10 easy recipes for people like us

I believe not all of you were born a good chef or is used to work in the kitchen for the family. In my case, before living in Europe, it was relatively easy to find any kind of food you want in Indonesia no matter how late at night or early in the morning. This is even become easier thanks to the online application called Go-jek that also has Go-food for services to buy and deliver food for you in very cheap prices with a lot of promo prices.

So, I have to live with reality that in Europe I have to cycle at least 10 minutes to get to the nearest supermarket and pay triple price for all food I can get normally in cheap price back home. I can not run from the kitchen anymore to stay alive. Then, I realized that oh wow, actually I am not that bad in cooking and as the time goes by, you will have more knowledge and feeling on how to create and mix something. Today I want to share several easy recipes that I normally repeat every week due to its ease and simplicity.

1) Potato balls (Perkedel kentang)

• Description: This is a deep-fried mashed potato ball. You can eat this with soup, soto, rice and tomato sauce.

Vegetarian friendly.

What you need:

• 4 potatoes
• 2 leeks
• Garlic
• Salt, pepper and sugar
• Oil
• 1 egg

How to:

1. Fry the potatoes
2. Mash them all
3. Mix the mashed potato with chopped leeks, garlic, salt, pepper and sugar
4. Make balls from the dough
5. Roll it in the egg
6. Fry them
7. Ready to serve!

2) Corn ball (Dadar jagung)

• Description: This one is pretty similar to how to make potato ball but with flour and corn as the base. You can eat this with rice and tomato sauce/spicy sambal.

Vegetarian friendly.

What you need:

• 1 can of corn
• Garlic
• 2 leeks
• Salt, pepper and sugar
• Oil
• 5 tbs of wheat flour
• 2 eggs

How to:

1. Rinse the corn and mix it with chopped garlic, leeks, salt, pepper sugar
2. Add flour until it becomes more viscous
3. Make balls from the dough
4. Roll it in the egg
5. Fry them
6. Ready to serve

3) Chicken bento

• Description: Bento means rice box with egg roll or chicken/fish/meat and vegetables in Japan to be brought in a lunch box to school.

What you need:

• 1 fillet of chicken breast
• Salt and pepper
• Lemon
• Broccoli
• Carrot
• Cucumber
• Rice

How to:

1. Bath the chicken with lemon juice, salt and pepper for 1-2 hours
2. Fry it
3. Cut broccoli, carrot and cucumber in the same shape
4. Boil the broccoli and carrot

You can eat this with mayonnaise

Salmon bento

What you need:

• 1 fillet of chicken breast
• Salt and pepper
• Lemon
• Garlic
• Long beans
• Sweet soy sauce
• Rice

How to:

1. Bath the salmon with lemon juice, salt and pepper for 1-2 hours
2. Fry it
3. Sauté the garlic
4. Add long beans, salt, pepper and sweet soya sauce

You can eat this with bottled teriyaki sauce and rice

4)Toppoki with beef

• Description: This is Korean rice cake with special Korean sauce. You can find it a lot in youtube when you search for Mukbang: an eating show where a youtuber eat a lot in front of camera to create an interesting ASMR voices. This is my favorite!

What you need:

• Toppoki (Korean rice cake)
• Toppoki sauce
• Minced beef
• Garlic
• Salt and pepper
• Egg

How to:

1. Saute the garlic
2. Fry the minced beef, add salt and pepper on top of caramelized garlic
3. Boil the toppoki
4. Put them all together
5. Pour the sauce on top of them, cook in small fire
6. Add the egg to make it half cooked
7. It is ready to serve!

5) Spinach soup and fried chicken

• Description: This is a typical home food in every Indonesian houses.

