Doing a PhD is not only a matter of doing research. But also of cooking. A lot of cooking sometimes, as in my case.
It is even more fun when you spend one day cooking with your colleagues and then have a nice dinner.
I shared already some recipes from cooking nights with colleagues from university: homemade krokketten and bamischijven, pannenkoeken, appeltaart, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte.
The last cooking outing was in March, when C., J. and I decided to organize an Indonesian dinner.
C. and J. are half Dutch-half Indonesian. So, what a perfect way to learn how to cook some delicious Indonesian food. That means: a whole day spent cooking. Chilos of garlic and onions to cut. As well as vegetables. And Frying stuff. Getting to know all possible version of sambal and kepjap sauces (see photo below). And of course, satésaus. Rice and rice cookers. Super spicy flavors.
The best way is to have someone who knows guiding you at the grocery shop to not get lost with all those things.
But it was a lot of fun. And super gezellig with a bunch of nice PhD fellas.
We prepared various dishes: Tempeh Goreng, Sambal Goreng Boontijes, Gado Gado, Rookworst Smoor, Babi Ketjap.
Everything served with rice, of course. And then satésaus, Atjar Tjampeor, crunchy fried onions and kroepoek (for which I forgot to take a picture, but they are shrimp chips).
This was my vegetarian dish with Tempeh Goreng (the brown thingy on the left), Sambal Goreng Boontijes (the green beans), Gado Gado (the mix of vegetables on the top of the picture) and rice.
Super yummy!
To start with, today I’ll share with you the recipes of Tempeh Goreng and Sambal Goreng Boontjes. The rest will follow.
Tempeh is a soy product: in this recipe it’s fried and served with a paste of garlic, chilli peppers and ketjap manis (sweet soya sauce).
The second dish, instead, is green beans with onions and sambal badjak (spicy, fried pepper sauce).
Have fun!
Tempeh Goreng
Ingredients (for 4 people)
2 blocks of tempeh
6 gloves of garlic
2 red chilli peppers
1 tea spoon of salt
2 tea spoons of sugar
6 table spoons of ketjap manis
200 ml sunflower oil (for frying)
Procedure
Cut the tempeh blocks in slices of about 3 mm thick and 1-2 cm long. Cut the peppers to remove the seeds and chop them into small pieces. Cut the garlic gloves in very tiny pieces. Put all the ingredients in a bowl, add salt and sugar and stir together to make a paste.
Now, it’s frying time!
Heat the sunflower oil in a pan and fry the tempeh until it gets gold-brown colored. Once ready, put the tempeh in a bowl with some paper towel.
Remove the oil from the pan, but leave a table spoon of it in the pan. Bake the paste for half a minute in the hot oil. Then, add the tempeh and the kepjap manis in the pan and cook for a few minutes until the tempeh has absorbed the kepjap.
Once done, put the tempeh in a bowl and let it cool down a bit before serving.
I love it!
Sambal Goreng Boontjes
Ingredients (for 4 people)
400 gr of green beans
1 onion
2 table spoons of sambal badjak
2-3 table spoons of sunflower oil (for frying)
Procedure
Cut the green beans in pieces of 2 cm long and boil them in hot water.
Cut the onion in small pieces and fry it in a pan with the sunflower oil and sambal for one minute. Once ready, add the green beans and cook for 4 minutes.
Serve right away!
Aroma di cannella 