Citra's Home Diary

Sweet and Sour Roasted Chicken

I was surprisingly love this one. Simple but great meal for dinner or lunch. You must try it and tell me if you are agree with me ^,^

Serve it with simple warm steamed rice or you can see some of my pilaf recipe here to get a long with this sweet and sour roasted chicken.

Served 4.
Ingredients and how to make
 1 kg chicken or 4 pcs of chicken thighs, wash and stab some places with fork

Ingredients for chicken marinade:
 5 cloves garlic, finely grated
 1 medium lemon, take the zest and juiced
 5 tablespoons molasses (I use grape molasses)
 3 tablespoons hot chili sauce ( ABC chili sauce/ shriraca)

 3 tablespoons canola/ corn/ coconut oil
 2 tsp salt or to taste
 2 tsp brown sugar

Mix well all marinade ingredients. Soak chicken with it and let stand at least 3 hours (or overnight) in refrigerator.
Roasted over coals or in oven 200 ⁰C until cooked

Serve warm with salad and rice/ pilaf or potatoes.

Yogurt Panna Cotta with Cherry Compote

This is my perfect dessert for my family iftar. Light but really entertained us after all heavy meal on previous fast breaking.

served 2

Red Cabbage Mix salad

Another Salad mix with Pomegranate sour sauce as dressing. Great side dish that will go along with any meal/dishes you have.

What you need are:

- 1 cup shredded red cabbage

- 1 medium red onion, sliced half ring

- 1 medium cucumber, core, and slice lengthwise about 5 cm

- 1 medium tomato, thinly slice, crescent shape

Dressing:

- 2 tbsp pomegranate sour sauce

- 1 tbsp lemon juice

- 5~7 tbsp olive oil

- 1 tsp sugar

- salt to taste

*Mix well all dressing ingredients.

Making it:
Mix red cabbage and onion, toss with some salt and knead before rinse. Drain them well. Mix with other vegetable and salad dressing. keep in refrigerator before serving.

Served cold.

Gözleme

Gözleme is a savoury traditional Turkish hand made and hand rolled pastry. Fresh pastry is rolled out, filled and sealed, then cooked over a griddle. The name derives from the Turkish word göz meaning eye. Traditionally, this is done on a sac.

Gözleme varieties include:

Spinach and Feta Cheese

Spinach and Feta and Minced meat

Spinach and Feta and Egg

Seafood

Egg

Minced Meat

Cheese

Potatoes

Mushroom

Lavaş cheese

The unique of this meal can be eaten anytime, anywhere. Sometimes some people like it as a snack or just a brunch with hot tea. Among those variety, today I made combination of feta cheese and parsley. You might try other filling variation to get different taste of this gözleme

Repeatable menu... Karnıyarık (Turkish stuffed eggplant)

One from many traditional Turkish meal. Served in almost every family dinner table and also one of repeatable menu. Eggplant with minced meat stuffing, spice with some seasoning topping with green banana pepper then wet roasted in oven.

Some variation, we can roasted them in tomato sauce gravy to get rich flavor. Serve them warm sprinkle with some parsley or coriander.

Ingredients:

4 pcs medium size eggplant, peeled in stripes lengthwise
200 gr ground meat
2 cloves garlic, crushed and finely chopped
2 onions, small cubed
1/2 bunch (about 25 stalks) parsley, finely chopped the leaves
1 big tomato, small diced
salt to taste
2 tbs olive oil
Enough frying oil for deep fry
olive oil for sauteing
about 1 cup hot water (or you can add tomato pasta in it)

For topping:

1 tomato, slice crescent shape
green banana peppers, as many as eggplants
parsley or coriander leaves for serving

Cara Membuat Tahu sendiri/ Homemade tofu

Have you eat tofu?- it's healthy.

Have you ever think to make your own tofu?- beside it's easy, it's also healthy because anything we make by our self, we can control what and how the ingredients we use.

