All Food Recipes

Instead of fresh fruit to end a spicy meal, serve pineapple slices in a coconutty batter.

For the batter
10 g local rice flour
220 ml thick coconut milk
1 egg yolk, beaten
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Combine all ingredients to form a smooth batter. Set aside for 10 minutes.

Pinaepple filling
1/2 a peeled pineapple, cut into 1/2 cm thick semi-circles
Icing sugar for dusting
Oil for deep-frying

1. Heat oil. Dip pineapple slices into the batter and deep-fry till gplden brown. drain on absorbent paper.
2. Sprankle sifted icing sugar on the fried before serving.

This is a dark-coloured paste made from shrimps; it looks and smells a little like Marmite, but has the texture of ordinary fish-paste or Gentleman’s Relish. You can sometimes buy Indonesian terasi which has been imported from Holland; usually, however, shops in Britain sells terasi from Malaysia, which is called by its Malay name, Balachan.
Terasi, or balachan, is used in very small amounts as a flavourings, into a thick paste which is sauted, preferably in a wok with a little oil. The other ingredients of the recipe are then added to this. ‘Fried’ terasi is used in recipes where the spices are not to be satued, but boiled; the terasi is fried or grilled, by itself, before it is made into a paste with the other spices.
If you do a lot of Indonesian cooking, it is worth frying a fairly large amount of terasi - perhaps as much as 50 g or a couple of ounces - and keeping it in a separate jar. In airtight jars, in a cool and dry a normal packet, which contains about 100 g, will last you for a very long time. The airtight jars are for your protection as much as for the protection of their contents; terasi is extremely strong-smelling and strong-tasting, and it is especially pungent when it is being fried by itself.

This is the original potato, as discovered by Colombus and brought back by him to astonish the Old World. Nowadays we call it a sweet potato. Do not confuse it with a yam, most varieties of which have yellow flesh, soft and somewhat watery. Yams (species of Dioscorea) are not much grown in Indonesia, but they are imported into England, presumably from Africa or teh Caribbean, and there is often doubt about which name applies to a particular shapeless tuber on the greengrocer’s counter. Yams are not suitable for Getuk Lindri or most other sweetpotati dishes; ubi jalar have a dry, rather floury texture. The young leaves make an excellent green vegetable when boiled, but I have never seen them for sale in England.

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
120 g (4 oz) ground almonds or, in Indonesia, ground kenari nuts
90 g (3 oz) brown sugar (in Indonesia grated gula Jawa)
1 or 2 pieces of daun pandan about 1 cm long (optional)

Beat the egg until creamy, add the sugar and continue beating for 2 minutes more. Whisk in the ground almond. Mix well. Pour the mixture into a well-oiled 16 cm (6.5″) cake tin or souffle dish-or indeed any suitable tin or dish that will fit into your steamer, remembering that the mixture will rise in cooking just like a cake. Steam for 30 minutes. Serikaya can be cut and served hot, or can be allowed to cool and then served just as if it was an ordinary sponge cake.
The daun pandan is used in the same way as a vanilla pod, to give a faint characteristic flavour and aroma to the cake. If you have some of this leaf, put it on the bottom of the cake tin and pour the mix over it. After cooking, throw it away. It will leave a green stain on the underside of the cake, but this does not affect the flavour.

The raw Krupuk Udang that you buy in the shop are thin, flat oblong flakes. Every trace of moisture should be removed before cooking, as a damp krupuk will not become crisp. In the tropics you spread your krupuk in the sunshine for an hour or two before you fry them; in London I give them an hour or two in a warm dry cupboard.
To cook them, drop them one at a time into a wok of hot vegetable oil; they swell in a second or two to two or three times their original size, and should then be taken out, drained and cooled.
Like Emping, Krupuk will keep a long time when raw; after cooking, they will keep in an airtight jar for two to three days. Serve them to be eaten with fingers as a side dish, or break one or two into pieces and use to garnish dishes such as Gado-gado or Nasi Goreng.

Ingredients:
500 g (1 lb) peanuts
2 cloves garlic
Salt
Vegetable oil

Put the peanuts into a bowl with the crushed garlic and a teaspoonful of salt. Pour in enough boiling water to cover the nuts. Cover the bowl and let it stand for 30 minutes, then peel off the thin skin from the peanuts-it is usually enough to rub the nut between finger and thumb, the skin will have become very loose. Put the nuts on absorbent paper, when the peeling is completed heat a cupful of oil in a wok or a deep frying-pan. Stir-fry the peanuts in this, 1/2 lb at a time, for 5-6 minutes. Let cool before storing in airtight containers.

When you turn the rice out of the pan , you will find that a layer about 1/2 cm thick has stuck to the bottom. One way to get rid of this is just to soak the pan and throw this small quantity away. Ni Indonesian would throw rice away, however. Instead, put the pan, straight from the stove, on to a wet cloth and let it stand there for 2 minutes. The cooked rice will not lose heat appreciably in this time, and the layer on the bottom -the intip- will not stick; you can take it out5 like a cake from a cake-tin. Keep the intip for 24 hours, then put in it out of doors in hot sunshine to dry throughly. If it is winter or the weather forecast is bad, dry it off in the oven as you would bread before making breadscrumbs. Break up the intip into smaller pieces, and store these in an airtight jar. When you have a good quantity-say, half a kilo or so-deep-fry the pieces until they are golden brown, Sprinkle them with salt (or, when cool, spread them with golden syrup), and you have an unusual and delicious crisp snack. The salty ones will kep in an airtight jar for months; the syrupy ones should be eaten fairly soon, or they will go soft.

Emping have a dry, slightly nutty flavour and in Indonesia are used to garnish dishes like Nasi Goreng, Gado-gado, or Tahu Campur. They are made from melinjo nuts, crushed and dried, and you can buy packets of Emping in the shops or market-place.
to cook them, drop a few at a time into hot oil in a wok and let them sizzle for just a few seconds. They will become bigger, but not dramatically so. Take them out, drain them and sprinkle a little salt on them. Let them cool and serve them. Uncooked Emping will keep for several months in an airtight jar; cooked ones in a sealed jar will stay crisp for to three days.)