First time I know about Donna Hay from my multiply friend, mbak Arfi (mbak is used for a more appropriate calling in Javanese) of Homemades who lives in New Zealand. I was trying to look up at the library and yayy I could find and borrow it. I'm still amazed with the pictures in that magazine. Lovely pictures.

While I was reading a tempting recipe "Garlic Prawns with Chili" in Donna Hay magazine, it reminded me of Balado Udang (Western Sumatran Style Chili Shrimp). A shrimp in Canada is a prawn in Australia. What did I modify from the original recipe? I added fried minced garlic at the end of the cooking process, just like Udang ala Bie Fong Tong aka Bie Fong Tong Style Breaded Shrimp.

Here, it is one of the recipe that I modified from Donna Hay magazine.

Category:

Meat & Seafood

Ingredients:
2 tbsp unsalted butter (Original recipe added 150 g butter)
1 tbsp olive oil with fried garlic (Original recipe didn't add this)
3 garlic cloves, crushed (Original recipe added 5 garlic cloves)
chilli flakes as much as desired (Original recipe added 1 1/2 tsp cilli flakes)
seasalt as desired
40 medium shrimp, peeled, tails intact
6-8 cloves garlic, crushed and minced
lemon wedges to serve

Directions:
Fried garlic for sprinkle
1. Clean and drain off the minced garlic, sun-dried the garlic to reduce the moist (I used the oven to dry off).
2. Deep-fry the garlic until crispy and golden brown.
3. Garlic ready to use as sprinkle.

Garlic Shrimp with Chili
Heat a large frying pan over high heat. Add butter, spanish olive oil, crushed garlic, chilli and salt. Cook for 1 minute. Add the shrimp and cook for 2-3 minutes or until cooked through. Add fried garlic, stir evenly. Place the shrimp in induviduals bowls. Serve with lemon wedges and steamed rice or crusty bread.

PS. Do not throw away your shrimp skin/head. You can use for shrimp broth.

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In Bahasa Indonesia, it's translated as Nasi Ayam Hainan. Hainan Island is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China, located off the southern coast of the country, almost closed to Vietnam. Hainanese Chicken Rice is so well known in South-East Asian region such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. According to Meylinda, in Hainan island itself this chicken rice is not well known.

I combined Hainanese chicken rice of Meylinda and Tabloid Nova. This dish uses lots garlic more than Italian dishes.


Ingredients:
THE CHICKEN DISH:
4 chicken thighs
1375 ml water
50 grams onions
white part of 2 stalks green onions
75 grams lo bok (chinese radish), sliced
3 cloves garlic, crushed
10 grams ginger, crushed
1/4 tsp ground white pepper
3 tbsp fish sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp sugar
cooking oil
sesame oil for brushing


THE RICE
250 grams long grain rice
100 ml remaining chicken broth from making the CHICKEN DISH
500 ml chicken broth
1 tbsp fish sauce
few drops sesame oil

THE SOUP
500ml chicken broth
1 clove garlic
1/8-1/4 tsp ground white pepper
green part of 2 stalks green onions, chopped
1/2 tsp sugar
salt to taste

CHILI SAUCE
3-4 tbsp of chicken oil floating on top of chicken broth

Grind the following ( giling halus ) :
2 tbsp chili paste (such as sambal oelek)
2 cloves garlic
1 cm ginger
sugar to taste

Directions:
1. Bring 1375 ml water to a boil. Add onion, white part of green onion, 5 grams crushed ginger and chicken thigh. Bring them a boil at low-medium heat. It's better if you use slow cooker to make this chicken broth. Do not overcook, it will make the chicken fall apart. Add lo bok and cook. Drain. Save 3-4 tbsp of the chicken oil that float on the broth for making chili sauce.
2.Separate the broth into three parts.; 200 ml, 500ml and 500ml (total 1.2 litre ).
3.Stir-fry the garlic & ginger until fragrant, add other the seasonings. Bring to boil.
4. Add chicken, cook 10 minutes until the broth reduced to half.
5. Remove the chicken, set aside. When cool, brush lightly with sesame oil.
6. Save the seasoned broth to make rice with.


