Sambal Chicken Skewers with Pineapple Jicama Salsa

I know, I know... another sambal-centric dish.  But, in my defense, these dishes were eaten a month apart, only blogged right in a row. Furthermore, this Bon Appetit recipe made the cover of the July issue, so the juicy chicken was just staring at me constantly from the coffee table, tempting me.  It had to be made.

A simple, tasty marinade/sauce for BBQ chicken, for sure.  However, for me, like in the case of the sambal/banana/shrimp dish, my Indonesian sambal (labeled "EXTRA PEDAS") was a bit too spicy... I think the heat from the stuff I buy here is several notches higher than the sambal oelek you get in the U.S.   Tim and I had a couple coughing fits while eating this (which may also be partially due to the fact that I cooked this chicken on the cast iron grill pan inside, being too lazy to wait for the charcoal to heat up outside). We did think the flavor was nice despite the excessive heat, though.

I served the chicken with a side of cooling pineapple-jicama salsa and some lime and cilantro couscous.  I think the salsa was the big hit of the night: crunchy, fresh, a little sweet, super healthy... give this recipe a try for sure!

Granola Bars: Finally, a Winner!!

I have made what seems like endless granola bars, searching for the perfect combination of taste and texture...  usually the recipes are good in one department and not so much in the other.   This recipe, though, is a winner on both counts.  Chewy and crunchy (not too sticky or crumbly), sweet, salty and nutty.  Mmmm.  Thanks, Ina.

I made them last minute (hence the blurry airport cell phone pic) as a travel snack for our looooong one taxi-two flights-one car-two boats journey to Bunaken... good stuff.

Leftover Cranberry Sauce?

Got leftover cranberry sauce?  If so, make these cranberry crumble bars.  Super easy and quite a big hit at the Thanksgiving party we went to in Jakarta...  they went slowly at first, but at the end of the party, as we were leaving, I had at least 6 people pull me over and tell me they were awesome.  Pretty ringing endorsement.

I used this cranberry crumble bar recipe from the November issue of Martha Stewart Living, which conveniently arrived here in Jakarta the day before Thanksgiving.  The recipe looked pretty easy and delicious, but I had to make a few changes out of necessity:

• First, a 9"x13" pan doesn't fit in my mini oven, so I decided to switch up the pans.  I went with my removeable bottom tart pan so I would end up with pie-shaped bars... I split the dough recipe into 2 and made 2 tarts, each cooked for 30 minutes. 
• I probably used 1 and a half cans of cranberry sauce between the 2 tarts, though.  
• Also, I substituted toasted, slivered almonds for the walnuts, which I couldn't find for some reason (the Real Martha thinks there is a walnut shortage of some sort this year- she says prices of walnuts have skyrocketed of late).

 

Pineapple Upside-down Puffy Pancake

Tim's out of town this week, in Vietnam, no doubt noshing on beefy delicious pho and the crispy, herb-filled banh xeo.  Meanwhile, I'm chilling at home in Jakarta, doing some networking, doing some crafting and tearing it up buying batik at the American Women's Association shopping bazaar like the kept woman I am. 

For dinner tonight I made myself an old favorite with a twist: a puffy pancake (or Dutch Baby, which I find to be a bizarre name) made like a pineapple upside-down cake..   The Real Martha used to make these for us occasionally back in the day, although she typically made hers with apples.

I followed this recipe from the other Martha, but switched it up by using thinly sliced baby pineapple (which Tim and I have taken to buying pre-peeled at the store out of pure laziness) plus some brown sugar in place of the honey and cardamom.  Quite good!   I love how the pancake puffs up so much and is simultaneously custardy and yet still crispy on top.

Grilled Veggie and Rice Salad with Fish Sauce Dressing

Omg.  This salad is so good.  Even Tim liked it, lamenting the lack of meat only somewhat, stating that, "maybe it would make a really good side... you know... to some meat."  I liked it on its own, but agree that it would also make a kick-ass side dish and/or bed for some Vietnamese-style grilled chicken (we made a recipe quite similar to this one at our Hoi An cooking class in June.)  

