Lontong (Indonesian Rice Cake)

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INDONESIA EATS

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First and foremost, I’d like to say “Happy Thanksgiving to all Canadians”. This Monday is a Canadian Thanksgiving.

Let’s back to our topic here, lontong.  Lontong is a cylinder look of rice cake that is traditionally wrapped in banana leaf and boiled until solid. Thou the translation is rice cake, this lontong is not for dessert. It’s a kind of cooked rice substitution.

In Indonesian term, Lontong and Ketupat are loosely translated the same “rice cake”. The difference is the shape and wrapping materials. While lontong has a cylinder shape, ketupat is square. Please see my further explanation on ketupat.

Lontong accompanies many Indonesian dishes such as sate or satay, rendang, veggies or meat soup or stew with curry base. In Probolinggo, a small city where I was born, lontong is eaten with bakso (Indonesian meatball soup).

After several time I made lontong, I came to a conclusion. Don’t use jasmine rice for making lontong, but use long grain rice as it yields more solid lontong.

I was promising Marvellina of What To Cook Today to show my lontong mould here. These 2 moulds were brought from Indonesia. After using them plenty of times, they are getting unpresentable on the picture. There is a tip to make any stainless steel stuff clean again from Lena when she saw my ugly mould’s picture. 

“

Submerge the stainless steel products for 30 minutes in a solution of white vinegar, sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) and salt mixture. Be careful when you are mixing them because the mixture can be foamed a lot. After that, scrub your stainless steel stuff with a steel scrubber.” Thanks Lena!

How to make lontong with the lontong mould:
– Roll each leaf (length wise with the green shiny side in, so your lontong will have slightly greenish color) into a cylinder.
– Open up two lids of the mould. Put the leaf cylinder into mould. Plug one lid on, fill rinsed and cleaned rice until half. Plug the other lid on. Ready to boil for approx. 3 – 4 hours.

Note:
– The lontong process with a mould takes longer than the one without. However, you will get more solid lontong and uniform shape.

– Before plugging the lids, you may want to put layer of pandan or banana leaf on.

Recipe: Martabak manis - Sweet martabak

Martabak manis is a popular snack in Indonesia. In Jakarta and West Java, Indonesia, these sweet, thick pancakes are known as "martabak manis" ("sweet martabak"). Other Indonesians call the pancakes "terang bulan" or "kue pinang bangka". These pancakes are also known as "apam balik" in Malaysia.

Usually made by street vendors in the evening, martabak manis are pan-cooked in a very large amount of shortening. A thin batter is poured into a specially shaped pan. After cooking, the pancake is ready to be topped: often with cheese, and/or shortening, and/or chocolate, and/or peanuts.

Serves:	4
Preparation time:	30 minutes
Cooking time:	1 hour
Ready in:	1 hour 30 minutes

Ingredients

For wrapper

• 230 gr Self-raising flour
• 20 gr Tapioca Flour
• 375 ml Warm Milk
• 150 gr Sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 11 gr instant yeast
• 1 tsp Baking powder

Fillings

• Sweet Condensed Milk
• Sugar
• Chocolate sprinkle
• Shredded tasty cheese
• Coarse Ground Peanuts (optional)
• Margarine

Directions

1.   Mix self-raising flour, tapioca flour and sugar.

2.   Mix yeast with warm milk, stir well. Add into the flour mixture and stir until well combine.

3.   Add in the eggs one by one while stirring continuously until well combine.

4.   Close the mixture using warm wet tea towel and put it in warm place (or in warm oven) for about 20 minutes until it is bubbling on top.

5.   Divide the mixture into four. Heat a teflon skillet (20 cm / 8 inch diameter) with low heat, grease the skillet with margarine. Pour in one part of the mixture. Put on the lid (best using glass lid as you could see what happen inside). Cook for about 10 minutes or until the top is full with holes and dry. Sprinkle some sugar, put on the lid for 5 seconds and take it away from the heat.

6.   Take out from the skillets and put onto a flat surface, grease the top with some margarine. Drizzle with sweet condensed milk, sprinkle with coarse ground peanuts, shredded cheese, chocolate sprinkle. Fold into half circle, spread the outside skin with margarine again and cut into 8 pieces.

PISANG GORENG

(Indonesian batter-fried bananas)

Image  by goosmurf

5

Average: 4.1 (31 votes)

These banana fritters are very popular in Indonesia and are excellent served with ice cream and drizzled with honey. You can also serve them in a dish with a little coconut cream.

