Avigayil Damm

As one of my new year’s resolution is to drop cook proper food (as opposed to dining out or calling in), last Friday I went through my recipes collection again to put together a one week meal plan. I was reminded of this delicious meatball recipe and decided to cook it again since it was so successful last time.

We went for shopping (for a whole week food stock) at Hero in Kemang, which had almost everything I needed. I actually cooked this on Sunday, because then I had more leisure time on my hands. I divided them in two boxes and stored them in the freezer for consumption during this week.

Today we attacked this mouth-watering menu right after we arrived home from work. The meatballs are made of minced beef mixed with some bread crumbs, dried oregano, eggs, salt and pepper, whereas the sauce is made of beef stock, sliced onions and capsicum, paprika powder, caraway seeds, some all-purpose flour (to thicken the sauce), tomato puree and tomato paste. Just before serving, some sour cream is stirred in. I served it with spaghetti, although my hubby claims it would also be good with mashed potatoes. Maybe I will try that next time.

The end result taste actually reminds me of goulash soup, although it has a slightly more sour hint (because of the tomatoes and sour cream). But one thing’s for sure: it’s definitely a keeper.

One thing that I don’t like about my office is its location. It’s located on a main street, and it is in a very old building which does not have its own canteen/food court. So whenever we want to have lunch, we would have to walk into the back street of the building where plenty of small warung (little home-restaurants) are located.

Unfortunately the choices in these warung are quite limited and very often boring. There is this one place owned by a man named Musa, he always – ALWAYS – has the same choices of food and they are (almost) always displayed in exactly the same way. I can see it now: he would have three different kinds of fish: bandeng, kembung and tongkol. All three of them in balado or chili mix. Then he would have two types of fried chicken: the normal type and the one in chili mix. Then he would have chicken liver in brown sauce (I think it’s sweet soya sauce), and then omelette, boiled eggs in chili mix and then the salty duck eggs. He would also have fried tofu and soybean cake, small chilies (cabe rawit) to accompany one’s meal, sambal (mixed chili with onion, garlic and tomato), kerupuk (traditional crackers with a hint of prawn), and then of course the crispiest fried fish: the mujair. The only thing that could possibly be different each day would be the accompanying vegetables. Usually he would alternate between clear vegetable soup, lodeh (vegetable soup with coconut milk), and stir fried bean sprouts with beans. (Later on I discovered that you can only get the friend bean sprouts with beans if you come earlier in the day, say before 12. So that’s not really an alternate menu).

Anyways, at some point when I don’t feel like going out (which is almost every day), I ask the office boy to buy the lunch for me. He usually makes a round and asks everyone, and they would give him the money and their wish lists. Today I felt like having a special (and may I add, weird) grilled chicken from the Paramadina University’s canteen next door. So off he went.

What’s special about this grilled chicken is the sauce. I think they first grill it with soya sauce but then later serve it with some sort of gravy which seems to be made either with potato or sweet potato. Either way, it is very nice for a change. The chicken is also served with rice, some colorful crackers, and one salad leaf and two slices of cucumber. Yes, they try to give you at least some veggies. But nevertheless, I enjoyed it very much, almost so that I forgot to take a picture of it. If you look closely you can see I already had a go at the chicken before this picture was taken.

After I got married in October until end of last year, I didn’t spent much time in the kitchen. If I did, it would be together with my hubby  and we would whip up some easy food together. One of my new year’s resolution is to drop the lazy act and make some real food instead of the usual easy food (which is not always so exciting) or the dining out/delivery routine.

I have always liked watching cooking demonstrations on food channels (I remember ‘Wok with Yan’, a series which was aired around lunch time when I was in high school. I would always rush home to watch it. But since I didn’t have acess to a private kitchen, I never practised any of the recipes that I have seen (nope, cooking in my mom’s kitchen is not so exciting because my mom would always come up with a lot of suggestions here and there which would totally spoil the whole fun and the whole point of experimenting).

Luckily, ever since I had access to a private kitchen, cooking has grown more and more as a hobby for me. I started collecting recipes since a long time ago, and now it’s time to try them one by one! Plus, with this new blog, I would be forced to try something new at least once a week, so I have something to update here.