Friday bentos are always best — they herald the weekend! Instead of eating it at work (as planned) I got to enjoy bento #105 during the bloggiesta. How convenient! No need to get up and make lunch; I could just dig in whenever I got hungry. And it wasn’t just any lunch… Today’s bento was completely Indonesian: my all-time fav food style!!! :)
(Yes, I’m pretty jealous at Novroz, who gets to eat it EVERY day ;)
Indo food is great for bento because it can be eaten at room temperature.
If the picture makes your eyes hurt — click on it to go to a more ‘restful’ view
Top tier
- pak choi with bundle garlic, red chili pepper and leek, stir-fried in sesame oil, soy sauce and ginger syrup; topped with sesame seeds
- perkedèl djagoeng (corn fritters or maïskoekjes in Dutch) with a spicy soy sauce dip (recipe below)
- icicle radish
- tempeh gurih (snack tempeh)
Bottom tier
- telor boemboe Bali (Balinese style egg)
- nasi goreng (fried rice)
- thinly sliced gherkin playing atjar
- yellow bell pepper, quickly fried in sesame oil
All on a bed of lettuce.
I had some leftover corn kernels so I was dying to try a new recipe for perkedèl djagoeng (which in contemporary spelling would probably be ‘jagung‘). I’ve been on a quest to find the perfect recipe, but hadn’t made any for a long time. This one’s great! I want to try some more recipes but I’ll share this one now (slightly adapted). It’s one of the best so far!
Perkedèl djagoeng (recipe)
Makes 8-6 corn fritters.
Ingredients
- 150 gr (= half a can) corn kernels
- 1 tbs chopped onion (I used shallot)
- 1 piece of garlic (I used bundle garlic), chopped
- 2 roasted kemirie nuts; chopped (can be substituted by macadamias but those are less tasty)
- salt ’n pepper
- 1 egg
- 2-3 tbs all-purpose flour (I used 2 and a half tbs)
- 1 tbs chopped leek
- 1 tbs chopped celery
- neutral-tasting oil (I used arachid = peanut oil)
Sauce
- sweet ketjap manis
- salty soy sauce (ketjap asin, shoyu)
- sambal variety you like (I used sambal badjak)
- optional: some more finely chopped celery
Preparation
- Thoroughly drain the corn.
- Mash onion, garlic, kemiries, salt and pepper together in a mortar to create a boemboe (pulp). If you don’t have a mortar you can also chop them up real fine or use a food processor.
- Mash the corn in a food processor. The original recipe tells you to grate it, but I guess that’s something you’d do with a corn cob. I’m not sure about you but I want to keep my fingers ;)
- Whisk the egg.
- Mix everything together: boemboe mixture, mashed corn, egg, flour, leek and celery.
- Heat the oil and bake the corn fritters; approx. a spoon of batter each.
- Combine all sauce ingredients into a dip.
I’m afraid the source of this recipe is unknown: it’s a photocopy of a page in an old library book, but I’m guessing it originates from a Bep Vuyk Indonesian cookbook.
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CSA & organic: pak choi, chili pepper, bundle garlic, leek, radishes, onions, lettuce
Organic: egg
About 12.5 ww propoints in bento #105
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Why don’t you join Beth Fish’s weekend cooking with a food-related post?
Graasland 
28 reacties
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vrijdag 11 juni 2010 bij 17:01
leeswammes
Hmm, that sounds like a great recipe. Now, about the oil, you have like 5 cm oil in a frying pan? I’ve never done anything with oil (other than just greasing the bottom of the pan), so please explain a little more :-)
Glad to see you were able to use the red chili pepper from the CSA bag!!
vrijdag 11 juni 2010 bij 17:19
gnoegnoe
I used 3 tbs (á 15 ml = 45 ml) of oil in a small skillet of 17 cm diameter and did 2 rounds of frying (5 fritters each). Maybe I could have used a little less, but not much. Of course I put the fritters on a bit of kitchen towel when they came out of the pan to drain off any excess grease.
vrijdag 11 juni 2010 bij 17:04
Novroz
That is a nice looking Bento and you put it on Batik too…lovely.
That recipe is more complicated than what I used to make. I like making Bakwan Jagung more :) it’s easier to make…ah you make me want to make it for tomorrow’s breakfast.
Hehe you use the old spelling for all the food, I have to think a bit, We don’t use that spelling anymore now.
Have you Tried Padang food?
vrijdag 11 juni 2010 bij 17:28
gnoegnoe
PLEASE share your recipe for Bakwan Jagung? Pretty please? :)
Indonesian food is pretty common in Holland but we use old spelling because it originates from colonial times :( So it would be weird to use ‘acar’ here instead of ‘atjar’, for example ;)
I’d love some vegetarian Padang recipes to try! Is it a certain type of food or more a style of serving several dishes at the same time? That’s what we call ‘rijsttafel’ over here. Looking it up in wikipedia I notice that it is also called ‘nasi padang’…
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 00:42
Novroz
Bakwan Jagung is almost the same with perkedel. I make it in a most easy way ;) there is a flour with seasoning here, I use that instead of making my own seasoning. Put The corn and extra vegetables (mosly carrot, tauge, and cabbage … if you add these, it becomes just Bakwan – you don’t have to add jagung behind the word Bakwan) into the flour and add egg both for taste and to make it stick together. The fry it.
Yeah I know, it was from that era. I believe we stop using it somewhere in 60s or 50s.
Padang Food is many kind of food originally made by Padangese (I am Padangese) and yes it is serve in special way by carrying many plates at once :) Most Padang Food is spicy. Yup sometimes people call it nasi Padang.
