Selat Solo (Javanese Beef Steak)

Ingredients:

– 1 kg tenderloin/ shank
– 20 shallots (more or less)/ 1 big green onion
– 3 garlic cloves
– 3cm ginger
– 2 ghost chillies
– salt
– pepper
– 5 tbsp tomato ketchup
– 2 big fresh tomatoes (dice it)
– 1 big fresh tomato (slice to 6)
– Sweet soy sauce (5 tbsp)
– lettuce
– 4 boiled eggs
– 4 tbsp sweet soy sauce
– a bit of freshly ground nutmeg
– 1 tbsp corn starch

Complements:
– fried potato wedges
– steam/ boiled green beans and carrots
– mayonnaise

Instructions:
1. Marinate the beef with salt and pepper for at least 3 hours
2. Blanche the potato wedges, carrots and green beans in salted water.
3. Put the beef and the veggies in the fridge
4. Grind/ blend shallots/ onion, garlic, ginger and chilies with a bit of coconut oil in the food processor
5. Dice the 2 tomatoes
6. Heat up the pressure cooker on the big flame, pour about 3 tbsp of coconut oil once you can see the smoke, brown the meat on all sides. About 1-2 minutes each side. Put them aside.
7. Start to sautee the shallots-garlic-ginger-chili mix. About 3-4 mins, on a medium flame. Then add in the diced tomatoes, until they go wilted and a bit caramelized.
8. Add salt, pepper, freshly ground nutmeg, sweet soy sauce, tomato ketchup. Stir it up, add the browned meat and boiled eggs.
9. Pour boiled water around 1-1.5 ltrs, crank up the heat and cover the pressure cooker with the lid. Turn the stove off 20 minutes after sizzling.
10. Move the meat and the egg to a big wok, and strain the broth.
11. Simmer it to the consistency that you want (I love the broth so I always leave more than enough broth, and anyway…you need the broth to be the gravy)
12. When it seems enough gravy you have in the wok, then, add the mix of 1 tbsp corn starch with a bit of cold water. This will make the broth turns to gravy consistency.
13. The rest? Just fry the potato wedges, steam/ boil the carrots and green bean. Don’t take too long for boiling them, since crunchy veggie is the key.
14. To serve it, just arrange the egg, lettuce, sliced tomatoes, fried potato wedges, the veggies on the plate and put the meat in the middle. Pour the gravy all over and put 1 tbsp mayo to complete it.

It’s easy. Just too much to do 😁

Easy Snack Recipe: Tofu Burger in A Blanket

It is one of the hundreds (if not thousands) Indonesian favorite snack. Yes, we snack every time, everywhere. With over 250 tribes from Sabang to Merauke, through more than 17,000 islands, everywhere you go, you’ll find traditional snacks and you’ll see that all of us love to nibble. During a meet up with friends, during working, on the bus, on the bus stop, on the train, on the train station, at home, EVERYWHERE!

Now, I’ll share this recipe for one specific reason. My Canadian bf LOVES this tofu burger in a blanket very much! Today is pretty much one of his last days eating meat since he’s going plant-based. So he wants meat galore! From the snacks to the main course! HA HA!

One thing about this recipe, if you prepared everything in advance, it won’t take you a long time to just fry it. But if you do all at once, it will easily take around 1,5 hours (including washing the dishes). So I will break it down to the way I usually do it.

TOFU – 8 pieces

1. Make sure you’re using the hard tofu. The size is usually 5x5x1.5 cm. In here I can find the 1 package with 4 tofu in it.
2. Then, cut diagonally, and create pocket using the knife. Don’t throw out the cut. Crumble it to be mixed with the fillings later.
3. Put all pocketed tofu in the pot and pour water just so all are submerged, add a dash of sea salt and then put on medium flame until it’s boiling. Once boiling, wait for 5 minutes before turning the stove off.
4. Put the tofu on the rack and let it cool down.

 

BEEF – 300 gr

• Don’t use minced beef. Most tender beef cuts, such as sirloin, tri-tip, ribeye, top loin (strip), tenderloin, shoulder center (Ranch Steak), shoulder top blade (Flat Iron) and shoulder petite tender, can be cut into strips for use in stir–fry recipes.
• Then slice the beef into small sizes.

 

VEGETABLES

1 onion & 6 shallots

INGREDIENTS:

• 3 medium carrots
• Half of the medium-sized cabbage
• 150 gr bean sprouts

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Wash the cabbage, and slice it thin (like if you want to make coleslaw).
2. Wash the bean sprouts
3. Peel the carrot and shred it.