Tofu was my daily food back when I was in Indonesia. I ate it almost everyday on my menu. You can eat it as a snack or as side dish. So, when I'm living here I can not find ready tofu here in Turkey.. maybe nobody eat tofu here :))

Then I feel something missing from my menu... so here I am.. making my own tofu... Try it once and you will like it too.. ^,^

Things to Prepare:
1) a large pot at least 6 liters capacity
2) Sieve/ strainer
3) Cheese cloth to filter or can use a clean cloth thin cotton.
4) Blender/ food processor
5) Tofu mould-anything you have with holes.
6) Weight or press tools

Ingredients:

• 500 grams of soybean
• Warm water
• ± 200 ml lemon / lime juice

How to make:

A) Rinse soybeans. Soak in plenty of water (see Figure 1). Soak overnight untill double its volume because absorbed water (Fig. 2). Rinse and drain (Fig. 3).

B) Blend soy bean with warm water, the ratio 1: 4 in volume = 1 for soybeans: 4 for water (Figure 4). Prepare a strainer and cheese cloth. Strain and wring out the blender yield (figure 5). You may keep the dregs and used to make tempeh gembus.

C) Put all soy milk in big pan, heat until almost boiling (Fig. 6). You can cover with lid, but let it open a bit so it won't boil overt. After almost boiling, let stand briefly until lukewarm. Then slowly add lemon juice while stirring very slow until the soy agglomerate such as figure 7, Leave it up to room temperature and precipitation settled.

D) Prepare tofu mold like a figure 8, Cover with cheese cloth (cotton filtre). Slowly, pour the soy precipitation/ sediment into the mold (Figure 9) and cover with the rest of the filter cloth (Fig. 10). Give ballast like the picture 11. As you can see at Fig. 12, residu fluid drop down from the mold. This process for about 3 ~ 5 hours.

E) If you want more dense tofu, Steamed after being pressed.
The process of making yellow tofu, add a little salt, turmeric powder and garlic powder in the cooking process No. 6.

Have a try.

Beef Saute in Pita Bread

I made Pita bread yesterday. And for filling I make beef saute with cumin for our iftar (breaking fast) menu today. Hubby said, why don't you try to make meatball for the filling next time?

Eh, why not.. ^,^ But I make this beef saute because inspired by döner kebab that he like so much. I slice the meat in very thin and wide, so it's döner look like (*_*), with strong cumin flavor which I like.. I'll bet You will get great menu for your lunch or dinner with this pita bread...

served 4~6

Ingredients for beef saute and how to make:
• ± 350 g beef, thinly widely sliced .
• 2 medium onions, finely sliced half-ring shape
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed & finely chopped
• 1 medium size tomato, cut into small squares
• 2 carliston pepper, seeded, sliced lengthwise
• ½ teaspoon pepper powder
• ½ tsp all spice powder
• 1 ½teaspoon ground cumin
• ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 tsp salt or to taste
• Small amount of sugar
• Enough cooking oil for sauteing

Making beef saute:
Heat oil in a skillet, cook beef until tender--If necessary add small amount of water and cook until water dried again. Stir in onion and garlic, saute until fragrant and wilted. Combine tomatoes and carliston biber, continue stir frying until wilted. Put all other spices, check the taste. Remove from fire.

Other ingredients:
• 4 pieces of Pita bread (you can see recipe here), halved each
• Sliced onions
• Sliced tomatoes
• Lettuce
• Chili flakes for sprinkle on top

How to serve:
Arrange the salad inside slice of pita bread, give beef saute and sprinkle with chili powder/ flake if you like.

Serve warm immediately.

Pita Bread

Pita bread is a round pocket bread widely consumed in many Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Balkan cuisines. It is prevalent from the Balkans through Turkey, the Levant and the Arabian Peninsula. The "pocket" in pita bread is created by steam, which puffs up the dough. As the bread cools and flattens, a pocket is left in the middle.

Originated in the Middle East and were traditionally cooked in tandoor ovens.

Yield 8 ~ 10 breads.

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