Spicy Shredded Chicken (Ayam Suwir Pedas)

250 g chicken fillet
1 stalk of white part of lemon grass
1 Salaam leaves(Indian Bay Leaves)
2 fresh Kaffir Lime leaves
1 tbs Tamarind (asam jawa) juice
100 ml chicken stock
Half fresh tomato, chopped

Spice Paste:

3 shallots
2 cloves of garlic
3 red chillies
3 bird's eyes chillies (optional)
1/2 tsp of pepper
Salt and sugar to taste

Bring to boil the chicken. When it cooked, take out from the stock then shred. Set aside.

Grind or blend the spice paste.

Heat the oil, then sauté the spice paste until fragrant. Then add salam leaves, kaffir lime leaves, lemongrass, fresh tomato,tamarind juice and the chicken.

Mix them well for few minutes, and then give the chicken stock.
Cook until the water absorbed. Add sugar or salt to adjust the taste.

Butter or olive oil?

From a health standpoint, olive oil is the better choice. But butter still has its place. All oils are a mixture of fats including monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFA), polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA) and saturated fatty acids (SFA)—but in each oil (and in butter, too, which is basically a solidified oil), one type of fat dominates.

Olive oil is predominantly rich in heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, which decreases your risk for cardiovascular disease by lowering LDL cholesterol and increasing HDL cholesterol. On the other hand, butter is mostly saturated fat, which increases LDL cholesterol and causes inflammation in your body. So generally, it’s best to use olive oil.

However, the distinctive smell, flavor and consistency of butter works best in certain baked goods—including cakes, cookies and pastries—so it’s OK to make these occasionally and enjoy the butter. Another butter-vs.-oil difference: Because butter is solid at room temperature, you have more control over how much (or how little) of it you spread on bread; with olive oil, it’s difficult to gauge how much oil is absorbed. So dip lightly!

Tofu Omelet (Tahu Telor)

200 gram white tofu
2 eggs
1 stalk spring onion, finely chopped
1 stalk celery leaf, finely chopped
salt to taste

For Garnish
Bean sprout
Parsley
fried peanut

Peanut sauce
100 gram fried peanut ( or you can use peanut butter as a substitute )
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
3 bird's eye chillies (optional)
2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
2 tablespoons fermented shrimp paste (petis udang) - optional

Cut the tofu into small cubes
Beat the eggs with salt and spring onion, celery leaf, then add tofu. Divide the mixture in two.

Heat the oil in non-stick frying pan, fry the mixture. Make it as a round omelette. Set aside.

peanut sauce : Fry the garlic and the chillies, remove and set aside. Then grind or blend the fried peanuts with garlic and chillies. Then add water, fermented shrimp paste (if you have it) and sweet soy sauce (kecap manis) and cook in very low heat until sauce is thick.

To serve : put the tofu omelet, bean sprout, fried peanut and parsley on a round platter and pour with peanut sauce. Garnish with fried peanut if desired.

Unusual uses for vinegar: Deter Ants

Got trails of tiny ants weaving their way around your home? These annoying insects aren’t big fans of vinegar, so spraying a 50/50 mixture of white vinegar and water anywhere you have seen them can help encourage them to move out.

The vinegar also erases the scent trails that they use to indicate sources of food to their brethren.

Green Chillies Sambal Padang Style (Sambal Ijo ala Resto Padang)

250 g green chillies roughly cut
3 tablespoons olive oil or vegetables oil
2 shallots or half of small red onion
1 cloves of garlic
1 green tomato

salt and sugar to taste
1/2 teaspoon lime juice
1 fresh kaffir lime leaf

Bring to steam green chillies, shallots, garlic and tomato for 5 minutes. Then grind or blend roughly.

Heat up the pan with olive oil and saute the mixture until fragrant. Add sugar, salt, lime juice and kaffir lime leaf. Continue cooking for couple of minutes.

How to Make a Perfect Scramble Eggs

For two eggs, add two tablespoons of water and two tablespoons of heavy cream, season with salt and fresh-cracked black pepper, and whip the hell out of them with a whisk until frothy.

Melt some butter over medium heat and cook the eggs, not touching them until they are partially set. Then start some light stirring until they're almost finished, and turn the heat off. They will finish cooking because the pan is still hot.

