Spicy Fried Dried Stick Noodle

Everybody loves noodle, including our family. We love almost any kind of noodle such as beehun (rice vermicelli), kwetiau (large rice noodle), yellow noodle, ifumie or bakmi. We love them all. My daughter's favorite is always the kwetiau and indeed its delicious especially the fried kwetiau. But right now, I want to share a recipe using different kind of noodle which is dried stick noodles.

We need to boiled this stick noodles first before cook. Usually, I boild the water first before adding the dried stick noodles. I add salt for savory flavour and cooking oil to the boiling water to prevent the stick noodle from sticking to each other. Wait until the noodles turn soft then put the hot noodles under tap water to stop the cooking process from the heat. Drain. Well, I want to keep the ingredients simple and use garlic and fried shrimps as the main focus.

Spicy Fried Dried Stick Noodle

Ingredients:

1/4 kilos of fried stick noodles, boiled and drained

3 garlics, smashed then chopped

1 Onion spring, sliced

10 cayennes

1/2 Tomato, sliced

2 eggs, scrambl

Soy sauce

Sweet soy sauce

Sesame oil

Salt and peppers

Blended ingredients:

10 shallots

3 garlics

1/2 ounce of dried shrimps

3 candlenuts

How to cook:

Heat cooking oil on a medium size skillet with medium heat, add smashed garlic and cook until brown

Add the blended ingredients, cook for about 5 minutes then add the sliced tomato and cayennes, stir well.

Add soy sauce, sweet soy sauce, salt and pepper and then add the scrambled eggs. Stir well

Then add the boiled and drained fried stick noodles and stir all together until the colour turns brown and smells wonderful :) 

Add the sliced onion spring then add one last stir :D

Put the noodle on a large plate then splash the sesame oil to add more flavour then sprinkle with fried shallot. Enjoy! :)

A Dumb Who Wants To Marry You

Marry You

By: Bruno Mars

It's a beautiful night,

We're looking for something dumb to do.

Hey baby,

I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,

Or is it this dancing juice?

Who cares baby,

I think I wanna marry you.

Well I know this little chapel on the boulevard we can go oh oh oh,

No one will know oh oh oh,

Oh, come on, girl.

Who cares if we're trashed got a pocket full of cash we can blow oh oh oh,

Shots of patron,

And it's on, girl.

Don't say no, no, no, no-no;

Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah;

And we'll go, go, go, go-go.

If you're ready, like I'm ready.

Cause it's a beautiful night,

We're looking for something dumb to do.

Hey baby,

I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,

Or is it this dancing juice?

Who cares baby,

I think I wanna marry you.

I'll go get a ring let the choir bells sing like oooh,

So what you wanna do?

Let's just run girl.

If we wake up and you wanna break up that's cool.

No, I won't blame you;

It was fun, girl.

Don't say no, no, no, no-no;

Just say yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah-yeah;

And we'll go, go, go, go-go.

If you're ready, like I'm ready.

Cause it's a beautiful night,

We're looking for something dumb to do.

Hey baby,

I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,

Or is it this dancing juice?

Who cares baby,

I think I wanna marry you.

Just say I doooooo-ooo uhu,

Tell me right now baby,

Tell me right now baby, baby.

Oh, it's a beautiful night,

We're looking for something dumb to do.

Hey baby,

I think I wanna marry you.

Is it the look in your eyes,

Or is it this dancing juice?

Who cares baby,

I think I wanna marry you.

***

First of all, I must confess that I really really love all Bruno Mars' songs. But this particular song has few dumb words which irritates me. I bold all those words on the "Marry Me" lyric above.

I like this song ever since I heard it. The music is fun and the singer's voice is great, until I listen carefully to the lyric. Well, English is obviously my daily language so at first I was doubt and maybe somehow I listen to the wrong words. So I google the actual lyric and found out that I was not that wrong anyway. Turns out that the lyric is not as fun as the music and the singer's voice.

