Sweet Sour Fish Pasta

      Finding idea for dinner has always been a challenge. I try not to be monotonous by serving Indonesian or western dishes too often for my husband. Today I came up with a brilliant idea of combining two of our favorite dishes. It's a sweet sour sauce fish served with pasta. A simple fusion of Thai/Chinese/Indonesian (I honestly do not know to which country this dish originally belongs to) with an Italian dish. Back home this meal is usually served with cooked rice, but not tonight, there will be pasta going along with it. Let's see how it will become. 

For 2 person meal, you might need:


1/2 red pepper, diced
2   small red chilly pepper
1   onion
3   tomatoes, diced
1   garlic, minced
1cm ginger, grated
3tbsp tomato puree
300 gr fish fillet, diced
Rigatoni pasta
salt
black pepper
sugar
olive oil

Steps :

1. As starter, you might want to boil some water for your pasta. Cooking the pasta will take around 8-15 minutes depending on the type of pasta you use. This time I'm using the rigatoni pasta and it takes 14 minutes to cook.

2. Heat up the pan with some olive oil.

3. Saute the onion, chilly and garlic together until the fragrant comes out.

4. To add a little bit of the asian taste I add in a little bit of ginger. Add it in.

5. Add in the red pepper.

6. Then the diced tomatoes.

7. Let them cook for a while. 

8. Meanwhile you might want to start cooking your pasta. Don't forget to add in a bit of oil and salt into the water.

9. Back to the sauce, add in the fish.

10. Spice it with salt, pepper and sugar. Yeah, I put sugar in this dish to add up the sweet flavour in the sauce. Not too much, 1 or 2 pinch(es) would be enough. You don't want to turn your dish into jam. :)

11. Put the lid of the pan and let it cook for a while.

12. After 2-3 minutes add in the tomato pure. You can add more to it until you get the consistency you want of the sauce. 

13. Let it simmer.

14. Check out your pasta and when it's done, drain it and pour it into the sauce.

15. Mix the pasta and sauce together under low heat. 

16. Serve.

Have fun trying this recipe and let me know how you think about it. ;-)

Soto Ayam Recipe

My brother in-law fell in love with this food after his return from his honeymoon trip to Indonesia a couple of weeks ago. Not long after that my sister in-law asked for a simple recipe to make this very famous Indonesian dish. There are many different type of soto, all differs from the region it comes from. Since I originally come from Central Java, the soto recipe I knew is the one that comes from Java, particularly from Solo, Central Java. And just a moment ago a friend of mine whose currently staying in Amsterdam was asking for the same recipe. So, I thought why not adding it to my blog so that the others could also try out to make this simple, delicious and refreshing food. 

Here it is...

You might need :
1 kg or 1   whole chicken
50 gr       rice noodle (soak it in warm water)
200gr       cabbage ( cut in fine stripes )
4           boiled eggs
5 tbsp      fried onions
2           celery/parsley


For the soup
1 ltr       water
1 1/4       salt
2cm         laos, pressed
1           lemon grass, pressed
2           green onions
3           shallots
5           garlic
1cm         ginger
1cm         turmeric
2tsp        pepper
3           orange leaves
5           red peppers
10          small red chilly peppers
3           limes
cooking oil


Steps:

1. First thing you want to do is cleaning the chicken. If you have the whole chicken, you might want to cut it into pieces. The size and amount is up to your preferences. If you have the already cut one you can just right away proceed to the next step.

2. Boil the water. Add in the salt and chicken. Cook it.

3. Once the chicken is cooked, take 1 liter of the stock. Set the cooked chicken aside.

4. Heat up some cooking oil or if you have a fryer you could use one. Fry the chicken until the outer skin is dried. Cool them. After they're not to hot for you to touch, shred the chicken into small pieces and set it aside. This will be used as the filling in the soup later.

5. Grind the shallots, garlic, ginger, turmeric and  pepper using mortal and pestle or a blender machine if you have one. Do it until you get a very fine result. 

6. Saute the fine ground spices in a bit of cooking oil (around 3tbsp). Add in the lemon grass, green onion, orange leaves and laos. Do it until the fragrant comes out. Then turn off the heat.

7. Pour the spices into the chicken stock. Cook it. Once it's boiled set it aside.

8. Now for the sambal (spicy sauce). Clean, wash and boil the red peppers and small red chilly pepers. Add in a pinch of salt and grind them, preferably using the mortal and pestle because you don't want to get a very fine result. Mix them. Serve.

9. Arranging the bowl. Put the rice noodle, sliced cabbage, shredded chicken in a bowl and pour the soup into it. Add in a bit of fried onion, celery and lime juice to add up some taste. 

10. Add also the sambal up to your preferences.

11. It's ready to serve and enjoy. This warm kind of soup dish is really perfect to be consumed during the cold winter day. Hmmm..yummmm.