Cannellette

As you can see we are enjoying Indonesian food immensely these days. And what’s not to like? It’s easy to make, tasty and packs a lot of flavour in relatively easy to make food. Recently a new Indonesian cookbook came out ‘Boekoe Kita’ (Our Book) the recipes look amazing and we have tried two of them so far with great succes.

Another thing I really like about this food is that it’s very versatile, if you don’t have or want lamb, you just substitute the lamb for beef and the recipe still tastes amazing! We made this recipe with both lamb and beef, and both versions were extremely tasty. We served the beef and salad with some boiled rice and added sambal to taste. 

Indonesian salad with coconut and Kentjoer
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1,5 tsp trassi, crumbled — (this is dried shrimp paste. This stuff SMELLS but it does add a nice taste - even though you would not believe it from the smell that comes off…)
1 tbsp sambal badjak — (this is a baked sambal with coconut - it’s lovely and milder than the more regularly used sambal oelek. Our jar lasted maybe a week :-))
2 tsp kentjoer —  (I must admit… this one still baffles me. Kentjoer is a ground root wich is supposed to have a very ginger-like taste. We went out of our way to buy some, but the ginger-like taste I do not get, in my opinion it has a more sour taste than the spicy note ginger has. I’d say: leave it out if you can’t get it or substitute for ginger powder)
3 tbsp sugar
50 gr dessicated coconut
75 ml coconut milk
half a lettuce (iceberg lettuce)
100 gr green beans
half a cucumber, washed

Method

1.  Rub the garlic, trassi, sambal, kentjoer, sugar and 1/4 tsp of salt together using a pestle and mortar. Add the dessicated coconut and coconut milk and rub it together with the spices until everything is well combined and forms a smooth paste. 

2. Take one big lettuce leaf for each diner to serve the salad in.  Shred the lettuce, clean the beans and boil them for 7-9 minutes, or wok them for a few minutes to your liking. Pour cold water over them and drain the water. Slice the cucumber in slices and slice those in half. 

3. Mix all the vegetables with the coconut dressing and serve on the salad leaves.  

This salad is lovely and fresh and has a mild spicy taste. Make sure the beans are still quite crunchy, that makes the dish so much better!

Daging Ketjap
Serves 4

Ingredients
4 tbsp sunflower oil
2 onions, finely sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
400 gr fillet of lamb, cubed
100 ml ketjap manis (sweet soy sauce)
the juice of 1 lemon

Method
1. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the onion and garlic until they are soft. Add the meat and fry until browned on a slightly higher heat.

2. Add Ketjap manis, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and leave it to simmer for 45 minutes. 

It’s toasting hot outside, the perfect weather for a barbecue. Unfortunately we don’t own a barbecue neither do we have the space for using one, I am sure many people have the same problem. Fear no more: a grill pan will do the trick just fine!

A recent trip to Ikea left us with a very nice recipe book full of ideas to use your grilling pan to the max: “I grill with you - 20 delicious recipes”. The recipes are varied and quite interesting, I must admit. They either have a picture or are illustrated with extremely cute drawings:

It also contains our signature dish, one we’ve been trying to recreate and perfectionize after eating it in a Japanese resaurant: Usuyaki, beef rolls filled with spring onion and garlic, fried and glazed with a teriyaki sauce. We make this dish often, and the recipe in the Ikea cookbook is quite good. 

Usuyaki - fried beef rolls filled with spring onion
makes 24

Ingredients
3 beef steaks
6 spring onions, sliced in 24 parts (slice each spring onion in 4 parts)
2 cloves of garlic, chopped (optional, we always add it, Ikea doesn’t)
Olive oil 
teriyaki sauce (see below)

Method
1. We’ve tried to recreate it before, but slicing the beef that thin turned out to be really difficult. Now we bought already thin roastbeef steaks which we put in the freezer to firm up, then we sliced each steak in 8 thin slices.
2. Fill each slice of steak with a piece of spring onion drizzle some garlic over the spring onion and roll it firmly and put in a stick to keep it from falling apart.
3. Lightly brush the beef rolls with some olive oil before grilling.You only need to grill these for a good 20 seconds on each side. Serve with the Teriyaki sauce.

Tips / varieties:
1. In the lovely The Manga Cookbook (which - perhaps surprisingly - is a VERY good Japanese basic cookbook) you’ll find a recipe for Nikumaki which uses bacon of some other piece of thinly sliced pork as a wrapper and carrot and haricots verts as filling.
2. These are also great filled with small green asparagus.
(print recipe)

Teriyaki sauce (also from The Manga Cookbook)

Ingredients
1 cup of soy sauce 
1 cup of sugar 
1 cup of mirin
1 cup of cooking sake

Method
Mix it all together in a saucepan, bring to the boil and let simmer for 7 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken.
Note on measurements: My sister in law Maire gave me a lovely set of cups for measurements in cups (logically), I used the 1/2 cup size for this recipe as we were only making it for the two of us. This proved to be more than enough for both the Usuyaki and another recipe we made (Teriyaki meatballs). We also used it to drizzle over our tuna sashimi which we had for our starter. Which brings me to a general note: the teriyaki sauce did not seem to thicken when I first made it, but it does thicken slightly more and tastes even better the day after, so make it beforehand!

(print recipe) 

This was not the recipe I wanted to share from the Ikea cookbook, but as it makes a wonderful light dish or starter I wanted to share it anyway. 

Now, onwards to the real summery recipe from the Ikea grilling cookbook!

