Falafel (Middle Eastern Chickpea Balls) Recipe

What is Falafel? Based on wikipedia:

"Falafel is a ball or patty made from ground chickpeas and/or fava beans. Falafel is usually served in a pita, which acts as a pocket, or wrapped in a flatbread known as lafa.


Generally accepted to have first been made in Egypt, falafel has become a dish eaten throughout the Middle East. Falafel is also often considered a national dish of Israel. The Copts of Egypt claim to have first made the dish as a replacement for meat during Lent. The hearty fritters are now found around the world as a replacement for meat and as a form of street food.


While falafel is not a specifically Jewish dish, it was eaten by Mizrahi Jews in their countries of origin. Later, it was adopted by early Jewish immigrants to Palestine."

In Middle Eastern countries, falafel is also common to be made from fava beans.

As a omnivore who is married to a vegetarian, off course I have to know how to make vegetarian foods. The only thing that I can't give up is my fish and seafood which is a reason why until now I'm still eating other meats.

I used to buy frozen packages of falafel which I found saltier, greasier and have greater amount of cumin. Both of us are not a big fan of cumin. Thou some Indonesian cooking include this fragrant, I still can't handle the taste of it too much. I'd rather have lots of coriander and other herbs.

Falafel is a great filling for vegetarian sandwich. The fiber from chickpeas help people to stay full longer. Honestly, I never see people who are crazy about chickpeas beside my husband. One day, I made a Caribbean curry with chickpeas. He could eat with it for 5 days straight.

Falafel
- Middle Eastern Chickpea Balls -
source: many webs from internet

Ingredients:
400 grams (2 cups) dried chick peas
1 large size onion, quatered
2 garlic clove, crushed
2 teaspoons roasted coriander, ground
1 teaspoon ground roasted cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 big handful each flat parsley and cilantro (if you have small hands like mine, you will need 2)
salt and black pepper, to taste
oil for frying

Methods:
Combine the beans, garlic, onions, spices, parsley, and cilantro in a food processor and grind them until the size of large breadcrumbs.

Shape into balls. I used a small ice cream scoop, round it with the palm of my hand, pack it down and tap it out. On a baking tray with a layer of parchment paper, place the balls on.

Let the balls sit in the refrigerator to help dry it out. Heat a few inches of oil to 350°F and gently drop a few falafel balls in. Let fry until brown, about 5 minutes.

Cook's Note: 

• I recommend to use dried chickpeas instead of canned chickpeas. Canned chickpeas most likely will turn your falafel into mushy and soggy balls, so you will need something as a binder such as flour.
• I always buy whole coriander seeds then roast them and grind.  Keep in an air tight jar.
• Roasted ground cumin can be bought at Middle Eastearn grocers.

Po Tak (Thai Spicy and Sour Seafood Soup) Recipe

I first taste Po Tak about 6 years ago at one of Thai restaurants in Winnipeg. I totally felt in love right away with the lightness and spiciness of Po Tak. Tom Yam is very common soup to find at local Thai restaurants in town but based on my experience I only can find in that restaurant.

One day, I was talking about Po Tak with a friend who lives in Connecticut, US. She was mentioned another person that she might be able to share a recipe of Po Tak since she is married to a Thai and loves to cook as well. Both of them are my vivid readers. I finally managed to get what ingredients that I need to make Po Tak after 6 years I first tasted it. Thanks to both of you, Aya and Asty!

This soup is a lighter version of tom yum. I found it's more refreshing yet yummy and spicy. It has the same basic tom yum but with no Thai chili paste (Nam-prik Pao), instead Po Tak is enhanced by green chilies (Phrik Khee Nuu).

I still used the basic recipe of my Tom Yum Goong post.

