Coconut Milk.

What is Coconut Milk?
Coconut milk is liquid extracted from the grated pulp of mature coconuts, and the colour is similar to cows milk, which is an opaque, milky-white.

Using Coconut Milk.
- Cooking Rice
- Cooking Curry
- Cooking Sweets
Use the fresh coconut for the cooking if you wish too, but the tin coconut milk is readily available at the markets, and I am happy enough with it.  Dried coconut powder is as good; also, it is easy to store.


Cooking, using coconut milk-based on Javanese Cooking.

Savoury Fragrant Rice.
(Nansi Gurih)
1 cup long-grain rice
1 cup of water
1 cup of coconut milk.
Fragrant Herbs
Kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass
1 teaspoon salt
Method
In a heavy-based pot, place  the rice and the water
Cook over medium heat, until the water, is almost absorbed.
Add in the coconut milk, stir together thoroughly, and continue cooking until the liquid is absorbed.
Place the lid on, reduce the heat to a lower setting, and cook for ten minutes more.
Open the lid, fluff the rice, transfer to a serving bowl.

The companion of this rice is meat, egg, vegetables, hot sambal and krupuk.

There are lots of different curries.  But here it is my cooking curry Javanese Style-Sambal Goreng Mini beef balls.

Sambal Goreng Mini Meatballs.
Susy’s Way

Ingredients.
Mini-Meatballs
500 g minced beef and one egg (optional)

Mini - Meatballs with the broth

One teaspoon salt crushed clove of garlic, ground white pepper (little)
Mix them together, and keep on mixing until the meat mixture becomes sticky and slightly firm.  Now you can make small mini meatballs (the size of an olive)
Poach these mini meatballs in stock or salted water (very little water) until cooked-hold the shape.  Keep aside together with the broth.

The Herb and Spices for the Sauce.
2 Red chilli (as much as you like)
1 Red onion or 5 shallots
5 Clove garlic, crushed
1 tablespoon tomato paste (for extra red colour)
(blend/crush the ingredients to make a rough paste)

Daun salam (Indonesian bay leaf) 2 leaves.
Galangal- a sliced as big as walnut- crush a little to flatten out.

Petai-fragrant bean (Indonesian)
1 large red capsicum, sliced thinly.
2 cups sliced beans or sugar peas
Vegetable oil
1 tin coconut milk – 400mill approx
1 teaspoon fish sauce (optional)

Sambal Goreng Beef Balls

Fried shallot flake to garnish.
Method
Saute the rough paste in oil until fragrant.  Add in the Daun salam, galangal.
Add in half of the coconut milk, cook to simmer
Put in the poached mini meatballs, also stir in the broth.
Continue cooking until it bubbling away.  Add in the Petai, the sliced beans and the sliced red capsicum.  Stir together, cook away for a little longer.
Now, add in the rest of the coconut milk, cook over lower heat, let it simmer and bubbling gently - blub, blub, blub.  Not too loud, to keep the coconut milk stays creamy.  Add in the fish sauce at the last minute.
Transfer to a serving bowl, and garnished with fried shallot.

The sambal Goreng should be reddish looking and creamy. The meat and vegetable cooked beautifully in the coconut milk with hot spices and herbs.

Serve with steamed white rice, garnish with krupuk udang (prawn cracker)

Variation: Sambal Goreng Ikan (Fish)
Delicious Sambal Goreng Fish for Dinner.  One of the varieties of sambal goreng.  You need an extra ingredient for it, small fresh ginger to be added-shredded or crushed.

And here are the pictures of cooking it.
Barramundi in the hot spicy sauce.

Simply add the fresh diced fish in the hot spicy coconut milk sauce, until it's cooked.  You do not need to cook the fish before adding to the sauce.

Serving and Tasting

Cooking Sweets with coconut milk.

Poached banana in coconut milk
A cup of sliced lady's finger bananas
1/2 cup brown sugar or grated coconut sugar
1 cinnamon stick, 2 cloves, and Daun pandan
1/2 cup coconut milk
Place the coconut milk, sugar and the spices, cook over low heat, bring to simmer
Put in the banana, and continue cooking for five minutes into the gentle simmer
Transfer in a small bowl to serve.  To refresh, drop some fresh coconut milk before eating.

Wajik Nongko-Sweet Steamed Rice Cake with Jackfruit.




To Be Continued

Susy

Beautiful!

There is the time that we could not do lots of outdoors activities, but nothing will stop us from enjoying the beauty around us. Visiting gardens, seeing beautiful plants and flowers is one of the Dos during the spring season.  It is good to settle for less, in the backyard is not much happening just yet, the blossoms are coming slowly, it is somewhat behind compared to the last year.  However, beautiful flowers are always with us, from potted orchids, flowering herbs to the ground cover etc.  In fact, not a long time ago, I almost brought the garden to the house, saving the feet to walk back and forth in and out of the yard.  Feeling Very Blessed.

