Mie Sop Medan

This is a very famous street food all over Indonesia and especially from Medan. I used to eat them quite often when I was a kid so its a sweet memory food. When I am not in Indonesia and miss the food, I can only prepared them in my kitchen and of cos its not as convenient as when you can just order from the street. Some effort is required especially getting all the spices when you are not in Asian but I can tell you its all worth it. Like me I failed to get the red and white tapioca cracker as shown below so I replaced with emping cracker.

For this dish you can always prepare the noodles right before serving time and everything else in advance. ♥

Serves: 4-6 pax

Ingredients

Grind the following into spice paste
4 cloves garlic
6  shallots
3  candlenuts
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 tbsp sea salt
1 inch ginger

Spices for broth
2 star anise
5 cm length cinnamon stick
4 pieces cloves
1/2 nutmeg
2 whole cardamoms

Noodles
Egg Noodle or kwe tiau or yellow noodle or bee hoon or vermicelli (Choose one or mixture of two)

Other ingredients
2.5 L water for broth
800-1kg chicken leg-thighs (you can add more chicken bones to have deeper chicken taste)
chicken/beef meat balls
50 g Chinese celery (divide into two, chopped finely for condiments and the other half for broth)
2 green onions (same as above)
2  tomatoes (quartered)
few carrots (cut into small pieces)

Garnish
Sweet Soy Sauce (kecap manis)
Tomato Sauce
fried shallot flakes
red and white tapioca crackers (fried till fluffy)
slices of lime (optional)
sambal chilies (optional)

Directions

1. Ia a pan, place the spices for the broth and cook until fragrant, about 2-3 min.
2. Heat oil in a soup pot and fry the spice paste until fragrant, about 3-5 minutes.
3. Add water, tomatoes, and spices for the broth. Bring to a boil.
4. Add chicken  and carrots and bring to a boil. Cover the lid, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes until the chicken is tender and fully cooked.
5. Remove chicken from the soup, fry until golden brown, and tear the meat. Set aside.

Noodles

1. Boil the noodle of your choice according to the packaging. Drain and set aside. Toss with a little bit of cooking oil to prevent from sticking.

To serve

1. Place some noodles in a bowl, add chicken, meat balls and chopped celery and spring onions on top. Pour the boiling broth on top of the noodles. Add one tablespoon of sweet soy sauce and one teaspoon of tomato sauce. Sprinkle some shallot flakes and crackers. Serve with sambal chilli and lime wedges.

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Kueh Bangkit

Chinese New Year is around the corner... Soon we will say good bye to the Horse and welcome the Goat... But I will stick my love to Doraemon the Cat and never say good bye... ok enough of my lame joke...

I was inspired by the movie Stand By Me to do kueh bangkit out of their normal shape ... which is Doraemon... I thought I will fail but I did it although they are not perfectly shape... Anyway you can do any shape with any available mold that you have..

The mold that I used is the Doraemon Jelly Mold shown below. You can also used cookie cutter.

In this blog I will talk more on molding part as I believe everybody should have their own favorite kueh bangkit recipe passed down from grandma era that has been fully proved hehehe... Lets make this tradition of making kueh bangkit during chinese new year a lasting one by creating your own desired shape.

First of all you need to prepare the dry and cook flours as follow, one day in advance is advised so as we have a complete cool down flour:

Ingredients
500g tapioca flour
165g sago flour
5-6 pcs of pandan leaves cut into 5cm

Direction
1. Stir fry both flours in a wok over low heat for 10 min and then add the pandan leaves and continue to stir fry for another 10-20 min until the flour is light and slightly turned yellow.
2. Once the pandan leaves become dried and crinkled, remove them out of the flour else once they break you will have hard time to remove them later.
3. Leave to cool completely and sift and then finally store in air tight container.

Kueh Bangkit

Ingredients
420g cooked flour
2 egg yolks
200g icing sugar
240g coconut cream ~ prepare more and used if the dough gets too dry while molding
(I prefer to cook the coconut with pandan leaves and a pinch of salt to have stronger flavor cookie, this is optional and ensure they are completely cool down)

Direction
1. Combine coconut cream with 100g sugar and mix well.

2. In another bowl, whisk egg yolks with hands with the remaining 100g sugar for 5 min and gradually stir in the coconut cream mixture and whisk until well combined.

3. Pour in the sifted flour and knead to get a soft dough. Cover the dough with a damp cloth.

4. Shape the cookie to your desired shape.

If you are using mold, either the plastic or wooden
~ Dust the mold with the extra cooked flour every time before you mold.
 (my mom taught me to put the flour in a thin cloth and tie it with rubber and you will get your own duster)
~ Take a pinch of dough and press them hard into the mold. Trim excess by using knife. Tap Gently on hard surface to remove the kueh. If you are using plastic mold like me, you can gently tap and then press out. Repeat this step.

If you are using cookie cutter
~ Dust the working surface with the extra cooked flour.
~ Roll out the dough into 3-5mm thickness.
~ Dust the cookie cutter and cut out the desired pattern. Repeat this step.

In both situation add a little coconut milk when the dough turned too dry.

5. Bake in preheated oven (top-bottom heat) at 160C for 20-25min until they slightly turned yellow.

6. Remove from oven and leave it to completely cool before storage. At this stage you can use food coloring and paint brush to add some color to your biscuit. They have to be stored in air-tight container.

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