Sate Ampet Sasak with Sambal Kecap and simple Lotek (Indonesian) Lombok-Style Beef Satay with Sweet Soy Sauce Sambal and Steamed Veggies with Peanut Dressing

I love making a whole meal of the same cuisine since the flavours go well together and create THE experience.  I made this Indonesian menu and it was awesome, even though I'm not sure if Indonesians would serve them together...  who cares!?  Not me.  So this plate has beef satay with sambal, boiled vegetables with peanut sauce and fragrant rice (I'll post the recipe for this rice very soon).

The satay are a little different from most satay.  Instead of marinating the meat cubes in a paste, you fry the paste, simmer it with coconut milk, reduce, cool down, and then you mix it with the meat and marinate.  The result was awesome, most satay don't use coconut, some use grated coconut, but coconut milk is one of my favourite tastes/ingredients so I guess this makes these Lombok-style satay one of my favourite satay.  Did I use the word satay enough yet?  Oh, and the sambal/dipping sauce served with the SATAY is simple and simply tastes delicious and addictive.

The lotek is a quick vegetable side dish to whip out, especially if you made the dressing ahead.  If you do make it ahead, you can restore the sauce to its original consistency by adding a little bit of warm water and mixing.  This fragrant dressing makes boiled vegetables taste like the fanciest salad ever!

So I present to you the recipes for Lombok-style marinated satay, sambal kecap and lotek, all 3 from the book Authentic Recipes from Indonesia by Heinz Von Holzen and Lother Asarna.

(serves 4-6)

-2lbs/1kg beef cubes

-lime wedges to serve

-2 recipes sambal kecap to serve (recipe follows)

-skewers (soaked in water for an hour if baking in the oven or grilling on charcoal)

Marinade:

-4 candlenuts/kemiri nuts (replace by cashews or boiled almonds)

-1 inch ginger, peeled and roughly sliced

-2 red lombok chillies (replace by one or two bird's eye chillies without the seeds)

-2-3 bird's eye chillies, without seeds

-5 garlic cloves

-1/2tsp terassi (dried shrimp paste), roasted in a piece of aluminum foil in a hot oven for 5-10 minutes

-1tsp salt

-2tbsp oil

-1cup coconut milk (thick if you can find it)

Grind all the marinade ingredients together in a paste with a food processor or mortar and pestle.  In a non-stick pan over medium heat, heat up the oil then add the paste and stir-fry for 5 minutes or until fragrant.  Add coconut milk, lower the heat to medium-low, and simmer for about ten minutes or until the marinade has thicken.  Let it cool then mix it well with the beef cubes and marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Skewer the meat and cook in a pan, in an oven or on a bbq, turning often and basting with the leftover marinade.  Serve with 2 recipes of sambal kecap.

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And the recipe for sambal kecap, a really simple, easy to prepare and tasty sauce/condiment!

-3-4 shallots, thinly sliced

-1 lombok chilli thinly sliced (or 1 or 2 bird's eye chillies, deseeded if desired)*

-2tbsp kecap manis (thick sweet soy sauce)

Mix everything together!

*Indonesian cuisine uses mainly red lombok chillies, which are about finger-length and less spicy than bird's eye chillies, but I have a really hard time finding them, especially the red ones that i might have seen only once in Indiatown last summer, so I usually use a smaller amount of bird's eye chillies.  You can deseed them if you want but we like a good amount of spice.  Also, even when bird's eye chillies are used, it's almost always the red ones, but I like the taste of the green ones, so I take the liberty to mix them, especially in this sambal kecap, it adds a little wow!

And to finish, a recipe for lotek. Lotek is a salad of blanched vegetables with a peanut dressing. From what I understood, Lotek's dressing is similar to gado-gado's, but with less ingredients.  For example, in many recipes that I saw (I mean like websites and books that contain recipes for both lotek and gado-gado), gado-gado's dressing has kaffir lime leaves but lotek's doesn't. Anyhow, except the selection of vegetables and toppings, I'm not very sure about the differences between these two salads.  I like both!