Bali style Minced Seafood Satay (Sate Lilit Bali)

500 g fish fillet, minced (you can use boneless snapper fillet)
200 g grated coconut (I used dry grated coconut in package)
Lemon grass or satay skewers

Spice Paste
10 shallots, peeled and sliced
5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
3 red chillies, seeded and sliced
3-5 bird's eye chillies (you can skip this one if you want it less spicy)
2 cm galangal (Laos), peeled and sliced
2 cm kencur, peeled and sliced
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbs coriander
1/2 tsp black peppercorn
3 candlenuts
A pinch of granted nutmeg
salt to taste
2 tablespoons oil

Grind or blend all spice paste ingredients except oil.

Heat oil and sauté spice paste for about 5 minutes. Cool it off

Then combine the spice with the fish, granted coconut and oil. I used food processor to blend them well.

Mould about 2 tablespoons on lemon grass or skewers and grill over hot charcoal until cooked and golden brown.

Fried Rice Noodles (Bihun Goreng)

250 gram dried rice vermicelli, cooked and set aside
150 gram prawns (or chicken)
1/2 onion, peeled and chopped
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 stalk spring onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
1 tablespoon oyster sauce (optional)
salt and pepper to taste
2 eggs, lightly beaten
Bean Sprouts (as desired)
1/2 medium red paprika, sliced diagonally (optional)

To make the rice noodle soft and tender, Place the noodles in a heatproof bowl and pour with boiling water. Drain.

Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a wok over medium-high heat. Make the scramble egg. Set aside.

Heat the remaining oil in the wok over a medium-high heat. Fry the prawns, but don't make them too dry. Set aside.

Stir with the remaining oil in same wok, fry the onion and garlic until fragrance. Then add spring onion, bean sprouts, red paprika and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes or until just tender. After that, add the rice noodles, sweet soy sauce, oyster sauce and stir-fry for 5 minutes. Then add the prawn and scrambled egg. Stir together.

Serve fried rice noodle while hot or warm.

The differences between regular olive oil, virgin and extra-virgin

Simply put, olive oil is made by crushing olives to make a paste that’s then put under a press. If the oil that comes out has a low acidity and a good taste and smell, it’s labeled extra-virgin or virgin. (Virgin is slightly lower quality than extra-virgin.) These types are ideal to use for bread dunking, drizzling on veggies and other foods, and making salad dressings, since their delicate flavor and aroma will be lost when heated (some chefs still prefer to use extra-virgin for cooking). The deeper the color, the more intense the olive flavor.

If the oil is highly acidic or not great quality, it’s refined and mixed with virgin or extra-virgin oil to make “regular” olive oil; this all-purpose oil is good for cooking.

The heart-health benefits of all types of olive oil are pretty much the same, although the virgin and extra-virgin ones have extra antioxidants.

Padang Style Eggs Curry (Kalio Telor)

10 eggs, boiled
250 g young jackfruit
150 g long beans (kacang panjang), cut into 4-5 cm
500 ml thick coconut milk
250 ml light coconut milk
1 stalk of lemongrass
3 kaffir lime leaves
1 turmeric leaf (optional)
1/2 teaspoon tamarind juice
Salt and sugar to taste

Spice Paste
8 shallots
1 1/2 tsp shredded fresh galangal
100 g big red chillies (seeded)
1 tsp coriander
2 tsp shredded fresh turmeric
2 tsp shredded fresh ginger

Grind or blend the spice paste. Then boil the coconut milk, spice paste, lemongrass, turmeric leaf, kaffir lime leaves and tamarind juice, stir occasionally.

When it's boiling, add the eggs and the young jackfruit. Give to taste with salt and sugar. Continue cooking. After 10 minutes, add the long beans.

Cook the curry over medium heat until the sauce is thicken.
Serve best with warm rice.

Oversalting Your Food

The best method to avoid oversalting is to taste your food that is before adding salt to your food. But even if you have taken these precautions and your food still tastes like a salt lick, there are a couple of things you can do to make your food seem less salty.

First, try to trick your tongue into thinking the food is less salty by adding acids like vinegar or lemon juice to your food. Another trick is to add a little sugar to your food. If you are making soups or broth, adding water will help. Do not bother trying to add potatoes to salty dishes because it does not work and picking potatoes out of your tomato sauce is not fun.