luckily, sous chef has been distracted by Xbox 360, that bought me some more time.
I transferred half portion to a non stick pot and continue to cook it with low heat, stirring from time to time, tears dropping into the dish and probably made it tastier. The other half was left in the rice cooker, and I pressed "Cook" once more. Let's see if any of those two methods worked....
They didn't. Although I closely supervised the one cooking in the pot, the moment the rice's done, it was all mushy. Sob, it was probably because of all the tears. The other half in the rice cooker? Ditto. Sob sob. I actually love my rice rather mushy. However, this time, it is just beyond mushy. It's super mushy. Even I, the mushy rice lover, hated it. Oh gawd!
Did I throw the dish away? Nope. We still finished it. Apart from the super mushy rice, everything else tasted fantastic. Dammit. I will find another way to cook this dish.
I should be more careful in conducting my "experiments" in the name of laziness. I am hoping for less disasters this year (as none would be impossible).
Check out my other disasters here.
Previously, I bitched about what should be considered Indonesian food and decided to call some of my dishes "Indonesian". Recently, after reading hundreds of posts on my Indonesian friends' blogs, I realised that my so called "Indonesian" cooking (note the quotation marks and the phrase "so called") is the most unauthentic one in the whole galaxy, measured by traditional Indonesian standard. It hardly involves classic Indonesian ingredients such as galangal, bay leaves, turmeric, corriander seeds, cumin, candlenuts, tempe etc etc...and more often than not, the whole mix of exotic spices came out of an instant packet :p. The most Indonesian thing about the dishes is...the person eating it.
However, this time, no instant spice packet. It's not because of my determination to try cooking everything from scratch...but it's because there's no spice packet for Indonesian oxtail soup (or I couldn't find one). HAHA! Believe me, if there's one, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
I consulted my friend, whose oxtail soup received rave reviews and repeat orders from her husband's friends, and she gave me her recipe. I bet you a new kitchen that I won't be able to stay within the guidelines of her recipe...I was so sure of this(more than the sun rising in the East). I would definitely add this and that and ruin her true and tested recipe. It's my defect, really.
"Indonesian" Oxtail Soup
Indonesian oxtail soup is something extraordinarily simple, yet bursting with flavors. It's perfect after a long medley of dining out.
Recipe
- 1 lb oxtail (I bought frozen)
- 1 onion, roughly chopped
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 4 small tomatoes, cut into sections
- 1 potato, chopped into bite sized chunks
- a pack of straw mushrooms, quartered
- 1 sprig of spring onion, chopped
- a dash of nutmeg
- olive oil, salt, pepper, sugar, hot water, vinegar, corn starch
I am using pressure cooker for this, but you can cook it slowly in a regular pot. Boil oxtail for a few minutes to get rid of excess fat and quickly defrost it, drain, cut off excess fat, set aside. Season oxtail chunks with salt, pepper, sugar and dust with a bit of corn starch. Brown oxtail chunks in a bit of hot oil, add onion chunks, garlic, tomatoes, potato chunks, add hot water. Season with salt, pepper, sugar, vinegar and nutmeg, cook for about 20-25 minutes (in a pressure cooker. Or 1.5-2 hours in a regular pot, with low heat, until meat is falling-off-the-bone tender). Release steam off pressure cooker, add mushrooms, cook for about 5 minutes, adjust seasonings if necessary. Serve with steamed rice, kecap manis and garnish with chopped spring onion and fried shallot.
You aren't as lazy assed as me, you could whip up some perkedel (fried potato cakes) or bakwan jagung (fried corn fritters) to eat with this dish. But generally...
...this Indonesian is pretty happy with this unauthentic dish *grin*
How do I dress Indonesian without batik? Check it out here.
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