Bunny cupcakes by Selby

I got my first order for cupcakes!!! Yes, a friend asked me to make 50 cupcakes for her daughter's birthday that will turn to be 7 years old. When I asked what kind of theme should be the cupcakes, her request was simple, as long as it's pink and cute then her daughter will like it.

First, I was thinking to make little bears with pink fondant as the base on the top of the cupcakes but then at the end, I decided to make bunny fondant with pink/purple/white flowers and the base is green as it resembles to grass. Bunnies love to play in a garden where there're a lot of grasses and little flowers around, rite? hehehe...

Well, to make the bunnies, it's quite time consuming but I had fun :)


This is how the bunny cupcakes look in the box. Mom helped me to make the boxes that can contain 25 cupcakes in each box.
The middle part, I left it empty to put the birthday candle.

Hopefully, my friend's daughter will like her birthday bunny cupcakes *crossing fingers*

Ketimus (steamed grated tapioca on banana leaf)

If you are trying to avoid fried food and want to eat a healthy snack in the middle of a day on the streets in Jakarta, then, you can try to look for this kind of cart. Yes, this cart definitely is offering healthy snack because everything is steamed ;)

There are steamed peanuts, steamed banana, steamed sweet potato and Ketimus on this cart.

Those men who sell these steamed food are called Tukang Bajigur because their main selling is actually the drink called Bajigur. Sorry, I didn't get the chance to capture the drink because it was sold out already. Next time, I'll post the Bajigur drink which is coffee mixed with brown sugar - palm sugar/gula jawa, coconut milk, salt and arenga pinnata fruit.

Do you wonder how ketimus looks in the inside? ;)

How to make Ketimus:

Ingredients:
500 gr tapioca (grated)
150 gr old coconut (grated)
150 gr young coconut (sliced)
200 gr brown sugar (palm sugar/ gula jawa)
1 tsp salt

For wrapping:
5 Pandan leaves (cut into 4 cm)
2 Banana leaves (cut banana leaves in pieces of approx. 15 cm square)

Directions:
- Mix and stir well the grated tapioca altogether with the other ingredients
- Prepare the banana leaf
- Spoon 2 heaped tablespoons of the mixture on top of banana leaf
- Put the pandan leaf in the middle of the mixture
- Fold both sides of the package to the center
- Steamed the ketimus for 30 minutes

Tada.... This is Ketimus! :)

While ketimus is being steamed, usually you can smell the nice fragrant from the pandan leaf.

How does Ketimus tasted? It's sweet from the brown sugar, rich from the coconut and has chewy texture from the grated tapioca. It's a nice and healthy snack :)

Tukang Gorengan (Fried Man)

Who doesn't like fried food? Ok... I know that some people need to avoid fried food but mostly, everyone loves fried food, right? ;)

Here in Indonesia, we are spoiled with fried food that are being sold on the streets. Seriously, wherever you turn to, you can find easily a cart with fried food (Oops, am I exaggerating? Hehehe...)

Here is a sample of a cart with a lot of fried food. Yup, great stuff for snack time :)

Let's see what kind of fried food or we - Indonesian called them as "gorengan" that are being sold in the cart.

1. Fried soybean cake - tempe goreng
2. Fried tapioca/cassava - singkong goreng
3. Vegetable fritters - bakwan goreng: beansprouts, shredded carrots and shredded cabbage
4. Fried tofu - tahu goreng
5. Fried sweet potato - Ubi goreng (It's different than Fried Sweet Potato Chips, this fried sweet potato is cut in big slices and deep into batter)
6. Combro (ground tapioca with filling of brown sugar or Oncom - fermented soybean)
7. Fried banana - pisang goreng

Info:
Tempe and Oncom are both made from whole soybean and being fermented using molds. The difference between them is the kind of mold to make them.

Everything is deep into batter (except for the fried cassava) - mixed of plain flour, water, pepper and salt (but fyi, I learnt that to add crunchiness and tastiness, the vendors like to add a bit of tapioca flour or rice flour and also MSG) before being deep fried into hot oil.

We usually eat these fried food with chili padi or bird eyes chili (rawit) to add the hot flavor. Yup... we directly bite the chili together with the fried food :D

Ta Thao Restaurant

It was almost 2 pm on a hot Sunday afternoon. There were women starving in the car. Luckily, they found a small restaurant in West Jakarta area. A lot of cars were parked in front of the restaurant and almost all tables were full with customers... Yeah.. let's give it a try!

I ordered the Special Lomie Bagan. Wondering what's so special about this special Lomie?

*digging... digging.. digging... *

Eh... only 2 small size cubes of meat in my bowl, that's all?

Hmmmm..... so how did it taste?
Well, the lomie tasted just salty and a bit fishy, nothing special at all...

I couldn't take it anymore... Left about the 3/4 of the remain lomie in the bowl...

