One fine afternoon, I just thought to pay a visit to my neighbor, Sydney Fish Market. I forgot the last time I went there. Getting a pram ready for Nathan and the baby carrier ready for Theo. We were on our way to the fish market. My shopping list were teriyaki eel for my unagi nigiri, salmon sashimi for my sushi rolls and nigiri, crab stick for california rolls and fish eggs for my sushi decoration.

We were there around 4 o’clock which was a bit too late because some of the shops were closed already. Thank God, I still got what I need. I bought the avocado as well in their fruit market because they were ripe and at reasonable price.

I had been researching on few websites on how to cook a perfect sushi rice. They say that the key to a perfect sushi lies in its rice. You need to do your rice right to have a decent sushi. I found this perfect website with great instructions and tips. If you would like the recipe, click here.

I took my chances on cooking the rice using a standard rice cooker not a sushi rice cooker. It turned out perfect, and I was relieved and happy as I could do my sushi quick and easy. Here are some photos of my first attempt sushi making. I did some tuna cucumber rolls, tuna avocado rolls, and chicken katsu rolls as well the next day but didn’t do the documentation.

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You !!!

My busy Monday started with preparing my oldest son morning tea and lunch box, then dropping him at kindy. Then off I went to the kitchen preparing this cake with few pauses because the little one waking up. Sorry baby, probably you are not used to the loud mixer sound, well you better get use to the sound as you will hear it most of the time in the upcoming future. I will post the recipe later with few notes and tips as I didn’t do so well with this cake.

How my oldest boy felt so happy looking at the cake. He always excited looking at cakes because he loves singing the birthday song and blowing off the candles. This time, he did like uncountable times of singing, blowing and clapping hands. I guess it was kinda like a little practice before his upcoming birthday at the end of August.

Tuesday was all about planning, scheduling and shopping. Garlic, shallot, ginger, turmeric, candle nut, lemon grass and chillies for pounding, grinding and pureeing. Banana leaves, garlic shoots, broccoli, spring onions, parsley and carrot for decoration. Glutinous rice and flour, coconut milk and cream, potatoes, tofu, chicken eggs and quail eggs, prawns, can of petai in brine for the ingredients.

Buzzz… grrrrrrr…buzzz…. grrrr, that was the sound of Wednesday. Oh not to forget the hwaaaaaa… ooowaaaaacccchhhhh… (baby crying) and mommy look at this… mommy I want this that and it goes on and on and on…

Thursday, let’s the kitchen war begin!!! YAY and hubby had a day off, meaning that lots of lots of help with my two boys. Early in the morning, hubby and the oldest one went to the embassy to renew the passport and that made me so much easier in arranging banana leaves on platter. This was my third attempt in making the platter.

• The first one was last year on my boy’s birthday. Result: unsuccessful because of poor time management.
• The second attempt was last December on hubby’s birthday. Result: unsatisfied because of lack of research on how to arrange and decorate your dishes on the platter.
• The third attempt: Satisfied, however still need to improve on decoration varieties and perhaps bigger platter will be result in a much more attractive looks.
• Note to myself: find a storage space in the tiny apartment to store a new big platter

Here are the dish starting from yellow rice clockwise: Nasi Kuning (Festive Yellow Rice), Sambal Udang Pete Balado (Prawns with Petai cooked in Sambal Chilli), Perkedel (Fried Mashed Potatoes), Telur Dadar Gulung (Rolled Omelet), Tahu Bacem (Fried Tofu Marinated in Palm Sugar and Herbs), Sambal Bajak Terasi (Sambal Chilli with Shrimpt Paste Bajak style in Tomato Basket), Mie Ulang Tahun (Fried Egg Noodles with Red Boiled Quail Eggs), Ayam Panggang Kremes (Grilled Chicken).

Conversation with Hubby while preparing those Tumpeng dishes around 4 PM:

Me: OMG we ran out of rice. We need to buy them ASAP.

