Sweet Sour and Spicy Fried Eggs

by Jun on January 17, 2010

Sweet sour and spicy fried eggs

Long story short, I have found the passion of writing again. I have let other personal ventures crossed into the love of cooking and writing, and reading about food and cuisine. Started cooking again this weekend, and it felt great. My family is not that thrilled that, again, I will be messing up the kitchen and buy loads of unused ingredients, but it is fun to see some smoke coming out of the burner, I think.

Something easy and fun to start the year. I am a big fan of eggs. Any type of eggs. Scrambled, sunny side up, hard boiled, soft boiled, with rice, noodles. Easy meal with simple eggs on toasts or plain noodles or rice can fill me up for hours.

Spice up the plain old fried eggs is easy and quite a delight. One of my all time favorite is this simple sweet, sour and spicy treatment – sweetness from the shallots, sour from the lime juice and the hot after taste from the red chili.

Shallots, chili and sugar are like the trio of Indonesian cooking. All three are always present in people’s kitchen. Unlike the extravagant Chinese cuisine’s sweet and sour sauce, I really like this version better. The taste is all there, without the goey sauce thickener. Extra easy and extra yummy. Not using up too many pots and pans, That’s what I called easy cooking, if we can call frying eggs and dressing it up a little bit “cooking”.

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Ramen Noodles Omelette

by Jun on June 1, 2009

 

Remember those days a gazillian years ago, in college, when grocery money was scarce and with exams plus assignments crashing in there wasn’t just enough time (nor money) to lavish yourself with decent food items? Well, that probably only happened to me. Those were the days when ramen noodles had become the most filling and nutritious meal of the semester. So much that I had to sacrifice to get that black sexy cocktail dress. 

Since those bleak (but wild) days, I wished I had a bit of creativity to cook ramen noodles the lifeline. The snazziest thing I did with my sad bowl of ramen was add some scrambled eggs and chopped scallion. That’s about it. 

So last night, I felt some creativity sparks and sometime ago I read that Giada made omelette with her leftover spaghetti. We (my brother and I) were starving and there was nothing in the pantry except instant ramen noodles and some eggs. I mixed up the two and it was good – good enough to be blogged about. 

Fyi, Indonesians are famous for their instant ramen noodles that go by the name of Indomie. There are many flavors available such as chicken, spicy chicken, curry, soto, and many more. Naturally, Indomie with chicken flavor is what we have in our pantry and that was what I used in my little ritzy experiment. 

First I boiled the noodles till al dente and seasoned them with the powdered stock. Stir fry some onions and tomatoes, add the seasoned noodles and pour whisked eggs onto the pan. Voala! Served with spicy tomato sauce – that would hold up the hunger for another hour. Or much less. 

How do you spice up your ramen noodles? Please do share.  

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Salsa Dip with Sweet Soy Sauce

May 30, 2009

A quick post for this yummy salsa dip, Indonesian style! Featuring the infamous Sweet Soy Sauce.
Indonesian dishes are often enriched by sweet soy sauce (kecap manis), which is basically soy sauce sweetened by palm sugar. The main ingredients are palm sugar, water, salt, soya bean, wheat, sodium benzoate (0.01%). 
This soy sauce is used for marinades, condiment [...]

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Coffee Cups Mania

May 28, 2009

Just a couple of shots to show our growing coffee cups collection – before I break any of them. My mother collects coffee cups. The most she picks up are two of one set. So if you ever come to visit or invited for family breakfast, please don’t be surprised that none of our coffee [...]

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Stir-Fried Clams with Chili and Bean Paste

May 27, 2009

I have always thought clams are slightly too “fishy” so there is only one way that I can truly enjoy this funny type of shellfish. Stir fry them with rich spices and mask it up with ginger or galangal. The only thing I would like to retain from the original clams-related flavor is the giddying [...]

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Corn Fritters

May 24, 2009

Indonesians enjoy their main meals (lunch and dinner) a la rijsttafel (derived from Dutch word, meaning “rice table”). The meals consist of many, many side dishes accompanying the main course steamed rice. The side dishes are small portions of vegetables cooked in variety of ways, meat dishes, poultry dishes, soups, colorful of chili dips and [...]

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Indonesian Fried Noodles – Mie Goreng Indonesia

May 21, 2009

Another safe favorite of Indonesian one-dish meal is stir-fried noodle. The noodles used are fresh round and thick egg noodles, which can easily be substituted with instant ramen noodles. This is stir-fried quickly with spice paste and green vegetables. The main difference with other type of fried noodles are the generous use of chili and [...]

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Steamed Salty Fish with Pork

May 19, 2009

 
Ever been to traditional market on a hot and humid day, trying to pick out some dried salted fish? I have. Not the most cherished moment of daily grocery shopping. Trays and trays of dried salted seafood perfectly displayed on the counter, with some strange looking fishes and other sea creatures dangling on over your [...]

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Steamed Yam Cake

May 17, 2009

Yam cake is savory steamed snacks made from taro cubes mixed together with rice flour and then served with fried shallots, scallions and other condiments such as dried shrimps or chopped chili. Yam cake (also known as taro cake) is slightly denser than radish cake which is made from shredded radish and rice flour. 
In our [...]

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Ribs with Honey and Orange Rub

May 14, 2009

A new addition to our family’s favorite is pan-fried pork rib with orange and honey flavored marinade. 
The orange-based ingredient used is the preserved mandarin orange rind found in supermarket or Asian grocery shops at snack section. When we were little girls, we loved to sneak into classes one of these and just put a small [...]

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