Tag: kecap manis

RECIPE OF THE WEEK | Fried noodles with caramelised cabbage (Mie goreng khol)

This is a super-simple dish that we often eat at home. It’s a snack food for us, but you can jazz it up and serve it topped with Pork belly and Balinese spices or throw in some additional ingredients such as tofu, scallops, roast duck or prawns. Personally, I like it simple, and when I feel like a bowl of soft noodles with the subtle bite of chilli, this is what I make. You can use egg noodles or even ‘mie instan’ as there’s no need to be snobbish about this one. The intention is that you can sit back, relax and indulge. Finish the noodles with a drop of sesame oil, sprinkle with your favourite chopped herbs, or add a teaspoon or two of Fried Sambal for extra kick.

Fried-noodles_blog

  • 150 g fresh noodles
  • 3 tablespoons oil
  • 5 red shallots, finely sliced
  • 8 garlic cloves, finely sliced
  • 3 long red chillies, finely sliced
  • 2 small chillies, finely sliced
  • 2 small leeks or 1/2 large leek, finely sliced 500 g white cabbage, shredded
  • 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
  • 1 teaspoon kecap manis
  • 1 teaspoon fish sauce
  • 1/2 teaspoon white pepper
  • splash of chicken stock or water, if necessary 2 tablespoons fried shallots

Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat and fry the shallots and garlic for 20 seconds, stirring constantly. Add the chillies and leek and toss for another 20 seconds. Add the cabbage, sauces and pepper and cook until the cabbage is wilted and soft. If it becomes dry, add some stock or water.

Add the noodles and toss until they are thoroughly mixed with the cabbage. You may prefer to take the wok off the heat while you do this if you are not able to work quickly. Tongs make tossing easier too. Then toss in half the fried shallots and stir-fry

Cook the noodles for another minute or two. Taste for seasonings and add salt or more sauces if needed. Serve garnished with the remaining fried shallots.

Serves 4

Discover more recipes in my book Bali: Food of My Island Home

RECIPE OF THE WEEK | Chargrilled squid

This is one of the many barbecued dishes that are served by the sea at Jimbaran. In what was formally a rustic coastal eating place dotted with simple grass huts, there are now hundreds of bamboo tables and chairs perched on the sand, and tonnes of seafood being served, from prawns to lobster and snapper to squid, for eager tourists. The secret at Jimbaran is cooking the seafood over coconut husks for a delectable smokiness, and the moist heat of the husks creates tender meat with glazed and burnished skin without dryness. If you are flying into Denpasar at night, the smoke from the barbecues at Jimbaran bay looks like an enormous bushfire.

Chargrilled-squid_blog

This is a simple marinade and you can add any additional herbs. A bonus is that the marinade can be prepared up to two weeks in advance and kept in the refrigerator.

MARINADE

  • 100 ml vegetable or peanut oil
  • 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 1–2 tablespoons kecap manis
  • 2 teaspoons freshly ground black pepper
  • 5 kaffir lime leaves, rolled into a bundle and finely shredded 1/2 teaspoon sea salt

1 kg squid, cleaned
Tomato Sambal (page 000) to serve lime wedges to serve

Combine the marinade ingredients in a large bowl and mix well.
Cut the squid into 10 cm tubes and quarter the tentacles lengthwise. Add to the marinade, coating well, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Heat a barbecue grill. Lift the squid out of the marinade and place on the grill. Cook, turning occasionally and basting with the marinade, until golden brown and just cooked. It should only take a few minutes.

Serve with tomato sambal and wedges of lime.

Serves 4

Discover more recipes in my book Bali: Food of My Island Home

RECIPE OF THE WEEK | Tamarind-chilli fruit salad – Rujak

One of Indonesia’s national treasures, and also found in Malaysia and Singapore, rujak, is the ubiquitous afternoon snack. When the sun starts its descent and the heat of the day starts to dull the brain, just about every Balinese I know tucks into this action-packed fruit salad with a savoury dressing that is guaranteed to slap you out of a tropical slump.

Tamarind_blog

It combines the energizing four pillars of Asian cooking: sweet, sour, spicy and salty, and it clears the mind, refreshes the palette, speeds up the metabolism and offers a generous dose of vitamin C, iron, folic acid and calcium. Pregnant women crave its strong flavours, and rightly so.