Chicken from Tuscany
Serves 4

Ingredients
4 chicken breasts
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon of mixed Italian herbs (basic recipe you can make and store in an airtight container uses 1 teaspoon of each: dried oregano, basil, rosemary, thyme and sage)
olive oil
125 grams of small mozzarella balls
6-8 sun dried tomatoes, soaked and chopped
some mint leaves
8 black olive, stone removed and cut in half
2 spring onions, sliced diagonally
freshly ground black pepper

Method
1. Rub the chicken breasts with pepper, salt and the mixed italian herbs. Brush some olive oil on them.
2. Heat the grillpan until very hot. Put the chicken in and cook for 15 minutes until done, make sure they get nice grilling stripes.
3. Meanwhile: put the mozzarella in a bowl with the chopped sun dried tomatoes. Chop the mint leaves and add those as well together with the olives and spring onions. Sprinkle some olive oil on the salad and mix well. Season with some freshly ground black pepper. 
4. Serve the salad with the grilled chicken breasts.  

(print recipe)

Nice, light and summery. 

It has been too hot for any “real” cooking the past week, which explains the lack of posting. We have been eating easy dishes, reheating leftovers or freezer stock or went for takeout. This was actually our dinner from last Sunday: retro shrimp salad! Easy as anything. The recipe is my mother in law’s and has been in the family for ages. 

Retro Shrimp Salad
for 4 people

Ingredients
500 gr of small cooked shrimps, Crangon Crangon they are called, so Wikipedia tells me.
2,5 tablespoons of mayonnaise (I use yoghurt mayonnaise, it is lighter, you can mix 2 tbsp of mayonnaise with half a tbsp of yoghurt for the same effect)
lemon juice, a squeeze to taste
freshly chopped chives, to taste but I like LOTS of it
a pinch of dried garlic powder or a bit of finely chopped fresh garlic
sea salt and ground black pepper to taste

To serve: little gem lettuce and slices of toasted bread

Method
1. Mix the mayonnaise with the salt and pepper, garlic powder, lemon juice and chives, taste to check the seasoning and stir in the prawns.

2. Serve with toasted bread and little gem lettuce. 

Fuss free cooking - ideal for hot weather. 

Finally Summer arrived! I am happy about it, but since I am terrible with heat, I have not been very inspired when it comes to food. Luckily I have some nice standby dishes that will perk up any easy meal, go great as side dishes with a barbecue or just make you feel comfortable. 

One of my favourite sandwich fillings is egg salad. It is very easy, healthy and satisfying. This weekend I made the extremely easy version. 

Easy Egg Salad

Ingredients
4 hardboiled eggs
5 tbsp of mayonaise (I use yoghurt mayonaise, if you don’t have that, add 2 tbsp of low fat yoghurt to 3 tbsp of mayonaise)
1 tsp of Dijon mustard (or any other mustard you like)
2 tsp of curry powder (or to taste, depending on the spiciness of your curry powder)
1 tsp of paprika powder
1 pinch of onion powder
1 pinch of cayenne pepper for a kick 
freshly ground black pepper
ground salt to taste
lots of chopped chives 

Boiling the eggs
I would say: boil the eggs the way you usually boil them.
Personally I have 2 methods, one before my Perfect Egg Timer and one since.

At first I boiled my eggs the way I learned from my mother, which is how she learned it from her mother, etc etc: bring the water to the boil, carefully put in the eggs and let them boil for 8 minutes. I let them boil for 5 minutes for still slightly runny eggs - not recommended for this recipe, but just to be complete. Run cold water over them (in the Netherlands we call that “scaring the eggs :-)) and let them cool down before peeling them.

The method with the Perfect Egg Timer is: fill a pan with water, put in your eggs and the Perfect Egg Timer and wait until the egg-timer says they are in between medium and hard. Take the eggs out of the pan, scare your eggs and let them cool down. 

Method
1. Peel your eggs and cut them into cubes, do not mash them finely - we like to have some texture. Put the cubed eggs aside in a bow.
2. In another bowl mix the 3 tbsp of mayonnaise with 2 tbsp of low fat yoghurt. 
3. Add the curry powder, paprika powder, onion powder, salt en pepper and mix well. 
4. Sprinkle in  the chives and give it all a good stir. 
5. Add your cubed eggs and mix carefully. Taste to adjust the seasoning. 

— You can of course build upon this recipe. I usually also add chopped cherry tomatoes, some slices or cubes of boiled potato and chopped spring onions, you could add finely diced cucumber or really anything else you like. You can also vary with the seasoning, add some dill or celery. 

For extra nice sandwiches I also fried a chicken breast with my Norwegian shish kebab spice mix, which has coriander, paprika, chilli, cinnamon, cumin and garlic. Very nice with some salad and a tiny bit of Thai Sriracha sauce.

Another one of my easy favourites is tuna salad. This, again, is the very easy version. Feel free to build upon it and add whatever you like!

Easy Tuna Salad

Ingredients
1 tin of tuna (I usually use tuna in water, but you could use the one in oil)
2,5 tbsp of yoghurt mayonnaise (or 1tbsp of low fat yoghurt mixed with 1,5 tbsp of mayonnaise)
a squeeze of lemon juice
1 small tbsp of ketchup
1 onion, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
some salt

Method
1. Drain the tuna and squeeze a little lemon juice on top. 
2. Mix the yoghurt mayonnaise, the ketchup, the freshly ground pepper, a pinch of salt and the chopped onions. Combine this with the drained tuna

— To spike this up, add some Italian herbs and 2 sun dried tomatoes, soaked in boiling water for 3 minutes and finely sliced. In the Netherlands they actually have ready-made packets of tuna mixed with Italian herbs and sun dried tomatoes, you could use those and mix them with the onion, ketchup and mayo. You can also replace the “normal onion” with a spring onion and add some pickled capers for a zesty tang.

Enjoy!