Jakarta

Welcome to Jakarta!!
The capital city of Indonesia.
the city which never sleep.
Everyday, everyhours, everymonths.
*well except in Ied Mubarak celebration*
Full with malls.
Full with traffic jam.
Full with freedom and democration.
Its Jakarta.
My city.
My hometown.


Bajaj
Trans Jakarta

EX entertaintment center mall

Traffic jam

Plaza Indonesia mall

jakarta's night

Gandaria City mall

Christmas Tree in Mall Taman Anggrek

bundaran Hotel Indonesia

Pondok Indah Mall 2

Photos by : google

PISTA BARFI

Ingredients:
Milk powder ....... 400 gms. Sugar ................... 1 & 1/2 cup
Butter or Ghee ... 30 gms.
Cream or milk .................. 200ml
Ground Pistachios...........4 tbsp.
Cardamom powder ......... 1/2 tsp
Green colour ................... 1-2 drops
Saffron ............................ a pinch

Method:

1. Mix the milk powder, cream, ghee, milk, pistachio powderand pass it through a sieve.

2. Boil the sugar adding one and half cups water, cardamom powder, saffron, green colour to make a syrup of 2 string consistency.


3. Now put the sieved mixture into it and keep stirring till the mixture starts leaving the sides.(approximately 10-15 minutes)

4. Apply ghee in a flat dish and spread the mix.Garnish with chopped almonds and pistachios.
5. Let it cool before cutting into pieces.

(Contributed by Monaz Karkaria )

Homemade Sourdough Pasta!

I've wanted to try making my own pasta since tasting a sample of the fresh pasta sold at Borough Market. For any of you keen to try, Jamie Oliver says to make your pasta dough with a 1 egg: 100g flour ratio knead into a ball, flatten and you can do whatever shapes you want after that. Sounds not too difficult, but not something you'll do when you're in a rush to just get food into your stomach, so I kept putting it off.

Then I found this recipe for sourdough noodles from Jenny. It's a great way to use up extra starter and encourage yourself to not neglect your baby(: If it sounds weird, actually it's not that weird, it's inspired by the traditional Russian pel'meni, a stuffed dumpling.

I modified the recipe a bit because the dough seemed too dry. Here's my version:

Ingredients

1/3 cup sourdough starter

1 cup wholegrain flour

1 whole egg (having the yolk alone made it too thick to stir)

2 tbsps water/whey (not advisable after all; the mixture felt too dry so I though I needed to add something liquid, but then the dough the next day was a bit too slack?)

Method

1. Mix wet ingredients first, then add the flour a bit at a time.

2. Knead into a ball. Let it rest, covered, overnight.

3. Dump ball on a floured surface, roll out very thin, trim edges into a rectangle, cut into desired shapes.

4. (optional) Leave to dry for half an hour before dropping in boiling water, or dust with some flour and freeze in a sealed bag/container.

Images speak louder than words and I am studying graphic design after all heh, so:

For stuffed pasta

For ribbon pasta/noodles

Now for some photos:

Ravioli

I don't have a fancy pizza cutter so they don't have pretty edges, but oh well, rustic ;)

Check out my Pumpkin Ravioli with Browned Basil Butter!

Tortellini

They're like mini pasta hugs! Oh if you're wondering about the odd pointed crown, I should have made them on circles of dough instead. But it's cute still, heh? Check out my simple Herbed Cheese Tortellini!

I love stuffed pasta, love biting into that little nugget of surprise wrapped up in the dough. There are so many things you can stuff them with! Get crazy!

Noodles have that reassuring "slurp" quality though and I love them just as much.

Fettucini

Remember to flour the surface well, or the dough will stick!

Check out my Fettucini with Walnut Basil Pesto and Slow-dried Cherry Tomatoes!

For Linguini, cut thinner strips.

For Parpadelle, cut fatter strips.

For Lasagne, don't cut (sounds good and lazy. will try it the next time i make extra tomato bolognese sauce).

Verdict: Sourdough pasta has a deep, rich, yeasty flavour with a slight tang to it. Really really good. Texture-wise, there's a very comforting hearty mee hoon kueh/ ban mian (oh giving me ideas..)bite to it. But it doesn't have the springiness of al dente pasta.

Update: I don't think it's entirely to do with the sourdough. I think it's me. I was watching youtube videos on making normal egg pasta, and

1. I believe I left out a crucial step: kneading the dough.

"Once you’ve made your dough you need to knead and work it with your hands to develop the gluten in the flour, otherwise your pasta will be flabby and soft when you cook it, instead of springy and al dente. "

2. Also, yes please skip the added water/whey. "When you're making pasta, the dough must be very dry."

3. And to anyone making normal egg pasta, use 00 flour.

This post is an entry for Simple Lives Thursday by GNOWFGLINS.

Simple Garlic and Herbed Cheese Tortellini

This was another result of my crazy pasta-making day. Tortellinis are usually stuffed with meat or cheese, and since I've got homemade cream cheese, I stuffed mine with the garlic and herb-flavoured cheese. When I say simple, I really mean simple. Because I don't have any cream or sour cream or any leftover meat sauce on hand, and I was hungry after spending much longer than I expected on making the pasta, I simply tossed it with olive oil and finished it off with parmesan and fresh parsley.

Simple Herbed Cheese Tortellini Ravioli

serves 2

I'm sorry it really doesn't seem like much of a recipe.

Ingredients

For the pasta dough, check out my homemade sourdough pasta post.

You'll need 1/2 of the dough from that entry. Maybe 1/3 if you roll it out thinner.

For the tortellini stuffing,

1/2 cup homemade cream cheese

1-2 tbsp grated parmesan

1 tbsp garlic powder (you can use mashed/pureed garlic. oh oh roasted garlic puree!!)

1 tsp each of dried parsley and mixed herbs

pinch of sea salt, black pepper

To finish,

drizzle of extra virgin olive oil

handful of chopped fresh parsley

handful of grated parmesan

Method

1. Mix the stuffing ingredients

2. Place a teaspoon (don't be greedy and stuff too much) of the stuffing below the (estimate) diagonal halfway mark of each square (should be circle, or you get that funny pointed crown!) of dough.

3. Wet the edges with water/egg wash(press around the stuffing). Wrap the two pointed edges together and pres to seal. Leave to dry for 1/2 hour or so.

Please check out my homemade sourdough pasta post for a clearer picture. There are photos!

4. Cook the tortellini in gently boiling salted water, about 3-4 min. Drain and plate.

5. Drizzle olive oil over generously, top with the parmesan and fresh parsley. Enjoy!

This is part of Simple Lives Thursday.

It's the Regulations, Stupid, Part 3

Here in San Diego, we can't clean our storm drains.

Flood-control work across San Diego is stuck in the mud after a court ordered the city to stop for failing to do the proper environmental review...

The main hazard is flooding of lowland areas such as Sorrento Valley and Chollas Creek — an issue that pops up every rainy season. City crews want to clean out muck and plants that slow the flow of water and cause it to overtop storm drains. But they need a host of environmental agencies to sign off on the work, and the slow process has hampered efforts to reduce the backlog of clogged areas.

Awesome. Once upon a time, we built interstate highway systems and large hydroelectric dams. Now we can't even manage to clean out our storm drains.