This recipe goes for Masbar event with a theme Aneka Hidangan Berkuah (or Soupy Dish)





Po Tak
- Thai Spicy and Sour Seafood Soup -

Ingredients:
100 grams (3.5 oz) green mussel, cleaned
100 grams (3.5 oz) manila or littleneck clams, cleaned
100 grams (3.5 oz) frozen calamari rings
400 grams (14 oz) freshwater prawns (Indonesian: udang galah), it's about 4 pieces
200 grams (7 oz) softshell crabs
6 cups water
one big handful of kaffir lime leaves
3 lemongrass, discard the outer layers and cut to 5-centimeters or 2-inches pieces
4-centimeters (1.6-inches) long (2-centimeters/0.8 inch diameter) galangal, peeled and thick sliced
juice from 3 limes (in this recipe I used 6-7 calamansis), you may need more
¼ cup Nam Pla (Thai fish sauce)
green chilies (Phrik Khee Nuu), as many as you can handle the spiciness
Thai basil

Preparation to make the stock:
1.  Rinse all prawns and softshell crabs.
2.  Peel the heads and shells of 2 prawns, reserve them.
3.  Squeeze the fat out from the heads and reserve in a separate bowl.
4.  Combine 2 headless and skinless prawns with 2 other full body prawns in another separate bowl.
5.  Halve soft shell crabs.

Make the Stock:
1. Heat the prawn shells, heads, and halved soft shell crabs in a pot with the water.
2. Bruise the kaffir lime leaves and smash the lemongrass and galangal a bit and throw them into the pot.
3. Reserve a few kaffir lime leaves, a slice or two of galangal, and some lemongrass for the soup later.
4. After the water come to a full boil, lower the heat to simmer and continue to cook for about 5 minutes. Strain, crush the shells and heads well to squeeze all the delicious taste from them.

Po Tak:
1.  Heat the stock to a boil, add the full body prawns for 6 minutes. In the next 6 minutes,

2.  Add the headless and skinless prawns, prawn fat, and the rest of the kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass.

3.   Add green mussels, clams, and squids.  Cook for the next 4 minutes or until all ingredients cooked. When the prawns are just done (take care not to overcook the prawns), turn the heat off. Season with fish sauce, lime juice, crushed green chilies, and Thai basil.

Cook's Note:
*  Feel free to add mushroom or whitefish fillet or other kinds of seafood.

*  Throw extra whole chillies, so you can smash them up if you like hotter taste. In case, you serve for other people, this way everyone can control the heat. The taste should be sour, salty, hot.

*  If you don't have time to make your own homemade seafood stock, you can always use a mix of water and clam juice or vegetarian broth.  Clam juice is sold in a bottle and very common to be found in any Canada's grocery store.

Som Tam ส้มตำ (Thai Green Papaya Salad) Recipe

Som Tam (Som Tum) or Thai green papaya salad originates from Laos which is known as Dtam Mak Huhng (Tam Mak Hoong). Som Tum is a very popular food for Thai people especially in northeastern Thailand (Issan).

Thai som tam is sweet, sour, and spicy, and a little salty while Lao dtam mak huhng goes toward spicy and salty. Just like in Laos, the Thais enjoy som tam with khao niao (sticky rice) and kai yang (roast chicken or ping gai in Laotian).

Southeast Asian people love fermented fish and seafood products. You will see many of them in Southeast Asian dishes, including this som tam.

I finally represent the third green papaya salad in this blog as I posted before the Indonesian green papaya salad (Gohu Minahasa) and Vietnamese green papaya salad (Goi Du Du). I was also explaining more details about these 3 different green papaya salad on my Gohu Minahasa post.

In this recipe, I added Asian long green beans. There are two kinds of long green beans at Asian markets here, the dark and white. I like the white ones as these have a better taste (crunchier) for salad.

This recipe is adapted from Thailand Musings where Golf told other different som tam in the country


Sôm Tam (ส้มตำ)
- Thai Green Papaya Salad -

Ingredients:
400 grams green papaya
3 Asian long green beans
2 tablespoons dried shrimp, soaked in water and drained
4 cloves garlic
5-6 green chilies (Phrik Khee Nuu)
1 tablespoon roasted peanut
3-4 tablespoons palm sugar
3 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tablespoon tamarind juice

Methods:
1. Peel the green papaya with your regular peeler and shred it into julienne with a julienned peeler.

2. Soak the julienned papaya with cold water for a minute and drain.

3. Pound the chilies with garlic thoroughly in a mortar, follow with dried shrimp and pound again just for softly.

5. Add green long beans, pound a few more times and add a pinch of papaya. This helps mix the garlic & chilies. Pound some more.

6. Add the palm sugar, fish sauce or salt and pound more. Make sure everything is well mixed.

7. Add the tomato , chopped into large pieces and roasted peanut, and use a pestle and a spoon help to mixed up together in the mortar. Pound more, but not as hard.

