Rice & Pasta: Nasi Goreng

There are many types of indonesian fried rice, from white to red, sliced spices to ground ones. Javanese fried rice is my favourite among of all. It uses terasi (or belacan in Malay) as its secret component that make it very distinguish from others. Terasi made of fermented dried shrimps and salt, so you can just simply substitute it with dried shrimp if you couldn't get one, or discard it even if you really have none at all. The taste would rather be different but still it damn-oh-so-good especially for them who dont use terasi as their common ingredient.

NASI GORENG (Javanese Style)

Ingredients:
4 cups cooled cooked rice
4 tbs vegetable oil
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbs soy sauce (light or dark)
shredded cooked meats or chicken (or chopped sausages, smoked beef, etc)
Your fave vegetables, finely shredded (most common: cabbage, mungbean sprouts, carrot)
Combine and finely ground into paste:
2 red chillies (seeded if you dont want it hot)
4-5 shallots (or 1 medium onion)
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp terasi/belacan (or 1 tbs dried shrimp, soak in hot water for 5 minutes, drain)
Garnishes:
Crispy-fried shallots (bawang goreng)
Cucumber slices
Fresh tomato slices
Spring onion, finely chopped
Complements:
Fried eggs
Shrimp crackers (kerupuk udang)
Method:
Heat oil in frying pan, stir-fry the ground paste until fragrant.
Add salt, soy sauce, shredded meats and rice.
Stir over medium heat until it's heated through and all vegetables are cooked.
Transfer to serving dish, topped with complements, arrange the garnishes on top and around the dish.
(Serving for two)

Dessert: "Quick" Tamarillo Sauce &Vanilla Crepes

First I knew Tamarillo on Arfi's kitchen last year, we then had a short discussion of wat tamarillo is in Milis Resepkita as she posted tamarillo chutney recipe. I remembered once I ever had it in my childhood, but I didn't know its name as well as I couldn't remember where I ate it. It was tangy, semisweet and very aromatic. Hmmppphhh... I could smell its flavour even while reading Arfi's story of harvesting tams from her garden and making tams chutney.
Not so long ago I saw these tams again in Riana's kitchen, with another name... Terong Belanda! Ow, surprising to me that it's a local fruit! I never knew this fruit on local store nor traditional market, well I mean in Surabaya. Seems it's not javanese native fruit. Later on I knew that tamarillo or terong belanda is very popular in North Sumatera and Aceh, as popular as Markisa (marquisa, passion fruit).
I was so much obsessed of how exciting it would be if I got some tams to put on my blender or saucepan, and pouring it over my cakes, or just drink it simply. Riana's great shot of tam juice made me crazy and drooling :))
Yesterday my sister (in law) just came back from Medan. She brought me a bottle of... no, not Marquisa Syrup, not at all. It's... Tams Syrup...! Ahh, wat a bless!
But still I'm dreaming of having fresh tams anyway, making my own jam or sauce for dessert, sluurppp... I also consider it must be delicious with poultry or red meat as plum sauce is.
Oh well okay, now here it is, an "quick" tams sauce, served with pancakes and your fave fruits (I used mango) on top. It's so good & delicious!

"QUICK" TAMARILLO SAUCE
By: Lia, Dapurgue
I called it quick cos I made it from tams syrup. Not really good idea, but it's pretty good while you cant find any fresh fruit around.
Ingredients:
150 ml good quality tamarillo syrup (made of natural tam juice & sugar, no artificial ingredients such as flavour, color nor sweetener)
75 gr sugar
50 ml water
1/2 tsp butter
Method:
Combine tamarillo syrup, sugar and water in a saucepan, allow to simmer and stirring frequently until mixture is slightly thickened.
Remove from heat, stir in butter. Let it cool, serve with your favorite desserts.

VANILLA CREPES
By: Lia, Dapurgue
This is my basic recipe for making several crepes-based desserts.
Ingredients:
2 eggs
500 ml fresh milk
250 gr all-purpose flour (use high grade or bread flour for best result)
½ tsp salt
2 tbs sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence
2 tbs butter, melted
Method:
Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor until smooth. Let the batter stand for 15 minutes.
Pour about one woodenspoon of the batter into preheated crepes pan (or simply use non-stick frying pan).
Lift the pan off of the heat and tilt it so that the batter forms an even, thin layer in the pan.
Cook until it's set and the bottom is golden.
Remove from the pan and place on a sheet of wax paper. Continue cooking the remaining batter in the same manner, stacking the finished ones between sheets of wax paper.
Serve immediately or freeze in airtight container for up to one month.

Cake & Dessert: The Ultimate Opera Cake

It's a layers of art and delicacy.
A wonderful stacks of thin La Gioconda sheets layered with luxurious dark chocolate combined with a rich and silky-smooth coffee cream.
Take one bite and taste it slowly, enjoy the exploration of creamy-velvety sheets as you will never have the next bites, then you’ll reach the top of the most sophisticated confectionery ever, which will turn you on to a gastronomical orgasm. Believe me!
La Gioconda, or Joconde in English, is the crucial component in Opera Cake. It’s a thin and spongy almond cake, gives a very special flavour and brings an elegance as it meets the ganache and coffee cream layers.
I’ve tried many Joconde recipes in my journey to find the ultimate Opera Cake recipe. At my last trial I found this recipe is the best I ever tried. It’s very easy and failproof then I decide to finish my journey of Joconde research.
Here I translate it for you as my appreciation to Ita Kusnita as the owner of the Joconde recipe :)
Sorry, this picture is not my original one. I took it from http://www.scena.org since I can't yet make a good photo to represent its luxury.