I mean, who among you beautiful ladies out there who want to marry a guy like this? He wants to marry you just because he wants to do something dumb on a beautiful night and of all other dumb things to do he chooses to marry you. He doesn't mention anything about love since I can not find a single word in this entire lyric. And the dumbest of all is the part with underline above. That if somehow, after got married on a stupid night, you wake up and wanna break up, he says: its alright, since last night was fun after all. In other words, you can always get a divorce a few hours after getting married. I can tell you that indeed it is a dumb thing to do. 

I consider marriage as sacred thing to do. You need to make sure that you are ready to marry someone and put a commitment into it before putting a ring into your finger. You need to make a plan for your life and think about what you need to do to establish your marriage life. It is not easy. That is why so many people choose to live together with their partners instead of getting married. You face different kind of responsibities when you choose to get married instead of living together. And I am sure that each and every adults know what's the best for their love life whether its married or living together. No one should judges anyone's choice after all.

But considers marriage as a dumb thing to do is totally different. If you really don't feel like want to be with the same person for the rest of your life then why bother getting married at the first place? Every woman wants to marry a responsible and committed man who willing to pour his heart into his new family. Instead of a dumb guy who wants to marry you just because its a beautiful night and he's looking for something dumb to do. Tell him to go away and that he can marry the first tall palm tree he found instead. LoL. Have a nice day ladies :)

Chicken and Potatoes Smoor

Most of Indonesian recipes are spicy and salty. We use chillis in almost every meals but this one is different. It has sweet taste with a lot of spices on it. The original name in Indonesia is SEMUR but I can not find a suitable word in English so I use the original word instead, smoor. Meat is the common ingredient for this recipe, you can use beef, pork or chicken. But sometimes people also cook smoor with hard boiled eggs or tofu. In this recipe, I use chicken with additional potatoes.

Chicken and Potatoes Smoor

Ingredients:

1 kg chicken, cut into medium size

0,5 kg potatoes, cut and then deep fried.

A ltr of water

2 pcs cardamom

3 cm cinnamon

3 pcs star anise

Sweet soy

Salt and pepper

Blended ingredients:

10 pcs red onions

3 pcs garlics

3 cm ginger

5 pcs candlenut

1 pc nutmeg

How to cook:

Heat cooking oil in a medium size pan, then add the blended ingredients, stir well for about 3 minutes

Add the chicken breast and stir until medium cooked.

Add cardamom, cinnamon and star anise. Cook until you can smell fragrance of the spices.

Add sweet soy. The amount is depends on how sweet you want your smoor to be. The more sweet soy, the sweeter. My kids love sweet smoor so I always add more sweet soy :) 

Add the deep fried potatoes then stir well until all chicken breasts and potatoes turn brown with sweet soy. Then add water.

Let it boiled for at least half and hour until all the spices absorbed well.

I usually sprinkle parsley on top of it before served.

Enjoy! :)

Old Style Christmas Card

Well, I realize that tomorrow is our last day with wonderful 2013. Time really goes by. Chrismas is over but I can still feel and enjoy the joyful moment until today. This year, we received quite few Christmas presents from family and relatives, including FIVE CHRISTMAS CARD! I was so excited to read them. Well, don't you? LOL

I mean, its been a long time a go since people started to replace the old style Christmas card with new method such as: text messages or emails which seems to be more effective and time saver. Your friends and relatives will receive your Christmas greeting in just a second after you send it. Even these days, in social media era when every places seems to get closer and closer, we can send Christmas greetings through various ways such as: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Path or Blackberry Messenger. And the fun fact is that you can add pictures of you and your family (in colour!) then send them along together with your Christmas greeting. Your friends and relative will receive it in just a second! How awesome is that! And as we all can see, Christmas cards have been forgotten.

