Before you jump into conclusion, I'll tell you this is not my cooking. We ordered from Caribbean Spice Restaurant on Sunday evening. Since it was really damn cold - 43 degrees Celsius with windchil, both of us craved Caribbean food, we didn't feel to go out to get warm and hot spicy Caribbean food. Our Caribbean favourite restaurant, Tropikis doesn't deliver, we looked up on yellow pages and tried another Caribbean restaurant in the city.

I didn't aware about Caribbean food until I came to Canada. My husband who introduced me to Caribbean food and I felt in love right away. I do love their goat curry roti as well. It does taste spicy with chili but not too much other spices . I guess Caribbean food is closed to Indonesian culinary that has more chili added.

As you can see above picture, that hot sauce is real damn hot. It did made my lips "jontor" or burn. The oxtail stew was really tender and I can taste combination of allspice. Allspice is a small round fruit if you can see on these pictures, strongly aromatic, like cloves with a hint of cinnamon and nutmeg; the taste is similar, but with some peppery heat. Allspice is also known as Jamaican pepper or Pimento. My order came with roti and garden salad. The thing that I like from Caribbean roti is stuffed with dhal puri. Dhal puri is a seasoned mushy split pea. If you wonder how to make that dhal puri roti from scratch, please visit Cynthia's blog, Tastes Like Home.

As my husband is a pesco vegetarian, he stuck to his favourite vegetarian roti. His lips did got burned by the hot sauce too :).

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Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) belong to the same family (Chenopodiacea) as beets and chard. Spinach origanted in southwestern Asia or Persia as wild plant. It has been cultivated in China and many other areas of Asia for at least 2,000 years. It was used as an important medical plant in many traditional sytems of medicine.

A 1-cup serving spinach has only 41 calories, but it is extremely nutrient-dense. It is an excellent source of Vitamin K, carotenes, vitamin C, folic acid, manganese, iron, and vitamin B2. In addition, spinach is also a good source of vitamins B6, E and B1.

It has been a terrible weather lately, made me lazy to go to Asian stores to buy Kangkung which I used to make for this kind of stir fry. Since I still have a package of frozen whole spinach, I'd better use it. In 2006, I posted a recipe of Stir Fry Spinach with Terasi and Tiny Shrimp, which becomes different's name in Indonesia for the dried one and the fresh one. Ebi is for the dried shrimp and Rebon is for tiny shrimp.


Stir Fry Spinach with Terasi and Dried Tiny Shrimp
[Indonesian] Tumis Bayam Ebi Terasi
Recipe by me

Ingredients:
1 frozen package whole spinach (about 300 gr), thawed as package direction and put into an icy waterbath bowl
1/4 cup dried tiny shrimp (trasi shrimp/Indonesian: ebi)
3 shallots, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 tsp dried shrimp paste (Indonesian: terasi, Malaysian: belachan), roasted
1/2 tsp ground fresh bird chilies*
2 Indonesian bay leaves (salam leaves/Indonesian: daun salam)
salt and sugar as desired
coconut oil
red chilies, angle cut

*I used to buy lots chilies, ground them and keep in the freezer, whenever I need for making nasi goreng or sambal, I have them.

Ground Terasi and Dried Tiny Shrimp

Directions:
1. Heat wok in high heat and add oil, saute shallot, garlic, ground chilli and terasi until fragrant. Add a very small amount of water/broth and tiny shrimp, stir.
2. Add spinach, sugar and salt (if necessary, because terasi is salty), stir fry until 2 minutes. Garnish with red chilies cut and serve with steamed rice.

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Browsing around on the internet is my ritual when I get bored of my studying. As I typed on "Indonesia" and googled, I found an interesting link Everything Indonesia. Christopher Taylor who is developed this blog offered free-giveaway stuffs. In addition, Christopher Taylor is an award-winning freelance journalist based in New York City, and has been published in the Financial Times, Fortune, Money, Best Life, GQ, Esquire, and more. He has won journalism awards from the National Press Club, the Deadline Club, and the National Association of Real Estate Editors

Anyway, speaking about the draw. I decided to enter since I'm interesting with the book of Elizabeth Gilbert "Eat Pray Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia". Hence, I sent my email to him. On November 30th, I received an email that was said I won the book. Yesterday, when I came home I saw an envelope on my computer desk. My husband told me that there is a package for me. As I saw the name who shipped the packaged, I smiled. This is the book that I won the draw. Thank you, Chris for the book and thank you too for your good folks from Viking press that had sent you a cople of copies for Everything Indonesia readers.