Hubby: Ahhhh… I don’t wanna go out anymore today (answering with sleepy eyes, laying on the carpet)

Me: Oh well I suppose I could go tomorrow buying rice (25 kg) and chicken for Saturday (about 28 pcs of Chicken Maryland, those are for Theo’s one month things. We usually gave a packet of yellow rice with chicken, red egg, red traditional cake, and sweets to close friends and relatives. Traditionally, this thing is done to let them know that there is a new baby born in the family)

Hubby: Zzzzzzz… (snoozing already on the carpet while the toddler destroying the house with all of his toys all over the house)

Friday, lots and lots and lots of thing had to be done. First thing, feed all the boys then bath them and myself. Before we went out, it was already 12.30 PM. I was in a panicking zone. We all went to the city and darn it.. as usual no parking spot. Thank God I had a help that day from a friend. She watched the boys while I parked my car in a no parking zone (hoping that no parking office will pass and give me a ticket). I ran to the shop telling to the housekeeper that I need a 25 kg rice and then straight to the butcher asking him to give me 28 pieces of chicken maryland. I told them to be quick as I parked in the no parking zone. The porter carried the rice to the car, but there was no sign of the chicken from the butcher yet. I ran straight to the car and I was so lucky to spot a parking spot, although it meant that I had to drive backward about 5 metres on a busy zone. Back to the butcher asking him where the hell was my chickens. Surprisingly he handed me a big box of chicken.

Me: (still looking surprised) OMG how come you gives me the box? I only asked for 28 pieces of chicken.

Butcher: Yes 28 pieces of chicken maryland.

Me: (wondering how big those chicken pieces hidden inside the box) Mmm.. I need someone to help me carry this box to the car

Butcher: Okay.. no worries

Me: Hang on a second, I need to buy extra lemon grass

(Butcher kept going and went out of the store without me while I was paying the shopkeeper. Me following behind him and running)

(Me Arrived at the back of the car panicking and worrying that all those salmonella leaking and dripping from the wet box would contaminate my beloved car. I quickly placed lots of plastic bags on the car so the butcher could place that salmonella box on top.)

I think the box weighs almost 20 kg and don’t ask me how I get them all up to my apartment. A very hard work indeed. I had a very busy day and night after the chicken arrived on my kitchen station.Lots of chopping on the extra chicken fat. Lots of pinching the extra feather left on the huge chicken pieces. I wonder how big the chickens were when they were alive. I had to finish at 1.30 AM in the morning since my brain wasn’t really synchronized with my doing anymore.

All I can say about Saturday was busy hectic and kind of panicky, not so much for the cooking but for my two nagging boys. We started the delivery at 12.30 PM and arrived back home at 7.30 PM at night. What a journey, starting from inner west, eastern, northern, west, and city. Well thank God both of my boys was behaving nicely, especially the little one who slept all the way through and only woke up once for a fed.

This is one of the packet we delivered to relatives and close friends. I made 25 packets of them, each consists of Nasi Kuning (Festive Yellow Rice), Ayam Panggang Kremes (Grilled Chicken), Telur Merah (Red Boiled Egg), Kue Ku (Glutinous Rice Cake filled with Mung Bean Paste).

I tried making Hainanese Chicken Rice so many times. They always turned out like bloody in the center, despite the fact that I always boiled them longer than the recommended time. I steamed them like an hour and they were still blood in between the flesh and bone. So we ended up having Fried Hainanese Chicken Rice instead. I almost give up making this dish, which is supposed to be a simple dish.

This is my latest attempt on making Hainanese Chicken Rice. They turned out OK, not as great as I expected them to be. I still could found some blood in the middle, but after steaming, they were fine. Now, I wonder whether the main factor of failing is the kind of chicken used. I used free range chicken for this recipe, last time I used ordinary chicken. If you would like the recipe, click here.

Culinary tradition: Chinese, Singaporean

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I believe that some of you might think that this particular fried rice is too much hassle, because the fish need to be washed, patted dry, and then fried. Not only that, if you live in a small apartment, the fried smell will last for at least two days. Ehmm what was I thinking posted this recipe? Encouraging people not to cook this particular fried rice. To be honest, I actually got the fried teri from my friend, because we got a lot of left over from our charity market. I felt sorry to the fish and then decided to turn them into fried rice dishes. However, I still need to do the frying all over again because they weren’t cooked and crunchy enough.

