Category: Meat

Asian Dishes, Malay, Meat

Rawon

7shasha7

When I first started this food blog ten years ago in 2010, it was to have a space to store all my recipes with pictures so my daughter and son could cook some of my favourite and eventually I’m hoping their favourite dishes too.

But work has always kept me from doing this up properly. Being a working mom is no joke. But the kids are now teens (or one of them is a tween) and I’m now officially under lockdown or over here it’s called a Circut Breaker (CB) (and for Westerners who can’t understand all the snickering and inside jokes whenever you see or hear CB uttered by us, go find out why 😂) I can finally cook more and record my recipes.

Today, I finally finally learned how to cook this classic Indonesian specialty that is much loved by Singapore Malays too. I don’t see this dish in Malaysia often. I wonder why. Maybe we Singaporeans are nearer to Indonesia? Anyway, I grew up eating this dish. And so did my husband’s family. Last weekend the mother in law cooked it and today, I saw my mom cook it.

Rawon is made using this poisonous black Nut called keluak. It is sold raw which the Peranakans cook whole in their dishes such as Ayam Buah Keluak (chicken in Keluak nut) it Babi Buah Keluak (pork in Keluak nut). The Malays/Javanese do not cook it whole.

Rawon is made from blending the processed safe to eat Keluak fruit with onions, ground dried chillies, garlic, and ginger. A thick paste is formed.

It is then sautéed and then beef brisket is boiled in the sautéed mixture. My mom used a pressure cooker for this. It’s fast and convenient.

The Keluak nut in a blender with onions. Later, we added the ground chilli paste, garlic and ginger slices.
It’s easy with a pressure cooker.

Recipe (all approximations as with Malay/Asian cooking):

For the blended ingredients:

  • 2-3 medium sized 🧅
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic
  • 4 huge tablespoons of blended dried chillies (they sell ready made ones here but you can blend them yourself. Dried red chillies boiled full soft. Remove seeds. Blend till fine)
  • About an inch of fresh ginger
  • A packet of food ready made buah Keluak (this I am very sure you cannot get outside our region. For sure. But it’s something new to learn if you’ve never heard of it before!)

Method

  • Fry the blended ingredients in oil till fragrant and some oil separates from the mixtyre
  • Add 2 pieces of crushed lemon grass and 3 slices of galangal
  • Add the cubes beef brisket
  • if using the pressure cooker, then cover and pressure cook for 30 min
  • If not, add water to the beef and sautéed blended ingredients and boil till meat is tender
  • Once meat is tender, season with salt
  • Add two pieces of Assam gelugur (tamarind pieces) and one tablespoon of tamarind paste
  • Add fresh kaffir lime leaves and Bay leaves
  • If you’re using pressure cooker, there’ll be plenty of liquid. See if it’s sufficient for your liking.
  • Season again with salt
  • Some people add slices of Long beans and tomato wedges (like my mom). My MIL does not.
  • Add more water if you like more gravy and a thinner consistency

How to serve

Rawon here is served with other important accompaniments. They include:

  • Bergedil (fried potato patties)
  • Paru (marinated fried beef lungs)
  • Tempeh (fried tempeh)
  • Sambal belacan (fermented fish paste chilli)
  • Tahu (fried tofu)

Here is a plate of Rawon from when I visited my MIL. Her version and my mom’s are not far off at all. Both are tasty and delicious!

This is my plate from Mom’s version. I like it with loads of gravy. There’s the fried beef lung on the TOP left, the bergedil (potato patty) and tempeh. And a dolly of sambal belacan (fermented shrimp chilli ‘sauce’)

I’m keeping this recipe here so I can make it myself in future. The important thing is to buy the Keluak from a reliable seller who knows how to process this fruit well so it’s not that bitter but must importantly not poisonous!

Meat, Middle Eastern/Turkish

Lamb Tagine with Salty and Sweet Dried Prunes

7shasha7

I made lamb tagine in a sauce pan pot after reading a lot of websites and watching YouTube videos. This I reckon is a good tagine because the seasoning is mild but fragrant. I learnt using one important spice that made a lot of difference from watching this lady Chef from a hotel make it on YouTube. The secret ingredient is…ground cinnamon!

Tagine is so simple to make (compared to Malay, Indian or Peranakan cooking you know) and so I’ll be making this quite often since the family loves it so much. But of course, different variations. Lamb is costly here in Singapore 😦

Here in my bowl, I have 1.8 kg of good quality lamb cubes. Marinade with 1 tbsp of ground cumin, 1 tbsp of ground coriander, 1/2 tbsp of sweet smoked paprika and 1 tbsp of ground cinnamon. Of course, add salt to taste before this.

