Nathan had 3 birthday celebration and it was just because we couldn’t book the function place soon enough. He had his first birthday on the 29th of August (his actual birthday) with me, his dad and little brother. His second birthday was on 31st of August at his kindergarten. It was only singing, blowing candles and eating cakes with his friends and teachers. Now the third celebration on the 18th of September was a big one.

Party Guest: 30 – 35 people

Party Menu:

• Nasi Tumpeng (Yellow Rice), 4 kg of rice
• Ayam Bakar Bumbu Rujak (Grilled Chicken), 5 whole chickens
• Sambal Terasi (Sambal with Shrimp Paste), 500 gr chilies
• Rendang (Beef Rendang), 5.5 kg beef
• Sambal Goreng Hati (Chicken Liver Sambal), 2 kg potatoes, 2.5 kg liver
• Tahu Tempeh Bacem (Fried Tofu and Tempeh marinated in palm sugar and herbs), 2 boxes of tofu, 2 packs of tempeh
• Perkedel (Fried Mashed Potatoes), 4 kg potatoes
• Mie Goreng Ulang Tahun (Fried Egg Noodles), 700 gr egg noodles
• Gado-gado, 1 lettuce, 1/2kg potatoes,1 box tofu, 1 cabbage, 4 cucumbers, 1 dozen eggs
• Peanut Sauce for Gado-gado, 1 kg peanut
• Strawberried Treasure Cupcake with Cream Cheese Frosting

The cooking plan was thought through weeks ahead. Monday and Tuesday were for herbs and nuts pureeing and sambal terasi. Wednesday and Thursday were for cooking chicken, beef rendang, tahu tempeh bacem, and perkedel. They were all packed in an airtight container inside the fridge. I should actually took a picture of how my fridge look like. I didn’t have the time to take a photograph. My head and hands had been pre-occupied almost all the time. Friday was dedicated for the cake. The decorating part had to be done after the birthday boy fell asleep. Friday afternoon was for cooking sambal goreng hati.

Everything was as I planned and imagined by Friday afternoon. When my husband went home from work, I asked him to drive me to the groceries store. I wanted some chocolate coins to decorate the Pirate Ship birthday cake. I also had to buy some chillies for the peanut sauce. This chili thing for the peanut was something that I didn’t expect to happen, but I believed that it wouldn’t cost me my time. Well, my husband had another plan. He was hoping to get a parking on Friday night in the city so he could stop by the Apple store to get an Ipad. What a timing huh. We circled the city for few minutes. It felt like hours to me. Time was ringing TICK TOCK!!!  TICK TOCK!!!  inside my head. Well long story short, we couldn’t get the chocolate coins and by the time he got the parking, the Apple Store closed (LOL).

The birthday boy was asleep by 9 o’clock, but the baby kept waking up and asked for frequent breast feed. Well I think it was around 1.30 AM I was done with the cake decorating. A little story behind the cake. I was planning on making the Dinosaurs cake for a long time, but I couldn’t seen to get matching merchandise like goody bags, plates, toys and decorations. When I was hunting for them, I found lots of Pirate things instead, so we decided the theme is ” Ahoy there… YARGGGG Pirate”. Look at these goodies bags, aren’t they cute?

I searched through probably about hundred of pirate cakes on the internet to brainstorm my idea. They are almost have the same shape and I was kinda combining lots of different ideas that suits me and the decorations available. I designed (well it wasn’t really designing, but arranging stripes of red and white at Photoshop) flags and printed them few days before so that I wouldn’t rush at the last minute. The recipe used was Rich Chocolate Cake , because I think it was the easiest, simple and tasty cake. I made 5 layers of 30 by 30 cm. Having all the plan on how big the ship was going to be and drawn the template on the paper made the shaping of the cake so much faster. And Taaaa Daaaa….. here comes the cake.

If I could do something different, I would:

• Make 3 batches of Swiss Meringue Buttercream instead of 2. As seen on the picture, the cake was lacking on the water and wave.
• Not using the Astor (roll chocolate wafers), as the were too big and look a bit dodgy. I would chose something slimmer like chocolate wafer sticks.
• The chocolate wafers were started to brake because I stand them vertically. I should stack them up instead.

This was another Tumpeng platter I created (I am now starting to take orders, you could see the details on the “I SELL” page). I tried to improve my carving skills every time I had a chance to make one of these. The new addition of my creation is the cucumber, look at how the spread open. I am so pleased

These cupcakes were chocolate cupcakes with strawberry buried inside them, topped with cream cheese frosting, sprinkled with some brown sugar and had a cool pirate flag on each. I didn’t have a chance to take the picture of the inside, because they were all gone very quickly. I tasted one though, and they are so good with a very fresh taste from the strawberry and creamy taste from the cream cheese. Super duper yummy !!!