What you need:

• 1 fillet of chicken breast
• Frying flour
• Spinach
• Chicken stock
• Corn
• Egg
• Lemon

How to:

1. Bath the chicken with lemon then egg
2. Bath it in the flour
3. Deep fry
4. Boil water, add chicken broth, add the canned corn, then the spinach

Eat both with hot rice

6)Fried tempe

• Description: This is a typical home food in every Indonesian houses, also very cheap option. You can match it with spinach soup and rice. You should dip it in the sauces below to eat it.

What you need:

• Thin slice of tempe
• Garlic
• Salt and pepper

Sauce:

• Chopped chillies
• Sweet soya sauce
• Soya sauce

How to:

1. Cut the tempe into tiny slices and make 3 shallow cut on their bodies
2. Bath it into the water of garlic, salt and pepper
3. Fry it

Sauces:

It is ready to serve!

7) Simple Pasta

What you need:

• Farfalle
• Canned tomato
• Minced beef
• Garlic
• Mushroom
• Parmesan/cheddar cheese

How to:

1. Fry the minced beef with salt and pepper
2. Add mushroom
3. Boil the pasta, add a little bit of olive oil and salt
4. Cook everything together with the canned tomato, salt and pepper
5. Add grated cheese on top of them

7) Easy Tortilla

What you need:

• Eggs
• Chicken
• Chopped leeks
• Tomato sauce
• Soya sauce

How to:

1. Fry the chicken
2. Shred it
3. Cook it again with chopped leeks, tomato sauce, salt and pepper
4. Scramble the egg
5. Heat your tortilla
6. Melt mozzarella cheese
7. Put everything inside the tortilla

8) Lazy Fried Rice

• Description: This is the first food you have to be able to cook to enter adulthood in Indonesia. It is the simplest one.

What you need:

• Chopped garlic
• Butter
• Leeks leaves
• Eggs
• Rice
• Chopped chicken/sausages
• Salt, pepper, sweet soya sauce

How to :

1. Caramelize the garlic in the heated butter
2. Add the eggs and scramble them
3. Add the sausages
4. Add rice
5. Add leeks leaves
6. Add salt, pepper, and just a little bit of sweet soya sauce
7. It is ready to serve

9)Noodle Pizza

What you need:

• Indomie (fried one, original taste)
• 2 eggs
• Minced beef/bacon

How to:

1. Fry the noodle as when you make instant noodles
2. Mix them with the spices from Indomie
3. Add 2 eggs
4. Add bacon
5. Mix them well
6. Fry everything like when we are frying omelette
7. It is ready to serve!

PS. I used to sell pieces of this in university and it was a top hit! Everyone will love this, I promise.

10) Butter chicken

What you need:

• Chicken fillet, cut as dices
• Tomato and paprika, chopped
• Frying flour
• Butter
• Salt and pepper
• Minced garlic
• Lemon

How to:

1. Bath the chicken in lemon, salt and pepper
2. Bath them in the egg
3. Bath them in the frying flour
4. Fry them
5. Heat the butter in small fire
6. Add the garlic until they turn caramelized and the paprika
7. Cook the chicken
8. Add chopped tomatoes at the end
9. It is ready to serve!

Bonus:

11) Bacon-wrapped potato

Honestly, I learned this one from a manga (Japanese comic) with cooking theme. Please, try to read manga with food themes, they will starve you with their beautiful food drawings!

What you need:

• Potato
• Bacon
• Eggs
• Cheese

How to:

1. Fry the potato
2. Dip it in eggs
3. Wrap the potato with the bacons
4. Fry them together
5. Melt some cheese
6. Put it on the top
7. Ready to serve!

Well, this is so far what I got for my tummy in Europe. Normally, the savior of all time is the sweet soya sauce. It really saves you from disaster and complicated spices that you do not understand. Make sure that you get every material fresh from the local market instead of the frozen one in supermarket. Also, eat balanced fruitsif you do not like vegetables. In my case, I am so confused on what how to make vegetables so that is why I need also to learn more on vegetables ideas. I hope this simple recipes help you a lot in exam period or in your daily life abroad. Bon appetite!

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