February 2012

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Roti Kukus (Indonesian Steamed Cake)

1st attempt - use reusable silicon bake cup

2nd attempt - use paper bake cup

Roti kukus is a traditional steamed cake originally comes from Indonesia.
Kids love roti kukus. I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to came home from 'arisan' (wiki: monthly social gathering between friends who chip in money to be won in turns through a lucky draw) and brought one box with 2 or 3 snacks in it. And I was so happy when one of them was roti kukus. It was always be the first to grab.

Yesterday, out of the blue, my husband said that it would be really great if he could eat roti kukus, remember the moist texture and the sweet flavour and the cute colors.. So I was thinking, hmm.. maybe I could find some good recipe from the internet. And I found one.

This recipe is adapted from here with a little modification:

3 egg yolks
1 egg white
180 gr granulated sugar (3/4 cup = 170 gr, 1/4 cup = 55 gr)
180 gr plain (all-purpose) flour (180 gr = 1,44 cup)
100 ml sprite
1 tbsp cocoa powder

1. Prepare steamer for about 15 minutes. Make sure it is heated enough.
2. Line roti kukus moulds with parchment paper
Many people recommend to use special mould for roti kukus. But I used paper/silicon bake cup and it was doing fine.
3. Beat egg yolks, egg white, and caster sugar until thick and pale.
4. Fold in 1/3 of the flour, then 1/2 of the sprite. Gently mix. Repeat with remaining flour and sprite, ending with flour. Mix thoroughly until there is, no lumps in the batter.
5. Divide 1/3 of the batter into a small bowl and add cocoa powder. Whisk until thoroughly combined.
6. Spoon white batter into moulds. Swirl a little of the chocolate batter. Steam for 15-20 minutes on high heat.
I would really recommend putting small amount of batter in each mould/bake cup. Just to make sure that roti kukus will bloom and look a little cuter ;)
And you may put paper towel before closing the steamer, to avoid the water from dropping into the cake.
Last but not least, do not open the steamer for the first 15 minutes.
7. Open the steamer and you'll be glad to see they're bloooomingggg..

Beef Rendang

Everytime I'm craving for rendang, I would just grab Indofood rendang instant seasoning from my kitchen drawer :) It's simple. The result is really good. And I still have quite many packs left. Maybe that's the reason I never had any urge to search for the recipe.

But then after 4 packs, I had enough, and I really wanted to cook it from scratch.

So I combined some recipes from the internet. I figured out that the recipe is actually simple, but cooking rendang may need quite some time - 1 1/2 hour or so only to cook the meat until it's tender.

So here it is.

1 tbsp olive oil

2 lb beef, diced

1 pack of coconut powder

1/2 tsp galangal

1/2 big red onion

3 tsp minced garlic

1/2 tsp turmeric

1/2 tsp ginger

1 tsp salt

5 fresno red pepper

3 lime leaves

Chop red onion, garlic, and red pepper with food processor. Add galangal, turmeric, ginger, salt and process until smooth.

Pour olive oil into large saucepan and heat it over medium-high heat. Add the mixture from food processor into the pan, stir constantly until it's fragrant.

Add meat, 2 glasses of water, coconut powder, lime leaves, and lemongrass into the saucepan. Stir all the ingredients, bring into boil.

Reduce the heat into medium-low and cover the saucepan until the beef is tender and the sauce is gravy, stir ocassionally. You may put extra water if needed. This may take 1 1/2 hour.

Serve over rice.