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My beloved mom used to tell story on how I grew up, "when you were a baby and your teeth would grow, just like other babies, you loved to bite everything as you had an itchy gum. Instead of seeing you biting the toys, I gave you boiled chicken feet. At least, there is calcium in them." Added chicken feet into regular vegetable soup and sayur asam (Indonesian sour vegetable soup) is also my family's tradition.

What do I look for whenever I go to dim sum restaurants, either in Canada or in Indonesia? Phoenix Talons a.k.a Fenghuang Claws or the Indonesians call "Angsio Cakar Ayam".

Snow has come about a week ago. It is getting cold and colder each day. Dim sum dish is one of my perfect food for the cold days. Since I have a package of red yeast rice that I bought about a month ago from one of the Asian stores in Winnipeg, I was tempting to try chicken feet with dim sum style.

The mistake that I made I didn't follow mbak Ruri's recipe by not soaking the chicken feet in icy cold water after deep frying. Thus, my chicken feet were not puffy enough as the dim sum style. However, I put down mbak Ruri's recipe so you can follow it.


Phoenix Talons // Angsio Cakar Ayam
recipe by Kueh Ruri and Rossy of Rossy Kitchen, modified by me




Ingredients:
1 kg chicken feet, discard the nails

Ingredients A. :
5 cloves garlic, bruised
3 star anises
4 cm length ginger, thinly sliced
3 green onions, take the white part only and cut into 2 cm length
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp light soy sauce
2 tbsp mushroom soy sauce
3 tsbp raw sugar
� tsp ground white pepper
1.5 liter water
1 tbsp red yeast rice (Indonesian: angkak)

Ingredients B:
1 tbsp minced garlic
3 long red chilies, angle cut
3 tbsp black bean sauce (Indonesian: tausi)
2 tbsp rice wine (I don�t use this)
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp cornstarch, dissolved in a small amount of water
the green parts of green onions from ingredients A

Directions:
Deep fry chicken feet until done, remove from the fryer and transfer into a big bowl fill with icy cold water. Soak for 3 hours or so.

Steps A.
1. Stir fry garlic until fragrant, add water and the rest of ingredients A.
2. Bring into a boil. Add chicken feet, cook until the chicken feet soft, the spice permeates and the water evaporates.
3. Remove from the heat.
Steps A will be faster if you use a pressure cooker.

Steps B.
1. Stir fry garlic until fragrant, add black bean sauce and long red chilies; stir evenly.
2. Transfer the cook chicken feet, rice wine and add cornstarch mixture; stir evenly.
3. Add sesame oil and green part of green onions, stir and remove from the heat.

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Frozen rain has finally come today, so that means snow is in the mail pretty soon. I have been busy for a while, taking some time off from multiply as well as blogspot. On those days, I tried to sneak a little time to capture beautiful fall leaves. See more pictures below.

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One very general idea: always try to think of a story behind the photo (e.g. table setting, sunny mood, comfort food, stylish food), which impression do you want.

- Thorsten Kraska -


Dita of Yummy, the founder of Home Food Photography event, has invited me to participate since the very beginning of this episode. Eventually, I ended up running out of time and idea. Yeah, I wish I could take a part from the first event, but I won't miss the 4th series.

About three weeks ago, I sent a message via flickr to Thorsten Kraska (TK), one of my favourite photographers. The purpose of that message was to give myself enlighten about my food-photography. It is a perfect match to share his opinion about concept while the 4th series� theme of the event is �konsep� or concept in English. Here are the messages that really got into my brain.


�For a warm feeling you could use warmer background colors. You could use contrasting colors, if you want the colors of the dish to stand out.