Dressing (grind all ingredients in a food processor or mortar):

-1/2cup roasted peanuts

-2cm kencur root, peeled (lesser galangal, probably can be substituted for galangal since it's such a small amount)

-2-3 bird's eye chillies, without seeds

-1/2tsp roasted terassi

-1tsp palm sugar

-1tsp salt

-2tbsp water (or more if it is too thick)

You can serve the dressing on a mix of these suggested vegetables:

-blanched water spinach, spinach, or any kind of greens

-blanched or steamed pumpkin, kabocha, sweet potato, or any kind of squash

-green beans or snake beans

-potatoes

-carrots

-bean sprouts

I guess you can inspire yourself from this recipe and do anything you want.  I also added kaffir lime leaves in my dressing because I love them.  You can make it simple like on these pictures, or make it really diverse and fancy!  You'll be surprised how good boiled potatoes and peanut sauce go well together!

Some kind of Gado-Gado (Indonesian)

The reason I call this salad "Some Kind of Gado-Gado" is that this was the first Gado-Gado I ever cooked or ate, and after I saw this Gado-Gado recipe in Maangchi's Gapshida serie (video here if you're interested: http://youtu.be/_wIVmPSotow) and it's really different.  The sauce is creamier, doesn't have lemongrass, and the vegetables are a WIDE varieties of leafy greens and green vegetables.  What my recipe and Maangchi's friend's recipe have in common: a peanut sauce, blanched vegetables and tofu.  That's about it.  I thought maybe it's a regional thing and Gado-Gado is prepared in different ways in different parts of Indonesia?  I took this recipe from Ginger and Lemongrass by Leemei Tan, whose recipes seem pretty authentic to me. Maybe my Gado-Gado is a totally different salad. Wether this is really a Gado-Gado or not, this is a pretty kickass recipe, and easy. Delicious and light for a warm summer day! With my super simplified version of this recipe, it's super convenient.  Don't be shy, try it!

(serves 4)

Gado-Gado paste, chop everything roughly then grind everything together in a food processor or mortar:

-3 red bird's eye chillies, seeded

-3 garlic cloves

-5 shallots

-3cm peeled ginger

-white part of 1 lemongrass stalk

-1tsp of shrimp paste that you'll fold in a parchment paper piece and bake for 5 minutes at 400F in the oven for better aroma

And then:

-1 recipe Gado-Gado paste

-150g skinned, chopped or crushed, roasted peanuts, then grinded with a mortar or coffee grinder or processor into a fine powder with little bits (this time I only had almonds with skins, which worked fine.  Experiment with different nuts or combinations of nuts!)

-1tbsp lime juice

-250mL water

-2tbsp cane or brown sugar

-100g firm tofu in slices roasted in a pan until golden (you could use tempeh too, I'm not a fan of tofu so I replaced it with shrimps!)

-150g green beans, blanched, rinsed in cold water and strained well

-150g bean sprouts, blanched, rinsed in cold water and strained well

-some cucumber, seeded and sliced in half moons or cut into matchsticks

-1 small carrot cut into tiny matchsticks

-2 hard-boiled eggs cut into slices or quarters

-salt

-shrimp chips (kropek or krupuk if you can get them, if not any shrimp chips will work)

In a non-stick pan, with a little oil, cook the paste on medium-high for 10 minutes until fragrant, mixing every once in a while.  Add the lime juice, water, sugar, salt to taste and peanuts.  Bring to a boil then remove from the stove but keep warm.

Plate the tofu and all the vegetables in an appetizing manner, serve with the sauce separately for presentation.  To eat, mix everything, including the sauce but not the chips, together.  You can also put some salad on the chips to enjoy!

Banh Bao and Yu Choy Salad (Vietnamese, Japanese) Huge Vietnamese Buns and Versatile Sesame Dressing

I remember seeing this video for Bahn Bao a month or two ago and thinking "that's a lot of fillings"!  I'm so happy I finally tried it (and doubled the recipe, froze a lot!) because IT IS THE BEST BUN FILLING I EVER HAD EVER, my boyfriend said the same thing, and we had buns from everywhere in Chinatown.  The main mixture is pork, two types of dried mushrooms, onions, carrots and a bunch of seasonings, topped with an egg and surrounded by many thin slices of Chinese sausage.  Sriracha works incredibly well with it!  Again I took the recipe from the very skilled Helen from Danang Cuisine/Helen's Recipes and it was long but easy to make.  It's a really long process, but totally worth it!  I have to tips she didn't mention that really helped me: roll the dough out even more than what Helen says, maybe 4-5 inches diameter, and before pinching/closing the bun, run your finger all around the edge of the flat disk of dough with a little water like for dumplings, which really helps to keep the dough closed together.  Here's the recipe and video:

http://danangcuisine.com/snacks/recipe-65-banh-bao-steamed-pork-bun-2/

I also accompanied the buns with cucumber slices, some leftover carrot and green papaya pickles and some blanched yu choy tossed with this easy sesame dressing I've been using for years, which is also good with all kinds of raw or blanched veggies!