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

Well, back to the topic Kwetiau Siram. Kwetiau means rice noodles and Siram means pour, because the sauce is poured on top of the fried noodles just before serving. Because I never cooked the sauce before, I surfed the web to look for some clues. To my surprised, all the things I could found was that the rice noodle is boiled not stir fried. Hmm funny, I never seen the boiled style before in Indonesia and yet all the recipes pointing to that. I asked the Kwetiau Siram admirer (a.k.a hubby), and he said to stick with the stir fried style.

I posted the Kwetiau Goreng recipe before, so in this post I only post the sauce recipe.

Ingredients

• 500 ml chicken stock
• 500 ml water
• 1 egg
• salt to taste
• 4 cloves garlic, mince
• diluted tapioca flour
• oil

Instructions

1. Heat oil in the wok. Add in garlic and fry until browned. Set aside,
2. In the sauce pan, boil the chicken stock and water.
3. Add salt to taste.
4. Whisk the egg with fork slightly and pour into the saucepan. Do a quick stir.
5. Add diluted tapioca flour to the mixture to thicken the sauce. (You could add a little at the time and stop when the right consistency is achieved)
6. Pour the serve to the individual serving of Kwetiau Goreng. Topped it with fried garlic and serve immediately.

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

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

It is really hard for me to explain how to cook a very nice homely mie goreng in this blog. As long as you do your stir very quickly, then you got a nice mie goreng. I guess you have to use your senses. Good luck

Ingredients

• 300 gr egg noodles (treat according to the packet instructions)
• 100 gr chicken breast, slice thinly
• about 1 cup meatballs, slice thinly
• 1 tbsp mince garlic
• 1 medium shallot, slice
• 1 large carrots, julienne cut
• 1 small green capsicum, slice
• 1 stalk spring onion, slice
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce or just enough to achieve the light brownish colour
• 2 tsp fish sauce
• salt and white pepper, to taste
• oil for stir frying
• deep fried shallot to serve

Instructions

1. Heat oil in the wok. Add in garlic and shallot, and stir until the fragrance is out.
2. Add in chicken slices and stir until the chicken is almost cooked through.
3. Add in meatball slices and do a quick stir.
4. Make a well in the middle and break in eggs in the middle. Add in about 1 tsp salt (you could add some more later on if it is not salty enough). Do a stir  every few seconds.
5. When the egg mixture is still wet, add the carrots and stir.
6. Add the cooked egg noodles and green capsicum and stir.
7. Add in sweet soy sauce and fish sauce and stir.
8. Add white pepper and stir.
9. Now it is time to taste your noodle. Add salt accordingly.
10. Add in spring onion and switch off your stove. Stir.
11. Serve with deep fried shallot.

Culinary tradition: Chinese, Indonesian

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).

A little information about Kwetiau Goreng for those of you who have no clue about them. Kwetiau Goreng is also known as Cha Kwetiau or Fried Rice Noodles. It is a common dish in most Asian household, especially Indonesian, Malaysian and Singaporean. You definitely could find it in Asian food court and hawker stalls.

Ingredients

• 500 gr rice noodle
• 3 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves of shallot, sliced
• 3 small chillies or according to your preferences
• 1 tomato, cut into wedges
• prawns or chicken or beef or pork (I used beef balls)
• 3 eggs
• 3 tbsp of sweet soy sauce or as needed (When added to the noodles, stop when the noodle is brown enough)
• 1 tbsp of fish sauce
• salt and white pepper
• 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
• oil for stir frying
• bean sprout ans slices of spring onions to serve

Jap Chae is a translucent glass noodle made from sweet potato starch. It is stir fried with various vegetables (such as carrot, spinach, onion and mushroom) and sesame oil. It could be combined with beef or seafood, flavoured with soy sauce and sweetened with some sugar. It also could be topped with shredded egg omelet, sesame seeds and spring onions. They taste very light and healthy.

This is my second attempt on cooking Jap Chae. It is a simple dish to cook for a quick healthy meal, but I couldn’t say my first attempt on cooking this dish is a big success. I used an average quality of sesame oil, as a result I need heaps of sesame oil to get the smell of sesame. I kept adding more oil as a result it tasted very greasy. It was okay when it was hot, but at that time we were going out of town and it was autumn. I packed some of them in a lunch box. Goodness me, it was pretty disgusting as we could see the cold gelatin of oil around the noodle. We ended up having a ready pack cheap sausage rolls and hot dog.

For this second attempt, I pretty much searched the whole aisle of oil shelf to make sure I get the best quality sesame oil. To my surprise there is a black sesame oil that I never aware of. I thought they are the same just different quality. This black sesame oil has a very strong intense smell of sesame and it is just perfect for my Jap Chae.