The idea of "what the message is" is important. Browse through photos in journals of flickr. Stop at every photo you like on first sight and you will see these photos tell you a very short story, they get your imagination working. That is the main idea. Make the viewer stop by telling a story.�

This time, �Teri�s Party� is my contribution to the 4th Home Food Photography. Teri is not a person�s name; it is a call for silver anchovy in Indonesian which I barely see the fresh one in Winnipeg. Happiness and homey are the feelings that I long to illustrate with my childhood dish, Dadar Teri Medan (fried tiny silver anchovies in egg batters) as I can find Teri Medan for purchased at one of Asian markets here. Colourful polka-dots background and pink tissue sheet remind me of a little girl party. Reveling in my homey kiddo party is the shots' message.

Last but not least, thanks to TK for the permission to publish his words on this blog.

Dadar Teri Medan // Fried Tiny Silver Anchovies in Egg Batter

recipe by my beloved mom and iyuk, modified by me

Ingredients:
1 cup fresh or frozen* tiny silver anchovies
2 fresh calamansis (can be substituted for lime/lemon), squeezed
1 egg, beaten
1 cloves garlic, grated
2 candlenuts, grated
� package no-MSG added shrimp bouillon cube or 1/4 tsp terasi (English: dried shrimp paste)
Oil for deep-fry or pan-sear

*Thaw frozen anchovies, then measure 1 cup.

Directions:

1. Squeeze calamansis over anchovies, mix and let stand for 15 minutes. Rinse off.
2. Combine garlic, bouillon or terasi, candlenuts to beaten egg.
3. Add anchovies into egg mixture.
4. Place a frying pan/skillet over high heat and add oil. By using, a soup spoon, spoon anchovies mixtures onto the pan. Fry them until golden brown and enjoy with hot sauce.

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Born and raised close to the sea, I used to consume saltwater fish every day. For the first time, it was hard for me not to eat saltwater fish daily while I had to move to another city in Java island that has more freshwater fish. However, after a year, I was getting used to.

Moved to Winnipeg, which has limitation in fish supply, I sometimes have to stock in the freezer. Plenty of typical tropical saltwater fish can be purchased in Asian stores or fish markets in frozen. Indian mackerels are ones of them, that also known as short body mackerels or the Indonesians call for ikan kembung.

Mangut is a Javanese style fish cooked in coconut milk. Back home, smoked stingray (Indonesian:ikan pari; Javanese: iwak pe) is commonly used for making mangut. To alter, stingray is also grilled and served with terasi sambal.

I had no idea that Indian macakrel can be cooked for mangut until I saw this recipe. As usual, I modified the recipe by using coconut cream powder, and adding terasi (dried shrimp paste). In addition, I did not deep fry the fish, but I pan-seared them. Thanks, Mommy Dian for the recipe.

Mackerel in Coconut Milk/Mangut Ikan Kembung
recipe by Yardian, modified by me

Ingredients:
3 cleaned and scaled whole Indian (short body) mackerel

Spices to grind for marinating fish:
2 cm long (with1 cm diamter) fresh turmeric, toasted or roased, and peeled
3 cloves garlic
salt as desired

Mangut spices to grind
1-2 tbsps ground red chillies (I usually grind fresh red chilies once a while, put in a jar, and store in the freezer)
3 candlenuts
2 cm long fresh turmeric, peeled
1.5 cm long (2 cm diamter) fresh kencur, peeled
4 shallots (in Indonesia, you might need 6 shallots)
3 cloves garlic
1 tsp terasi (dried shrimp paste)

Others:
3 Indonesian bay leaves
500 ml waterl
1 package coconut cream powder (santan powder)
salt and sugar as desired to season
4 bilimbis (Indonesian: belimbing sayur), angle cut
green bird's eye chilies as desired

Directions:
1. Using a sharp knife, cut 4 diagonal 1-inch deep slits on each side of the fish. Cut slightly deeper toward the back fin of the fish. The slits will allows the seasoning to penetrate better and help fish to cook more evenly throughout.

2. Marinate fish for 20 minutes with the spices. Pan sear on both sides until done. Remove from the heat.

3. In a skillet, add 75 ml water, and ground mangut spices. Stir and bring them to a boil.

4. Add bilimbis, bird's eye chilies, Indonesian bay leaves, the rest of the water, salt, sugar, and coconut cream powder. Add fish and cook until thickened. Remove from the heat. Serve with warmed rice.

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