Padang seems familiar to you, doesn't it? About a month ago, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake struck off the city of Padang, killing at least 75 people and trapping thousands under rubble. Padang is the capital city of West Sumatra province, it is a home to the Minangkabau ethnic group, whose traders spread its traditions - including their famed spicy food - as they settled across the country.

Culturally, it is known for the unusual matrilineal system of the Minangkabau, whereby inheritance passes from mother to daughter. Padang women are seen as being particularly forthright and powerful. The region also has strong literary and musical traditions, though it is Padang's spicy cuisine that has perhaps won most renown as the city's traders set up restaurants across Indonesia.

Kepiting Saus Padang is similar to Singaporean Chili Crab. In fact, kepiting saus padang is not sold at Padangese resturants, but it's available at most seafood restaurants in the country, especially street food hawkers.


Kepiting Saus Padang
(Crab in Padangese Sauce or Crab in Spicy Chili Sauce)
modified by me

Ingredients:
2 dungeness crabs (about 1.5 kgs)
water for boiling the mussels
6 tbsp vegetable oil
6 cm length gingerroot, minced
1 fresh pineapple, peeled and blended/grated
3 tbsp fresh key lime juice
3/4 cup ketchup
3 tbsp Indonesian hot sauce (or put as much as desired), I used sambal cap jempol
3/4 cup clam juice
water to boil (you will need more ginger and garlic) or oil for deep frying
sugar and salt as desired

Spices to grind
5 bird chilies (you can put as less/much as desired)
2 red pepper, roasted (for giving red bright color to food)
15 shallots
9 garlic
1 1/2 tsp terasi (dried shrimp paste)
3 candlenuts

Directions:
1. You can do two ways, either place the crabs into hot boiling water that consists ginger and garlic or deep fry the crabs until golden brown

2. In a large skillet or saucepan, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the ginger and ground spice and saute over moderate heat, stirring often until fragrant. Add ketchup, hot sauce, and sugar (if you need it, I don't add any).

3. Add clam juice and crabs. Put salt as desired in also (I don't add any, since I used terasi), cook until bubbling. Add pineapple and lime juice; stir. Bring to a boil and let the sauce thicken.

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It was the day when we had to look for goat feta cheese. We went to one of cheese specialty store on Corydon avenue. That store doesn't have it. I told to my husband, we should check Greek Market which is located on Corydon ave too. I used to this store to get my tiramisu on a cup. Love tiramisu, but I don't want to make it by myself since my tempation is only for a small piece.

Yes!! I am right this store has 3 kinds of feta cheese, cow, goat and sheep. I felt like bringing my husband to toy's store. It has most everything he likes, not many meat products are sold.

See what we got beside feta cheese.

Greek Market
1440 Corydon Ave
Winnipeg, MB
Canada R3N 0J3
Phone: 1-204-488-6161
E-mail: info@greekmarket.ca

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(These pictures are also old stocks, so you will find 2008 as the year)

This recipe is not the Indonesian's classic sate variants. I myself like to use a word sate rather than satay. However, we can make sate with whatever you feel like, including tofu and tempe. Yupss make it vegetarian. Literally, sate means sate, cumi (pronounced: chu mee) means squid and kecap (pronounced: ketchup) means sweet soy sauce. Sate Cumi Kecap can be translated as Squid Sate with Sweet Soy Sauce.

Rustle up something that you have been yearned for so long, is not that easy, for I have been hectic. Particularly, provided your squids are frozen :D.

As I glanced through several pages on the internet, I stumbled on mbak Ima's multiply and this link which have the same recipe; hence, I settled on those recipe by adapting them. Mine is slightly different with theirs.

I enhanced with candlenuts, lemon grass, coriander seed, and calamansi. However, kecap manis and peanuts are still used, just like the classic Indonesian sate.

I chose organic peanut butter rather than the regular one. Based on my experience, putting regular peanut butter will change the taste after the sauce simmered. Organic peanut butter usually only contains peanuts and seasalt or sometimes just ground peanuts. You also can go to some stores that provide peanuts with the grinder; thus, grind them by yourself there, and you will get fresh peanut butter.


