Celimpungan

Happy Mother's day !!!
Greatest respect to all mothers that raise their kids with compassionate love.

Today's recipe will be Celimpungan.
In my home town, we love to eat fish cake and we have various forms and way to serve it and each of them has its own name.

This one is Celimpungan. It's almost similar to fish balls (giant balls normally) and serve with sauce made with coconut milk.  Here is the recipe, it's for 2 to 3 serving; and as I live in Europe where I cannot find the original ingredients, the recipe has been adjusted to suit the situation :-)

How to make the fish balls
- Filet Brosme fish about 275 gr.
- water 1/2 bowl (small bowl size 250ml)
- white egg of 1 egg
- Tapioca flour - 1 bowl
- 1 tablespoon salt (flat)
- 1/2 cube maggi

Mix the all the ingredients above, except the Tapioca flour, in a blender till they are smooth. Then mix then slowly with tapioca flour. Till it can be form with spoon as balls. Approximately below consistency

Boil a lot of waters in a pan. Wait till it is really boiling and then make balls form with spoon and drop it into the waters. When they are floating, add about 10 minutes to ensure they are well cook. And lift up from the water. Put it on fabric and leave it dry.

How to make the sauce (we call it kuah)
- 4 pieces small shallots (asian shallots)
- 1 piece small garlic.
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
- 1/4 teaspoon coriander powder
- salt as per your taste
- 1/2 cube maggi
- 200 ml thin coconut milk (you can mix coconut milk with water to thinner them)

Grind shallots, garlic, turmeric and coriander together till it become a paste.
Heat small amount of oil in a pan, put the paste and stir fry till it smells nice and then pour the coconut milk, put maggi and salt to taste. Stir it slowly till it's boiling. And then put those fish balls inside. And leave it boil for few minutes.

Serve with fried shallots and if you like spicy food, you can add sambal terasi or with sambal ulek.

Pempek DOS/ Pempek Sagu

This is a delicious, cheap and easy to make food. My mom used to make it for me as snack in the afternoon. Well, do not hope a high nutrition value from this ... but the happiness that it gives you when eating it, you won't care on nutrition anymore.

Anyway, it is not an everyday food - it's time to time. And we have the right to enjoy food isn't it :-)

Warning !!!, we are used to cook without measurement. We call it 'kiro kiro bae' ... this is where your cooking skill is being challenged :-D

Portion for 4 people

Ingredients for dough (pempek)

- 200 gr multi purpose flour

- 200 gr tapioka flour

- salt

- a bit of sugar

- one maggi cubes

- 4 eggs

- water

- oil

Ingredients for the sauce (cuka)

- 100 gr palm sugar

- 12.5   gr garlic, grind and make as paste

- 25 gr chilli paddy + big red chilli (2 pieces) - grind and make as paste

- 5   gr salt

- 25 gr sugar

- 1    table spoon vinegar (25%), if you use apple vinegar then you need more

- 250 cc water

How to make pempek

- mix multi purpose flour with sugar, maggi cubes, salt and pour boiling water into it slowly. Pour the water until all the flour are wet and form like a dough

- then put one egg, mix it

- and then mix them with the tapioka flour

- beat the other 3 eggs in a bowl

- boil at least 2 litter of water

- form the dough like a pocket, and then pour the beaten egg inside and close it

- put it directly in the boiling water

- boil till they float, and then you can take out from the water

- leave it till cold

- cut and fry

How to make cuka

- boil the water 

- put the garlic and chilli paste

- put the palm sugar

- put salt and vinegar

- taste, you can add salt, sugar or vinegar to your taste

How to serve

- put the pempek in a bowl, and then pour the cuka on top of it. 

- and you can put shredded dried shrimp on top of it and/ or cuts of cucumber

Other option is not using egg but make the roll shape (like bolster) and then cut in the middle, put shredded dried shrimp, chilli paste and sweet soya sauce

To Our Mothers with LOVE

I'll be posting series of recipes blogs of my childhood food - Palembang food. These blogs are dedicated to my beloved mother and also the mother's of all my friends.

I am so lucky that I've been grown up with mother that stays at home ... cooking and taking care of us with love.

So do many other mothers of my friends, at that time. They are all mothers who is working 100% as mother. Mothers who really know how to cook exquisite food, mothers who spend hours and hours in the kitchen to produce the best healthy food from raw ingredients.

Time has changed. Time has forced women to go to work and therefore less time spent for family and especially less time for cooking.

I'll dedicated some of my time to re-write their recipes, keeping it as treasure for the next generation.