Snack: Easy Corn Fritters

I cannot make this snack with egg since my bf is allergic to it. So I gotta think how to twist the standard recipe out there and make sure that it’ll look exactly the same.

Plus, since I love coriander, I have to find ways also to incorporate it into this recipe, so the batter taste like my tofu burger in blanket. Plus, I’m serious with the ice cold water. It makes all the different. It’s crispy outside and soft inside. Just the way I like it.

This recipe will give you 8 big fritters. You only see 6 because my bf “stole” 2 before I took the pic! ha ha ha

So here we go:

INGREDIENTS:

• 250 gr peeled sweet corn
• 2 carrots, grated
• Spring onion
• 1 stalk celery
• 1 clove garlic
• Salt
• White pepper
• 1 tsp Coriander seeds
• 1/2 cup of plain flour
• 1 tbsp rice flour
• 1 tbsp corn starch
• Ice cold water

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Mix everything, and pour water only until it’s attached to each other. Not too thick, but definitely not runny. We don’t use eggs here remember?
2. Heat up the oil, it should cover the fritter well. Then, use a laddle to scoop the batter and fry it until it’s golden brown.

That’s it. Nice and easy snack!

Easy Sugar-free Refrigerator Pickles

Since I’m not a believer of sugar replacement or any sweetener since I believe that everything processed is not good for our body, here is a twist of some Keto pickles recipes. Of course, without any sweetener or sugar.

I live in Indonesia and our pickles is actually a mix of cucumber, carrots, shallots and some, will add chilies. So you are most definitely okay to add chili in your pickles. I cannot. My bf cannot handle heat. 😜😜.

Alright, here we go. FYI, it will give you 2 x 500 gr jars of pickles. If you only wanna make 1 jar, then cut everything half.

Ingredients:

• 1 Japanese cucumber (dark green, long and taste is sweet. Yes, I’m taking it’s sweetness to replace sugar). Dice, slice do whatever you like.
• 1 big carrot. Again, cut it however you like.
• 10 medium shallots. Cut into half or quarter, depending the size
• 1 small yellow onion. Slice it thin
• 1 clove of garlic. Crushed.
• 3 tsp black peppercorn
• pinch of sea salt
• 10 tbsp white vinegar
• water

Instructions:

1. Prepare the veggies, then put them in a bowl, then mix with peppercorn and pinch of sea salt
2. Crush the garlic, and put 1/2 in each jar.
3. Add the veggies in the jars
4. Pour 5 tbsp of vinegar to each jar
5. Pour the water until covering the veggies.
6. Close the jar, mix it well, put them in the fridge for 24 hours. That’s it!

Vietnamese Spring Rolls & Nuoc Cham Sauce

NUOC CHAM sauce:

Crush together:

• 1 garlic
• 2 chilies
• 1/2 cup of fish sauce
• 4 lemon juice
• 4 limes
• 5 shallots – blend with water

Instruction: Mix everything and keep it in jar.

VIETNAMESE SPRING ROLLS

Ingredients:

• Basil
• Baked crunched peanuts
• Shredded crunchy vegetables (cabbage, white radish, carrots, etc)
• Sauteed peeled shrimps (optional. If you’re a vegan, just skip it)
• Banh Trang (rice wrapper)
• Warm water, put it in a big bowl with the same diameter with Banh Trang.
• Damp cloth

Instructions:

1. Mix everything with splash of the dipping sauce
2. Spread the damp cloth (this is where you will roll up)
3. Dip the Banh Trang to the warm water (don’t go too long. Just dip make sure it’s all covered, then pick it up and put it on the damp cloth)
4. Put the shrimp at the front, and mix veggies behind it
5. Roll it.

Best way to eat it? Dip it in the Nuoc Cham sauce. That easy? Yes. That easy.

 

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!

Easy Recipe: Roasted Green Pepper Hummus

Ingredients of Roasted Green Pepper Hummus

Today I decided to make Roasted Green Pepper Hummus. A super simple recipe from Trinity’s Kitchen, which of course, made with some twists.

The consideration this time is my bf’s dislike over garlic (so I only use 1 clove), and instead of Red Pepper, I use Green Pepper. I also substituted Tahini to 1 tsp of Sesame oil (since not even once, I know what Tahini is, and I’m so sure I can’t find it here).

Today, I also make another Salsa (the 1 jar before didn’t make up to more than 3 days for both of us), Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Simple Beef Soup. Yeah, I was busy in the kitchen and enjoyed it by singing my heart out over 80’s – 90’s rock songs. Ha ha ha.

This recipe is vegan, gluten-free, dairy free. NOT low carb tho. So watch out.

 

Here are the INGREDIENTS:

• 2 green bell peppers (feel free to replace it with the red, yellow or orange)
• 1 garlic clove
• 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 1 tinned chickpeas (265 gr drained)
• 1 lime and the zest
• 1/2 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 crushed black pepper

INSTRUCTION:

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F/ 180 C.
2. De-seed and cut the bell peppers. Then put it in the oven for around 20 minutes. In the last 10 minutes, put the garlic (with the skin) and roast them together.
3. Meanwhile, drain your chickpeas and prepare your hand-blender. You can use the regular blender but I really don’t wanna leave some of the delicacy in the blender. So I decided to use hand-blender.
4. Once the bell pepper and garlic roasted and cool down, add every ingredients in a small pot and blend them all to your desired consistency.
5. Keep it in airtight meal box and leave it in the fridge. It taste better cold!

It’s that easy and simple! NOW, you don’t need to be a chef to make your own dip!

Best Salsa Recipe, EVER!

The original recipe from Kim’s Cravings page, I believe is good already. But I had to accommodate my bf’s dislike over garlic and spicy stuff. Also, I only need to make 1 500ml jar of salsa, since we still have cashew dip in the fridge.

I substituted 4 jalapenos with 1 red chili and deseeded it, then cut down the garlic to only 1 clove. In Indonesia, this chili is called curly red chili.

 

INGREDIENTS:

• 4 medium red tomatoes
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 1 red chili (de-seed)
• 2/3 cup fresh cilantro (I love it! But please adjust to your taste!)
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 2 tbsp lemon/ lime juice and the zest
• 1 tsp of sea salt.

INSTRUCTION:

1. Throw everything in your food processor, or chop everything finely, BUT leave the cumin and sea salt out.
2. After chopped/ processed to the way you like it, then start seasoning it and adjust as you go. When you’re done, put it in the jar and leave in the fridge at least overnight. It get’s better each day in my experience.

That’s it! Try it and let me know!