#eidmubarak koekjes!!

For muslims all over the world, yesterday was a big festival, a holy day. It was the first day of Syawal month and we have Eid festival. In Indonesia, we usually have specialty food and cookies that only available on this very day. The common (and most favourite) cookies are namely kaastengels and nastar.

If you find the name a little bit Dutch, you get it right. Kaastengels cookies derived from Dutch cheese cookies. Kaas means cheese, and tengel means bar. The original Dutch kaastengel is actually different from Indonesian classic kaastengel because it uses different dough, but anyway we will talk about Indonesian classic cookies here. Nastar stands for "nanas taartjes" or taartjes/cookies with pineapple jam filling. This is also a typical classic Indonesian Eid cookies.

In Indonesia, there are soooo maaannny cookies vendor selling these kind of cookies on Eid. Here in Leuven, of course you won't have any. Not a single one. So i decided to make them myself, only to find that cheese that was used in the recipe wouldn't work like in Indonesia i didn't know why.

A classis Indonesian kaastengels recipe used old semi-hard cheese like edam and cheddar to produce crispy and crunchy baked cheese on the outer top of the cookies. I used the same cheese but all gone melted. Then i turned into kaaskoekjes recipe, known as one of Belgian authentic cookies.

Here goes the recipe.
KAASKOEKJES
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup butter, cold and cut in small cubes
1/2 cup old cheese
1 egg yolk

Combine all the ingredients in one bowl and use your hand to knead the dough until well mixed. Roll the dough using rolling pin (i used a mason jar, well..) until 1/2 inch or 2 cm thick then cut into your desired shape. Bake in 190 degree celcius oven for 15 minutes until it turns golden brown.

NASTAR (PINEAPPLE COOKIES)
2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tbsp grated cheese
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla powder
another 1 egg yolk for coating

for pineapple jam:
500 gr pineapple, processed in a food chopper
100 gr (1/2 cup) granulated sugar

Boil pineapple and sugar in 150 ml water, stir until it thickens and a little bit dry. Approximately an hour. You have to make the jam solid enough to shape it like a candy ball. Be careful to not make it burnt. Loose jam would make it difficult to place inside the cookie dough. Place in a jar and let it cool.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, set aside. In a separate bowl, mix butter and sugar until the butter turned white. I did not use mixer, only a wooden spatula. Please spare your hand force ;) Add egg, mix together using an egg whisk. After it's well mixed, pour dry ingredients into the batter and fold evenly. Roll the dough using rolling pin until 1/2 inch or 2 cm thick then cut into circle. Fill with pineapple jam, fold or roll to cover the jam. Coat with egg yolk. Bake in 160 degree Celcius oven about 35 minutes until it turns golden brown.

Smakelijk!

Choco Filled Doughnuts

1,5 cup flour

3 tsp dry yeast, activated in 6 tbsp lukewarm milk and 1/2 tsp sugar

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Mix together all of the ingredients until you have a firm dough. It would be a little bit sticky but you can sprinkle it with additional flour just to make it loose. Leave it a greased bowl for 1 hour and let it double in size. 

Flatten the dough and make 6 equal balls out of it. Flatten it a bit. Let it rise again.

Fry the dough in hot oil, approximately 1 minute each side, and let them cool on a cooling rack. Make hole at one side using a chopstick, and fill it with chocolate cream using a dessert decorator. You can cover the doughnut with powdered sugar before filling it with cream or your choice of jelly. 

Smakelijk!

pizza rolls

I am a big fan of Pizza Hut's Pan Pizza. For me, it's quite challenging to figure out how to make a copy of its dough, without cheating through internet. One day i made a mistake in making oliebol/smoutenbol, a kind of donut which is authentic Dutch/Belgian, but i found out that it was a close copy of pan pizza. 

So i made it again using a modified recipe of oliebol and the trick i incidentally knew.

The trick was, the dough was rather 'fried' inside the oven than 'baked' :)

All you need is a lot of oil covering the pan, and 'paint' butter on top of the outer dough. Well if you do not have enough baking pan like i do, use muffin cup instead and make pizza rolls out of it!

Here is the recipe:

2 cup all purpose flour

4 tsp dry yeast, activated in 6 tbsp lukewarm milk. You will see it bubbles indicating it's activated. If it doesn't, throw it away and make a new one.

1/3 cup milk (you can use it at room temperature, but i prefer lukewarm milk)

1/3 warm water

3 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp salt

combine all the ingredients in one bowl and make a firm dough. Let it rise and doubled in size, about 45 minutes. 

Apply oil your baking pan. Roll the dough into 1 cm thickness and arrange in the oily baking pan. Cover it with your favorite toppings and let rise again in 35 minute. Apply soft butter into the outer dough. If you want to make pizza rolls, flatten dough into 1 cm thickness, cover it with toppings and roll them up. Cut into your muffin cup size and arrange inside greased cup. Don't forget to apple butter to the outer dough. Bake in 190 deg.celcius about 20 minute or until you see that the dough turns golden brown.

Smakelijk!

Have a nice day, everyone!

Spanakopita

crispy cheese fried chicken

1 kg chicken thigh
for coatings:
3 slices melt cheese, chopped
6-8 tbsp all purpose flour
salt, pepper to taste
1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 to 1 cup milk

Combine all coating ingredients in one bowl, add milk. Stir evenly. Coat chicken thighs with the batter, and fry in a deep fryer until golden brown. Serve with tomato sauce and steamed rice.

Smakelijk!

#ramadan Tofu Stuffed Squid

2 pieces medium sized squid/inkfish (15 cm)
150 gr tofu
1 large egg
1 stick scallion
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp garlic powder
salt and pepper to taste

clean squids thoroughly.
In a bowl, mash tofu and mix with spices. Beat egg then combine with tofu batter, add sliced scallion. Stir evenly. Season with salt and pepper. Stuff squid with tofu batter about 2/3 full. Stitch hole with bamboo picks. Prepare steamer dish. Sprinkle squids with pepper and parsley. Steam about 35 minutes.

Smakelijk!