Sesame Ginger Cold Soba Noodles

Ingredients Sesame Ginger Sauce: 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar 2 TBSP soy sauce 1 TBSP sesame oil 1 TBSP sugar 1 clove garlic, pressed 1 TSP grated ginger

Main: Soba noodle Chopped cilantro Sesame seeds

1. Cook soba noodles according to packaging. Rinse with cold water then set aside.
2. In a mixing bowl, add rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, sesame oil, sugar, garlic and ginger and mix well.
3. In a separate bowl, place some soba noodles and sprinkle some sauce according to your liking. Toss well.
4. Put in a plate and sprinkle some fresh cilantro and sesame seeds.

adapted from: damndelicious.net

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It's Pho Time

Ingredients Broth: 2 pcs star anaise 1 stick cinnamon 1 onion quartered 1 carrot, coarsely chopped 2 inc fresh ginger root, peeled and halved lengthwise 1 tsp corriander seeds 2 Tbsp soy sauce 5 cups vegetable stock some salt to taste

Toppings: Flat rice noodles, cooked according to packaging Fresh bean sprouts Sliced lime Bokchoy Spring onion, chopped Thai basil Corriander leaves Min leaves Some chili or Sriracha yeah! Hoisin sauce (optional)

1. Heat vegetable broth in a pot.
2. Dunk all broth ingredients , except the salt, and bring it to a boil.
3. Simmer for 15-20 minutes. 
4. Taste and check if it needs salt. If it does, adjust accordingly. 
5. Arrange all the toppings in a huge plate or separate bowl, whatever rocks your boat. 
6. Put some cooked rice noodles in a huge bowl. Place some bokchoy leaves.
7. Add the very hot broth.
8. Put as much topings as you like. 
9. Finish off with a dash of sriracha and hoisin sauce.

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Good Old Monday - Back to Regular Programming

The holiday fever is officially over and Mark has to go back to work. It was a bit of struggle to get up this morning because we kinda got used to sleeping and getting up late the past few days. On the other hand it was quite a relief that holiday's over. I can finally get back to my routines (boring) and get hyped with work again.

And even though Monday sounded like an ordinary day, it doesn't mean that it's not lekker. I'm quite happy I had a productive work day with no distraction (Mark). And of course, having my cats around give me so much joy.

What I'm not quite happy about is I'm not taking good food pictures lately. Quite disappointing, really. It's because it's either I'm always rushed to finish and don't really have time to focus on composition, or we are just too hungry I want to get over it. Or maybe the fact that after all these time, we still haven't cleaned up and organized our supposedly workshop/studio room where creativity is suppose to happen... But yeah, enough excuses, I'm sharing it anyways.

For today's lekker food dig, here's a simple thai inspired noodle soup that I discovered from Pinterest. What I love about this soup is not exactly what is in it, but the broth itself.

Ingredients:

3 Tbsp tom yum paste (or use the entire pack if you have the ones that come in a sachet)
320ml Coconut milk
1 cup vegetable broth

1/2 cup water

2 Tbsp vegetable oil

Some vegetable (or egg) noodles - cooked and set aside.
Some zucchini, cut into little sticks
Some red bell pepper, cut in to little sticks
Some sliced mushrooms (optional)
Some fried tofu for toppings(optional)
Some Thai basil for toppings

1. Heat oil in a pot.
2. Saute the tom yum paste for about 2 minutes.
3. Add vegetable broth, water and coconut milk. Bring to a boil.
4. Simmer for about 3 minutes.
5. Add the vegetables and simmer for another 2 minutes, just enough to get them tender but not over cooked.
6. If needed, add salt to taste.
7. Get some of the cooked egg noodles in a bowl, and add the broth. Top it with thai basil for added flavor.
7. You can also top it with fried tofu if you want it to be filling.

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Cendol, Anyone?

I wish I made better photos, but the ice quickly melts!

After hundreds of grams of rice and tapioca flour wasted, underarm pains and sweat, and numerous failed attempts, not to mention the horrific clean-ups, I finally succeeded in making cendol! Wee!

I first learned about cendol in Holland, during my summer visit in 2009. It was funny to have the first taste of this asian delicacy in a western country, when I have lived all my life in Asia. Es Cendol is a green, worm-like jellies made from rice flour, tapioca flour and mung bean flour served with coco palm sugar syrup, coconut milk and shaved ice, topped with jackfruit - a very popular drink/dessert in Indonesia. Cendol was a love at first taste experience. I was in constant search for it here in Manila, but unfortunately, it's not available anywhere. I find it odd that I could never find it in any of my favourite Asian restaurants around the city when it is super popular in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, our neighboring countries.