5. Add the lime and tamarind juices and the rest of the papaya. Pound about 10-15 times while mixing with a spoon. You want to evenly coat the papaya with the juices while pounding the flavor into the papaya, but don’t pound so hard that the papaya disintegrates. Add the peanuts, mix and serve.

Indonesian Amaranth Greens Crackers (Keripik Bayam)

Yunita Rahmasari or known as Tata of Bonita's Cooking & Bento Wonderland is a talented bentoist who share the same passion with me, Indonesian cooking. She is a full time university lecturer but she still finds a time to do what she loves to do. She is always amazed me with her bento creations. Tata and I have a great deal of good conversation about Malang, the second largest city in East Java province where she lives right now. Malang has a special memory for me, a place where I spent lots time with my extended family and where my late mom went for university and finally met my late dad for the first time and dating.

Please join me to welcome Tata with her beautiful Amaranth Greens Crackers (Keripik Bayam). Thanks, Ta!


I had to hold my hung jaw when I read a PM from mbak Pepy asking me to write a guest post on her lovely and insightful food blog. To make sure that I was not dreaming, I needed to pinch my hand and I found out that I was not dreaming at that time. I felt so honored and my heart was overwhelmed with happiness, thanks a lot mbak Pepy for the chance! :D.  I started blogging when I was still an undergraduate, and Indonesia Eats (formerly known as The Art and Science of Food) is one of Indonesian food blogs that I love to visit.  Besides her awesome photography, I’m keen on reading mbak Pepy’s insightful posts and educating myself with the stories and information behind the foods she has been posted. Though I’m living in Indonesia for my whole life, I realize that there are so many things about cooking that I still need to learn more ^^.

At first I was confused about what to post, I scratched my head whether I had to post bento or Indonesian food. And yes, of course I had to post something Indonesian :). Since I was enjoying deep fried coated tempeh when I read Mbak Pepy’s message, “Traditional Deep Fried Snack” was the idea that popped up in mind.  Deep fried snack with flour batter coat is one of Indonesian common traditional snack styles.  It can be easily found at many morning traditional markets and street snack stalls especially in the evening.  The ingredients that we love to coat with flour batter then deep fry are numerous, but the common ones are banana, tempeh, tofu, cassava, sweet potato, oyster mushroom, and tapé (fermented cassava).  For the deep fried snacks whose main ingredients are tempeh, tofu, or veggies, we (the Eastern Javanese) love to enjoy them with green bird eye chilies and sambal petis (sambal shrimp paste). For this guest post, I come across with Keripik Bayam (Amaranth Greens Crackers) that I made when I was home about a month ago. Many Indonesians often misuse the word “spinach” to refer Amaranth Greens. For Indonesians, their “Spinach” is actually “Amaranth Greens”.

Keripik Bayam is one of my family’s favorite homemade snacks.  This homemade snackie would be perfect to company us while we're watching TV (especially soccer match) or could be a side dish.  To tell you the truth, Indonesians love to eat with crackers for everything, rice, noodle.  My grandma plants some kinds of vegetable, herb, and spice for daily home cooking needs in our backyard.  Our backyard is just like our treasure site; everytime we need some fresh herbs or spices, we just need to take them from there.  There is  no exception for these Amaranth Greens that I used here.  We love to make Amaranth Greens Crackers since the ingredients are always available in our kitchen.  I used limestone water to promote crispy texture in Indonesian traditional crackers (keripik).  To maintain the crispiness, we can keep the crackers in an airtight container. But in my family case, the amaranth crackers would be quickly grabbed and disappeared before I could put them into the container T_____T

Indonesian Amaranth Greens Crackers
- Keripik Bayam -

Ingredients:
A handful of Amaranth Greens Leaves
150 grams (5.3 oz.) rice flour
300 milliliter (1 1/4 cup) thin coconut milk (a mix thick coconut milk with water)
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon limestone water
500 milliliter (2 cups) cooking oil

Spice to grind:
3 cloves of garlic
6 candlenuts
1 teaspoon coriander
1 – 1.5 cm (1.4- 0.6 inch) long turmeric roots, peeled
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1.  Rinse well green amaranth leaves and drain.

