Chicken & Beef Sate & Lontong with Peanut Sauce/ Bumbu Kacang

It takes me a while to post this entry, it has been many weeks since I made them. Just too long of entry/recipe, ya know? Thinking about breaking it down to 3 posts, sate, sauce and lontong/rice rolls. But if I were to do that, I'd never get around to it. The dish itself is not extremely hard, but a complete time consuming. Especially lontong. I was explaining to our friends what lontong is. They thought it was just a version of lemper (without the chicken), but it's not. It's just basically regular rice (not sticky rice), half cooked, packed into cylinder shape pouch/ package made from banana leaves (traditionally) and submerge into pot of water for 2nd stage cooking - where the rice grain expand and become compressed. However, foil and heat-proof plastic are widely used or last I heard, there is special mold made for this very purpose.

Absolutely not rocket science but it does take some practice or experience to get it right. My 'perfect' lontong has always been ones made by my grandma. My mom couldn't even quite master it yet (shhh) It has to have some bite to it without being too hard. But foremost, not gummy nor mushy soft. Ergh. And when being cut, there should be no cooked rice grain crumbling out from it. Though it easily falls into rice category, it's not quite a substitute for plain rice as daily staple. We eat/use it with sate and some other gravy/saucey items. Breakfast, lunch, dinner.

One thing I love about lontong is its character (now I make it sound as if it's a person or somethin). From street push carts or nicer dining place. Bare to the bone fixing, simple vegetable gravy poured on top of it, or as complement for sate, to fancier complete lontong dinner of lodeh, rendang, and all other fixings. 50 cents/plate or $10/plate. Either way, it is 'just' a basic delicious compressed rice dish (I would even eat it with sweet soy and crispy shallots!!). Doesn't matter how gourmet the end result of a dish, lontong is lontong, homey and nothing pretentious. It's almost impossible to believe how a simple dish like this can be so addicting!

Lontong/ Ricerolls
What:
- 2 cups rice, rinse very well
- 4 cups water
- dash of salt
- pandan leaves, make into a knot (optional)
- 5 (12x12") foil/ banana leaves (if using banana leaves, make sure to wipe leaves with damp cloth and there is no tear anywhere)

How:
- Cook rice and water in a pot. Toss in pandan leaves. Let water come to a boil.
- Turn the heat down to medium low, cover with lid and cook until water is absorbed, about 15 minutes.
- Remove pot from heat and just let stand for another 15 minutes, still covered.
- Take a piece of foil, put about 1 1/2 cup of rice onto center of foil. Roll it up tight like a cylinder. Twist both ends securely. Repeat with the rest of rice.
- Put rolled up bundles into a big pot. Fill with water. Water has to cover all rolls. Let cook in medium heat for 2 hours. Hm..yeah. Check once in a while to make sure the water level is still above rolls. Add hot water if need be.
- Test the readiness of it by poking with blunt end tools (I use the handle of wooden spoon) and it should feel solid.
- Lift with tongs, as it will be super ultra hot. Once lifted, let rolls stand upright on a big bowl/basin to drain any water that may have seep through bundles.

Traditional style of using banana leaves will leave a faint green color on the exterior of lontong and it lends a wonderful smell of banana leaves. I was torn between using it for this or for plating. Obviously, I opted it for plating!! If using banana leaves, make the mold ahead of time - by rolling it to a tube shape and secure one end with toothpick. Hence, it's ready to filled with rice and just secure the other end before putting it into pot.

Sate
What:-
- chicken (cut to 3/4 x 3/4" - I like to mix white and dark meat)
- beef (cut to 3/4 x 3/4")
grind to paste:
- 2 stalk lemongrass (white part only)
- 6 shallots
- 4 cloves of garlic
- piece of galangal
- 1 inch of ginger
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 4 tbsp coriander
- 1 tbsp cumin
- 1 tsp palm sugar
- pinch of cinammon
- salt and pepper

How:
- Fry paste in a little bit of oil for few minutes. Let cool.
- Slather paste to meat and marinate for at least 6 hours. Preferably overnight but not longer than 24 hours.
- Skewer meat to sticks and grill away! :D Squeeze some lime juice on top just before serving. And drizzle some sweet soy!! Yum!!