My mom tried the recommended Nasi Campur (this is not the way of common Nasi Campur - mixed rice, being served). I guess this nasi campur is a fusion style of white rice and topping of scrambled egg, choy sum, red chili cooked with sweet soysauce and corn starch.

Absolutely, it looks good but guess what?

The rice was so hard and dry, tasted like rice crust adhering to rice pot. As for the topping, too much MSG.

"Auntie, how's your Sapo Lomie?"

*slurping.. slurping...*

Hmmm... I guess my mom's friend was the only one who enjoyed her food with the raw egg in the pot.

Note:
Lomie is also known as Loh Mee or Loo Mien which is a Chinese cuisine. It contains of thick egg noodles in brown broth thickened with corn starch and beaten eggs, cooked with Chinese cabbage and meat slices.

Disclaimer:
The review and opinion expressed here are purely according to my personal tastebuds. There's a possibility that the taste might change to the food later on, that can affect to the review and opinion here.

Ketupat Sayur (Rice cake and vegetable in coconut milk)

Ketupat Sayur is consider as a breakfast dish in Indonesia. It's quite easy to find the vendor of Ketupat Sayur on the streets in the mornings. Most of the time, we will see the Ketupat Sayur vendors carry their wares in baskets suspended from a shoulder pole.
There are several ways to cook Ketupat Sayur. In this post, I'm sharing the cooking's way of the Ketupat sayur from the vendors on the streets.


Ketupat is similiar to rice cake. It's made from white rice which is boiled for about 4 to 5 hours in young coconut leaves that have been weaved like a case.

How to make the sweet soy sauce Egg and Tofu:
- Prepare boiled eggs and fresh tofu
- Boil water, soak the boiled eggs and tofu
- Add sweet soy sauce and a pinch of salt
- Let it overnight until the boiled eggs and tofu absorb the sweet soy sauce

How to make Ketupat Sayur (vegetable gravy):

Ingredients:
500 gram chayote squash or young green papaya (cut into thin long square slices)
1,5 liter coconut milk
2 lemongrass (bash them)
3 cm galangal (bash it)
2 Indonesian bay leaves
1 tbsp chicken broth powder
1 tbsp dried shrimp
2 tbsp oil for cooking

Grind the below spices into a paste:
7 shallots
3 garlics
5 red hot chilis
2 candlenuts
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 tsp salt

Direction:
- Heat the oil, fry the paste until fragrant
- Add lemongrass, galangal, Indonesian bay leaves, dried shrimp and coconut milk
- As soon as it's boiled, add chayote squash or young green papaya
- Add chicken broth powder
- Serve while it's warm with the rice cake (ketupat), sweet soy sauce tofu and boiled egg.
- And don't forget to put tapioca chips (kerupuk aci) and fried shallots on the top :)

Babi Rica - Rica (Pork Rica - Rica)

Today is Mother's Day and also a Sunday, so since I'm free, I decided to cook something simple special for my mom :)

I made Rica - rica dish which is an Indonesian dish from Manado - North Sulawesi. I used pork for the meat (well, so far, I'm not really scare of swine flu, hehehe...) but if you want to try to cook this dish but you don't want to use pork, then you can substitute it with other kind of meat like chicken, beef or even fish.

The ingredients of Rica - rica pork:
300 grams pork (cut into slices)
1 red chili (cut into slices)
3 garlic cloves (cut into slices)
1 tomato (cut into dice)
1 lemongrass (bash it)
5 kaffir lime leaves
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp vegetable oil for cooking


Before starting to cook, you need to grind the garlic and red chili together with the salt first. Fyi, make sure to take out the seeds of the red chili if you can not really stand for the hot taste of chili.

The directions to cook rica - rica pork:
- Heat the oil then put the ground salt chili and garlic in it, fry it until fragnant.
- Add pork, mix it.
- Add lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves, and tomato.
- Cook until the juice from pork and tomato come out.
- It's ready to serve :)

Happy Mother's Day!
I love you, Mom!

Keripik Ubi (Sweet Potato Chips)

A woman is selling Keripik Ubi which is fried sweet potato chips.

The oil to fry.

Fried sweet potato chips.

The fried sweet potato chips are put into white paper bags.

It costs Rp. 6.000/bag
Currency rate:
1 USD = Rp. 10. 650
1 MYR = Rp. 3.000

If you want to make your own Keripik Ubi, it's very easy ;)

First you need to peel off the sweet potato's skin then rinse the sweet potato with clean water, cut it into thin slices, deep fry it in to hot oil until it becomes golden, drain it then sprinkle with salt.

Beside the sweet potato chips, the lady is also selling fried tapioca/cassava which we called it here as Singkong goreng. It also has the same process of making like the sweet potato chips.

So, is anyone going to try to make this sweet potato chips or fried tapioca? :)