I had lots of fresh herbs left over from our Vietnamese pomelo salad last week and saw this herb-heavy, Vietnamese-esque recipe in my July 2012 Bon Appetit magazine... I am so glad I made it.  It's got a lot of ingredients, but don't be intimidated, as it's really quite easy once you light up the grill and is a great way to utilize all your summer veggies and herbs- corn, eggplant, zucchini, okra, mint, basil, cilantro.  Mmm.

I made only a couple small changes to the recipe- the dressing is supposed to have grilled Holland or Anaheim chilis, but here there are just cabe rawit (the little ones) and cabe besar (the big ones).  All are blow-your-face off hot and not really the equivalent of an Anaheim.  Thus, I decided to substitute with some Sriracha to taste.  Also, rather than plain white jasmine rice, I bought some whole-grain Javanese brownish/reddish rice and cooked it coconut milk substituting for 1/3 of the liquid.  I think the hearty, nutty rice and extra coconut flavor really put the finishing touch on the recipe.

Salmon with Brown Sugar and Mustard Glaze

Mmm- good recipe find.

Super tender salmon with a sweet and mustard-y glaze based on this Bobby Flay recipe: rather than grill it, I put the salmon fillets skin-side-down on a tin foil covered cookie sheet, S&Ped them and then topped them with the glaze... baked them at about 450 F for 10 or 11 minutes until the glaze was slightly caramelized and the salmon slid right off the skin.

Served with a side of gingery/garlicky stir-fried baby bok choy, spiced up with a little bit of crushed red pepper.

Granola Bars, Take 2

After my success with granola bars last week, Tim requested that I make some more, but with peanut butter.  I made mine based on a different recipe, one that didn't involve cooking the bars after forming them.

 

The end result was quite tasty- I like the flavor of these much better than last week.  The consistency was much softer... more like Rice Krispie treats.  Thumbs up, except that they crumbled somewhat when handled.

I used the same technique as the recipe, but switched up the ingredients a bit:

1 cup oatmeal (mine wasn't instant, so I toasted in the oven for about 10 minutes)

1 cup Rice Krispies

1/2 cup slivered almonds (toasted along with the oatmeal)

1/4 cup toasted wheat germ

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup peanut butter

Heated the honey and brown sugar together until the sugar dissolved, then added peanut butter.  Tossed together all of the dry ingredients and poured the peanut butter sauce over the top.  Pressed it all into a lightly greased 9" x 9" pan.  Cooled, cut and ate!

Granola Bars

Granola bars are one of those funny things here in Jakarta.  You can get them, sure, but you will pay an arm and a leg.  And your brand and flavor options are limited, too.  I wouldn't call myself a granola bar connoisseur or anything, but I like to have them on hand for a quick breakfast or snack to take hiking or biking, so this situation is somewhat frustrating.

I wondered if I could make my own and whether they would taste as good as (or hopefully better than) the store bought ones.  I'm not quite sure that this recipe achieves any sort of economical success for me, as the ingredients for making the homemade version are not particularly cheap here, either, but the flavor is pretty nice! 

I made my version basically based on Alton Brown's recipe... I used whole almonds (which I then chopped), roasted and salted sunflower seeds, regular brown sugar, and raisins.  Also, I threw in some chocolate chips when stirring the dry and wet ingredients together... the chips melted throughout so the whole bar has a chocolate-y flavor.  Maybe next time I'll try adding some peanut butter?

Individual Peach Cobblers

A couple weeks ago Tim came home from work with some super fresh and ripe local peaches. We ate most of them straight up as a snack, but eventually there were two of them still sitting there, getting a little wrinkly and begging to be mixed with butter and sugar and turned into dessert. Luckily for us, Joy the Baker had just posted this cute recipe for Peach Cobbler for One...

Joy's topping recipe is really delicious- a little body from the oatmeal, unexpected tropical flavor from the coconut, lots of butter and sugar.  

Since we had 2 peaches, I doubled the topping recipe. This may have been an unnecessary step. I never thought I'd say this, but there was actually too much topping. 