THE RICE
1. Bring the seasoned broth to boil.
2. Add rice & 500 ml chicken broth. Mix well.
3. Add fish sauce & salt (only if you need). Cook rice. ( I cooked them in a rice cooker )
4. Add sesame oil. Mix well.


THE SOUP
1. Bring all the ingredients to boil. Add cooked lo bok and serve.


THE CHILI SAUCE
1. Heat the chicken oil/fat in microwave.
2. Pour over the ground mixture. The more you pour in the thinner the chili sauce, up to you. Mix well.

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This recipe is adapted and modified from Cakalang Rica-rica of Tabloid Nova. Cakalang is a kind of Tuna, which I didn't have in my freezer at that time.

I bought a cleaned and scale whole grouper, so no need to clean out the stomach cavity, remove the gills and surrounding tissue, and scale it.

Category:		Barbecue & Grilling
Style:		Indonesian

Ingredients:
1 whole of grouper (400 g)
1 lime, squeezed
3 stalks lemon grass, finely sliced
3 cm ginger, finely sliced
6 lime kaffir leaves, finely sliced
2 pandan (screwpine) leaves, finely sliced
2 tomatoes, chopped
1/4 tsp sugar
3 tbsp to stir fry

Blend
6 red chilies*
4 bird's eye chilies
2 cloves garlic
5 shallots
1/4 tsp salt

Note:
* instead of red chilies, I added sambal oelek

Directions:
1. Clean the fish by cleaning out the stomach cavity, removing the gills and surrounding tissue, and scaling them. I didn't do this step, I just rinsed out.
2. Rub fish inside and out with lime juice. Set aside.
3. Combine blended ingredients with slices of lemon grass, ginger, lime kaffir leaves and pandan leaves. Stir evenly.
4. Rub fish inside and out with 1/3 part of spices mixture, let stand for 15 minutes.
5. In a pan, stir fry remaining spices mixture with tomatoes until fragrant. Add fish. Spoon the spices mixture over fish, flip it over occasionally until spices permeated.
6. After the fish is done, it would have a better taste, if you bake in the oven or grill/barbque with a charcoal barbeque stove.


Place a little olive oil in or spray on with vegetable oil a grill pan and heat until very hot. Grill until done. Set aside. Let lam chops stand for few minutes and cover with tin foil to keep it warm and juicy.

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Category:	Books
Genre:	Cooking, Food & Wine
Author:	Yasa Boga Authors

I received this book a month ago which I ordered from Select Books Singapore. A collection of traditional recipes from various regions of the Indonesian archipelago. Written in an easy step-by-step approach, these savoury and sweet snacks are a delight to create. This book is really recommended for people who really want to learn how to make Indonesian desserts, especially non Indonesian speakers.

This book has 10 chapters; Utensils Needed, Ingredients, Wrapping Technique, For Perfect Results, Popular Indonesian Desserts, Javanese Desserts, Desserts from Sumatra, Desserts from Kalimantan, Desserts from East Indonesia, and Fruit-Based Desserts.

It's contained pictures of all ingredients, cooking utensils, moulds that you need to make Indonesian desserts. It really helps you who don't have no idea how those moulds are looked like.

Even though several ingredients such as sugar, wheat flour, rice flour, tapioca flour, corn starch and palm/coconut sugar are in grams, but in this book you will find gram conversion to cup.

You also can learn how to form clorot and wrap lepet by using young coconut leaf. With banana leaves, you can learn how to form a sudi, to wrap up tidbits in banana-leaf rolls, to wrap up lapek bugis, and to form a banana leaf takir. Many other techniques that I can't explain one by one.

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A North Africa's recipe. While I browsed around, I found several lamb chops recipes. This recipe reminded me of Sefa. She posted chermoula lamb chops recipe last month.