Sate Cumi Kecap
(Squid Sate with Sweet Soy Sauce)
adapted from mbak Ima, modified by me

Ingredients:
2 lbs squids
1/2 cup Indonesian kecap manis
2 tbsp crunchy peanut butter (preferably organic peanut butter)
1/4 cup margarine, melted
1 tbsp ground frozen lemongrass
small skewers as many as you need

Ground Spices
8 shallots (in case you use smaller size as I had while I was in Indonesia, you may require 16 shallots)
7 cloves garlic
3 candlenuts
1 cm ginger
1/4 tsp ground star anise
1 tsp ground coriander seed

Additional:
some more shallots, sliced
chillies, sliced
calamansi

Directions:
1. Rinse off squids and marinate with ground spice, kecap manis, peanut butter, ground lemongrass and melted margarine for an hour.

2. Soak skewers in water for about 20 minutes so skewers don't burn over heat.

3. Place a squids on a skewer, do until all squid finished.

4. Grill or broil until cooked through. Brush squid with leftover marinade while cooking. I used a pan grill.

Peanut Sauce:
Place leftover marinade in a saucepan and simmer until bubbling. Combine with sliced shallots and sliced chilies. Squeeze calamansi over and mix. Serve this with squid sate and warmed rice.

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I know tteokochi or ddeok-kkochi when I volunteered for the Korean pavilion-Folklorama in 2006. It reminds me of cilok (West Java) or pentol (in East Java) in Indonesia. The differences, cilok or petol is made from sago or tapioca flour and enhanced with a very small amount of beef. The sauce is kinda close with spiceness of chili while some cilok/pentol have a choice of spicy peanut sauce too.

They have another similarity, sold by the street food vendors.

Anyway, after the training, I just drove around Grant avenue and saw a new Korean store. I was thinking to give a try and found a bag of frozen rice that was pretty cheap. I used to go to Arirang on Portage avenue for Korean food stuffs.

I didin't want to make Tteobokki or Ddeokbokki since I don't have any fish cake and cabbage.

Tteokkochi//Ddeok-kkochi
adapted from http://koreanfood-koreanet.blogspot.com/2009/08/tteokkochi-and-rabboki.html

Ingredients:
50 pieces of rice cake (25 pieces if you use longer pieces)
10 skewers
water
oil

Sauce
2 tbsp gochujang (Korean red pepper paste)
3 tbsp ketchup
2 tbsp honey (you can substitute for corn syrup)
1/2 tbsp sugar ( I used 1/2 tsp sugar, but it was still too sweet for me. My suggestion, skip the sugar)
1 tbsp onion juice ( you can get this by using a garlic mincer, I used 1/4 of onion and grated instead)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp cooking wine (Mirim in Korean or Mirin in Japanese) -> you can substitute for vinegar
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp chopped peanuts
1 tsp ground black pepper

Directions:
1. In a pot, bring water to a boil and put the rice cakes in. Boil frozen rice cakes for 1 minutes or until soften. If they are not frozen, boil them for 30 seconds.
2. Drain the soften rice cakes.
3. Thread 4 or 5 rice cakes onto the skewer.
4. Pan- fry them until golden brown with a small amount of oil. Set aside.
5. Meanwhile, you can make the sauce.
6. Coat cooked rice cakes with the sauce and ready to eat.


Sauce
Mix all sauce's ingredients in a sauce pan. At medium heat, bring to boil; stir occasionally.

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I finally posted a recipe of Lontong Sayur Pepaya Muda Udang or Green Pepaya and Shrimp in Spiced Coconut Milk with Rice Cakes as the last series of Eid ul Fitr dishes 2009.

Traditionally, lontong is made by partly cooking or soaking raw rice, draining and packing tightly into a rolled-up banana leaf. The leaf packaging is fastened with bamboo picks and cooked in boiling water about 2 hours or so. Once, lontong is cooled and solid, you can cut lontong into bite-sized pieces.

Basically, lontong can be eaten with any kinds of soup/stew or sauce base. Whenever I visited my beloved maternal grandmother in Probolinggo, I always had bakso (Indonesian meatballs soup) with lontong. In Surabaya/Sidoarjo, there are ample of dishes that accompany with lontong. Sate ayam, lontong kupang, lontong mie, lontong cap gomeh, rujak cingur, gado-gado, lontong balap, tahu tek (known as tahu gunting), lontong kikil, you name it!

