Bubur Biji Ketapang or Bubur Biji Salak

Bubur Biji Ketapang (in Sumatra) or Bubur Biji Salak (in Java) are Indonesian Sweet Potato Dumpling.  Both are the same sweet snack and made from sweet potato. 

Bubur means porridge while biji means seed. Ketapang is a Terminalia catappa  plant with many different common names such as Bengal almond, Singapore almond, Ebelebo, Malabar almond, Indian almond, Tropical almond, Sea almond, Beach Almond, Talisay tree, and Umbrella tree. Salak (Salacca zalacca) is a palm tree (family Arecaceae) species native to Indonesia and known as snakefruit.

For those who know bubur candil, don’t get confused! Bubur Candil is similar to Bubur Biji Ketapang or Bubur Biji Salak but without sweet potato added.

The sweetness can be adjusted to your tastebuds. The original recipe from yasaboga suggested to add another 2 tablespoons of raw canesugar beside 7 ounces coconut or palm sugar.

Baking, instead of steaming the sweet potatoes resulted in less water inside the sweet potatoes and less tapioca or sago starch to be added. The taste of sweet potatoes were also sweeter.

Ingredients:

1.7 lbs sweet potatoes
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
4.2 oz sago or tapioca flour
1/4 teaspoon vanilla powder
6 cups water
7 oz. coconut or palm sugar (Palm sugar has a darker result)
3 pandan leaves
1 tablespoon sago/tapioca flour, dissolved in a small amount of water

Coconut Milk Sauce
1.5 cups thick coconut milk
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 pandan leaf

Methods:


Sweet Potato Balls
1. Wash sweet potatoes, wrap each potato in aluminum foil. Bake, folded side of foil up, at 400° F for 45 minutes to 1 hour or until a fork easily presses into the center. If you like to go faster you can microwave them and it will take you about 15 minutes.

2. Let sweet potatoes cool down and the skin will come off easily. Once the skin is off, transfer into a bowl and mash until smooth.

3. Remove 1/4 of mashed sweet potatoes to another smaller bowl and combine with 1 tablespoon sago/tapioca flour mixture. Set aside.

4. Mix the 3/4 part with sago/tapioca flour, vanilla powder and salt. Knead until well-blended and form into small oval balls.

5. In a pot, combine water, palm sugar and pandan leaves. Bring to a boil. Place in the oval-balls and continue to boil until all balls float. Add the sweet potatoes sago/tapioca mixture. Stir. Remove from the heat and pour thick coconut milk sauce on top.

Coconut Milk Sauce:
In a saucepan, combine thick coconut milk with salt and pandan leaves. Simmer and stir at low heat until boiling. Remove from heat and ready for sauce.

Stroopwafel

This Traditional Dutch snack, the stroopwafel, originates from Gouda in the Netherlands. It was first made during the late 18th century or early 19th century by a baker using leftovers from the bakery, such as breadcrumbs, which were sweetened with syrup. One story ascribes the invention of the stroopwafel to the baker Gerard Kamphuisen, which would date the first stroopwafels somewhere between 1810, the year when he opened his bakery, and 1840, the year of the oldest known recipe for syrup waffles.

I found this five-star version at Allrecipes. 

Ingredients

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 2 eggs
• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/2 cup warm water
• 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
• 1 cup butter
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 6 tablespoons dark corn syrup

Directions

1. Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.
2. Cut 1cup of the butter into the flour. Mix in the sugar, eggs and yeast mixture. Mix well and set aside to rise for 30 to 60 minutes.
3. Roll dough into balls and bake in a pizelle iron. A waffle iron may be used. (Did you know Dutch pilgrims brought waffle irons to America in the 1620s?)
4. To Make Filling: In a saucepan boil the brown sugar, 1 cup of the butter, cinnamon and dark corn syrup until it reaches the soft ball stage (234-240 degrees F 112 -115 degrees C).
5. Split waffles in half while warm and spread cut sides with the warm filling. Then put the halves back together. This will glue the two cookies together.

* Makes 24 cookies or 12 stroopwafels

Arretjescake

The problem with having too many emails (four of them) and being on too many mailing lists (fewer now) is that when I get a personal email it tends to get lost until I finally get around to cleaning out my inboxes.  This recipe is a prime example of that.  I recently found this traditional Dutch recipe sent to me by a distant relative of Johannes.  So I want to formally thank you Ria, for the recipe and also to apologize for taking so long to do so. 

Ria was sweet enough to send me her Oma's recipe for Arretjescake.  I haven't had a chance to make it yet since my teenagers keep eating the animal crackers on me.  Hopefully, I can manage to keep the ravenous beast at bay long enough to make this soon.  It looks yummy!

Or in Ria's words: Lekker .... mmm .... herlich .... awesome!

Ingredients:

8.5 ounces cookies (I learned on the interweb that Animal Crackers work best)

9 ounces butter

9 ounces castor sugar (ground sugar, not confectioners sugar, would work well, just not ground too finely)

1 1/4 ounce cacao (or cocoa)

2-3 tablespoons milk

1 egg

Directions:

1. Melt the butter in the saucepan. 
2. Crush cookies into small pieces in a bowl. 
3. Mix sugar, milk, cacao and egg in another bowl and mix together.
4. Cover cake tin with foil.
5. Melt butter and mix gently into batter.
6. Add crushed cookies.
7. Pour mixture into the cake.
8. Refrigerate 24 hours. 

Kibbeling

There are so many wonderful places on the internet to find Dutch recipes and I was lucky enough to discover this Kibbeling recipe over at HomeCookingDiva. This food blogger is an ex-pat living in Holland and married to a Dutchman, so I value her opinion on recipes.

Kibbeling is fresh cod cut into bite-size pieces, dipped into batter and deep fried.  Similar to our fish nuggets - but so much better!  They are served with Knoflook Saus (garlic sauce).  I will post that recipe next time.

Ingredients:

3.75 ounces tilapia fillet (it should be cod but any firm-fleshed white fish will do)
2 tbsp flour
1 tbsp corn flour
1 tsp baking powder
2-5 tbsp milk
1 small egg
1 tsp dried parsley
salt and pepper to taste

Procedure:

1. Cut the fish into bite-size pieces. Use kitchen paper to get rid of any liquids.
2. Combine all the dry ingredients together.
3. Add the egg and mix well.
4. Add the milk one tablespoon at a time. It’s important that the batter is not too wet; you want a nice coating on the fish.
5. Season with salt and pepper.
6. Let the batter stand for just about 5 minutes.
7. In the meantime, heat up your deep fryer (friteuse)to 180 C. (If you don’t have a deep fryer, a deep pan will do just ensure you put in enough oil so that the fish is submerged in oil during frying.)
8. Put the fish into the batter and make sure they are well coated.
9. Fry the fish for about 5 minutes.