Chorizo Tapas

In her frenzy for Tapas, she made a very nice Chorizo Tapas. The smoky and salty taste to Chorizo goes very well with small cut of pan-fried bread with garlic butter. A layer of lettuce add some freshness as well as crunchiness.

Good for starting a dining, or just for evening snacks.

Experimental Maki Sushi

Following our success at Nigiri sushi, and a small practice rolling sausage and bread, we finally decide to make sushi roll, or known as Maki Sushi. We have no time to buy the fish from our favorite supplier, so we use Kani Stick, Zuchini, Lettuce and some Tobiko. The bamboo mat (Makisu) rolled, the sushi cut, and we have our first Maki Sushi, topped with Tobiko.

We still have lots of cooked sushi rice left, so we decided to make another roll with slight variation – nori rolled in rice.

And we have a nicer look of Maki Sushi, although taste more or less equal to our first plate.

Horde of Sausage Bread Roll

Fresh from my oven this evening, Sausage Bread Roll with Cheddar Cheese... well.... absically that's all I used in it. it lined up nicely, red beef sausage in white uniform of bread, marching out of my oven. Smoke still came from the sizzling cheddar cheese, adding more temptation to finish it as soon as possible.

It took less than 1 hour to prepare. Roll the bread with pastry roller, then put the sausage. This is where creativity began. While I'm only using cheddar this evening, I just think of several other option, such as mayonnaise, parsley, pepper or lettuce.

Once you've made up your mind, wrapping the the sausage and the extra filling of your choice. Push 1 toothpick on each side to keep it rolled, then slice the rolled bread 1-1.5cm chunk. Push a toothpick through each roll, and line it nicely on a brass. Here is another room for creativity. Just before going into the oven, you can put something on top of the sausage. What about bacon bits, or some prepared dip sauce?

Baking is totally optional, I bake it to reheat the whole thing and melt the cheese. Serve it right from the brass for casual day, or transfer to serving plate for more serious occasion, and wath how they love it. A chili sauce might pair nicely with this food.

Chocolate Surprise

I was expecting some shipment from our partner when the reception called me at the office this morning. "A package from Clara", she said. I should be suspicious, since the person who contacted me wasn't Clara, but still, I'm surprised when the reception suddenly said Happy Birthday.

"How can she know", I thought while going to the front desk. My question soon answered when she point out a man with a big box written "Clara's Bakery". A cake cutter on top adds to my suspicious that it is a birthday cake. The sender was soon no mystery to me when I signed the receipt: Kiko. I smiled :D.


Clara's Bakery specialized in healthy food, specifically low calories food for diabetic. It use no sugar in its food, replaced with artificial sweetener. As a result, most of my colleague who tried the black forest love the less sweet taste of the cake. As for myself, I would prefer Kirch with more brandy, rather than what they use, probably to meet the low calorie cake. Beside cakes, it also sells low calories gelato ice cream.

Thanks Kiko for the pleasant surprise, you caught me this time :D.

Clara’s Bakery
Jl. HOS Cokroaminoto 52A, Jakarta Pusat
021 31908123

Feta Cheese & Spinach Salad

Still in the process of cleaning up the fridge, Kiko also cleaned up her book rack when she came across the recipe book, with this salad recipe inside. We were happy because it will used up some rarely used ingredients (Feta Cheese, mustard cinnamon, and many more), and I'm happy because it use cheese :D.

Preparing the dressing is simple and quick. I prefer to prepare it in advance, and put it in watertight container, and stash it in the fridge for later use. And when you crave for the salad, put the spinach, cucumber, onion and tomato in salad bowl or plate, shake the pre-mixed dressing, and sprinkle on top of the vegetables. Crumble enough amount of Feta Cheese, and it is set for a picture, or to satisfy your craving.

Since I'm running out of powder mustard, we use mustard jam, which is why the taste is so strong. Adding some pepper didn't help, Feta cheese slightly helps. Probably you might want to reduce the mustard a little bit.

And a little bit of note for the recipe. The amount of vegetables used is too much.... I think you can feed a horde of goat with it. Other than that, this salad is very refreshing.....


