Shrimps With Sumac. Quick, Simple and Delicious

We all need to save our energy for the big Thanksgiving cooking, which will be here in no time. In the meantime, we also (still) have to feed our family right ? So, here is a quick, simple and delicious recipe that take no time to prepare, I mean, a part from cleaning and deveining the shrimps. You can always buy shrimps that are already cleaned and ready to use. 

Shrimps With Sumac

serve about 4 

20 - 25 large Shrimps or prawns

1 large sweet onion, sliced

1 tbs minced garlic

3 tbs sumac

2 tbs smoked pimento

1/2 chopped parsley

juice of 1 lemon

1/2 tbs fish sauce

salt and pepper

olive oil

To Clean the shrimp, pull off the head and the legs, then peel the outer layer shell but leave out the end (tail) still attach. Devein using a small knife along the back of the shrimp, discard the vein, then rinse under cold running water, pat dry with paper towel.

Set a large shallow pan over medium high heat, add  2 to 3 tbs olive oil. Add the sliced onion, cook until it caramelized a little about 2 minutes, add garlic and the shrimps. Saute for one minute, then add the rest of ingredients. Continue to cook until the shrimps are pink and no longer translucent, about 5 minutes. Lastly add lemon juice, fish sauce, a little bit of salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Stir, taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Transfer to a serving dish, serve with any kind of bread, or rice.

Baked Curried Chicken With sweet Potato and Mix Vegetables

When I saw this post by Stacey, I couldn't resist of not making it in my own kitchen. I never made any roast or baked curried chicken before, so it's a good  reason to make it. However, I did not have curry powder in hand, so, I used my own garam masala instead. I also decided to use up all left over vegetables from my refrigerator. To really perfumed the curry, I sprinkled a little bit of my favorite methi or fenugreek leaves. The result was scrumptious, fragrant and smoky curried chicken.

Baked Curried Chicken With Mix Vegetables

Inspired by  Stacey's Vegetable and Curried Chicken Pan Roast

Serve 8

4 lbs skinless, boneless Chicken thigh

1 cup Greek style yogurt

2 tbs garam masala

1 tbs grated ginger

1/2 tbs minced garlic

1 tsp (more or less) chili pepper or cayenne pepper

2  tbs smoked paprika

salt and pepper to taste

1 lb sweet potato, cut into large chunks

2 large red onion, sliced thickly

3 green bell pepper, cut into large chunks

3 zucchini, sliced thickly

5 small Roma tomatoes, cut in half

3 tbs canola oil

1 tbs methi (fenugreek) leaves, optional
salt and pepper to taste

In a large bowl, mix yogurt, garam masala, 3/4 tbs ginger, 1/4 tbs minced garlic, chili pepper or cayenne pepper, smoked paprika, salt and pepper. Add the chicken thigh, mix well to coat them. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, refrigerate at least an hour or for better flavor, overnight.

Preheat oven to 425F.

Place all of the vegetables in a large bowl, add the remaining 1/4 tbs ginger, and 1/4 tbs minced garlic, drizzle with  2 tablespoons canola oil, season with salt and pepper, mix well. Transfer into a roasting pan,  or ceramic baking dish, but leave out the tomatoes. Arrange the chicken on top of the vegetables, tuck in the tomatoes here and there, season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with methi leaves if using, then drizzle with the remaining 1 tablespoon oil. Baked for 45 minutes, until chicken is cooked throughly. Serve with steam Basmati rice. Delicious!

Thank's for the inspiring recipe Stacey :)

Chicken Kalas. Balinese Chicken Curry aka Bé Siap Mebase Kalas In Balinese Language

This chicken dish is known as "Bé Siap Mebase Kalas". It is kind of confusing really, because "Bé" in Balinese language means fish. Not sure why the Balinese always add the word "be" each time there is meat or poultry involve, regardless how they cook them. For example, Bé Siap always mean cooked chicken; Bé Sampi means Cooked beef; Bé Celeng means cooked pork; Bé Pasih means any cooked Fish. Anyway, Unlike the Javanese cooking or other island in Indonesia that use a ot of coconut milk in their dish, Balinese very rarely use coconut milk, they do use coconut for their cooking, just very rare milking the coconut, and one of those dish that is famous using coconut milk is this chicken kalas. Hope you like it. 