4 to 6 servings

INGREDIENTS

• Flour -- 1/2 cup
• Rice flour -- 1/4 cup
• Baking powder -- 1 teaspoons
• Salt -- 1/4 teaspoon
• Water -- 1 cup
• Egg, beaten -- 1
• Oil for deep frying
• Ripe bananas,peeled and cut in two pieces -- 6

METHOD

1. Mix the flour, rice flour, baking powder and salt well in a bowl. Beat the water and egg into the flour mixture until batter is smooth. Set batter aside to rest for anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour.
2. Heat the oil in a deep skillet or deep fryer to between 350° and 375°. Working in batches, using a fork to dip pieces of banana in batter to cover. Let any excess batter drip off and drop in the hot oil to deep fry, turning until well browned on all sides.
3. Drain on paper towels and serve warm.

VARIATIONS

• Use 1/2 cup coconut milk and 1/2 cup water in the batter for a more tropical flavor if you like.
• You can eliminate the rice flour if you like and use 3/4 cups all-purpose flour instead. But the rice flour adds a crispness that will be missing.

Bakso

How To Make Bakso – Bakso or Baso is Indonesian meatball or meat paste made from beef and is similar in texture to the Chinese beef ball, fish ball, or pork ball. Basically Bakso is made from beef meat with tapioca flour, however Bakso also can be mad from other ingredients such a fish, chicken or shrimp.

The Indonesian usually served Bakso in a bowl of beef broth, with adding some yellow noodles, , salted vegetables, tofu, bihun (rice vermicelli) , Chinese green cabbage, ,egg (wrapped within bakso), siomay, bean sprout or steamed meat dumpling, and crisp wonton.

Barack Obama , the President of United  States of America stated that Bakso is one of his favorite food while living with his mother in Jakarta. Obama himself eat Bakso while State visiting to Indonesia which attracted many local medias.

This story makes Bakso vendors in Indonesia using his name to promotes their Bakso, they called their version of Bakso as “Bakso Obama” or Obama’s Bakso.

Bakso in Indonesia has many variations,these variation basically only relating to its texture and ingredient. There are Variations of Bakso, which includes:

·         Bakso ayam: chicken bakso, which is one of the most favorite behind Beef Bakso;

·         Bakso urat: bakso filled with tendons and coarse meat and unique type of Bakso;

·         Bakso gepeng or flat bakso

·         Bakso bola tenis or bakso telur: tennis ball sized bakso with boiled chicken egg wrapped inside

·         Bakso udang: shrimp bakso

·         Bakso ikan: fish bakso (fish ball)

·         Bakso keju: new recipe bakso filled with cheese

·         Bakso Bakar: Burnt skewered bakso like (Satay).

·         Bakso Malang: A traditional bowl of bakso from Malang city complete with noodle, tofu, siomay and fried wonton;

·         Bakso Kotak:　Bakso shaped like a box, cube.

Basically Bakso is originated from China, brought by Chinese immigrant to Indonesia. However, today most of the bakso vendors are Javanese from Malang and Wonogiri. For your information, Bakso Malang and Bakso Solo are the most popular variant in Indonesia.

Today however I will teach you how to make Bakso in general, most variants of Bakso as I mentioned before only relating to its texture so the way how to make them is the same. Bakso is a type of food consisted with 2 main ingredients : the Soup and the Meatball. So if you want to make Bakso you must prepare the soup first.

Ingredients to Make Bakso Soup:

To make the soup you need to prepare some of the basic ingredients below:

·         400 g veal bone

·         4 liter fresh water

Seasoning For Beef Meatball Soup:

The soup also need some seasoning, to make that, you need to prepare the following ingredients:

·         5 cloves garlic, fried and mashed

·         Red onion 4 cloves, fried and mashed

·         Fried onions 1/2 tablespoon, mashed

·         Sugar 2 tsp

·         salt 1 tbsp

·         Pepper 1/2 tsp

·         4 stalks scallion, white part, thinly sliced

·         Instant beef broth, 2 tsp

  

How to Make Beef Meatballs Soup

OK, after you prepare the material ingredients, all you need is cooked the soup, here’s the way:

·         First,boil the water

·         enter all of the ingredients and seasonings together including onions and garlic.

·         Wait until boiling and mature bone

·         Then reduce the heat and let the sauce will still be above the stove.

Beef Meatballs Recipe:

·         250gr ground beef

·         2 tablespoons fried shallots

·         1 tablespoon garlic fries

·         1/2 teaspoon pepper

·         1 tsp salt

·         50 g of starch

·         40 g ice cubes, crushed

·         2 ltr of water to boil bakso

How to Make The Bakso:

·         The first is insert the meat,pepper, onion, salt, and flour in a food processor or blender. Then Milled them until smooth and well blended;

·         Then Add ice cubes if the batter buckled and hard formed

·         Heat the water over low heat until almost boiling

·         Grasp the dough and press to appear between your thumb and forefinger.

·         then cut with a spoon and put the meatballs in hot water.

·         Do it until all the dough is finished

·         raising the heat and cook until all the Bakso cooked.