What?! 

Yes, too much topping. 

I think I could have done one topping recipe and split it among the 2 peaches...

Caramelized Fennel and Pancetta Salad with Arugula

I got a bulb of fennel from the CSA this week, and this caramelized fennel and pancetta salad from Tony's other girlfriend caught my eye. It was pretty tasty- I made ours with arugula, also from the CSA. However, the fennel's distinct licorice taste was totally subsumed by the sweet, caramel flavor imparted on it when it was roasted. That's not bad, per se, but made the fennel somewhat superfluous. I think you could roast onions and accomplish the same flavor for the salad.

Crack Pie!!

So, the internets are all atwitter about the tasty baked goods from Momofuku Milk Bar in NYC, particularly their Crack pie (no, not named for a particularly craggy appearance or anything, but because it's addictive like crack). The LA Times had an article about the Crack Pie and posted a recipe, and since then, many a blogger has tried their hand at manufacturing this crack in pie form.The recipe has several steps, but none of them are particularly difficult. Basically you bake a giant oatmeal cookie, then crumble it with sugar, butter and salt to make the tasty crust, and finally fill it with a ton of sin (melted butter, egg yolks, brown and white sugar, and some vanilla) and bake.

The end result is a gooey, sweet, salty, delicious mess. I brought it to a BBQ and it was gone in seconds as people basically inhaled it straight from the pie plate. It was like hyenas fighting over freshly killed wildebeest or something.

The recipe makes 2 pies- I did one in a pie plate and the other in a removable bottom tart pan. The tart pan made it a little easier to get the slices out.

Brown Sugar Bacon Waffles

Mmm. These waffles from Joy the Baker rock. The waffles themselves are made with brown sugar and buttermilk (or, in our case, whole milk mixed with some lemon juice), but they also have caramelized brown sugar bacon bits in them. Soooo good... sweet, salty, and, because we used peppered bacon, peppery. Give them a try. We had ours with a little butter and some McCarthy maple syrup.FYI: the bacon sinks to the bottom of the batter, so dig deep to get the bits. Also, the recipe makes like 500 waffles.

Pavlova Magic!

In honor of Amy's last DC meal, and to steel her for the barrage of Aussie delights she'll be eating at her first Australian Christmas, I made a pavlova topped with passion fruit puree and sliced strawberries.

A pavlova (or "pav") is basically a giant meringue- egg whites and sugar- all poofed up and slowly cooked to make a crackly mound with a soft, marshmallow-esque center. The tartness of the passion fruit puree really compliments the sugary meringue.

I could have made the pavlova from scratch- it seems pretty easy- but Amy had given me a container of an Aussie pav shortcut: Pavlova Magic, the equivalent of American boxed cake mix. It was pretty foolproof, if not magical, once the internets converted the directions from Celsius to Fahrenheit for me.

The best part about Pavlova Magic, though, is that it comes in this weird egg-shaped packaging. It's like all of the '80s era L'eggs pantyhose packaging died and went to Australia to be reincarnated as Pavlova Magic containers:

Burgers a la Sasha Vujic

And for the main course, Jennifer resurrected an oldie but goodie, care of Sasha Vujic... burgers with onion, Worcestershire, brown sugar, olive oil and S&P.

Served with CSA tomato and lettuce.

Little dent in the raw burger is Bobby Flay's advice... prevents the burgers from poofing up once they hit the grill.

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

This is not your typical cookie dough ice cream. It would probably be more accurate to call it brown sugar/browned butter ice cream with chocolate chunks. I saw this recipe on Joy the Baker's blog and immediately had a Pavlovian response: drooooooool.

Chuck can attest to the fact that I have trouble making chocolate chip cookies. Trouble meaning I can barely get the dough onto the cookie sheet without a re-route to my mouth.

This ice cream is pretty awesome... it has an amazing caramel flavor. It's definitely not traditional cookie dough ice cream- the boring vanilla with those anemic and strangely grainy faux cookie dough bites. This stuff is hard core delicious.