Chermoula or Charmoula is a marinade used in Algerian, Moroccan and Tunisian cooking. It is usually used to flavor fish or seafood, but it can be used on other meats or vegetables.

Chermoula is often made of a mixture of herbs, oil, lemon juice, garlic, cumin, and salt. It may also include onion, fresh cilantro, ground chili peppers, black pepper, or saffron.

There are many different recipes that use different spices, and the proportions vary widely. In most recipes, the first two ingredients are garlic and cilantro.

This recipe and Sefa's posted are lil bit different, which I used grilled method directly, no need to cook the meat in water.

Actually I wanted to add some yogurt for marinating, but I didn't have any yogurt in my fridge. The acidity of yogurt helps to tenderize the meat.

Category:		Barbecue & Grilling
Style:		African

Ingredients:
500 grams lamb chops

Chermoula
1 cup cilantro
4 cloves garlic, peeled
juice of 1 lemon or lime
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tbsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
2 tbsp olive oil (add more if needed)
1 tsp cayenne pepper (add more if you like spicy)
sea salt as desired

Directions:
Place all the ingredients for the chermoula into a food processor and process until well blended but still relatively chunky. Adjust the consistency by adding more olive oil; the marinade should be fairly thick.

Rub the chermoula over lamb chops on both sides, place in a shallow dish, cover and marinate for at least 2 hours, turning from time to time.

Place a little olive oil in or spray on with vegetable oil a grill pan and heat until very hot. Grill until done. Set aside. Let lam chops stand for few minutes and cover with tin foil to keep it warm and juicy.

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As I wrote before, tempeh is an Indonesian soybean cake, and it is a staple source of protein in Indonesia for several hundred years already, is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybean particles into a cake form.

A year ago, I coulnd't purchase tempeh in Winnipeg. So where I can get it in Winnipeg?

Dong Thai Ltd

459 Notre Dame Avenue, Winnipeg, MB R3B 1R4

(204) 943-9868

One of my blog reader asked me where he/she can purchase in Vancouver? Today, I asked Mr. Wong, the owner of Dong Thai, he told me that you can buy tempeh at Hanlong in Surrey, which I'm not sure that is the proper way to spell "Hanlong". Anyway, those tempeh is also made by the Indonesian.

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I saw a recipe in Anna Olson's cookbook "Another Cup of Sugar". She is one of my favorite pastry and dessert chefs. I only adapted the tart's mousse filling from her Hawaiian Tart's recipe.

Since I don't have lots time to make the tart shell, I used sweetened mini tart shells' ready-to-bake. Why did I choose the sweetened one? Because the unsweetened one contains L-cysteine, which I'm not sure what kind of L-cysteine that is (I read one of the possibly resource is body fluids). On the other hand the sweetened one contains vegetable shortening).

In Olson�s recipe, she added mascarpone cheese for mousse filling. Instead of mascarpone cheese I added riccota cheese, which is cheaper than mascarpone. Olson's recipe also added mango pulp and I subtituted for peach pureed. For garnish, you can add any tropical fruit instead of blueberry and peach.

Category:		Desserts
Special Consideration:		Quick and Easy

Ingredients:
Crust
12 tart shells ready to bake

Peach Mousse Filling
1/2 cup low fat ricotta
3 1/2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp lime zest
1 1/2 tbsp fresh lime juice
1/4 cup pureed peach (you can subtitute for peach pulp)

Garnish
blueberries
peach slices




Directions:
FOR CRUST, preheat oven to 425 F. Place tart shells on middle oven rack. Bake for 10-12 minutes. Shell should be a rich golden brown edges. Allow to cool in a pan, then remove.

FOR PEACH MOUSSE FILLING, cream riccota gently with sugar to soften. Add lime zest and juice, and peach pureed/pulp. Stir until evenly blended (switch to a whisk if you wish, but be careful not to overbeat. If mousse is too soft, chill for 20 minutes to firm up. Pipe or spoon mousse into tart shell and chill until ready to serve.

GARNISH with blueberries and peach slices immediatelly before serving.

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