Main ingredients:

-1 1/2tbsp nerigoma or tahini, black or white

-1/2tbsp saké

-2tbsp sugar

-25mL shoyu (Japanese soy sauce)

-3tbsp ground roasted black and/or white sesame

-sushi vinegar to taste (recipe follows)

-more shoyu if needed

-some pan roasted leeks (optional but delicious)

Mix the main ingredients together well.  Then add sushi vinegar little by little until the acidity is to your taste.  Adjust the saltiness with more shoyu if needed.  Add roasted leeks if using.

Sushi vinegar ingredients:

-2 1/2tbsp rice vinegar

-1 1/2tbsp brown sugar

-1/2tsp salt

Heat everything in a pan until the sugar has dissolved then cool.

Lemongrass Chilli Chicken Skewers and A Vietnamese-Style Salad (Vietnamese)

Our friend Shannon that we haven't seen since last year, if not before that, came over with her boyfriend Ben (that we still hadn't met) and we had a good day getting blasted and watching cartoons and music videos!  I really wanted to cook for them, and bold move, I tried new recipes!  I adjusted the Lemongrass Chilli Chicken skewers recipe here based on what I thought of them that night.  I served them with a Vietnamese inspired salad and some spring rolls.  Here are the recipes!

Inspired by the Lemongrass Chilli Chicken (post here: http://sunnysdelights.blogspot.ca/2014/04/ga-xao-sa-ot-and-goi-du-du-vietnamese.html) I made these Lemongrass Chilli Chicken Skewers!

(makes 10 medium skewers)

-500g chicken breast, sliced thinly across the grain

-3/4tsp sugar

-1 white part lemongrass, finely chopped

-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

-1 long red chilli, finely chopped

-1 1/2tbsp oil

Mix everything together nicely except the chicken, then add the chicken to the marinade and let rest in the fridge a couple hours to overnight.

Soak your skewers in cold water for 30 minutes if using a BBQ or grill.  I used a ridged pan so it's not necessary.  Fold the meat back and forth on the skewers, then grill without using any extra oil.

For the salad, I was inspired by a traditional wedding salad on DanangCuisine.com, but I turned out quite different:

-some shrimps, boiled, shelled, cleaned and sliced in half along the "spine"

-some pork belly (I grilled thin slices of pork belly that I marinated using this recipe: http://danangcuisine.com/recipes/recipe-43-bun-cha/)

-some veggies, julienned (carrots, cucumber, lettuce, herbs, red cabbage, daikon, lotus...   Anything you have)

-some herbs

-some fried shallots and peanuts to top

Dressing:

-equal amounts of fish sauce, sugar and lime juice

-some chopped garlic and thai red bird's eye chillies, to taste

Mix the dressing until sugar has dissolved.  Mix everything for the salad together.  Toss by hand with some dressing little by little until to your taste.  Plate and top with additional peanuts and fried shallots.

I also made some Vietnamese deep-fried spring rolls that I served with some lettuce leaves, herbs and nuoc-cham, post here:

http://sunnysdelights.blogspot.ca/2014/05/cha-gio-vietnamese-vietnamese-spring.html

Ga Xao Sa Ot and Goi Du Du (Vietnamese)

So tonight we had Lemongrass Chilli Chicken and a Green Papaya Salad with rice.  Even though I used Luke Nguyen's recipe for the chicken, I saw Helen's video (from Danang Cuisine) and she says it's one of her favourite ways to eat chicken.  I'd say it's a sweet dish, not just because it has a sweet taste but because the lemongrass and coconut juice gives it a sweet personality!  The papaya salad on the other hand is a little sour, fragrant because of the basil, fresh and crunchy.  I wasn't sure I liked it at first, but now I'm hooked!

First, here is the recipe for "Lemongrass Chilli Chicken" from the book " The Food of a Vietnam" by Luke Nguyen!

(serves 4 - I made only a half recipe on the picture)

Marinade for 500g deboned and skinned chicken:

-3tbsp fish sauce

-1 1/2tbsp sugar

-2 white parts lemongrass, finely chopped, half reserved

-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped, half reserved

-2 long red chillies, finely chopped, half reserved

-3tbsp vegetable oil

-250mL young coconut juice

-1/2 onion, cut into wedges

- coriander or parsley sprigs for presentation

Mix together the fish sauce, sugar, half of the lemongrass, half the garlic and half the chillies in a bowl, then add chicken and marinate 2 hours to overnight.

