Yellow Spiced Fried Chicken

As promised in the previous post, here is the recipe for the yellow spiced fried chicken. As far as I know, my grandma cooked this before I was born. I didn’t get the recipe from her because she never really told me how until the day she passed away. So I will decide that it is a Javanese meal, the island with the most population in Indonesia.

Some of the ingredients probably is not easy to be found. However, I will try my best to give you the alternative.

One of the sexy ingredient is Turmeric. This is the hero of this dish because this one makes the chicken yellow.

What I love about cooking this, I can just keep it in the fridge and only fry it when I want to eat. Pretty practical for modern life without having to freeze it, thaw it, etc etc…

Okay let’s start.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 Kg of chicken (you can also add liver, gizzard whatever, as long as the total weight is 1 Kg)
• 2 bay leaves
• Enough water to cover the whole chicken

Crushed Seasonings:

• Salt
• White ground pepper
• 6 pcs candle nuts
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1 tsp coriander seeds (optional, but it’ll taste better. You can replace it with ground coriander)
• 2 cm turmeric (or maybe…1 tbsp ground turmeric. Add bit by bit from 1/2 tbsp)

Instructions:

1. After you’re done crushing the seasonings, heat up the pan, put enough frying oil, and saute the crushed seasonings and bay-leaf until you smell the aroma.
2. Then, add in the chicken, and pour the water until covering the chicken. Then, shimmer it with the small flame until the water’s gone and what’s left is just the goodness. The chicken, and the chicken fat. Until here. you’re basically done. You can leave it until it’s cooling down and store it in fridge, or just fry it.

Yeap it’s easy. That’s why it’s always been my favorite. I got 2 products. The chicken, and the spiced chicken fat (this one can be used for fried rice, veggy stir-fry etc!

Have fun!

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!