Peanut Sauce
What:
- 500 gr peanuts (ground - I use mortar and pestle so I can control the texture. It should be still somewhat coarse, \yet fine enough to give a nice texture to sauce)
- 250 gr chilies (ground to smooth paste, or I guess some bottled sambal oelek is fine)
- 5 shallots
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 stalk lemon grass, whacked
- 1 piece of galangal (optional)
- 5 candlenuts, panseared very quickly to release the oil
- 200 gr palm sugar (to taste)
- 1 bay leaf
- 3 cups coconut milk (I diluted the canned coconut milk, 1 1/2 cup milk with 1 1/2 cup water)
- 2 tbsp coconut oil (optional, any oil is fine)

How:
- Grind shallots, garlic, galangal, candlenuts to coarse paste.
- Heat coconut oil in pot. Toss in spice paste, lemon grass, bay leaf. Fry for few minutes.
- Add in chili paste. Stir. Toss in ground nuts and sugar. Mix throughly.
- Pour in coconut milk. Keep stirring until it thickens. About 20-30 minutes.
- If I have basil leaves on hand (one of the herbs I am trying to grow right now. Yihaa!), I like to add it to the sauce to give it some zing.

There. Sate, lontong & bumbu kacang. Pfuih! Pardon the poor lighting of the picture. It was taken very quickly - so the platter could get into dining table for our hungry guests. Earlier in the afternoon on that day, Vik gently let in his concern.Me, I don't mind waiting while you take all these food photos, and my stomach is growling (well..what would he eats if he doesn't wait, huh?) But let's don't do this to our friends, yeah?

Chipotle Smoked-Cheddar Burger

Work has been somewhat brutal lately. We both have been putting in 15 hours/day load, though long weekend is on horizon - it's a slim chance we'll be spending it by doing nothing. Sometimes, it makes me wonder on how we easily survived college life - 15-19 credits, held a job or two (three in Vik's case), and still had the energy for partying. Now, 15 hours/day for few weeks and our bodies felt so abused! Is this somewhat sign of old-age?!!!

So, I am taking a day off. Half day off, since I did have to do some work related errands in the morning. Vik too decided to free up some afternoon hours so we can just chill and relax. So on my way back home, I thought to fix up some fancy-nice dinner and we'll eat it out on the balcony. Well..it did not go as planned. Some unforeseen work glitches came up and what fancy-nice dinner?! :) So, something 'equally' nice but not necessarily fancy. Juicy burger with chipotle - adobo sauce and smoked cheddar, along with sweet potato baked fries. With cooling yogurt topping, to balance out spicy chipotle. And, creme caramel as dessert.

What:
Patties:
- 3/4 lbs of ground beef
- 2 chipotle in adobo sauce, chopped coarsely
- 1 tsp of the adobo sauce
- smoked cheddar, cut to itsy bitsy cubes
- 2 cloves garlic, grated/ finely minced
- 2 tsp of coarsely chopped red onions
- salt and pepper

Saucy toppings:
- 5 shallots, cut rather thickly
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2-3 tbsp yogurt
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 tsp hot sauce

How:
- Fry up shallots with olive oil until soft and caramelized. Let cool.
- Whip yogurt, honey, hot sauce in small bowl and toss in cooled shallots. This can be made bit in advance and store in fridge.
- Mix all patties ingredients, don't overwork the mixture. Shape to patties, size depends on personal taste.
- Slide to oven under broiler for about 12 minutes.
Note: yogurt can be substitute with mayo, of course. But I find chilled yogurt make a great combination with piping hot spicy burger.

The sweet potato fries is pretty easy. Just cut it up after peeling. Make sure they are dry (pat dry with paper towel), toss lightly with olive oil. Slide to the oven on 450F for about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with pepper and salt once out from oven. Some cajun spices or sweet paprika will also work superbly. Thought about it halfway munching them. A burger joint near our place has quite good spicy sweet potato fries with their burgers - hm...half a plate too late.

Beef with Lemon Grass

I have this one lonely stalk of lemon grass in my fridge. The thought of making some fruit juice and use the stalk as stirring stick came to my mind. When I visited Indonesia after haven't been for so long, the first place my aunt took me was this Balinese Restaurant and when the drinks came out, each glass had this gigantic lemon grass stalk in the glass (which is very small compared to the stalk, really). Seen celery stalk, umbrella stick, what not, but never lemongrass stalk! I was skeptical on its functionality until I took a sip of the juice and it has a very faint refreshing lemon grass taste to it.

