Home, Food, Family

Do you remember Anastasia movie from Disney about a girl from Russia Royal Family who seperated from her family when there's a tragedy caused by Rasputin the wicked witch? I do really love this movie that i couldn't stop watch it when i was 7 years old. Anastasia dying to death to find her home, love, and family so does my story. This is the Part II of my previous post (Journey to the center of Java). 

As I written before, we went back to my dad's hometown to celebrated the Eid Mubaraq last two weeks. It was a long long journey coz of the traffic jam AND this is the first since 18 years ago my dad visited his hometown (becoz of the he's bussy of work or something). We arrived in Madiun East Java after 22 hours a long and tired trip. But its all payed with their hospitality. 

Probably because of the Long-time-no-see effect, everybody looked so happy to see us. They also picked up us from the hotel and made a lil welcoming party if i might said. Just like Anastasia who finally found her family who lost, they served us like a royal family by served us some beverages, cooked us our favorite foods, gave us souvenirs and homemade cookies and lots more. Completely made me so happy!

(Kue Putu Jumbo)

I ate Pecel Madiun and Rawon made by my family. These are the best. Pecel is some boiled vegetables ( like bean sprout, spinach, cabagge, green mustard and other things) with a sauce made by peanut, shrimp paste, chillies and others (i will give the recipe later). Rawon is a black beef soup and the black soup comes from a black nut or kluwak in bahasa Indonesia or Pangeum Edule. There are alots of blogs who post the recipe but i can also give it to you (later~).

(Rawon and Pecel Madiun with prawn cracker in one plate)

(A box of Apple Juice from them)

A very nice journey and foods and hospitality. I love it so much. Maybe you should visit your family, friends, or relatives who rarely meet you. You will feel like the luckiest person in the world when they love you like there's no tomorrow. My journey hasn't finished yet. Because we continued the trip to another side of East Java. Looked for some favorite foods and some of from my dad's childhood. TO BE CONTINUE....

Journey to the center of Java

No.. No, i won't talk about another sequel of this movie or something, but this is my story about my journey to my hometown. Well, central Java is not my hometown either but this is the route that we passed to East Java. Before i continue, let me say happy Eid 1433 H for all Muslim in the world. A bit late (Yeah i always late :P ) .. How was your eid? I bet you all enjoy the holly day.

Well, back to our own hometown @ Eid Mubaraq is the part of its celebration, People who migrate to the city, back to the hometown to celebrate eid with family. So did i.. I was born in capital city actually, but my dad comes from the place called Madiun in East Java. 

The trip to my dad's hometown was realy long and bored. We got a very bad traffic jam. We were really tired until we arrived in Semarang in Central Java. We planned to visit and buy our favorite food called Lunpia Semarang but my mom seems extremely tired and suddenly didn't want to visit anykind of place in Semarang. I was a half mad and a bit stubborn to forced the entire family to stop by in the lunpia shop (even my driver kinda mad at me for this stubborn decision) BUT I DID IT. We stopped and jump into this place!

(The Lunpia Shop)

                                                           

Lunpia is the spring roll that contained with chicken, shrimp, bamboo sprout and others ingredients. It is serve with a special sauce and spring onion and pickled. I love the smell, the taste and i it devide into 2 types: the friend and non-fried. I love the non-fried one :) The Sell it 10 pieces/box @ Rp 10.000/piece or $1. A cheap price for a piece of happiness..

( The Process)

( Non-Fried Lunpia Semarang and Spring Onion)

HAPPY?? Yes I was so happy for this Lunpia. But just an hour after the happiness, we got another bad traffic jam. So i grabbed my second Lunpia and the journey will be continue~

Ramadhan Mubarak

Happy Ramadhan for every Moeslem in this universe! May God always showering us with blesses and fortunes in this special month. Amen!

Well talking about Ramadhan, I am sure its identical with fasting. Fasting identical with Iftar and Iftar it self identical with the food. In my country Indonesia, as the biggest moeslem population in the world, its realy easy to find some dishes to break the fasting (or Iftar). There are a bunch of food sellers on the street and you may not believe it, they are sell a lot of things and it will make you totally confused to choose. But after all its fun though. By the way, what is your favorite dish in Ramadhan? I bet the answer is kolak. For you who lives outside of my country or Asia, Kolak is a dessert contain with bananas or sweet potatoes (or any other tuber crops) and palm sugar, coconut milk and pandan leaves. It is good to serve hot or cold. Yoom~ 

Well, beside the dessert, people here loves to eat some gorengan too for iftar. Gorengan meaning Fried foods. Such as bakwan, fried banana, or lumpia (Spring rolls). I captured a pic of it in the first week of Ramadhan and now is about the 3rd weeks of Ramadhan. My mom prohibit me to consume some fried things so i don't buy any kind of gorengan anymore. Its not too good for health too. So don't over consume it.