In a wok, heat oil on medium and cook what's left of lemongrass, chillies and garlic until fragrant (about a minute) then turn to medium-high and toss in chicken until there's no more pink.

Add onion and coconut juice, cover and cook for about 7 minutes, until the sauce is half reduced (keep some juice, it's so good on your rice), then plate and decorate with the herbs.

As suggested, I served it with rice.  I cook 1 cup of rice, I fill one cup with jasmine rice, then remove 2tbsp and replace them with 1tbsp black forbidden rice and 1tbsp cargo thai red cargo rice.

I also served it with this easy green papaya salad that I improvised from watching many videos!

(serves as many as you'll make)

-some shredded green (not ripe) papaya

-some shredded carrots (just to add colour, like a rotisserie coleslaw)

-some thinly sliced basil

-some peanuts

-some garlic chips

-some fried shallots

-red chilli, finely chopped (I used a long red chilli so it's a little less spicy than a bird's eye chilli since my chicken dish was also full of chilli)

The sauce:

-3tbsp fish sauce

-3tbsp rice or white vinegar

-2-3tsp sugar

(To shred the papaya and carrot, Vietnamese either use a special tool I didn't find today or, you can use a sharp nice and kind of hit the papaya vertically along the height, do a lot of cuts, then use a vegetable peeler and it makes long nice strips.  Repeat until you have enough papaya.  That's the technique I used on the picture, except I only had a half papaya so the strips are short :( .)

Mix the sauce so the sugar is dissolved.  Toss the papaya, carrot, basil, peanuts, garlic chips and shallots together with your hands.  Add dressing a little at a time, mix with your hands and test.  When it's to your taste, plate with your hands again (apparently the hands action is really important!) and top with chillies, more shallots and more peanuts.  Voilà!

Chargrilled Salmon Salad (Vietnamese)

Tonight's supper is a salad of fresh herbs, pickles and marinated rare salmon with fried shallots and garlic chips and topped with peanuts and nuoc-cham. I served it with rice and kropek (shrimp crackers).  I thought it was amazing, but unfortunately my boyfriend doesn't like herbs or most veggies, so he ate only the fish, nuts and fried shallots and garlic and it made me feel horrible to throw out everything, but that's the price to pay when I want a salad, and that salad was worth it, so without more talking, here is "Chargrilled Salmon Salad" simplified and slightly modified, from the book "The Food of Vietnam" by Luke Nguyen.

(serves 2 people)

Marinade for 200g salmon fillet, skin removed:

-1 garlic clove, chopped

-2tsp sugar

-1 1/2tbsp fish sauce

-1 red bird's eye chilli, chopped

-150 g pickled vegetables (I didn't use the recipe from the book, I used a mix of cucumber sticks and mostly Dua Gia pickles - not the ones on the picture, I changed my mind later - recipe here: http://danangcuisine.com/recipes/dua-gia-vietnamese-pickled-bean-sprouts-recipe/)

-1 handful watercress, roughly cut

-a couple perilla leaves, mint, parsley...  roughly sliced

-1tsp fried garlic chips (recipe follows)

-3tbsp nuoc-cham (I use this recipe: http://danangcuisine.com/recipes/recipe-2-vietnamese-dipping-sauce-cach-pha-nuoc-cham/)

-1tbsp roasted peanuts

-some fried shallots

-one bird's eye chili, thinly sliced

First, mix everything for the marinate until the sugar has dissolve.  Coat the fish and marinate in the fridge for 20 minutes to a couple hours.

Meanwhile, let's make the garlic chips.  Slice some garlic as thinly as you can (you only need a tsp for the recipe, but if you want to fry more, it keeps well).  Heat some oil to medium high, enough to contain the garlic, then fry the garlic until slightly golden and remove fast and let dry on a paper towel.  When the oil is drained, they'll become crisp.  If you don't have store-bought fried shallots like me, you can use this recipe to fry shallots too!

When you're ready to eat, grill your salmon (I used an oiled ridged pan) and char the salmon only 2-3 minutes on each side, keeping the center rare.  Remove from grill or pan and let cool down and rest 5 minutes.

Flake the salmon in a bowl with the watercress, herbs, pickles, garlic chips and nuoc-cham, mix everything together and top with peanuts, fried shallots and chillies!

And there you have it, a fancy-ass restaurant style salad!