Steamed Rainbow Sponge Cake (Bolu Kukus Pelangi)

This cake is very famous kind of steamed sponge cake in Indonesia. People usually call it Bolu Kukus Pelangi. Pelangi or rainbow is presented by its colorful batter. I’ve seen people add various food coloring such as red, green, yellow, and blue. But, I choose to make it not so colorful and add some raisins.

Ingredients:

3 low cholesterol organic eggs
⅓ cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cake emulsifier
½ cup wheat flour (medium protein/all purposes flour)
100 ml low fat milk
A drop of cocopandan pasta for red color as much as necessary
A drop of pandan pasta for green color as much as necessary
2 tablespoons raisin

Instructions:

Set the cake pan. Cover with thin layer of margarine. Set aside.
Set the steamer. Assure the steamer has enough steam before put the cake in.
Beat eggs and sugar until the sugar well dissolve and the color turn pale/white. Add cake emulsifier.
Add baking powder. Mix it until well improved or become smooth.
Set the mixer in low speed.
Add flour and milk little by little alternately. Mix it only for a while just to make sure the batter is mixed homogenously.
Separate the batter into 3 parts. Give part 1 the red color, part 2 the green color, and part 3 give it no color (I try to reduce using food coloring/additive).
Pour the part 1 into cake pan. Steam it for about 5 minutes in medium heat.
Pour the part 3 into it. Spread the raisin. Steam it for about 5 minutes.
Pour the last part, that green batter. Steam it again for about 20 minutes.
Turn off the heat. Take it out. Cool it in room temperature then unmold it
Slice it and ready to serve.

(fit for 8-10 slices)

Caution:
If you can’t use glass steamer cover, you need to wrap the cover with a clean napkin to prevent water flecks drop onto your cake surface. The flecks will cause your cake surface become billowy.

Related Posting:

Steamed Sponge Cake (Indonesian Bolu Kukus)
Common Indonesian Flours Used for Daily Cooking and Baking
Making Cake, Tips I’ve Learned

Urap (Boiled Vegetables with Chili Spiced Grated Coconut)

This is very simple veggie food in Indonesia. Simple, if you have the ready cooked spiced grated coconut in your storage. I do not know where it originally comes from. I find this kind of salad in West Java, Central Java, Jogjakarta and East Java. I also find urap in Bali Island, but with different chili spiced. In Bali, people use spiced coconut milk. People use the similar spiced grated coconut in Java Island, however the taste and the appearance definitely differs from each other.

This urap below is my mother recipe. Maybe this is urap from East Java, but I don’t know exactly. If someone know its story, please tell me..okay :)

Ingredients:

150 grams spinach
75 grams long pea (kind of legume), diced
50 grams cabbage, sliced
75 grams bean sprout
(You can also use finely sliced carrot)
750 ml Water
A pinch of Salt

Instructions:

Boil the water. Pour some water into bean sprout. Soak for 1 or 2 minutes. Remove the bean sprouts and drain it.

Keep the heat in medium. Add long pea to the boiled water, add a pinch of salt, stir. Wait until gentle enough or about 5 minutes.

Add spinach, for about 3 minutes then add cabbage. Then take them out of the water and drain.

You can also boil the vegetables separately, one by one with different boiled water. That will take some extra time, of course.

I choose to mix them because at the end they will be mixed too, just for practical purposes.

Spiced Grated Coconut:

½ coconut, grated
4 Chilies
3 Cloves onion
5 Shallots
1 inch Kencur (greater galingale, Kaempferia galanga)
2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon palm sugar
Jeruk purut leaves
1 teaspoon sugar
Banana leaves

Intructions:

Boil water in steamer.
Grind all spices with stone mortar or processor. I prefer to use stone mortar.
Mix with grated coconut.
Wrap in banana leaves.
Steam it for about 30 minutes.

Serve urap by mix boiled vegetables with spiced grated coconut.

(for 2-3 peoples)

Related Posting:
Common Indonesian Herbs and Spices for Daily Cooking
Urap Bali (Boiled Vegetables with Balinese Spices)

Fried Rice with Lemongrass, Fast Food Homemade

One day, the rain was falling so hard and I found my food storage box (the refrigerator) was empty. Not really empty actually. There were a tomato, frozen mixed vegetables (carrots, sweet corns, green beans), and a wrapped frozen minced beef. I was confused thinking what I have to serve for dinner. I just couldn’t go out and do some shopping in that hard rainy day. Call delivery order for food, no..no..I just couldn’t feel appetizing when thinking of some fast food or traditional food I could order at that time.

I just got stuck in the kitchen and didn’t know what to do until my hands did it :D

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked rice
2 cloves garlic, peeled, chopped
3 chilies, diced
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables, set in room temperature
½ cup minced beef
2 lemongrasses, crushed
1 teaspoon salt
A pinch of sugar
2 teaspoons sweet soy sauce
A tomato, sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil or cooking oil

Instructions:

In high heat, sauté chopped garlic, crushed lemongrasses and diced chilies with a tablespoon olive oil until fragrant.
Add minced beef. Add a tablespoon olive oil. Stir until the red beef turn into brown color.
Add mixed vegetables. Stir it.
Add cooked rice. Stir well.
Add salt, sugar, soy sauce, and ... a little bit fish sauce to enhance the taste.
Stir well.
Turn the heat off. Finish.
Serve with sliced tomato.