Maybe its kinda late to post some Menu for iftar because Ramadhan is almost over. Soon but i still have sometimes to share some menu that i cooked during ramadhan. Some of them are just a simple one and easy to make. Like today, i really have no idea what to cook, so i just randomly grabbed the potatoes, and cooked it into potato carbonara. Maybe you guys already know how to cook it. or i can share my carbonara version later. Well, happy ramadhan once again!

Smokers, Digestives Problems and Eggs

(Sunny Side Up & Tomatoes)

Happy Saturday everyone! It's June already!

Well today i wanna share something. Not food recipe or other food experiments but some suggestions for you who has digestive problems or smoker who cannot live without polluting the earth hehe..

Last Thursday, i came to my dad's theraphist (he got stroke last March) and there are other patient there, and he is a hard smoker. He cant live without ciggarete even his mom's said all he wants to do after wake up is smoke. Well thats kinda bad.. I ever tried to smoke twice but its always end up with bad sore throat so i dont like to smoke. Continue.. The guy has problem that every morning he always got a sore throat, sore stomach and so on.. Well i will just blame the ciggaretes for that but the therapist suggested him to always have breakfast before smoke. (Maybe this nice theraphist loves to smoke too) He also said that have soft bioled egg (specially the yolk) in the morning is good because it's a bit long to digest so you won't feel hungry quickly. I also read some articles about eggs in the livestrong.com , and you can see it to there for more fact about eggs. http://www.livestrong.com/blog/can-eggs-make-you-stronger/

This morning i tried to have breakfast with soft-bioled egg with paper and salt and yea i feel good.. So its true that egg is good :) Beside eggs, the theraphist also said that dont eat any kind of sweets such as candies, chocolate, or smoke before u have your breakfast.Because the taste from the sweets stimulate the stomach to work. The stomach will work hard but there is nothing to digest so it will make you feel bad because it will increase the gastric acid production. So please, always have your breakfast everyday.. :)

To sum up.. I will conclude that its good for smoker or anyone who has digest problem to ALWAYS HAVE YOUR BREAKFAST EVERYDAY. DON'T SKIP BREAKFAST (but i did it sometimes) hehe.. Well it doesnt mean that i am OK with the smokers but i just wanna help a bit. I will strongly not recommend everyone to smoke but i know i cant stop the smoker to stop smoking unless they have an intention to stop. Also CONSUME SOME EGGS for your digestive problems because it good for you.. \

Well stay health and happy :) 

If you are a piece of Oreo, I wanna be your glass of Milk

Hello April! Today is our first public holiday on April and I wanna say Happy Easter for the people who celebrate it! I remembered when I was a kid, I went to my Aunty's house (she celebrates Easter) and she served lotsa chocolates, candies, and whatsoever. She gave all the kids a fancy paper bag and let the kid grabbed the chocolates as much as they wanted. I was not as fast as other kids, so i didn't get much chocolates but its enough for 3days! Yeay!! That was fun! I wish i could do this game again but i am just too old to snatching the chocolates with the kids. Hehehe...

By the way, talking about chocolate, there's one chocolate cookies that i realy love. Its OREO. haha.. Well, i love anykind of chocolates cookies but for me Oreo is the best ever! Honestly i don't realy like to drink milk (because of it, my height growth was not good), but i always enjoy my milk when i eat Oreo. Milk and Oreo realy perfect for each other. I REALY LOVE IT! Probably, oreo can be the solution for everyone who doesn't like to drink milk.  Well that just my opinion haha :P  Anyway, enjoy your Oreo and Milk! 

Valentine's Day? No man! Its My Cookies Day!

February is the special month for those lovers because there's a valentines day on this month. Well, honestly i never celebrate this kind of event particularly. Me and my besties claimed that February 14th is the chocolate day not the 'valentines day' because we can easily find chocolate everywhere every February. 

Talking about chocolate, it always become the standart present to express someone's feeling. But actualy there are a bunch of things that can represent it beside chocolate. I read on the valentines cook book that cupcakes and petit four are the good ideas. But, have you ever watched Japanese of Korean drama? Well based on the serial dramas that i ever watched, the girl made a sweet cookies for someone they love just like in 'Hana Yori Dango' (Japanese version) or 'Boys Before Flowers' (Korean version). The girl shaped the cookies like her love's face. Or even just a good shaped cookies. I ever tried to make a face-shaped cookies like in drama. Not that good but at least i made it with all my heart :P Look out below! Those are the first face-shaped cookies that i made 2 years ago! 