As soon as my children are home from school, they feast on rujak mixed with any amount of seasonal fruit. My son, Krishna, loves it with pomelo, grapefruit and orange, while my daughters love it with grated carrot, red papaya and tomato. Most men I know prefer to eat rujak at the local warung (food stall), so that this addictive afternoon snack includes a little cuci mata, which translates as ‘washing of the eyes’ but really means admiring the bunga desa – the village ‘flowers’ on the street, of which Bali seems to have more than its fair share!

There are several types of rujak, but in Bali it is usually based on a dressing of palm sugar, tamarind, chilli and shrimp paste. You can use fish sauce or dried prawns instead of shrimp paste, and vegetarians can leave out the fish factor altogether. Kecap manis can also be used in place of the palm sugar. The dressing can double as a superb marinade for meat, seafood, tofu, eggplant, mushrooms and more. Drizzle it over an Asian ’slaw or use it as a dip for spring rolls, chicken wings or samosas. Rujak is the perfect starter for any Indonesian meal or it can be served as a lively salad with a main course.

  • 3 cups thinly sliced fruit and certain vegetables, such as ripe mango, pineapple, apple, red papaya, pink grapefruit, orange, tomato and cucumber
  • 1 teaspoon sea salt
  • 250 ml water
  • 2 small red chillies
  • 1⁄2 – 1 teaspoon shrimp paste, roasted
  • 5 tablespoons tamarind pulp, mixed with 1/2 cup water and strained 6 tablespoons palm-sugar, grated
  • sea salt to taste

Put your choice of fruit and vegetables in a bowl and add 1 teaspoon of salt and the water. Mix well and place in the refrigerator and leave for an hour. The salt will tenderise and extract any bitterness from the fruit and vegetables.

Put the chillies, shrimp paste and 1/2 teaspoon of salt in a mortar and pound until the seeds of the chillies are crushed and the skin has broken down somewhat. Add the tamarind and lightly crush the pulp without breaking the seeds. Stir in the palm-sugar syrup. (Alternatively, you can make the dressing in a blender, but make sure you remove the tamarind seeds first. )

Drain the fruit and vegetables and toss with the dressing. Taste for a balance of sweet, sour, salty and spicy flavours, and adjust if needed. There will probably be tamarind seeds left behind. Make sure you don’t eat these!

Serves 4

Discover more amazing Indonesian recipes from my cookbook Bali: Food of My Island Home

RECIPE OF THE WEEK | Green fried rice – Nasi goreng hijau

Perhaps Indonesia’s national dish, nasi goreng is enjoying a curious renaissance, appearing in all shapes and sizes across the archipelago in oh-so creative combinations of meats, herbs and garnishes. If you wander through the food courts of Indonesia’s glam shopping malls, you will see modern reinterpretations of it wherever you look. I recently found this particularly delicious nasi goreng on my travels in Jakarta. However, in the spirit of nasi goreng, feel free to add what you like (providing it tastes good!) as nasi goreng is all about experimentation.

Green-Fried-Rice_blog

SPICE PASTE

  • 2 red shallots or 1⁄2 onion, finely chopped 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
  • 2 large green chilli, sliced
  • 2 small green chillies, sliced (optional) 1/2 teaspoon shrimp paste
  • 2–3 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 3 tablespoons finely chopped leek
  • 120 g shelled raw prawns, finely chopped
  • 3 kaffir lime leaves, rolled into a bundle and finely shredded 11/2 cups chopped choy sum or bok choy
  • 1/4 cup snow peas, blanched
  • 1/4 cup peas
  • 1 teaspoon kecap manis
  • 1/2 teaspoon fish sauce
  • 3 teaspoons oyster sauce
  • 1 cup cooked rice
  • 2 tablespoons chopped lemon basil
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • fried shallots to serve
  • 1 grilled extra-large prawn to serve
  • large krupuk to serve

Put the spice paste ingredients in a mortar and pound to a smooth paste, or blitz in a blender.

Heat the oil in a wok over medium heat and fry the spice paste for about 30 seconds.

Add the leek and prawns, lime leaves and toss for about 30 seconds, then add the vegetables and sauces. Toss until the vegetables are barely cooked. Add the rice and mix thoroughly. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon basil. Taste for seasoning, adding salt, pepper and more sauces if needed. Serve topped with fried shallots, the grilled prawn and krupuk.

Serves 1

Discover more amazing Indonesian recipes from my cookbook Bali: Food of My Island Home