(for 2 peoples)

Hmm, and about the picture, I’m not satisfied with this, lack of light and blur. I’ve tried my best to get good picture, yeah..but unfortunately this only I’ve got in that night.

Related posting:
Common Indonesian Herbs and Spices for Daily Cooking

I do apologize to the readers

I brought to you unpleasant conversation in this blog yesterday. I am sorry for doing that thing and bother you all. I feel really unwell.

That's true I left a comment in someone's (that anonymous guy) when I found my articles (Soto Kudus) in his/her blog. The way that man put my article (I saw only that Soto Kudus but later that man said there are two articles) was very irritating. I saw all the contents are someone else's articles. I guessed that he/she did it only for adsense. That man got those articles from Ezine and submitted that blog for Google adsense. That man said that he/she learned it from a book. LOL. A friend of mine said, that’s might be a book whose author just copied without regards to peoples who had the articles. I’ve found later that the book finally blocked by publisher. Yes, maybe that 'inspiring' book.

I submitted my articles in Ezine free articles not for people using like that, not for very unpleasant commercial only. I want to speak out about Indonesian Food and of course I want to get some back-links from others. That's free articles of course, but the way that man monetized that blog in such an easy way without any regards for other people's stuff (not only at me) very disappointed me.

I know (that man always note to me about this) there are many people in Indonesia do that. I do really know that. And I feel sick about it. I think they never think deeper than human can do. Just follow and follow without thinking the consequences for their surrounding, other peoples, their country, and their world they living. They just think how to get money in an easy way and fast forward. That was very makes me sad, when I knew that man is an Indonesian too.

I emailed Ezine about this. And Ezine said that the man apparently gives no credit for me and for others. They said I can contact Google for this case. But that's all up to me. My friends said so.

I choose to contact that man instead of send a report to Google (how could that man say I don't have an empathy, that's so ridiculous). Unfortunately, that man hides the profile and no such a contact address I could find. Why?? I felt that hiding profile is one of bad manner, irresponsibility. So that, I left (what that man called disrespectful comment). I am East Javanese, who always speak right to the point. I am sorry if what I'm thinking was straight words is not polite one for others. I keep wait for the responses but never coming to my email/ messenger. But yesterday, He left such a long self defenses and still keeps hiding the profile. If that man did nothing wrong why keep hiding the profile, even refuse to contact me personally? That was the bad story goes and ends (for me).

I try to be patient, that man the same as I am..Indonesian. I just want that man to be a little bit aware about the consequences. Instantly, what he done is breaking someone's spirit to write, giving an example that 'if there's an easy way why we have to choose the hard way' (what that man said, so Indonesian). Search engine will be full of junk if everybody do what that man do. I think, that man have not realized the consequences yet.

Now I think, my friend’s suggestions are right.

There is such a long journey to make people in Indonesia realized, money is not GOD. There are so many things have to be respected beside of money. I have no power to change what people’s thinking here.

I am sorry to bother you all with this kind of unpleasant things. Sorry, Guys..

Making Cakes, Tips I’ve Learned

1. At first, make sure the ingredients are all ready to use, all are not passing the expired date, and all are in good shape which mean in good conditions.

2. Making cake, we always use egsg. So we have to take more attention about eggs we use, and how we handle them. Never use eggs direct from refrigerator. We have to set them aside in room temperature before crack and whisk them.

3. Do not whisk the egg too long or too short in time. The longer, our cake more crumby. The shorter, our cake wouldn’t expand well. It will be deflated as immediately as we take them out from the oven. Practices make perfect, we’ll find a perfect time to stop whisk it. I did it.

4. When you need to stir the batter with spatula, stir it in one direction. Don’t be too long, it will make it down. Mix others ingredients first before pour them to the batter/whisked egg.

5. Never leave the batter too long. Bake it immediately after you finish prepare the batter.

6. Set in the middle rack of your oven to avoid over heating in the bottom or in the top rack.

What is Coconut Milk?

If there are somebody get curious about what exactly coconut milk is (maybe), that's the reason I write this then. Coconut milk or santan (in Bahasa Indonesia) is made from grated coconut fruits. That fruits must be old enough to produce juice. Of course, it is juice not milk like cow’s milk or sheep’s milk. People in Indonesia use the coconut milk almost in everyday cooking (and baking). There are many recipes using this coconut milk.

How to produce this kind of juice? You know what, it is not fresh juice inside the young coconut. First the fresh coconut fruits are peeled. Then we find the hard shell of coconut, crack it. We will get an inner of coconut fruit which is white. Grate this part. Add water to the grated coconut, squeeze it, use strainer to get the juice.

Thick coconut milk made from 1 grated coconut fruit (400-500 grams) and 120 ml water. It produces 250 ml thick coconut milk.

After this add water little by little. Next squeeze will produce the thin coconut milk. Until we get about 800-1000 ml thin coconut milk.

For me, I never measure the water level. I just see what it looks like. If it is thick so it is THICK. When I need the thin one I just pour some water into the thick one.

I prefer to use fresh coconut milk that I bought from market. However, I always have several packs of coconut milk, powder and liquid, just in case I need coconut milk when I couldn’t find the fresh one. Of course the powder will last longer than the liquid one.