Tahu Pong Semarang - Tofu Puff and Shrimp Fritter with Hot Sweet and Sour Sauce

First and foremost, I would like to say thank you very very much for the birthday wishes that I received through emails and facebook. Also, I got a nice breakfast in bed from my husband, a glass of berries (acai, blueberry, blackberry and boysenberry) smoothie and a glass of strawberry soy milk. Thank you, Pung!

Let's move on to what I'm going to post. Since I have been taking some different food pictures, I was confused which one that I'm going to post first. I finally did an online polls and the result was Tahu Pong Semarang as you can see the pic below.

Tahu Pong Semarang is a dish from Semarang, the capital city of Central Java. According to Ci Ine, a Semarang native this dish wasn't lay on bed of bean sprouts and no Chinese celery sprinkle over as well. However, the cookbook that I brought from Indonesia did mention.

You may bet this dish is a mixed Chinese Indonesian with the use of lo bok (known as Chinese radish or daikon, or lobak in bahasa Indonesia) and tofu.

Tahu Pong Semarang consists four different preparations, gimbal udang (shrmp fritters), tofu puff, acar lobak (lo bok pickle) and the hot sweet sour sauce. Since tofu puff is easy to find, I don't need to buy fresh tofus, cut and deep fry them. All I need was buying the package of tofu puff and heat up in the oven to get crunchier texture. Yes, I still had to fry the gimbal udang, slice lo bok and make the sauce.

Upsss, there is one complement that I didn't use fried hard boiled eggs. I'm not a big fan of hard boiled eggs, so I skipped them.
Tahu Pong Semarang
-Tofu Puff and Shrimp Fritters with Hot Sweet and Sour Sauce-
recipe by Yasaboga, modified by me

Ingredients:
1 package of tofu puff
vegetable oil

Gimbal Udang - Shrimp Fritters
200 g medium size shrimps, peeled and deveined
150 g bean sprouts
3 cloves garlic, grated
1 tsp ground white peppercorn
2 tsp Chinese celery, chopped
150 g unbleached all purpose flour
a dash of baking soda
2 eggs
125 mL cold water (4C)

Acar Lobak - Lo bok pickle
300 g lo bok/Chinese radish/daikon, juilenned
1 tsp seasalt
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp nipa vinegar

Hot Sweet and Sour Sauce:
1-2 tsp sugar (I stick to 1 tsp)
1 tbsp nipa vinegar
3-4 tbps Indonesian sweet soy sauce
125 mL water
Grind:
5 bird eyes chilies
4 cloves garlic, fried

Other complements:
bean sprouts
fried shallots
1 tbsp Chinese celery, chopped

Directions:
Tahu Pong - Tofu Puff
Reheat in the oven until crunchy

Gimbal Udang - Shrimp Fritters
1. Mix garlic, white peppercorn, celery, flour, egg and water; stir evenly. Add bean sprouts.
2. Prepare a flat pan and skillet to fry the gimbal. In a flat pan, pour a small a amount of oil. Use low heat at first. Pour batter about 8 cm diameter on a pan, place 4 shrimps on batter. Cook until half done. Remove from pan. At medium-high heat, fill the skillet with oil, re-fry the gimbal until golden brown.

Acar Lobak - Lo bok Pickle
Sprinkle salt over the lo bok. Do soft-squash until lo boks are wilted. Rinse lo bok under running water and drain. Add other ingredients and keep in the fridge until time to serve.

Hot Sweet and Sour Sauce
Mix all ingredients

How to serve:
Plate a bed of bean sprouts. Place tahu pong and gimbal udang on top of bean sprouts. Pour the sauce over and sprinkle with chopped Chinese celery and fried shallots. Ready to serve and eat with acar lobak.