Dinner Idea: "Kampoeng" Style; Vegetable Curry, Omelet, and Japanese Rice with Sweet Potato

 

Dinner idea: "kampoeng" style; veggie curry, omelet, Japanese rice with sweet potato, crackers, watermelon, and a glass of jasmine tea - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Hi, welcome back to my new article on Ichi Fusion's recipes! What you doing? I read the news that the Covid-19 cases in Europe rise up again and I just hope wherever you are please keep healthy and stay vigilant. This is important; wearing a mask when you go outside, going outside only for important matters, for example, buying groceries, medicine, maybe post office, etc, do not gather, wash your hand frequently, bring sanitizer when going outside, and for shopping that it is safe to shop online. What I've believed that we can get this through together, hang in there. There is a light after the storm.

So, today I am gonna talk about "kampoeng" style dinner menu again. Remember the word "kampoeng" means the village, right? I will write another story about it and it is veggie curry and omelet. In addition, there is a story where I got the idea to cook Japanese rice with sweet potato.

If you are following my article recipes then you notice that I often cook the egg and it is an omelet, just sometimes boiled egg. Eating the egg has become my habit since I was a kid even maybe a baby. My father was the one who taught me how important to eat the egg every day.  He suggests that children who eat the egg every day would grow up and become smarter. Is that true? Well, you tell me. That's how the idea of this particular routine comes from. When I was a kid, I must have eaten a boiled egg every morning, and sometimes ate omelet at night. Usually, I ate a boiled egg in the morning with soy sauce before going to school. For me, lunch was always at home even if I came back from school at 4 PM; my meal for lunch was veggie soup, fried tempeh & rice. Finally, whether omelet or tempeh that my dinner with rice. Most people when they do not have much money, they tend to buy instant food like instant noodles, but it hadn't happened in my family. My father knew how to feed his kids properly. Besides working at a factory, raising hen & duck, goat, planted fruit trees, root ingredients, veggies, that's what my father did to provide at least healthy foods. Moreover, we could sell lemon, lime, jack fruit, pineapples, and cassava.

To be honest, I didn't like boiled egg much, but I learned and studied biology at school so I knew what my father did was the right thing to do. At first, I felt no choice, but then I changed my mind; whether like it or not I have to eat an egg every day. As you know that egg is a source of vitamin D; the egg is also even having vitamin A, E, B12, and other minerals for instance iron. With all of those vitamins and minerals, we can assume that it will help children grow up healthy, strong, and smart, isn't it? So, how my father discovered this kind of knowledge if he was labor? My father was a smart person that wanted to learn more about all the knowledge. He loved gardening, art, drawing, good to play music, and singing, and the most important thing was that his math was excellent; the short picture he was goddam good at academics. Unfortunately, he didn't have a chance to study at a university because of the situation in our country at the time. So, he started working, yet kept learning even took the computer course while working. As result, he became a successful carrier man at a big company without a degree. But how my father ended up working as the cheapest labor at a factory; earning only $4 a month if he was a successful carrier man? It's another story and a long sad story. Since that day I set my dream to get higher education and I don't care even if tomorrow apocalypse I'll still study today and later.

As I mentioned in my other article that villagers in my hometown would cook meat only on the festive season and it was curry called "opor". In daily life, they made curry but vegetables such as young jack fruit, banana blossom, eggplant, long bean, tofu, tempeh, spinach, cassava leaves, or another veggie. Most villagers just grabbed any kind of veggies that they grew in a garden or field to cook a meal. Selling their garden vegetables to buy tempeh and tofu was the other way to get ingredients. You know what? Or we could ask our neighbor for ingredients we need it could be veggies, coconut, root ingredients, just asked them. That called kindness life in my village at the time. Well, basically,  using coconut milk for making curry. But in my recipe, I substitute coconut milk with cooking cream and using seasoning that I can find around me. Yes, this veggie curry is in my way which cooking with my own style. Let's check it out! 

Ingredient:

• 10 dried tofu - cut into small pieces

Dried tofu - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• 2 eggplants
• 4 long beans

Carrot, eggplant, long bean - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• 1 small-medium carrot - cut into small pieces
• 1800 ml of water
• 200 ml of cooking cream

Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• 15 g of onion powder
• 15 g of garlic powder
• 7 g of coriander powder
• 5-7 g of turmeric

Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• 20 g of low sodium salt
• 3 bay leaves
• 7-10 g of paprika
• 10 g of crushed red chili - this is optional
• 1 big yellow onion - finely cut or any cut you wish
• 2 tbsp of butter
• 1 stalk celery - finely cut

These are what you do:

• Prepare the pan, add butter, and yellow onion that you cut. Saute for about 2-3 minutes on medium-low flame

Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• Pour water and cooking cream. Add all the vegetables and dried tofu
• Add salt, bay leaves, onion powder, garlic powder, coriander powder, turmeric, paprika powder, add crushed red chili if you like spicy. Bring to boil, add celery stir them well, let it sit for a couple minutes then turn off the stove

Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Add crushed red chili if you like spicy - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

• Now veggie curry is ready!

Vegetable curry - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Speaking of which, what about rice with sweet potato, where the idea comes from? As you know that my recipes are also influenced by the Japanese. Inspired by the Japanese I got this thought to cook Japanese rice with sweet potato. I also mentioned that rice was luxury goods in my hometown at the time and substitute it with cassava. Just like another villager my grandma liked to eat sweet potatoes and its leaves. Yes, one of my grandma shown me all of this knowledge. Besides planting cassava we also grew sweet potato in our garden or yards. Making many kinds of foods based on sweet potato and using sweet potato leaves for soup. Furthermore, some of the villagers took advantage of making sweet potato chips and sold them. That's one of the ways how to earn money. And villager kids like me also earn money from this small business like this, yes I worked wrapping these chips. Mixing rice and sweet potato is new for me and when I cooked and ate it, the taste is good! 

Japanese rice and sweet potato - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Cooking Japanese rice with sweet potato is easy. I mix 2 cups of Japanese rice with 3 sweet potatoes.  I use only Japanese sweet potato from Japan. There is plenty of Japanese sweet potato but products of another country. Why only choose Japanese sweet potato from Japan? Because the texture and the taste are different. Before cooking, I peeled the sweet potatoes. By using a multifunction cooker everything is ready in time. 

Japanese rice with sweet potato - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Are you still there and read my recipe stories? My recipes have their own stories and it is also my journey from a long time ago. Like I said that I come from a long story. Take care and have a good day! 😊🖐

Note:

• Written by Acik Mardhiyanti
• Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
• Do not copy this article without permission
• Do not reuse these photographs anywhere else without permission