Sauté two large white onions which have been quite finely chopped. Add ginger and garlic paste. Sauté till onions are soft and wilted.

Add marinated lamb cubes. Stir and brown lamb cubes. Then add 250 ml of chicken stock (I used the packet ones) and salt. Add some saffron threads, about half a teaspoon. Close lid and mimic tagine cooking. (I’m so buying a tagine soon).

While the meat is stewing away, in another saucepan, add some of the stewing liquid from the lamb and salted sweet prunes. By right, you should use sweet prunes. But…well when I went to the Chinese grocer, he had only these so I got them. But because these are saltier than normal prunes, I had to add more honey. So I added 3 tbsp of honey, 2 tsp of ground cinnamon and some water till the prunes are soft and have expanded somewhat.

Stir the prune mixture once the lamb is cooked and tender. Before that, I had added some carrots too. Don’t add too early or the carrots will be too mushy.

And I had some very sweet and delicious boiled Australian white potatoes. I pan fried the boiled cubes of potatoes in some butter and added them in too.

Lastly, stir in fresh coriander and then serve with the easy flatbread from Jamie Oliver’s wonderful recipe.

Before serving, sprinkle some dried fruits and nuts which you can easily purchase now in the snack section.

My lunch spread yesterday. Tagine with flatbread and roasted bone marrow and garlic baked chicken wings. I love the holiday season. More cooking coming up!

Asian Dishes, Malay, Meat, Noodles and Pasta

Macaroni Goreng(Fried Macaroni)

7shasha7

This is my ultimate comfort food. And it’s so easy to make…now. I think I posted this many years ago when I started this food blog for my daughter but now that I’ve grown older and wiser, I’ve discovered shortcuts.

The chilli paste in many Malay home cooking is a blend of dried chillies, onions and garlic. But I’ve discovered bottled ground chillies. It doesn’t have the onions but it doesn’t matter anyway.

This is how I cooked my delicious comforting lunch. It’s spicy and tangy, and that’s how I love it.

In plenty of oil (I used olive oil) cook till the oil separates one heaped teaspoon of chopped garlic, and 1-2 tbsp of ground chilli from the bottle. If you don’t have this, then it won’t taste as good but you can substitute with a bit more of ground chilli flakes. Here, I added a packed of chilli flakes so that I could have more colour.

Then add minced beef. Here, I have 300g of minced beef.

Make sure the meat is well cooked. Then add a packet of chopped tomatoes. I like these form Sainbury’s. Add one heaped tablespoon of ground cumin, 2 Teaspoons of sugar and salt to taste.

Let the mixture simmer nicely till the oil is really bright red and everything looks soft and unctuous.

Then add cooked macaroni.

Mix macaroni well with the sauce. Taste and add more salt if needed.

Sprinkle with spring onions cut to fairly large pieces.

Then serve with a sprinkling of fried shallots. Yummy!

Asian Dishes, Japanese/Korean, Meat, Rice, Snack

Gimbap

7shasha7

Today’s light lunch of Korean gimbap. Easy to make and easy to eat!

First, prepare short grain Japanese rice. Pickled daikon strips, carrot strips and fried beef slices that had been marinated with soy sauce.

Place seaweed onto a rolling bamboo mat with rice and all the other ingredients. Then roll tight.

Once rolled, brush with a light layer of sesame oil.

With a sharp knife, cut into slices and enjoy! This was really good on a hot weekend. I’ll be making this for work lunches soon!

Malay, Meat, Snack

Ramly…of Sorts Burger

7shasha7

For those living in this region, the Ramly burger is like the epitome of street food burgers. Beef patties are grilled and encased in a thin layer of omelette. The sauce…that’s their secret. Lots and lots of brown sauce, mayonnaise, chilli sauce…. the perfect night stack in Malaysia.

The burger Ramly is banned in Singapore, but there are many stalls during bazaars selling these burgers under the Ramly banner. They used other patties but because the original patties are banned, I guess the manner how these burgers are made allowed the Singaporean vendors to use the Ramly name.

At home, I decided to make my own version. Well, for this one that The May made them. I used expensive Angus beef patties instead of the cheap unhealthy frozen kinds because I wanted the kids to eat healthily. But we followed the Ramly style, with an omelette encasing the juicy patties. And for The Son, a slice of cheese on the beef patties before it got wrapped in the golden eggy blanket.

It was a hit for dinner that night. Will definitely make it again!