My tips before you start:

• It is best to have an overnight rice for fried rice (mine wasn’t).
• Always use a generous amount of oil to stir fry the rice so that your rice stays dry and the grain doesn’t stick to each other.
• Although the fish has been washed before they are deep fried, they are still salty. Be careful on the amount of salt used. The taste of the rice should be mild in terms of saltiness, so that when they are combined with the fish, they are kind of balancing each other.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of uncooked rice, cooked (for a better result, store it overnight in the fridge)
• 1 cups fried small fish (you could find a dry small fish pack in Asian groceries store) *see note
• 1 large carrots, slice thinly or cubes
• 250 gr of fish cakes or balls, dice thinly
• 3 eggs
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cloves of shallots, sliced thinly
• 1 or 2 small chillies, sliced
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce (I used Cap Dua Angsa Brand)
• salt and white pepper to taste
• generous amount of oil for stir frying
• spring onions to serve
• slices of cucumber to serve

Anyway, why did I make this this? Simple. A different menu variety for my toddler and family. Because I never make them before, I started to surf the web finding out how others make them. It turned out that people making them in few different ways. Some actually did as mine, however they didn’t steam them again before serving. Some put the sweet soy chicken in a bowl together with an uncooked rice and chicken stock, then steam them. I found the second way quite tricky, because there are lots of rice variety so that you can’t really follow others recipe in terms of chicken stock amount to cook the rice. So, I just did them my way and wouldn’t be bothered as long as it looks like how it is supposed to be and tastes great or at least eatable.

Before you start, here are few tips that might help:

• The longer you simmer the soup, the nicer and deeper the soup taste. So I suggest that you to prepare them ahead of time.
• When you wash the rice, drain them thoroughly so that when you sauteed them with garlic and ginger, they really could absorb the fragrant of the spices.
• Do not peek while the rice is cooking, at least not before 15 minutes, so that the rice could cook evenly.
• Taste the rice after cook, they should have rich taste and slight saltiness on them. Not salty but you could taste the salt, if you understand what I mean. If you find that you can not taste the saltiness, add some fish sauce to the rice and stir until well combined.
• Press the rice into the bowl, so that after steaming you could have the nice bowl shape rice like mine.
• Sometimes it is hard to take the rice out of the bowl after steaming. Just place them up side down on the plate and let the bowl cool off slightly. Or you could try pushing the rice on one side using the back of the spoon, and gently squeeze them out.

Ingredients for the soup

• chicken bone from a whole chicken
• 2.5 liter of water
• 2 medium carrots
• 3 cloves of garlic, smashed
• half onion
• 2 stalk of spring onions, cut about 1 cm in length
• salt, sugar and white pepper to taste

Ingredients for the rice

• 700 gr of rice (not steam rice but uncooked rice), washed and drained
• 800 ml of chicken stock that you got from making the soup
• 1 tbsp of pureed garlic
• 2 1/2 tbsp of pureed ginger
• 2 tbsp of light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp of fish sauce
• 3 tbsp oil for stir frying

Ingredients for the sweet soy chicken

• 600 gr chicken fillets, preferably chicken thigh fillets, cut into cubes
• 8 dried shitake mushrooms, soak in warm water until soften, cut off the middle hard bit, and minced
• half onion
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves of shallot, sliced
• 2 tbsp of pureed ginger
• about 2 tbsp of mushroom soy sauce, or normal soy sauce
• 1/3 cups sweet soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 tsp of white pepper
• salt and sugar to taste
• oil for stir frying

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Indonesian, Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I found that this chicken dish is pretty convenient to make because I could store them in the fridge for few days in an airtight container after being cooked. Then, I just grilled or deep fry them every time I have no time to prepare dinner. It is easy peasy and quick meal to serve and my whole family loves it.

My tip before you start cooking this is that do not try to stir or move the chicken while being cooked, because the chicken could become very soft and fragile and it will lose its shape. Just let it simmer for at least one hour and turn your heat off afterward, and it is ready to be stored, grilled or deep fried.

Ingredients

• 1 whole chicken, cut into 4 pieces
• 2 tsp of salt
• 1 tbsp of pureed garlic
• 1/2 tsp of pureed ginger
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 tsp of ground turmeric
• 1 small lemon grass, knocked at the end until smashed and bruised
• 1 tbsp of bumbu daging (optional)
• 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce
• 1 tsp margarine (I used Blue Band brand)
• vegetable for Lalapan (beans, cabbage, cucumber, and tomato)
• sambal cobek

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Indonesian, Chinese

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

I remember when I was little I used to watch those sad Chinese films where the family is really poor and don’t have food enough to feed the whole family, so the mother cook congee instead of rice so that the whole family could have dinner. Anyway, I cook congee not because I don’t have enough rice to cook for dinner, but because my husband loves eating salmon congee accompanied with original crinkles cut chips, and it has been a long time since he had his last one.