Bé Siap Mebase Kalas 

3 - 3½ lbs chicken legs, wash under cold running water - pat dry with paper towel

1½ cups thick coconut milk

2/3 cup water

1 stalk white part only lemongrass, lightly bruised 

1 sliced (1/8 - inch thick) fresh galangga, lightly bruised 

salt, to taste

Spice mix:

2 tsp turmeric powder

1/2 tsp kencur powder    

1/2 tbs freshly grated ginger

1/4 cup chopped shallots

2 tbs chopped garlic

1 tsp, or more chopped red chilli pepper

2 Balinese long pepper

1/2 tsp black pepper

1 tsp toasted shrimp paste

1/4 cup water

Place all ingredients for spice mix in a blender, add about 1/4 cup of water, process until smooth. Pour this spice mix into the braising pan, add chicken legs, coconut milk, water, lemongrass, and the fresh galangga. Turn the heat to medium high, cook until the sauce start to boil, reduce the heat to low, braise until the chicken is cooked throughly, the sauce is reduced and thickened, about 35 to 45 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Serve with plain steam rice and simple saute green vegetables.

Spinach and Feta Cheese Böreği (IIspanakli Peynirli Tepsi Böreği)

Delicious, light and easy to prepare. It is also good to serve for a large number of people, it making it perfect no stress entertaining idea. If you want to serve this as an appetizer, you can cut it into smaller pieces, up to 24. 

Spinach and Feta Cheese Böreği  
serve 12 

For The Pastry:

1 lb filo dough (20 to 22 sheets)

1 cup yogurt

1/4 olive oil

1 egg

salt and pepper to taste

For Spinach Filling:

3 pounds frozen chopped spinach, thaw at room temperature 

1 bunch scallion (Spring onion), finely chopped

12 oz feta cheese, soak with fresh water for couple hours to leach out the extra salt, drained - crumbled

1 cup chopped Italian parsley

2 eggs

handful toasted pine nuts

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 375⁰F.

Grease a 13 x 18-inch baking pan or oven proof ceramic dish.

In a small bowl, mix yogurt, olive oil, egg, salt and pepper.

Squeeze out as much water as possible from the spinach. Place the spinach in a large bowl, add chopped scallions, parsley, crumbled feta cheese, eggs, pine nuts, salt and pepper. Mix everything just enough to combine the ingredients. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed.

Unroll the filo dough and place it next to you, Cover with slightly damp clean kitchen towel to prevent the dough from drying out. Take one sheet of filo dough (cover the rest with kitchen towel), place it on the prepared baking pan, brush all over with yogurt mixture, take another layer of filo dough, brush with yogurt, continue layering and brushing until you have 10 layers of filo. Spread the spinach on top of the filo layers, cover with another sheet of filo dough, brush with yogurt mixture. Repeat the layering and brushing each layer with yogurt mixture until all of the filo dough is used. Finish by brushing the top layer with yogurt mixture, sprinkle with sesame seeds if desire. Bake for 35 minutes until the top is golden brown.

My friend took this photo above, Thanks  Bea :)

Balinese Mixed Vegetables With Coconut (Jukut Meurab)

For Balinese, jukut meurab always means mixed vegetable with fresh or toasted grated coconut. The vegetable varies from what is in season at the time. Sometimes, they will use only one kind of vegetable, such as chinese long bean, sometimes mix of a few different kind. The most unique and exotic sounding jukut urab is the one made from star fruit leaves (jukut don blimbing). Yes, Balinese love to eat not just the star fruit, but the leaves as well. The taste and texture of the leaves are quite similar to kale, or collard green. My personal favorite and the most memorable jukut urab  was the fresh sea weed or bulung in Balinese language. Bulung, or fresh seaweed has oceananic - fresh, crunchy and juicy texture, when you bite to it, all of the juice is bursting in your mouth. We used to go the beach, and bought this urab bulung fresh. I mean really, really, fresh, uncooked sea weed, mix with toasted grated coconut, chili and galangga. This was the best treat for me. Sadly,  this urab bulung seems to disappeared, no one selling or even make it anymore?. So, if you happen to know where to buy urab bulung in Bali,  please let me know. Because I have been bragging to my husband how delicious, and really want to introduce the taste to him next time we go to visit. 