2.  Combine rice flour, coconut milk, beaten egg, limestone water, and ground spice.

3.  Prepare a work, pot or deep fryer with plenty cooking oil.  Heat up to over medium.  Dip every single amaranth leaf to the batter.  Then, transfer to heated oil.  While frying the crackers, don’t forget to stir up the batter once or twice since the rice flour will settle down on the bottom part of mixing bowl.

4.  Fry the batter is golden brown and there are no bubbles out from the leaf.  Drain the crackers  on a tray lined with paper towels to soak up the excess oil.

5.  Cool down and then put the crackers into an airtight container to keep the crispiness.

Notes from Indonesia Eats:
* Mbak is a Javanese term to address for an older sister, commonly applied to non-relatives as well. Indonesians never call somebody by name unless they are younger.
* Indonesians love to use fresh turmeric roots instead of dry or powder forms
* In Winnipeg, a package limestone water is available to be bought at Lucky supermarket, Young's market and Dong Thai.
* Beside using a paper towel to absorb oil as Tata's explained, there is another way. a brown paper bag has a better choice as this absorbs oil really good but not making the food soggy.
* For those who live in North America, Amaranth Greens are often found as a weed. People remove them from their garden or yard.  But for us, the Southeast Asians, Amaranth Greens are healthy vegetable that pack with iron.

The Life of Foodie Blogger

The life of foodie blogger with a full time job. Exactly, I have two full time jobs. Don't you think a blogger is a full time job? :-P Outside my foodie side, I am a full time employee. During my extra time, I am still doing my favourite to do, cooking, photographing foods, eating, talking about food and reading a cookbook.

I don't have a quite large collection of cookbooks as I'm very particular about them. I like a book that give me something; something to be more knowledgeable. I sometimes visit the used bookstores, so hopefully I can find a nice book to read and collect with a cheaper price.

I am fascinating to read about other people cultures, what and how they eat and etc. That is the reason why you see some other foods from other ethnicities, besides trying to gather as many Indonesian foods as I can. Mind you...Indonesia has over 300 ethnic groups and each ethnic group has different foods and cultures.


Only one book above isn't owed by me. I took it back to the library already.

One day, it was about last year. When I went to Aqua Books in downtown Winnipeg, I found a great deal of captivating book which is perfect for me; The Food Lover's Atlas of the World by Martha Rose Shulman. This book contains briefly about the ingredients of the country all over the world. The custom of eating.

I admit that I'm not a baker yet I still have a baking cookbook :). I used to bake a lot when I still worked as a cook. Personally, I don't that much at home. Of course you know that I love fish and seafood since I grew up with them, so I do need to know about North Atlantic Seafood. I enjoy food photos so I collect some Donna Hay's too. For sure, I have one of Michael Smith cookbook. He is my favourite Canadian celebrity chef. In my opinion, he is a humble chef and really respect other culture foods. I envy with his pantry on Chef at Home show where he keeps all his spices from all over the world. He was a New Yorker boy that chose to live on the small island of Canada, PEI (Prince Edward Island).

As a foodie, I do enjoy eating out. Please enjoy my old shot on-site when I went for sashimi.

Buchujeon (Buchu Buchimgae) Recipe

Buchujeon and Buchu Buchimgae have the same meaning; Korean Chive Pancake. Jeon or Buchimgae is a delicious and savoury Korean pancake-like dish made from various ingredients and they are mixed into a wheat flour-based batter, and then pan fried.  Buchu is a Korean term for Asian or Chinese or Garlic Chive. In Indonesia, it's called kucai.

It is commonly eaten as an appetizer, banchan (small side dish) and/or as a snack. Various ingredients such as green onion (pa), seafood (hae-mul), oyster (gul), squid (ojingeo), vegetables (ya-chae/yachae), kimchi, tofu (dubu) etc can be used. Now if you have any meat or vegetable leftovers in the fridge, don’t throw them away but instead use the ingredients to make a lovely jeon or buchimgae! Do ensure that the ingredients are cut uniformly for even cooking.

I know each nation has a different name for savoury pancake-like or fritters. In Indonesia, we know bakwan, bala-bala or ote-ote/heici (shrimp cake). The recipe below is Buchu Jeon (Buchu Buchimgae) and serves from 2 to 4 people.