Ingredients

• 200 gr salmon fillet, cut into cubes
• 1 cup of rice, washed and drained
• 3 tbsp of ginger, thinly julienne cut
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 cloves shallot, sliced
• water according to your preferences (the more water added, the thinner porridge consistence achieved)
• salt to taste
• oil for stir frying
• diced spring onions to serve
• chopped baby celery to serve
• pepper to serve
• sesame oil to serve
• poached egg to serve

Preparation time (duration): 15

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

The most important ingredients of Lemper are garlic puree and kencur. Fresh kencur is impossible to find in Sydney market. Thank God for a commercial bottle Kencur sold in Indonesia groceries store. However, fresh baby celery is not less important than Kencur. How lucky I am to find fresh baby celery in Thai grocery store just when I thought of making Lemper. That was the first time ever I saw those baby celery in Sydney. This baby celery is different from the usual celery. They look more like coriander but the smell is not as strong and smelly (no offense to Coriander lover.. but I couldn’t stand the smell).

This is the second time I made Lemper Ayam and the taste and appearance is much better than the first. Gosh I still remember how I screwed the large order of 250 pcs Lemper Ayam together with 1000 pcs of Klepon. The Klepon was excellence as I am used to making so many of them, however the Lemper was a disaster. I hadn’t had a chance to experiment with it and the Lemper order was the last minute thing, and how silly I was to accept the request. My grandmother was supporting me on the phone (while she was in Indonesia) and told me that they are easy-peasy. I am not saying that I shouldn’t listen to her but she was so used to accept a very large order (a very large order that I mean is like 10,000 pcs). I was so inexperienced with the cooking glutinous rice that they were all unevenly cooked and still raw. Since that moment, I was so traumatised  with cooking glutinous rice and never want to even try cooking them again, and that was 6 years ago. Last August I succeed cooking Nasi Kuning (Yellow Rice) for my toddler’s second birthday that I regain my confidence and want to have another go.

I was never taught how to cook Lemper step by step, so I just rely on my grandma’s saying and my memory of how it tastes like. As my grandma never measure all the ingredient that she uses in cooking, so she pretty much describes the taste over the phone. I wish I would pay much attention while she was doing the cooking back then, and now I will make myself taking notes while she is cooking when I go back to Indonesia

This is how the Lempers look like after being wrap in banana leaves. They are ready to be packed in a container so I could store them in the fridge.

I was running out of banana leaves so what I did was laying a layer of sticky rice in a rectangular glassware (about 1 cm in thickness), then spreading the filling on half top of sticky rice, so that I could fold them like making a sandwich. Then I cut and wrapped them using plastic wrap, so the surface wouldn’t harden as they are exposed to the air.

Ingredients for the Glutinuous Rice

• 1 kg glutinous rice, wash and drained
• 1 pandan leave, torn and knotted
• 500 ml coconut cream
• 425 ml coconut milk
• 2 tbsp pureed garlic
• 4 tbsp sugar
• 1 1/2tbsp salt

Ingredients for the Chicken Filling

• a pair of chicken breast
• 1 tbsp pureed garlic
• 425 ml coconut milk
• 1 tbsp Kencur
• about 20 pcs lime leaves, chopped finely
• fresh baby celery, chopped finely
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tbsp salt
• oil for stir frying

Ingredients for wrapping

• extra pandan leaves to wrap, wash and pat dry
• banana leaves to wrap
• toothpicks to secure

Preparation time (duration): 90

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!

After cooked, Nasi Uduk is traditionally wrapped in banana leaves per portion. Banana leave really helps in enhancing the flavor and aroma of the rice. When I came back to Indonesia last year, Nasi Uduk has been upgraded in terms of serving and increasing its flavour and aroma. They were wrapped in banana leaves and just before serving they were roasted on top of charcoal. It really enhances the fragrance of banana leaves into the Nasi Uduk. I heard also from my cousin that in her hometown, Nasi Uduk was putted inside the coconut and roasted on top of charcoal. It is resulted in the creamier rice.

Nasi Uduk is usually served with fried shallot on top of the rice with fried aromatic turmeric chicken, shredded egg omelette, lalapan (vegetables such as cucumber, cabbage, snake beans, lettuce, tomato), and sambal oelek terasi (chili paste made from chili and shrimp paste).

Cooking time (duration): 20

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

Please leave your comment/suggestion if you find this recipe useful. Can’t wait to hear from you and Thank You!!!