Finding the right ingredients was a bit of a challenge for me though - gula jawa and mung bean flour in particular. I scoured all specialty Asian shops for these and didn't have any success. Nevertheless, I found coco sugar, the closest alternative I can get for gula jawa, although in my opinion, gula jawa's sweetness complexity still is the best. I gave up on mung bean flour and settled for the rice flour and tapioca flour combo - which ended up in a disaster. My cendol just melted a few minutes after it's submerged in the ice water. Although most Indonesian cendol recipe say it's just rice and tapioca flour, for some reason I couldn't succeed. So I thought the mung bean flour was the only key, and I don't have it. After numerous attempts with rice flour and tapioca flour in different proportions, I finally called it off and decided to wait on my cendol dreams. But thanks to Tika, she revived my cendol hopes and sent me that precious mung bean flour - straight from Indonesia. I finally made my first successful cendol! My cendol hopes and dreams would have died if it wasn't for Tika, thank you so much dear!

After browsing for numerous cendol recipes and videos, I was lead to Almost Bourdain, which has a simple recipe for the cendol jellies. I tweaked it a bit according to my taste, and it did work(oh geez, it's about time!).

So here's my take on cendol! Hope you like it :).

Ingredients:

Cendol Jellies
- 80g mung bean flour
- 500ml water
- green food coloring
- pandan leaves (or pandan flavor)
- 3 tbsp white sugar
- iced water in a bowl
- colander

Coconut Milk
- Kara Coconut Cream (or better, fresh coconut and get the "kakang gata" or the first milk)
- pandan leaves
- salt

Syrup
- 250 coco sugar, or coco palm sugar
- 250ml water
- Pandan leaves

Cendol Jellies Preparation:
1. Dissolve the mung bean flour in 500ml water.
2. Add few drops of green food coloring until you reach the color of electric green. You may also use pandan leaves to make the color natural.
(To do this, put pandan and 500ml of water in a blender. Sieve and take the liquid extract and use that to dissolve the mung bean flour).
3. Add sugar and 1 tbsp of pandan flavor, stir until dissolve.
4. Set your stove in low heat and begin stirring the mixture in a pot. Continuously stir until it thickens.
5. When it's paste like and super thick turn off the heat and get ready to mold!
6. Put the colander on top of the iced water.
7. Pour the cendol thick mixture on the colander and start scraping back and forth with a use of a spatula. The holes in the colander will serve as your mold to make that little green worms. DO NOT WAIT TOO LONG, otherwise when it gets cold it will be hard to mold.
8. When done, set aside.

Syrup Preparation.
1. Combine coco sugar and 250ml water in a pot, in low heat.
2. Stir until sugar's dissolve.
3. Make a knot out of about 4 pandan leaves and simmer it together with the sugar. If you don't have pandan leaves, just add 1 tbsp of pandan flavor.

Coconut Milk Preparation.
1. Heat the coconut cream (kakang gata) in a pot using low-heat.
2. Add about 2 tbsp. pandan flavor, or make a knot out of pandan leaves and put it in the milk.
3. Add a dash of salt.
4. Turn of the stove when it starts to bubble.

To serve:

In a glass or bowl, layer it with coco sugar syrup, cendol jellies, crushed ice, and coconut milk. You can top it with fruits like langka (jackfruit) or banana. Add more cendol jellies on top if you wish.

This cendol jelly is noodle type, where I poked a hole in a plastic bag and piped the cendol mixture in it. If you do this, try to not wait to long because cendol is hard to pipe out when it cools down. Don't forget to also wear mittens because the plastic gets super hot :).

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Indonesian Dessert : Bubur Sumsum

Last week I've been obsessing on making Indonesian cendol from scratch - and failed miserably, thrice :P. So I decided to give it a rest and set it aside until I find the ingredient I'm missing.

Because of that, I'm stuck with a lot of rice flour. And it seems that I haven't let go of the Indonesian dessert obsession, I browsed through my friend's blog, Tika, and remembered my interest in one of the food photograph she posted awhile back, the bubur sumsum - Indonesian rice pudding. So I immediately googled and found a youtube video from Indonesianfoods on how to make it. Now I get to use my rice flour!

Ingredients:
- 50g rice flour
- 1 1/2 cup coconut milk (kakang gata)
- 200g Coco Palm sugar (or Palm sugar if you can find one)
- 1 cup water
- pinch of salt
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
- jackfruit (optional)

Coco Palm Sugar Syrup.
1. Set the stove in low heat.
2. In a sauce pan, pour 200g coco palm sugar and 1 cup of water. Stir.
3. Keep on stirring until the sugar is dissolved, and it starts to simmer.
4. Remove from heat and set aside.

Rice Pudding.
1. Combine rice flour and coconut milk in a mixing bowl and mix well, until the rice flour is dissolved.
2. Place a pot under low heat and pour the rice flour mixture and give it a stir.
3. Add a pinch of salt and 2 tsp. vanilla extract.
4. Continuously stir until it's thick and cook.

Rice pudding and coco palm sugar syrup. And yes, those are cat legs interfering with my set.

To serve:
You can either use a bowl or a wide mouth short glass for this (as seen on youtube and blogs :)). Scoop out the rice pudding and put it in the glass/bowl. Then pour some coco palm sugar syrup and top it with some fruit if you have any. Jackfruit goes well, but since I don't have it, I'm using kiwi.

You can serve it warm or cold, however you want it.

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