Anyway, I only have bananas and dragonfruit in my kitchen. So, no fruit juice. That was just me daydreaming of cool refreshing tropical juice! ;) This beef dish is really super easy. I don't marinate the beef for very long; being it so thinly sliced.

What:
- 1 lbs flank steak, cut thinly across the grain
- 1 stalk lemon grass, thinly slice the roots part, tough stalk removed
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 inch ginger, grated
- 1/2 small onion, cut to thick slices
- 1/4 cup nuoc nam (fish sauce)
- 2 tbsp lime juice
- 8 dried chillies (soaked and once plumped up, cut to half - optional)
- 1 tbsp palm sugar
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- splash of water
- dash of black pepper

How:
- Toss together beef, black pepper, lime juice and some of the grated garlic. I just let it stand for about 20 minutes.
- Heat wok with 1 tbsp oil. Toss in garlic, ginger, onion and chillies. Stir until onions are translucent.
- Put wok into medium high heat. Toss in beef, stir quickly. When beef is halfway cooked (about 2 minutes), low the heat to medium.
- Add the rest of ingredients. Let it come to quick boil (beef should be cooked by then).
Note: The way I make it has very watery thin gravy; for thicker gravy, just mix small amount of cornstarch with water, add it at the end, and let it come to quick boil.

Beef Stroganoff

Another dish that has many variation in ingredients and way of serving - as it 'migrates' (originated in Russia) and being brought into and served in different part of the world.

I would rather serve it with wide egg-noodles, but I have these few different pasta; cup of this, cup of that. It bugs me when I have these kind of random bits tucked inside my pantry. Hence, excuse the mix of different looking pasta. :)

What:
- tenderloin, cut into strips, seasoned with salt and pepper
- salt and pepper
- 2 tbs olive oil
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 shallots, finely chopped
- 1 garlic, minced
- 4 oz buttom mushrooms, sliced rather thickly
- 1/2 cup beef broth
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1/2 tbsp mustard
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 tbsp dill, chopped
- 3 cups short pasta/ egg noodles, cooked and toss in little butter

How:
- Heat olive oil in pan. Toss in beef strips. Just let it brown quickly, 1 minute per side. Don't overcook.
- Put cooked beef aside.
- Melt butter in the same pan, scrape al the brown bits. Toss in shallots and garlic. Fry until shallots soft.
- Add mushrooms. Saute until mushroom get soft and brownish.
- Pour in beef broth, let it simmer for a while.
- Stir in sour cream and mustard. Toss beef strips. Simmer until meat is heated through.
- Add paprika and dill. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
- Make a well in the pasta pile, and top it with beef and sauce.

Asian Style Short Ribs

There is this restaurant in Lville that we frequented when we still lived there. Always always ordered their BBQ Ribs. It's a Chinese restaurant, so supposedly, this is kinda Chinese BBQ Ribs, yeah? But then, any other places we find such ribs, usually Korean joints. So, Asian Style Short Ribs it is.

Make this so often that I just absentmindedly mix the ingredients together. The ratio of each ingredients is pretty much adjustable to taste though, I may say. Those simple 'dressings/marinade' that one can taste along while whipping it up. If you like it sweeter, hit more honey. We like tons garlic and ginger.

What:
- garlic, minced
- ginger, grated
- soy sauce
- honey
- sesame oil
- rice wine vinegar
- brown sugar
- pepper
- scallions

How:
- Mix all the ingredients (except the ribs) in a bowl. Whisk well.
- Put the ribs to the marinade. Make sure all ribs are nicely covered with marinade. Cover.
- Let it marinade for at least 4 hours in the fridge.
- Heat grill, or pan. Cook ribs until it has some crisp and char. Try not to flip the ribs too often. Just flip once, when one side is nicely grilled, flip to the other side.
- Garnish with chopped scallions.


Note:
- Grill is the preferred method. Though honestly, the only time I bother to start up grill, clean and scrub the grill, etc, is when I cook this in massive amounts for party. Otherwise, I just heat my pan in high heat (it has to be sizzling hot to get the charred effect), and pretend that it is a grill.

Do not overcrowd the pan. I have a big pan that fits 5-6 ribs comfortably at once, thus I only have to do two rounds of 'grilling.' If few more time of cooking needed (smaller pan), lower the heat between cooking (when transfering the cooked ribs to putting in fresh ones to pan). The high heat will char/ burn the next round very quickly.

Steak with Red Wine Sauce

There is a little bit of red wine sit in the fridge. I hate anything goes to waste. Vik voted for mussels with red wine; which means we'll have to make a trip to get the mussels. Er! No way!

