Nasi Lengko Ala Tasia & Fang

Desperate situation calls for desperate measures. I guess those saying is actually real for me and Fang today. We are desperately want to eat a good meal from back home which we couldn't find in Perth, so we decided to make one just like it. You see, my parents came from Tegal... I grew up speaking Javanese and ate their kind of food. Fang came from Purwokerto which is near Tegal, so basically we came from the same cultural background.

Today, we decided to make Nasi Lengko. It's one of the traditional cuisine from Tegal/Purwokerto which consists of fried tofu, tempe, beansprout and cucumber. Then we add peanut sauce, the 'kerupuk mie' (somekind of crackers) and sweet soya sauce on top. We served them with rice (some sort of gado gado mixed with rice, i guess...)

So our small 'adventure' began from Kongs Oriental Supermarket where we bought the ingredients. Somehow we couldn't find cucumbers in that store. So we walked to Coles which is right across the street... but the things is.. I forgot my wallet at home and Fang didn't have any cash in hers. Therefore, we decided to do it without cucumber (sigh)

The first thing that we have to do to make Lengko is to make the peanut sauce. We have to crushed together chilli and garlic until they blended. But... due to the shortage of our mortal and pestal ability (yeap, we're not that talented) Fang managed to find a very creative way to crushed them... with a wrench.

So this is what she did... she put the garlic and chilli in a plastic, and beat them up with the wrench! A bit brutal, but she managed to do it. Well done, Fang!


So after that, we prepared all the ingredients for Nasi Lengko. We create the peanut sauce, fried the tahu and tempe, fried the kerupuk and boil the beansprouts.


After everything is ready, then we start on the fun part. Putting it all together! :) So basically you just put the rice together with everything, and it came out like this...

VOILA!!!

And now the time we were waiting for... eating it! Fang and I were really pleased with the result we couldn't stop eating. We actually thinking of getting a second round if we're hungry again later on. Oops!

Happy Ya Ya Ya... Happy Ye Ye Ye... Aku senang jadi anak Tegal :P

Nasi Lengko Ala Tasia & Fang

Comfort food

As for those of you who knows me well, you will know for sure that I love noodles more than I love rice. One of my favorite comfort food is the legendary... indomie! You are not indonesian or any other asian if you don't like instant noodles :P

I know it's not healthy - but who could resist them? With so many variations of delicious taste, you simply couldn't say no to them.

To cut our expenses from eating out (believe me, eating out here is not like eating out in Jakarta in the Abang-Abang section which cost you only what... $1.50?) my friends and I are implementing (duile bahasanya) a new tradition of cooking on weekends. We would decide on what to cook, and then on weekends we would gather up at someone's house (usually Fang's or Chris's) to put the menu into practice!

Today I would like to share one of my comfort food recipes... My grandma used to cook indomie like this and we all loved it. I shared it with my friends the other day and now they're hooked! (I guess Gossip Girl is not the only thing that can get you hooked).

Anyway... here goes... presenting the "Talkative Noodle" aka "Bakmie Bawel" (yes, they named it that way because apparently I love to talk.. geez!) or the more 'kampung' version of the name is InTerNet (Indomie, Telor, Kornet) Best to be eaten at winter time!


Bakmie Bawel
Serves: one

Ingredients:
Blue Band Margarine (the best brand, seriously)
Garlic
Chilli
Egg
Indomie kuah (preferable Soto Mie)
Hamper Beef Corned (or Spam would do too)
Meatballs (any kind you like)
Vegetables (any kind you like)
Coriander
Lemon
Water
But again, these ingredients can be altered depending on your preferences.



Method

1. Chopped up garlic roughly and diced spam (if you decided to use spam, if you are using the hamper beef, just put it to the wok straight away later) and slice the chilli.
2. Heat up your wok (make sure your wok is deep enough for the soup) and put one tsp of Blue Band Margarin
3. Sautee the garlic and chilli until their aroma comes out, put your spam/hamper beef into the wook. Sautee until it changes color.
4. Put one (or two) chicken eggs and scramble it (if you want to have an egg sauce instead of normal soup, put the eggs last after the soup and stir)
5. Pour hot water inside the wok. If you don't like it too soup-y don't pour too much of the water (just as long as you can cook the noodles) but if you like the soup, be my guest :)
6. Put your uncooked indomie noodles inside, and put the spices from the packet straight into the bowl!
7. Stir well, put your vegetables inside.
8. After it's cooked, pour a little bit of soup into the bowl to stir the spices with. After it's stirred, pour the whole thing inside the bowl
9. Squeeze one slice of lemon on top, decorate it with fried shallots, chillies and corianders
10. Eat up and enjoy :)

Best served during winter, with friends and laughter on the side :)

Comfort food