For those you want to try cooking this dish, I suggest:

• To have a ready good quality black sesame oil ready in the pantry.
• Cut and slice all the ingredients before hand. Then boil the water for cooking the noodle.
• While you heat the wok for cooking the vegetables, the noodle has to be in the pot already. Well you have to multitask though. In 5 minutes the noodle is ready to be drained, washed in cold water to stop the cooking process and tossed with black sesame oil. By that time, all the vegetables will ready to be tossed with the noodle.

To see the recipe, click here.

Preparation time (duration): 45

Culinary tradition: Korean

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

Me: (holding a bunch of herbs) Is this Thai’s basil leaves?

Staff: No, that’s Vianemit mit. (No offense to Thai’s people.. that was what really happened)

Me: ??? What? Pardon me ???

Staff: Vietnemit mit (keep repeating the same things again and again)

Me: (then I get it) Ohhh Vietnamese mint leaves. What do you use to make Tom Yum soup? Basil leaves?

Staff: No leaves.

Me: Oh OK

Here’s how my Tom Yum soup looks like. The tom yum paste really helps to give an intense tom yum flavour, but most importantly don’t forget your chilli pure for the heat and tamarind for the sourness.

This is another alternative on how to serve Tom Yum Soup, with egg noodles and poached egg.

Ingredients

• a kg of prawns in shells
• 1 liter water
• tom yum paste to taste(they come in bottle and sachet)
• 4 pcs galangal, smashed (as big as 20 cents coin)
• 1 lemon grass, smashed (use just the white part)
• 1/2 cup of tamarind juice, or to taste
• 1 tsp of puree small red chillies, or to taste
• 6 kaffir lime leaves
• Fish sauce to taste
• fresh mushrooms or can of button mushrooms
• spring onions to serve

It was weekend and I was very excited to do my groceries shopping for this menu. Oh my…. what a bad weather that Sydney had. So we drove to the city instead of walking, as what we usually do in the weekend. As usual, there must be something that I forgot to buy, and this time it was chillies. I need these chillies to be pureed so I could make the Gila Sauce. So there you goes, my ‘imitation Bakmi Gila’ turns into ‘ordinary Bakmi Ayam’. (Next time I will post my trial recipe on my imitation Bakmi Gila and let you guys who tasted the real one and tried my recipe be the juries)

Ingredients for the soup

• chicken bone from a whole chicken
• 3 medium carrots
• 2 cloves of garlic, smashed
• 1/3 cup oriental baby celery, chopped
• about 2 to 3 liter of water
• salt and sugar to taste
• ready to use meatballs (I bought beef balls)

Ingredients for the sweet soy chicken

• 1 kg chicken fillets, preferably chicken thigh fillets, cut into cubes
• 2 cloves of garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves of shallot, sliced
• 1 tbsp of pureed ginger
• 3 small chillies, chopped (optional)
• 1/3 cups sweet soy sauce
• 1/2 cup water
• salt to taste
• 1 tsp of sesame oil
• oil for stir frying

Other Ingredients

• 6 cloves of garlic, minced
• about 1/2 cup oil
• green vegetables such as choy sum or bok choy (I have no idea what mine called, but the vegetables taste great)
• fresh egg noodles
• tomato, chopped
• chillies, chopped
• spring onions, sliced
• sweet soy sauce
• tomato sauce
• chilli sauce

Preparation time (duration): 60

Culinary tradition: Indonesian

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

I usually cook this dish on my lazy cooking day. We don’t have to spend money on dining out and takeaway. We could eat carbohydrate, vegetables, seafood, protein and spice all come in one dish. Most importantly we could eat peacefully on dining table without my two years old interference, because he absolutely loves this dish.

You can never go wrong when cooking this dish. It is never too dry or soggy. Most noodles absorb liquid and tend to turn soggy, but this Hokkien noddle is really good with absorption. The taste is much better when it is served slightly wet. You could cook the noodle with absolutely any combination of vegetables, seafood, chicken, or fish that you prefer.

Ingredients

• 500 gr of Hokkien noddles
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 2 cloves shallot, sliced
• 1 tomato, cut into wedges
• 5 small red chillies
• 5 pcs of prawns
• 3 eggs
• 200 gr of fish balls, sliced
• 1 small carrot, julienne cut
• 1 small zucchini, julienne cut
• 2 cup of choy sum
• 2 tbsp sweet soy sauce/Kecap Manis
• 1 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tsp tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup sliced spring onions
• salt and white pepper to taste
• oil

Cooking time (duration): 20

Culinary tradition: Chinese, Indonesian

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