So, back home in California, I made this jukut meurab pretty often. I used different kind of mix vegetables including carrots, which they almost never used it in Bali. The level of spiciness is really up to you. The more sambal you mix in the spicier it becomes. You can also use steam kale or steam collard green for this salad. Sometimes, I omit the coconut completely, since my son prefer without it.  

For the recipe, I will only give you the sambal Bali recipe. You can literally use anykind of vegetable you like. Just steam them, not too overly soft though, then mix in the sambal, about 1 tablespoon per 1 cup of steam vegetables, add fresh or toasted grated coconut if desire. Any leftover sambal can be refrigerated up to 5 days. It also can be serve as condiment to any of your Asian dish. I like to eat it just like that with steaming hot jasmine rice, and it just delicious.

Sambel Bawang

1 cup sliced shallots

2 tbs sliced garlic

3 tablespoon Thai chilies, you can add more or less, it all depends how spicy you want it

1 tsp dried toasted shrimp paste, finely crumbled 

salt to taste

3 tbs vegetable oil or coconut oil

Place a large frying pan over medium heat. Add oil and shallots, fry until the shallots is soften. Add garlic, chilies, and the shrimp paste, fry until all ingredients are soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed. 

Roti Paratha Stuffed With Butternut Squash

Delicious Indian flat bread stuffed with spiced butternut squash. This time I go easy with the spices, so it will suit everyone taste, even the most picky eater, hopefully. Cumin seeds and mustard seeds, are the usual and easy to find ingredients, perhaps the only ingredients that is not familiar to you is methi leaves (Funegreek Leaves). This leaves will add sweetness to any of your dish, but if its hard to come by in your area,  you can simply omit it, or use any of your favorite  herb. 

Roti Paratha Stuffed With Butternut Squash
make about 4 - 5

For the Paratha:
2 cups bread flour
3/4 to 1 cup water
1 tsp salt

For the Filling:
2 cup small cubed butternut squash
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 tbs cumin seeds
1/2 tbs mustard seeds
handful dry methi leaves (funegreek leaves)
salt and pepper to taste
2 tbs olive oil

Set  a medium size  shallow pan over medium heat, add 2 tbs oil, when the oil is starting to get very hot, add cumin and mustard seeds. When mustard seeds begin to pop, add butternut squash and chopped onion, cook until butternut squash is soft about 10 minutes, stirring often to prevent burn. Add methi leaves, season with salt and pepper. Take it out from the heat. Cool completely - mashed with potato masher.

In a large bowl, mix flour and salt,  add about 3/4 cup water, mix and knead a little bit to make a smooth dough. Add more water only if necessary. Divide the dough into 8 to 10 portions. 

Take one  dough and place it on lightly floured counter top. Using  rolling pin,  roll the dough  into a thin round tortilla like bread. Spread about 1/4 cup (or more) butternut squash filling,  living about 1/2 inch from the edge. Take another dough, roll it out as you would the first one. Make sure the size is as big as the first dough. Now place this dough directly on top of the  filling to cover it, then pinch the edge to seal. Give it another gentle roll, just to make it even and nicely round. Repeat with the rest of the dough in the same manner. Save any leftover filling for other uses.

Preheat a heavy cast iron over medium heat, When it is hot enough, add the  paratha and cook until few brown spot appear on the bottom, this should not take more then  2 to 3 minutes. Flip it over, cook another 2 to 3 minutes. Serve immediately. If you are not serving them immediately, you can wrap the paratha in aluminum foil until ready to use. Just before serving, reheat it in the 350F oven for about 5 to 10 minutes.