December 29.2008 or Muharram 1st.1430 Hijriyah is very important day for Muslim around the world. It is an Islamic New Year. As Islamic calender is a lunar calendar having 12 lunar months in a year of about 354 days. It is used to date events in many predominantly Muslim countries, and used by Muslims everywhere to determine the proper day on which to celebrate Islamic holy days and festivals. This lunar year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, Islamic holy days, although celebrated on fixed dates in their own calendar, usually shift 11 days earlier each successive solar year, such as a year of the Gregorian calendar. Islamic years are also called Hijriyah or Hijra years.

On the same date, it is also a Javanese New Year. The Javanese calendar is a calender that is still used by the Javanese people of Indonesia concurrently with two other important calendars, the Gregorian calendar and the Islamic calendar.

With this post, I would like to say Happy Islamic New Year 1430 Hijriyah. Also, being a 50 percent of Javanese descendant, I would like to say Sugeng Warsa Enggal 1942. This sentence means Happy New Year in Javanese.

Source: wikipedia and http://bambangpriantono.multiply.com/

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One day, I enjoyed a hot chili and spice chocolate from my mug. I put on my Facebook status at that time. Dita of Yummy!! commented that she had a chili chocolate cookies recipe. I told her that I also have a recipe of chocolate chili cookies from Canadian Living magazine, but I haven't tried to make it yet. I wondered if she ever tried chocolate chili and chocolate matcha bars as I had both of them before. She told me she hasn't found those chocolate bars for purchase.

I am a big fan of chocolate especially the dark one, and you also may know that I love chili. This combination goes well into the hot chili and spice chocolate beverage. In Canada, you may find this brand at health stores or any stores that sell organic food products. Camino also has chocolate bars product with few different flavour, such as chili and spice, and matcha.

Use you favourite milk to make this. I barely have milk in the fridge, but I always have soy beverage. Heat up soy beverage, add chocolate chili powder, stir and pour into your mug. Ready to serve. With combination of chili, ginger and cocoa powder, this beverage is perfect to warm up your body on winter season.

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One day, I watched Jamie Oliver, Jamie at Home that was aired on Food TV Canada. It was talking about lamb. A Welsh sheep farmer visited Jamie and one of the conversation topics is the difference between lamb, hogget and mutton. This conversation suddenly stopped me from typing the assignment on my laptop. I know the difference between mutton and lamb, but what hogget is?

The strict definitions for lamb, hogget and mutton vary considerably between countries. Generally speaking,

• Lamb � a young sheep under 12 months of age which does not have any permanent incisor teeth in wear. In many eastern countries there is a looser use of the term which may include hoggets. Also the meat of younger sheep.
• Hogget or Hogg � a young sheep or maiden ewe having no more than two permanent incisors in wear
• Mutton � a female (ewe) or castrated male (wether) sheep having more than two permanent incisors in wear or a sheep over two year old.
  

The younger the lamb is, the smaller the lamb will be, however, the meat will be more tender. Sheep mutton has a less tender flesh. In general, the darker the colour, the older the animal. Baby lamb meat will be pale pink, while regular lamb is pinkish-red.

However, according to wikipedia, in many eastern countries such as Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Singapore the term of mutton refers to goat's meat and usually not to sheep's meat. In Indian cuisine, term of mutton curries is referred to goat curries when it is cooked at home while in Indian restaurants sheep meat is often used. I often read some food blogs in Indonesian, where some of them use a term lamb and goat interchangeably. In Indonesian, lamb applies to domba muda and goat refers to kambing.

There are other defintions such as baby lamb, spring lamb, yearling lamb, milk-fed lamb, sucker lamb, salt marsh lamb that you can read on wikipedia or glossary of sheep hudbandry. In addition, the British and Canadian cuts of lamb are the same, but they are different in the US.

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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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