Buchujeon (Buchu Buchimgae)
- Korean Chive Pancake -

Ingredients:
250 grams (1/2 lb) unbleached all purpose flour
170 milliliter (2/3 cup) water
1 egg, beaten
300 grams (10.6 oz) buchu or Chinese/garlic chives (or Kucai in Indonesian), cut into 5-cm or 2-inches long
100 grams (3.5 oz) green onions, chopped vegetable oil
salt & pepper to taste

Dipping Sauce:
¼ cup soy sauce
½ tablespoon  vinegar (I used Filipino spiced vinegar)
1 stalk green onion, minced
½ tsp sugar
1 tsp sesame oil
toasted sesame seed

Methods:
1.  Place flour, salt, pepper and water in a bowl. Mix the ingredients to form a batter.
2.   Put cut chives and chopped green onions an into batter and mix them up.
3.  In a heated frying pan, pour some oil and and spread the vegetable pancake batter thinly. Lower the heat to medium. 4.   When one side of the pancake is nearly cooked, pour beaten egg in the center of pancake. Turn over pancake and dish out into a plate once completely cooked.
Dipping Sauce:
Mix all ingredients for dipping sauce

Cook's Note:
- To make a crispier pancake, add oil generously and spread the pancake mixture thinly.
- If your pan is not big enough, you can divide this batter into two batches.
- You can also use a spoon and spoon a small amount batter into a pan. So you will have many more smaller pancakes.

Gỏi Đu Đủ (Vietnamese Green Papaya Salad) Recipe

The recipe has been moved to indonesiaeats.com

Gohu (Minahasa Green Papaya Salad) Recipe

Gohu is a popular green papaya asinan from East Indonesia, to be exact Minahasa (North Sulawesi). Asinan is very similar to acar or another name for pickle in Indonesia. As other Minahasa foods or better known as Manado, gohu is spiced up with lots chilies. Gohu can be kept in the fridge for a longer time.

Green papaya is quite common to be used in Southeast Asian cooking. For the next 3 posts, I'm going to represent 3 different green papaya salad from Southeast Asia. This gohu is the first post which represent Indonesia. The next one will be Gỏi đu đủ; a Vietnamese green papaya salad. The third one will be Som tam; a Thai green papaya salad.

You will see the difference between three of them once I post all these three salads. They contain two same ingredients, green papaya and fermented fish product. Briefly, I summarize the difference
- Gohu is enriched with bakasang (read: baa kaa saank). Bakasang is made from skipjack tuna (cakalang) guts or fish egg. It's similar to Shiokara (Japanese fermented fish product made from squid or guts of skipjack and other species). Due to lacking of bakasang access, I have to substitute it for terasi (dried shrimp paste).
- Gỏi đu đủ is enriched with fish sauce.
- Som tam is added by a combination of (terasi) dried shrimp paste and fish sauce

I recommended to have a julienne peeler that can be bought through amazon.com. I got mine at one of Asian stores in town.

Gohu Minahasa
- Minahasa Green Papaya Salad -

Ingredients:
½ green papaya (about 400 grams or 14 oz)
200 milliliter nypa sap vinegar (cuka aren)*
200 milliliter water
100 grams (3.5 oz) raw canesugar

Spice paste:
7 bird eye chilies*, cut
1 teaspoon seasalt
2 shallots, peeled and cut
4-centimeters (1.5-inches) long ginger root, scrapped and cut
½ teaspoon bakasang (can be substituted for ¼ teaspoon roasted terasi or belachan)
½ teaspoon seasalt



Methods:
Peel the skin off and cut into julienne. Wash and soak in a cold water meanwhile you grind the spice.

With a mortar and pestle or food processor, pound/grind chilies, shallot, ginger, bakasang/terasi and seasalt.

In a pot, add water, sugar, and spice paste. Bring a boil. Remove from the heat and cool off. Add nypa palm vinegar. Combine. Now you have the spiced vinegar mixture.

In an air tight jar, add julienned papayas and spiced vinegar mixture. Keep it in a fridge and let it sit for 3 hours or so before you enjoy your gohu.

Cook's Note:
* I like using Filipino spiced vinegar that can be used for substituting the nypa sap vinegar.
* The amount of chilies can be reduced to your comfort zone.
* For vegans or vegetarian, you can omit the bakasang or terasi or belachan.