Chicken Satay

This is a popular dish in Indonesia. Very simple and easy to make. Perfect for summer BBQ.



Ingredients
2 chicken breast
3 cloves of garlic, mashed
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce
white pepper
knob of butter, melted

Method:
Cut the chicken breast into bite size and put them in a bowl.
Add the garlic, sugar, salt and pepper. Mix well.
Put the chicken pieces on skewers (if you use bamboo skewers, please don't forget to soak them in the water first to avoid burning).
Before you grill them in the oven grill or BBQ, brush them with the melted butter all over.
When they are half cooked, brush them with the soy sauce and then continue to grill them until they cooked and brown all over.
Serve them with spicy peanut sauce or sweet soy sauce or just as it is.
(Serves 2 -3)

Royal Foodie Joust

This is my entry for this month's Royal Foodie Joust and the ingredients are Seafood, Lime/Lemon and Coconut Milk.
When I saw the ingredients I was supposed to use I was very excited, because this is the first time I'm joining in and the ingredients are ones I use very often.
On this occasion I would like to share my Indonesian background with you all through this dish.
















SEA BASS IN COCONUT SAUCE

400g Sea bass (or you can use sea bream, or trout)
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
2 fresh (big) red chillies - de seed one of them
1/2 tsp ground coriander
oil for deep frying
3 tbsp peanut oil
400ml coconut milk
juice of 1 lime
2 tsp grated palm sugar
5 lime leaves, shredded
salt
Coriander leaves for garnish

Method:
With a sharp knife, make small incisions about 1cm apart on both sides of the fish. Season the fish with salt inside and out.

Finely chop the onions and the garlic. Cut the deseeded chillies into thin strips.

Deep fry the fish in hot oil until brown all over. Drain it thoroughly on kitchen paper.

Heat the peanut oil in a large wok. Fry the onions, garlic, chillies and ground coriander, stirring frequently until the onions are lightly browned. Pour in the coconut milk and lime juice. Add the palm sugar and stir until all dissolve and then put in the lime leaves. Bring to boil.

Lay the fish in the sauce and simmer over a low heat for about 10 minutes.

Transfer the fish and sauce to a warm dish, sprinkle with coriander leaves and serve immediately with boiled rice.

We had a friend come for dinner last night and she doesn't eat meat, so I made this dish and she loved it.
The lime juice and lime leaves really give the sauce a fresh taste.

Indonesian Curry

For so many years I have been trying to cook the perfect Indonesian curry for my own palate and so many times I've failed. I know the basic ingredients but I just couldn't make it as good as the way my parents' cook made back in Indonesia. Because of that, I usually just used Indonesian curry sauce from Singapore.


I could buy the sauce from our local Asian shop before, but then the shop stopped importing it. I was desperate so I bought a batch directly from Singapore by post one time and asked my mother in law to bring them back when she went to Singapore one other time, but eventually I used them all up.



I was sad, I always think that this sauce tastes quite original and I love it. Unfortunately it was too spicy for my husband, who doesn't like spicy food despite having me as his wife and his cook for about 6 years.
That made me think, maybe the reason I've never been able to cook the right taste curry was because I tried to make it less spicy for my husband. So a few days ago I was in this mood that I had to make it right this time. I had a chow chow or chayote squash in the fridge and some tofu (I use aubergine/egg plant sometimes for this kind of curry) and I modified the basic ingredients I know.

Chow-chow (Chayote Squash) Indonesian curry
(Sayur Lodeh Labu Siam)
serves 2-3

Ingredients:
1 chow chow, cut into strips
2 squares of firm tofu
½ cup shrimps
1 medium onion, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, smashed and chopped finely
3 (fat) red chillies, deseeded and sliced (I deseeded only two of them)
6 curry leaves
½ tsp galangal powder (1 inch fresh, smashed)

½ tsp shrimp paste
1 tbsp grated palm sugar
2 cups coconut milk
salt
oil

Method:
Heat some oil in a hot pan, fry the onion until soft then add the garlic, chillies, galangal, curry leaves and shrimp paste, fry until fragrant. Add the shrimps and chow chow.

Pour the coconut milk into the pan and keep stirring until it simmers, then add the palm sugar, keep stirring until all the sugar has dissolved. Add the tofu.
Add some water if necessary.

Keep boiling slowly until the vegetables are soft. Season with salt.

Serve it with boiled rice.

Note:
You can add or reduce some of the ingredients until you find the right amount for you own taste. Be careful using galangal powder, if you put too much of it, it can make the dish taste bitter.

I was so pleased with myself. Finally I can make Indonesian vegetable curry that is right for my taste, because this is my comfort food when I miss my parents home cooking and I want to share this with the other participants in Monthly Mingle.






Unfortunately my husband couldn't stand the chillies, but that's okay, more for me then :-D.