Indonesian Fried Chicken

There are so many ways of making Indonesian fried chicken. But basically, you boiled the chicken with some spices and then, fried them. The differences are on what kind of spices do you use. You can try the most simplest one (by using some garlics and ginger) or a complex one. And yes, there are different degrees of complexity, so there is a room for you to try something new? *devil mode*.

Ingredients
Half chicken or 2-3 large chicken breast or drumsticks
3-5 cloves of garlic
7 small red onions
Half of onion
2 cm of ginger. Crush it. Or 2 tea spoon of ginger powder.
1 lemon grass
2-3 indian bay leaves
20 ml of coconut milk
1 spoon of olive oil
1/3 tea spoon of salt


How to cook
1. Put in a blender: garlic, small red onions, onion, ginger.
2. Fry it with one spoon of olive oil in a medium cooking pan. Put the lemon grass and the indian bay leaves.
3. When you smell something nice from the spices (yes, this is a traditional way to see that the spices are cooked enough and to put the chicken :P). Put the chicken, add some water -1/3 cup- and leave it for 3 minutes or until it is boiled.
3. Pour the coconut milk, add some water again, around half to 1 cup, turn the stove to low heat, and leave it until it gets dried.
4. Fried the chicken.

Culinary Culture: Mediterranean

Since ancient times, settlers, colonizers, and empires spread out across the area, introducing new produce, utensils, and methods, and leaving their mark everywhere. The first wave of colonists -- the Phoenecians, Greeks, and Romans -- established the trinity of wheat, olives and vines. The Arabs, who were the dominant force beginning in the seventh century (they occupied part of Spain for 700 years and Sicily for 200), established new trading systems and spread the cultivation of foods such as rice, sugarcane, apricots, and oranges (bitter oranges and lemons were known to the Romans), pomegranates, dates, bananas, artichokes, spinach, and eggplants. Other important influences were the kingdom of Catalunya, which conquered Sicily, Sardinia and Naples and penetrated the south of France; and the crown of Aragon, which had possessions around the Mediterranean.

The Normans and the Republic of Venice, which had colonies as far away as Alezandria, also introduced their cooking styles to the Mediterranean shores. One of the greatest unifying forces was the Ottoman Empire, which lasted for 500 years until its collapse at the end of World War I. It spread a style of cooking, drawn from its conquered territories, to all the nations in the empire.

Apart from empires and colonists, movements of populations contributed to an interchange of cooking styles: the Moors returned to North Africa after their expulsion from Spain, Tunisians moved to Palermo to build the cathedral, Sicilian peasants were brought to Algeria by the French colonists to work the land, troubadours and jongleurs from southern France were seen in Italy and Catalonia, and spice merchants and itinerant traders were seen everywhere. More recently, the French pieds noirs, resettling in the south of France, and immigrant workers from North Africa, have had an enormous impact.

A surprisingly unified culinary culture was woven from these disparate threads: Andalusia, Provence, and southern Italy have more in common with their maritime neighbors than with the northern regions of their own countries. Throughout the Mediterranean cooks use the same clay pots, the same wood-burning ovens, mortars and pestles, skewers, and grills. You find similar dishes: cooked vegetables preserved in olive oil and eaten cold, stuffed vegetables, fluffy vegetable omelettes, rice dishes, creamy puddings, almond pastries and tomato sauce, the signature of Mediterranean cuisine.

Yellow Coconut Rice (Nasi Kuning)

A friend of mine asked me to put some pictures. Well, here is one of them. It's my first lunch in the Hague. It was yellow coconut rice with Indonesian fried chicken, steamed broccoli and fresh cucumber. I didn't bring my rice cooker at that time, so I just cooked it by a cooking technic which we call it "liwet". The same technic more or less is applied in making a plao, a vegetarian rice from Pakistan. My crazy flatmates, Zaka, taught me. Hope you enjoy this yummy yellow rice.



Ingredients:
1 cup of rice
2 cup of water (well, the amount of water depends on what kind of rice that you use)
half to 1 tea spoon of kunyit powder (I forget the english name for kunyit. I'll find it in the dictionary later :P)
1 lemon grass, crushed it.
1 indian bay leaf (daun salam)
20-30 ml of coconut milk
2-3 small red onions or half onion. Chopped it.
half tea spoon of salt

How to Cook:
1. Put some water to rice until it gets wet a little bit. Put half tea spoon of kunyit powder, mix it until the rice turns a little bit yellow. Add some more if you think it's not yellow enough :-) but not too much, otherwise the taste will be a little bit bitter.
2. Put everything, crushed lemon grass, chopped onion, indian bay leaf, water, coconut milk and half tea spoon of salt.
3. Put it on the stove. Medium heat. When the water is dried, turn to low heat, close the pan and leave it for 15-30 minutes. Or you can use rice cooker, that's easier! :-)