Joconde Biscuit
(written by Ita Kusnita under title of “Opera Cake” in NCC mailinglist, I modified it a little bit)
Ingredients:
200 gr finely ground almond (Ita used almond powder or cashewnut powder)
100 gr caster sugar (Ita used 150gr)
6 eggs
50 gr butter, melted
60 gr all purpose flour (Ita used 55gr)
115 gr egg whites
55 gr confectioner sugar
Methods:
Prepare six pans (22 x 22 cm), greased and lined with baking paper.
In a large bowl combine ground almond, caster sugar and 3 eggs, beat at high speed for 10 minutes, scraping often.
Add remaining eggs one at a time, continue to beat for another 10 minutes.
Save the mixture for about 2 woodenspoons, stir in melted butter until combined, set aside.
Add flour to the remaining mixture, mix well.
In another bowl, beat egg whites til foamy, add confectioner sugar gradually and continue to beat until soft peaks formed.
Spoon white eggs and combine to the almond mixture gradually, add the reserved butter mixture, blend thoroughly.
Divide and spread into prepared pans, bake for 10 minutes in 200(C). Cool completely, remove from pans. Let baking paper stick on the cake until assembling the opera.

After making Ita's Joconde, here are the key components you cant't skip at all:

Dark Ganache
Ingredients:
500 ml fresh cream or any kind of cream, but don't use the sour one
500 gr dark chocolate (bitter sweet chocolate, or dark couverture for richer taste), chopped
200 gr salted butter (note that I always use the salted one)
Method:
Put the chocolate in a medium bowl.
Heat cream in a small saucepan over medium heat until just warm.
Pour over chocolate, stir well.
Add butter, continue to stir until mixture is smooth.
Let stand 15 minutes to thicken slightly, divide into 7 parts.

Coffee Cream
Mix well and divide into 6 parts:
750 gr whipped cream
2 tsp instant coffee or espresso, dissolved in 3 tbs boiled water

Coffee Syrup
Boiled & let cool:
150 ml water
100 gr sugar
2 tbs instant coffee or espresso

Assembling
There are various way to assemble Opera, you can find many on internet. Some only give ganache layer for every two sheets of Joconde, alternate with coffee cream. Some others only put ganache layers without coffee cream. My Opera, has all components in every stack, and it's a must! One Joconde (moistened with coffee syrup), one coffee cream layer, one ganache layer. Now… let’s assemble and create the artwork ;)
Place one sheet of joconde upside down (top of the cake on bottomside), peel off the baking paper.
Brush thoroughly with coffee syrup until moist.
Spread one part of coffee cream evenly over the cake.
Pour one part of ganache mixture over the cream, let cool in chiller for 2 minutes.
Cover with another sheet of joconde, always upside down and peel off the paper of course (see, unremoved baking paper makes you easier to handle the very thin joconde sheets during assembling).
Repeat above steps until all jocondes, coffee cream and the 6th part of ganache stacked completely. Chill for 10 minutes.
Heat and stir remaining ganache over low heat just until simmer, pour evenly on the top, giving a smooth and shiny final touch to the cake like opera floor :) Chill for another 15 minutes or some.
Trim the sides thinly to remove excess cream & ganache, and… to reveal the layers of art and delicacy ;)
Serve it as a luxurious semifreddo dessert on your special occasion.
(picture, courtesy of http://www.scena.org)

and this is the original version of Ita Kusnita.

Opera Cake

Bahan :

200 gram Almond bubuk/ Mete bubuk

150 gram gula pasir halus (bukan gula halus ya, atau icing)

6 butir telur ayam utuh

50 gram mentega cairkan

55 gram tepung terigu

115 gram putih telur

55 gram gula halus

Cara membuat :

1. campur almond, gula pasir dan 3 butir telur, kocok dengan mixer kurang lebih 10 menit

2. masukan sisa telur satu persatu, sambil terus kocok, dan setelah semua telur masuk, kocok kembali kurang lebih 10 menit.

3. Masukan 2 sendok besar adonan kedalam mentega cair, aduk rata, sisihkan..

4. Campur tepung ke dalam adonan almond aduk rata

5, kocok putih telur sampai berbusa, masukan gula halus, sambil terus kocok sampai kaku tapi jangan terlalu kaku ..

6. campur adonan almond dengan putih telur, aduk rata

7. terakhir masukan mentega cair yang telah dicampur sedikit adonan, ke dalam adonan almond.

8. bagi kue menjadi 6 bagian ke dalam loyang ukuran 22 * 22, panggang dengan api besar kurang lebih 10 menit ...

Cara menyusun:

1. ambil selemabr cake, siram dengan kopi yang aromanya enak, lapis dengan butter cream.

2. tumpuk satu lembar cake di atas cake tadi, siram cake dengan kopi dan oles dengan ganache .

3. demikian terus sampai semua cake habis... masukan ke dalam kulkas kurang lebih 20 menit, terakhir siram atasnya dengan cokelat siram atau ganache cair

4. masukan lagi ke dalam kulkas kurang lebig 1 jam, rapihkan pinggirnya, sehingga cake tampil cantik, dan hias sesuka hati ..