In this posting, you will find two separated recipes for making Sayur Pepaya Muda Udang and Lontong.

Sayur Pepaya Muda Udang
(Green Pepaya and Shrimp in Spiced Coconut Milk)
recipe by me
Ingredients:
500 g green pepaya, peeled and julienned
300 g medium size shrimps
2 lemongrass, bruised
3 cm galangal, bruised
2 Indonesian bay leaves
1 tsp ground dried shrimp (Indonesian: ebi)
2 pkgs cream coconut powder
1.5 L homemade shrimp stock*
oil to stir fry

Spices to grind into a paste
6 shallots
3 cloves garlics
3 red chillies
3 candlenuts (Indonesian: kemiri)
1 tsp dried shrimp paste (Indonesian: terasi, Malay: belachan), roasted

Directions:
Preparation
*Homemade shrimp stock can be made ahead from shrimp heads and skins
Combine shrimp stock and 1 package of coconut cream powder; stir occasionally. Bring to a boil and set aside.

Cooking
1. Stir fry spices paste/ground ingredients in a large saucepan over medium heat for 1-2 minutes, add salam leaves, galangals, and lemongrasses, cook for another 1 minutes until fragrant.

2. Add julienned pepayas another package of coconut cream powder, stir until mixed.

3. Add shrimp stock and shrimp, stir and boil for another 10 minutes or until the shrimps are done.

4. Serve with lontong, sambal and kerupuks (any kind of kerupuks, either tapioca or shrimp ones).



Lontong
(Rice Cake in Banana Leaves Wrapped)
adapted from an Indonesian cookbook "Variasi Menu Sehari-Hari" by Hayatinufus A. L. Tobing

Ingredients:
1.25 kgs rice, rinsed off and drained
about 20 sheets of banana leaves

Directions:
1. Take a sheet or 2 sheets of banana leaves. Roll leaves into 5 cm diameter log-shape. At the edge of the rolled leaves, fasten one side with a bamboo tooth pick. Through another side, fill 3-4tbsp rice into the rolled leaf. Fasten the other edge with a tooth pick. Redo it until all rice are filled into the roll leaves.

2. In a large pot, place all the uncooked lontong. Fill in with water until all lontong sunken.

3. Cook for 2-3 hours or untill all done. Add some more water if the water evaporates and is lessened.

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Tauco are salted fermented soybeans and pronounced tow chow. They were brought to Indonesia by Chinese immigrants. It has cooperated with Indonesian culinary for centuries. Each regions of Indonesia have different type of tauco.

It can be combined with fish, chicken, vegetable, tofu etc. Tauco are sold in whole and paste. It's similar to miso in Japanese cuisine.

Tumis Pare dan Teri Bumbu Tauco means stir fry bittermellon with anchovies and tauco. This doesn't categorize as special Eid ul-Fitr dish either. I wouldn't make this dish for Eid ul-Fitr if my husband didn't request it. For Indonesians, this is just daily food for accompanying the rice.

Tumis Pare dan Teri Bumbu Tauco
adapted from Yusy Wijaksa, modified by me

Ingredients
2 bittermelons, halve, discard the seed and cut into 3/4 cm thick
150 g frozen anchovies, thawed and baked/fried
4 tbsp tauco
1 tomato, diced
2 Indonesian bay leaves
1 cm length galangal
2 green chilies, discard the seed and angle cut
1 tbsp ground bird eyes chilies*
salt and sugar to season (I didn't add this as the tauco is pretty salt for my tastebuds)
oil for stir-frying

Spices to grind:
5 shallots (If you use smaller size, use 8)
1 clove garlic

Directions:
1. Sprinkle salt over bittermelon and squeeze softly by hand until wilted.
2. Let bittermelon sit for 10 minutes, rinse off with water and drain.
3. Stir fry all the spices, except green chilies until fragrant. Add anchovies and bittermelon, cook until done.
4. Taste and season with salt and/or sugar as desired.

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Today, On September 20th 2009, all muslims around the world celebrate Eid ul Fitr. Eid ul Fitr is a religious festival of Muslims. It is celebrated on the 1st of Islamic month Shawwal.or Syawal Muslims keep fast during the holy month Ramadan and when the month of fasting ends they celebrate Eid ul-Fitr.

Wish you the joys and wonder of Eid ul-Fitr.

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