Since i did not celebrate the V day, i rarely make cookies on February, but i make it every Eid Mubaraq. There's a tradition to give the cookies for all the people who visit our house or just as a present for someone we love. I sometimes make the cookies as the present for my little cozins and grandma :D They said they loved the shape :D haha..

Here my simple recipe for the cute cookies!

WHAT YOU NEEDS?

- 175gr margarine (butter is better)
- 100gr caster sugar
- 250gr flour
- 100gr cornstarch
- half tea spoon of vanilla
- 1 egg

Sugar Icing:

- 250gr caster sugar
- 1 egg (we use only the white)
- lil bit of lemon juice
- food coloring

mix evenly sugar, white egg, and lemon juice. then add the food colors. Mix well and put it on the plastick pipe.

HOW TO MAKE?

- beat well the butter and caster sugar.
- add the egg and vanila. Mix well.
- add the flour and cornstarch. Stir evenly with the wooden spoon.
- roll the dough (the thickness is approximately half centimeter)
- shape the dough with many kind of cookies molds then put it in the baking pan that has been coated with margarine.
- bake in the oven for 8-12 minutes in the 200 degrees heat. (or until it well bake! please check your cookies  in the oven carefully)
- after it well cook, its time for decorate your cookies with icing sugar :D
- DONE!!

Aha~ look what i just created! I am not a good decorator so it look like a kid huh? haha but thats okay, as i told u, my lil cozins love to eat it :D You should make a better one if you willing to give your cute cookies to your darling :D hehey~ Dont forget to wrap it with a cute wrapping paper and slip a lovely V day card! (or just like what i did with my besties, change the v day with chocolate day or cookies day) ahahha~ Well if u have any question or if my recipe is not realy clear please dont hesitate to give comments or email me at norulescooking@gmail.com. I will answer it soon :D thankies a bunch for reading!
HAPPY COOKIES DAY!

Pound Cake for Afternoon Tea

Yeah, another Saturday and i feel so tired this week because of my internship period on Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Got a lots of jobs and traffic jam made me absolutely need to pamper my self with a delicious cake :D haha.. Well actually i can find lotsa bakery shop near my office but there's a differences when i make a cake by my self, its like a pleasure :D So, i grabbed the cakes cook book and find a good and simple recipe. Here my choice goes to Pound cake. Its easy and delicious because it only need butter and egg and the comparison of the ingredients is 1:1 so its easy for me to remember :D It also made without baking powder, let the egg white do it for this cake.. yea~ 

WHAT YOU NEEDS ARE:

- 125gr butter

- 125gr sugar

- 125gr flour (don't forget to sifted it, because i forgot :P haha)

- 2 eggs (separate the yolks from the whites, and whites stiffly beaten) 

HOW TO MAKE?

- Cream the butter, add the sugar and cream well together.
- Add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the flour. Fold in the beaten egg whites.
- Pour the mixture into a prepared loaf tin.
- Bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celcius for about 45 minutes (or until the cake shrinks slightly from the side of the pan.
- The top of the cake will crack due to internal steam pressure. Based from the book you have to allow the cake to cool completely in the tin and keep it for 24 hours before slicing it. But, i didn't. 24 hours is just too long for me, i couldn't wait to eat it haha, so i just ate it when its ready :D yoom meeh!

I served it with twinings traditional afternoon tea. Its taste so creamy and its perfect to serve in the afternoon while u waiting the sunset haha :P Well, a good one to be try! simple and yoom meeh :D keep on cooking! Happy weekend! 

I love chocolate, I love Molten Choco Cake!

Chocolate! I bet you guys especially girls love to eat it! Yea this kind of sweet is a very good one to heal the bad mood, even to relieve the stress. I remembered when my teacher asked me to brought a lots of chocolate bars on the high school trip (Jakarta-Yogjakarta) to kept me feel happy. I am an easily-get-bored type one, so for me chocolate can heal me. Not for 100% but maybe 25-40% (abstract percentages LOL).

Well, I love the variety of cakes and other snacks made out of chocolates like brownies, cupcakes, chocochips cookies (i love betty crocker one :P), Sacher Torte (my mom's made is yoom, maybe i will put the recipe later) and so on. I also love to make praline-wannabe ( aha actually i just melt the cooking chocolate blocks and mold it in lots of shapes). LOL!