Here, They are the Beautiful Flowers.

 

Healthy Herbs, Beautiful Blue Borage, and Soft Spinach.

Beautiful Wisteria and Pretty Pink Phalaenopsis

 Little did I know, that wisteria flower is pretty in a vase, how long does it last, I have no idea.

 Gorgeous Green and Beyond

Too ambitious to bring the garden to the inside the house, but to compromise, merely looking out from the window.

The daffodil is glowing among the wild weeds.

Beautiful Flowers, Bright Colours.  From Pretty Pink to Gorgeous Green.  These are the gifts that we could not ignore.  With eyes closed, we can see clearly even the white and purple ground cover.  We shall Celebrate.  The soft colours take place, but the bold and the beautiful cheers up with encouragement.

It is agreeable that bright colours bring so much joy and enthusiasm.  How about bright colour in food.  It is warm and appetising. We eat daily, one has to cook, right!  Here, they are the bright and beautiful food that nourishes us.  Yes, cooking is fun, every day is never a dull moment.  Pampering oneself is alright-tea for one.

 Ode to Fish
Nori, rice and smoked salmon, Barramundi-a gorgeous golden colour

Tea for One

Golden Baked Fruit Sponge, one of the family favourites.

 Baked Parsnip, Potato, look rustic and colourful. Cup Cakes-the Tiny Tipsy Cake for a Treat.  Look fantastic with the vibrant colour

Lots of Colours.  Beautiful!



Until Next Post
Susy

LIQUID GOLD

You Are What You Eat
It is a famous saying, and it is so believable.  Indulging yourself with delicious rich food or fasting to death than you would take the consequences.  Good eating, and to be fit, healthy and well is the ideal.

Carrot and Celery Juice

Having fresh food, plenty of fruits and vegetables daily are essential, and taking good fat and protein is a must, we all know that.
New Diet for my family.
Here the story,  freshly fruit juice is prepared every day this week, sometimes twice a day.  Have we decided on the right things?  I do not know the answer, but I have started to have the fruit and vegetable juice or a combination of both since last month.
Here, they are the fresh juices what we have been having, I call it liquid gold, it is so precious.  The juices are pure liquid of the fruits and vegetable without added water.  Using our citrus harvest the mandarins to begin, a glass of mandarin juice is out of 10 fruits as they are tiny.  The celery Juice was a good idea, it is a change from the fruit juice.  Followed by mixing fruit and celery, and that was refreshing, we enjoy the fruit and veg combo.
You may be wondering what type of juicer do I use, to tell you the truth, I don't have a proper juice maker.  The mandarine juice is freshly juiced-done by hands. It is a small plastic juicer, which is easy to work with and easy to clean.  For other juices, mainly the mixed fruit juice or fruit and vegetable, I use the food processor.  First, crush the fruits until smooth, then transfer to fine cloth, to squeeze the juices to get the liquid out and strain it.  A rather long operation but it works very well.  Enjoy the juice straight away.  I don't believe in keeping the juices-fluids refrigerated. 

Mandarin Juice

Celery Juice

Apple and Cabbage Juice

Celery and Carrot Juice

Cauliflower and Green Apple Juice

To make the juice to have more flavour, add herbs and spices, such as turmeric, ginger, cinnamon, lemon rinds etc.

Carrot and Pineapple Juice with Ginger

Another vegetable combo is cabbage, cucumber and kale.  It is a great flavour juice, and the colour is very green, the taste is pungent.  We had this mixture once, but the family was not too keen.

The classic fruit juice is orange juice.  You need three small navel oranges to make a small glass of orange juice.  It is enough for one serve.

Orange Juice

 Nowadays you could go to the supermarket to get fresh orange juice by doing it yourself, (a machine Juicer is provided), you would get truly fresh orange juice.  It is almost common practice - easily available at supermarkets in Europa.

Cabbage, Cucumber and Carrot Juice

More juices that I could do

- mandarin, pineapple and strawberry

- apple, pomelo, and orange 
- watermelon and cucumber, and strawberry

I was told that fruit juices contain lots of sugar, it can be fattening.  What we can have is a small serve every time, together with the healthy diet that suits you.

Spring is here, start planting vegetables, so you could make your fresh harvest to the table to make these liquid gold.

Green Spinach

Warrigal Green-Newzealand native spinach.

To plant the spinach in a hanging basket works well, spinach salad, baked spinach and cheese, spinach, carrot, and apple juice are in the menu right now in spring.  So Good!

Spinach, carrot and lime juice so refreshing.  YUM!

The Liquid Gold

Could we continue juicing? time we need, and the discipline to do it.  Just See! 

Having the liquid gold daily is good but remember don't forget this moto:

Eat Well, Exercise Well, Live Well.

More Posts

Susy