What:
- sirloin steak
- 2 medium size potatoes, peeled and cut to chunks
- 2 tbsp dill, chopped
- 2 tsp butter
- 1/4 cup half and half, or cream
- 1 cup chicken broth (optional)
- 1 cup red wine
- 2 shallots, chopped
- 1 garlic, minced
- peppercorn
- salt and pepper


How:
- Put potatoes in pan. Fill water just until it covers potatoes. Dash of salt. Cook covered.
- Seasoned steak with salt and pepper.
- Heat 1 tbs olive oil in pan. Place steak to hot pan. Brown one side (2-3 minutes). Flip and brown the other side. Handle steak as little as possible, don't keep flipping, to retain the juice inside the steak.
- Once both sides browned, slide pan (make sure it's oven safe) to oven and let it bake for 6-7 minutes, depending on how thick and also, how do you want it cooked. Rare, med-rare, medium-well, welldone.
- Drained cooked potatoes. Toss in some butter and mashed potatoes. Toss in dill. Pour some half and half/cream. Add few tablespoon of chicken broth. Seasoned to taste.
- Once steak is out from oven. Let it sit on platter for couple seconds, tent with aluminium foil to keep the heat.
- Return pan to stove, under medium heat. Toss in little butter and scrape the bottom of pan to get all the flavorful bits from steak. Toss in shallots, garlic and peppercorn.
- Pour in red wine. Stir. Let it reduces and thicken.
- Pour in chicken broth. Add dash of salt and pepper. Let simmer for a while.

Soto Daging

Soto is one of the dishes in Indonesia where different region has its own soto version, just like satay. Having tried many of them, I still genuinely think Soto Medan is the best of all. It just does. Probably because it's richer. Heehee. Coconut milk makes almost everything taste much yummier. And the spicy hot relish goes with it. Yum.

Anyway, my mom/grandma usually make two versions of it. One with coconut milk, and lots of time, they don't. In summer time, I tend to cook it without coconut milk, less heavier.

What:
- 1/2 lbs boneless beef chuck
- 6 cup water
- 1 stalk lemongrass, bruised
- 2 cloves
- 1 slice of galangal, bruised
- 1 bayleaf
- 1 tomatoes, quatered
- 1 potatoes, cubed

Grind:
- 3 candlenuts
- 2 shallots, chopped
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 1/4 tsp turmeric
- 1/2 tsp ginger, minced
- 1 tbsp coriander
- 1 tsp cumin
- salt and pepper

How:
- In soup pan, stir fry spice paste. Add in lemongrass, cloves, galangal, bayleaf, tomatoes. Mix well.
- Add beef chuck into the mix (I like to add the beef first so it will sear for a while and its caramelized bits add to the soup flavor). Sear both sides.
- Slowly pour water to the pot. Lower the heat. And let it simmer for 1 hour.
- Test the beef by piercing fork to it, it should be quite tender by now. Lift it out from the pot.
- Sliced it up. Return it to the pot, together with potatoes.
- When potatoes is cooked and tender, turn off the heat. Toss in beansprouts. Stir.
- Garnish with green onions and lime wedges.

I added potatoes right to the broth, but traditionally, it is served with potato fritters on the side. At the time of making, all I had was 1 potato, and no way I would slave myself in fixing up 3 fritters, max. :D But it sure tastes much better with warm fritters and crispy shallots on top. *sigh*

Beef in Red Wine Sauce

What:
- beef (I use beef top sirloin) cut to bite size
- button mushroom
- onion, chopped finely
- red wine
- squirt of tomato paste
- garlic, chopped finely
- caraway
- dried parsley
- dried thyme
- salt and pepper

How:
- Heat olive oil or butter in the pan, add garlic, onion and caraway seeds.
- Stir in beef and let it cook half through, then add mushrooms. Toss in parsley and thyme. Salt and pepper.
- Add tomato paste, stir and mix thoroughly. Add red wine. Scrape the bottom of the pan gently, to get all those caramelized bits of spices and beef.
- Once the wine is a little bit reduced, add a splash of heavy cream (half and half is fine too), to thicken up the gravy.

This dish can be served with pasta, or mashed potatoes, or roasted fingerling potatoes. But I have an opened half box of rice pilaf, so, that's what I paired it with. And steamed asparagus, toss with olive oil and lemon juice. And simple salad on the side.