So, Right now i wanna share the experienced of amateur chefs. Me and my cousin tried to make a good sweet snacks from chocolate and our choice when to Molten choco cake. I actually very often saw the junior masterchef Aussie kids made this kind of dessert. So we want to tried it (but i am sure those kids are better than me haha)

We asked google for the recipe (coz we are a bit lazy to find the recipes from the cookbooks) and we found lotsa recipes! Different recipes has a different technique. Thanks God there's someone who have a good and simple one! We doubled the recipes coz we need lotsa cakes to eat haha!

YOU MUST PREPARE:

- 150gr butter (we used Elle&Vire unsalted butter)
- 130gr dark chocolate
- 4 eggs
- 80gr sugar
- 160cc milk
- 40gr chocolate powder
- Vanila ice cream
- fresh cherries

HOW TO MAKE?

- melt the dark chocolate and butter.
- mix sugar and eggs, beat with a whisker. Slowly add the milk then put the melted choco and butter.
- add the kokoa powder, stir well.
-  pour batter into a small round mold (or cupcakes mold) that has been spread with the butter.
- bake for 11 minutes in 200 degrees celcius. (please carefully set the time, it should be 11 minutes, coz i added another 5 minutes and the cake look overcook :P haha)

How does it looks? Yoom meeh? Yes! I agree its yoom meeh :D haha even though the 'look' is not realy good, coz we oven it too long haha :P but still its good. Perfect stuff for a cool afternoon :D or when you are in you bad mood :) Well thats all i wanna share to you guys! Happy cooking :D

My first Ratatouille

Hello~ I am back :D Too much stuffs to do so i don't have any time to write in here. Well I actually got a lots of stories to share but lemme share you the newest one!

Last week I went to @America in Pacific Place, Jakarta to celebrated its first anniversary. I got an invitation that Chef Tatang would share some of his American Recipes so me and Amanda (my 'masterchef' parner in crime) went there together :D 

The menu of the day was Ratatouille (its remind me about Ratatouille movie from Disney, i bet you guys do the same :P) . I read on wikipedia, ratatouille mean toss food. Well i never eat it and make it before, so I felt so exited! But I was a bit confused because all i knew, this food is come from France not America. But thats okay, there's no wrong to learn about a new thing right? 

Chef Tatang is a celebrity chef that popular in some of culinary shows on television and it was a great chance to met him personally. His body is so big and tall so that i couldn't balance my body height with his kitchen table (I did join to the stage to helped him to chopped some stuffs). I found my pics from @america Flickr and Video also. Please kindly watch it when u have the time :P hehe.

Video Link: American Cooking with Chef Tatang

He started the first recipe called "U.S Lattice Cuts with Red Tuna and Micro Ratatouille" (as i mentioned above). Here i gave you the recipe!

Ingredients:

- 12 pieces of lattice cuts potatoes (or just a flat potato is fine i guess)

- 6 Tuna fillets

- 1 red beet root

- 50 ml red wine vinegar

- 100gr zucchini, dice in small pieces (brunoise)

- 100gr onion, brunoise

- 100gr eggplant, brunoise

- 100gr olives, brunoise

- 100gr tomatoes, deseeded, brunoise

- 1 avocado

- 1 lemon for lemon juice

- 1 teaspoon of wasabi (i asked to changed wasabi with chilli powder, and he said its fine, but wasabi is good to strengthen the color and make it look better)

- 1 teaspoon of tabasco

- 200ml olive oil

HOW TO MAKE IT?

- slice each tuna into 6 pieces (so it will be 36 pieces).

- mixed the red beet juice with red wine vinegar, marinate the tuna for 40 minutes.

- heat the pan and add 50ml olive oil. Quickly saute the zucchini. (do the same for onion, eggplant, and tomatoes)

- mixed all the sauted veggies (zucchini, onion, eggplant, and tomatoes) with the pieces of black olives, set aside.

- grill the lattice cuts potatoes for 10 minutes in 225 degrees celcius.

- blend the avocado, lemon juice, tabasco, and wasabi till become the puree.

- lift the tuna from the marinated juice, drain it.

- to serve it: stack two teaspoon of avocado puree on the grilled potato, then put 2 pieces of tuna and the vegies (ratatouille)

Yoom meeh? Yeah it look soo yoo meeh right? But honestly, i didn't realy like this food, maybe because its a new one for me, and maybe the second trial will make my tongue familiar with this kind of taste :D

Right? But its a good food though, veggies, tuna, puree are a good stuffs. Actually there is another recipe from Chef Tatang, but maybe later i will post it in here :D Keep on cooking :D chops chops :D