Like it or not, Christmas cards do take time and efforts, just like. I describe above. But actually I miss them now. I miss the colourful card (sometimes you can find one with musical instrument attached and play Christmas songs while opened), I miss the beautiful words of Christmas inside. I think Christmas cards are personal compare to short messages we used on Twitter. We may call it old style but Christmas card will never be totally forgotten. Somehow I feel that someday people will get bored of all these social media phobia and return to use the old style Christmas card again. 

Anyway, I still want to give you my own Christmas greeting here my fellow readers. I hope your Christmas there as merry as ours here. Merry Christmas and Happy Welcoming New Year 2014

Fish with Salty Soybean Paste

Soybean is commonly found on Asian cuisine. Its made of soybean (obviously) and has been preserved with salt and other ingredients so that it can be keep for longer time without being rotten. The taste is salty with dark brown colour and you can still see the soybean inside. This time, I want to share a recipe using this soybean paste.

Basically you can always use anything other than fish to cook with soybean paste, such as: shrimps, squids or eggs. This time I choose fish instead.

Fish with Salty Soybean Paste

Ingredients:

1/2 kilos fresh fishes, wash and cut into half. Sprinkle with salt and lemon, leave it about 15 minutes. Then deep fried the fishes until golden brown.

10 pcs of green beans, sliced

10 pcs green pepper

2 cm ginger, smashed

1 dried tamarind

1 lemongrass

1 bayleaf

Half tomato, sliced

1 tsp of Oyster sauce

Blended ingredients:

10 pcs shallots

5 pcs garlics

1 cm ginger

A spoon of of dried prawn

Shrimp paste

How to cook:

Add oil into medium size pan and heat it

Add smashed ginger and fried for 2 minutes, then add all the blended ingredients, stir for 2 minutes

Add tamarind, lemongrass, bayleaf and the green pepper and sliced tomato, stir well

Add the sliced grean beans and oyster sauce, then let all cook for about 5 minutes, then add 1 cup of water to blend all the ingredients. Cook until the green beans become soft.

Add the fried fishes into the pan and stir well so they covered completely inside the sauce, leave it for 5 minutes for to fishes to absorb the sauce.

Ready to serve ^^

Note: since I have already use enough salty ingredients such as soybean paste, shrimp paste and oyster sauce on this, I do not add anymore salt into the recipe but you can always add salt anytime you like :)

Spicy Sausages Fried Rice

My last post about Crab Soup with Corn here  is an usual menu for main course. Now, I want to share another favorite menu for my family, this time for breakfast. It Spicy Sausages Fried Rice. We all love fried rice for breakfast and I usually combine it with other type of additional and not just sausages. I love to combine it with scrambled eggs, pepperoni, mushroom, salted-fishes, etc. So, basically, you can always replace the sausages with other additional dish you like. 

Spicy Sausages Fried Rice

Ingredients:

- Two plates of rice (I usually keep the rice inside the freezer over night to get rid of the moist we usually  find in hot rice. Cold rice will taste crispy when used as fried rice. But its your choice :) )

- 2 garlics, finely chopped

- Chicken breasts (as many as you like), thinly sliced

- Sausages (as many as you like), sliced

- 6 onions, thinly sliced, fried

- 2 eggs, scrambled

- Sweet soy sauce

- Oyster sauce

- Spring Onions and Parsley, finely chopped

- Salt and pepper

Ingredients to blend using a blender:

- 10 onions

- 3 chillis (add more if you want)

- 1 ounce of dried shrimp

- 1cm of ginger

How to cook:

Add butter or cooking oil into medium size fried pan and heat it.

Add chopped garlics and stir for a while

Add all the blended ingredients, stir for about 2 minutes.

Add chicken breasts, oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce and stir well

Add sliced sausages and scrambled eggs. Stir well altogether.

Add cold rice into the pan, stir well for a few minutes until all the ingredients mixed well and the white rice turn into brown colour.

Add salt and pepper then sprinkled with fried sliced onion.

Sprinkle with finely chopped spring onions and parsleys.

Ready to serve :)

Happy breakfast...