Ingredients (Serves 6)

• 2lb/1kg fresh spinach
• 1/2 cup/125ml Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 2 tbsp White Wine Vinegar (We replace with white cooking wine & white vinegar with the same ammount, probably explain the weird taste we got)
• 2 tbsp Lemon Juice
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
• Salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cucumber, sliced
• 1lb/500gr cherry tomatoes
• 8oz/250gr Feta Cheese, crumbled
• 6 spring onion, chopped

Directions:

• Trim the spinach and rinse thoroughly under cold running water. Dry well and place in a salad bowl
• Put the oil, vinegar, lemon juice, cinamon, mustard, salt and pepper in a small jar with a screw top and shake well
• Pour half the dressing over the spinach and toss well
• Add the cucumber, tomatoes, Feta and spring onions to the salad
• Pour the remaining dressing over the top, toss gently and serve

Recipe from Cheese Cook Book, published by Silverback (ISBN: 1-930603-89-4)

Evening Feta & Pepermint Dipper

Still in the attempt to clean up the fridge, we are looking some recipe that will use up our Feta when we found Dagmar's Cucumber, mint and feta dip. We made one last week, only to find that our Sour Cream has expired. And when it finally completed last night, we were not happy. The dip lack the taste of mint, and it is totally awful with Nachos... the salty Nachos just didn't match the dominant salty taste of Feta and the sour cream.

It is after we browsed through the original recipe that we recall our cucumber last week, bought before we found out about the expired sour cream. It is immediately de-seeded, cut into 5x1cm piece, dipped, and chewed. We instantly fell in love with dipped cucumber, and the dip didn't last more than 15 minutes that night.


With some raw materials left, I grab some fresh peppermint leaves, and made a new dip sauce, this time with generous amount of peppermint leaves. In addition to cucumber, I dipped a piece of French Baguette, leftover from garlic bread. Both match perfectly, and the baguette will certainly be on the dip list next time.

Again... this one does not last more than 15 minutes......

Pancake Never Dies

Who can resist this flat round dessert, with melting shiny honey and fresh-look of pineapple on top of it? Even better, it is so simple to make that people already start eating pancake since ancient time. Such simplicity and taste helped pancake to gain worldwide publicity; some places even has its own pancake day, where people eat pancake all day long.

Technology makes it even simpler to make a pancake. Ready-mix flour is available everywhere for lazy chef like me to start flipping it in couple of minutes. Just add water and egg, mix for couple of minutes, and you are set.

We use Pondan Pancake & Crepes Mix for our pancake last week. Vanilla fragrant spread instantly as we open the packaging. In no time, a pancake is served before us, topped with honey, pineapple sweet and dash of butter.

The pancake is firm enough, slightly harder when cold, but still enjoyable. As with the fragrance, taste of vanilla also dominates the pancake, blend perfectly with the honey and pineapple sweet. And the dash of butter made it a perfect dessert for the evening.

PS: When frying the mix, use the smallest flame you can get. Also, use a slightly larger non-sticky pan. I love to toss it in the air instead of flipping using spatula, and it is easier to do with slightly larger pan.

The 2 in 1 Tomato Soup

Although I insist that it would be safer for us to buy instead of cooking our own tomato soup, she insist me to promise to cook her one. So finally last week I keep my promise, and use Jamie's recipe posted by Venny in her blog. Since there are only 2 of us, not to mention other recipe tried that day, we cut the recipe into half. Here is the result:


We put the soup from the recipe to a blender, then strain to obtain smoother texture. The result looks convincing, except that we got only 1 small cup instead of 3. Then here all the laughter came.

First, the soup smell more to sambal balado (Padang's Cuisine), and taste like one. We can still trace the taste of the tomato, though, and she said that it taste good, but I still think it reminds me of sambal balado. I think somehow I cut wrong amount of red pepper and chillies from the original recipe

And when we see the residue on the strainer, we almost rolling on the floor laughing. It reminds us to chili for Ayam Pop, another Padang's cuisine.

Fortunately the soup is still edible, and does not cause any side effect so far. And hopefully she now agree that it is better to buy rather than my version of tomato soup :D