 

GROUND SPICES

1 onion & 6 shallots

5 Candlenuts

Ground spices

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 large yellow onion
• 6 medium shallots
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 tsp coriander seeds (ground it using pestle and mortar – look at the image above)
• 5 candlenuts
• 2 tsp ground white pepper
• salt
• 5 tbsp coconut oil

INSTRUCTION:

Put everything in the mini chopper or blender, and ground them.

 

THE FILLING

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Heat the big pan on medium flame, and then add the ground spices. Stir-fry until you can smell the good fragrant spices.
2. Then add the meat and make sure the spices mixed well with the meat, and keep stir-fry it until the meat are all browned.
3. Once the meat browned, add the veggies and the crumbled tofu.
4. Mix everything well and cover it for 5 minutes over medium flame.
5. Open the cover, stir-fry it for another 5 minutes, and then transfer it to a big bowl and let it cool down.

 

PREPARE THE TOFU AND THE FILLING

1. Arrange the tofu, the filling and prepare one empty plate.
2. Fill up the tofu pocket with the filling.

 

THE BLANKET

INGREDIENTS:

• 1.5 cup of all-purpose flour
• 2 tbsp of rice flour
• Salt
• White pepper
• 2 tsp ground coriander seeds
• 2 spring onions, slice it small.
• 1.25 cup of ice water.

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Add all ingredients without the ice water. Stir it a bit so it mixed-up well.
2. Slowly pour the ice water up to the consistency that you want. Some people like the thick blanket, if so, reduce the ice water. But if you like it light and crunchy like I do, use 1.25 cup of ice water. The blanket would be a bit runny but not so much.
3. Then just put your blanket dough and the ready to be fried tofu with the filling near the stove.
4. Heat up your pan and fill up with coconut oil (take a wild guess that it will submerge the tofu) over medium flame. It should be hot enough so your tofu burger is not greasy. The way I test it is by using the wooden ladle. If you see bubbles like you see in the picture, then it is hot enough.

   

5. Simply cover the tofu with the filling with the blanket dough, and carefully put them in the pan. Fry 5 minutes each side.

Usually, if I make this, I will still have some leftover filling. You can just eat it as it is, or what my bf did is, treating it as veggie stir-fry and he’ll eat it with rice. It’s also good that way! So here it is, our snack and lunch!

An Easy Meat Soup Recipe!

I think I’ve told you already about my “Lazy Keto” eating style? Yeah. I happen to LOVE every fatty things this world offers. I don’t like sweet food and not really enjoy carb. In Indonesia, we normally eat white rice. But I don’t like it. I LOVE egg noodle tho. So the only challenge for me in getting into Keto style is to say goodbye to egg noodle. Pfftt…

Well anyway, my love to fat makes me cherish this soup very much. Not only it’s easy and practical, but also it’s so yummy! This time, I’m not twisting anybody’s recipe (Boooooo….!!!!!). I just love every ingredients in this recipe and I just decided to add them all. How about that? hihi…

You need pressure cooker if you want it to be fast. But if you don’t have it around, well, just add everything in the pot and shimmer it over small flame for 2 – 3 hours (until the meat is tender).

These are the only ingredients you need:

 

Exactly that!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 tbsp of coconut oil/ unsalted butter
• 1 big yellow onion
• 1 red tomato
• 4 – 5 garlic cloves
• 2 stalks of celery
• sea salt (I use 1 Tbsp)
• white pepper
• 500 gr of beef brisket (I choose the most fatty ones!)
• Boiled water (double the water over the mix of veggies and brisket. If you see in your pressure cooker the height of the mix is 5 cm, then make sure the water goes to 10 cm. Take a wild guess!)

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Heat up the coconut oil in the pressure cooker pot over medium flame
2. Add in Onion, then garlic, then tomato and then celery stalks. Fry it until you can smell a piece of heaven in your kitchen (I like to get a little char on the veggies. Somehow it creates better taste). While you’re waiting for the veggies ready, you can boil the water.
    
   

   
3. Then throw in the brisket, and sear it. Then, add the boiled water, and put on the pressure cooker lid, and crank up the high flame.
4. It’ll be done 25 minutes after the first sizzle.
5. (This one is optional) Take out all of the veggies and leave only the tender brisket and move it to a medium pot. Taste and adjust the sea salt and white pepper to your liking. Then it’s done!

This recipe makes 3 meal portions for me.

You can add in carrots, cabbage, or potatoes after this step. But I like it this way. Even tho my bf doesn’t like fatty food, he always devours the broth and happily drink it. He will take around half the broth and then add in potato, carrot, barley, glass noodle or whatever he likes. You can do that too!