You should try ‘Rendang’…very difficult to make but very delicious….it’s my favorite Padang Food.
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 10:43
gnoegnoe
Thanks Novroz! I *love* rendang but can’t eat it anymore because I’m a vegetarian (have been for 20 years in 2011…) When I started to eat vegetarian I decided I would make an exception for Indonesian food LOL Never did though.
My father lived in Padang when he was a child and I believe he was quite happy there — it’s one of the few places I actually remember him telling us about. I plan to visit it someday!
Oh, and I like spicy :)
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 13:29
mee
Ooh nice discussions about Indo things ;). Love this bento Gnoe! I’m not sure about the mashed corns though. As far as I remember the corns are whole. And I usually call it Bakwan Jagung. It’s definitely one of my favorites! Glad you remind me of it. I’m gonna try to make it this weekend (stealing some of your recipe :)
vrijdag 11 juni 2010 bij 17:39
JannyAn
That looks great. I like to make Frikadel Djagoeng. The recipe looks almost the same. Do you know what’s the difference between Perkedel and Frikadel?
vrijdag 11 juni 2010 bij 17:43
gnoegnoe
I *believe* frikadel is in one piece while djagoeng are small cookies. But I’m not really sure — maybe Novroz can tell us? :)
Please share your recipe as well?
vrijdag 11 juni 2010 bij 20:20
Bentobird/Jenn
Stunning post! The food looks intricately flavorful and so elegant in your round bentos, wow!
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 01:12
Judy
This bento looks so tasty! I’m definitely going to try the recipe too.
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 13:21
Novroz
You can still make rendang with potato :) we use to mix meat and potato in our rendang.
Hehehe…tho my blood is Padangese (both my parents are from Padang) but I was born and raise in Jakarta. That’s nice to know that your father once lived there. I visit my big family in Padang once in a while.
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 13:31
mee
My grandparents family are from Padang too, and my mom was born in Medan, so we all love Padang food too!
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 14:46
gnoegnoe
My father was actually born in Kediri and also lived in Bandung (which I would almost write in the old-school Bandoeng ;) for a while. So when I come to Indonesia I’ll probably be visiting Java and Sumatra — not the touristic isle of Bali ;)
zondag 13 juni 2010 bij 00:42
Novroz
@Mee you have Padang’s blood too? hehe who would have thought…it’s a small world afterall
@Gnoe If you finally come to Indonesia and I am near the place you are visiting…let’s meet :)
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 13:21
Beth F
The photos are simply beautiful! I want this bento for lunch or dinner today! Wow!. I can’t wait to try the recipe. I love Indonesian flavors.
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 13:45
caite@a lovely shore breeze
I will have to post my recipe for the American version of corn fritters someday. Although I must say these sounds a bit more interesting.
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 14:47
gnoegnoe
Please do and make sure I know about it! :))
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 14:57
gnoegnoe
@Mee: It’s the first recipe I’ve come across that mashes up the corn — and believe me, I’ve tried some already ;) But it actually turned out pretty well. Maybe I’ll leave some kernels aside next time to put in afterwards.
I’m starting to wonder if the current word ‘bakwan’ replaced ‘frikadel’. Have you ever heard of the latter?
@Beth F: Me too, I won’t be upset if you wake me up in the middle of the night just to eat some Indo food! :)
@Novroz: Good idea: I’ll try the potato rendang sometime! In Holland rendang is usually made of (cow’s) meat only and eaten with plain rice or nasi goreng.
zondag 13 juni 2010 bij 00:39
Novroz
In the restaurant, they only serve cow meat…but at home, many people try many things, such as cow liver, chicken and potato.
Most of our food is eaten with rice because rice is the basic food in Asia, but you can also eat it without rice if you want to ;)
woensdag 16 juni 2010 bij 01:18
mee
I had never heard of ‘frikadel’ but we use the word ‘perkedel’ which I assume now is taken from the Dutch word frikadel! Perkedel for us is mashed potato, mixed with some other ingredients, then fried. Bakwan is flour mix with ingredients and fried. Just slight differences :). Your perkedel looks pretty close with what we have. maybe the recipe perkedel jagung here means you use mashed corns instead of mashed potato, which is a bit of a twist from the traditional recipe.
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 15:41
Rikki
That sounds delicious. I love the way the food looks in your images. YUMMY!
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 21:31
JoAnn
What a great picture – This looks so delicious and exotic!
zaterdag 12 juni 2010 bij 22:57
leeswammes
Please tell me about the snack tempeh. Is it something you buy or did you prepare this? I love tempeh but haven’t made it for ages.
zondag 13 juni 2010 bij 07:32
gnoegnoe
I bought it and I think it’s awesome :) It can be found in Asian stores. This variety is spiced (I don’t know what with), the one I had before I believe to have been ‘plain’.
Not everybody likes tempeh but I love it too! :))
dinsdag 15 juni 2010 bij 08:03
Lia Chen
Hi Gnoe! How are you? Love this! Perkedel Jagung is my family favorite … you arrange it nicely in your bento and love the batik background for this photo (^.^)
dinsdag 15 juni 2010 bij 22:35
gnoegnoe
Hi Lia, thanks for stopping by! Have I seen perkedel jagung in your bentos before? I can’t remember that I did?! Would love to hear your family recipe… if it’s not a secret! ;)
dinsdag 20 november 2018 bij 06:35
Ingredients for Corn Fritters | Asia food blog - where you need
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