Indo Bento with Perkedel Djagoeng (#105)

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

1. Thoroughly drain the corn.
2. 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.
3. 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 ;)
4. Whisk the egg.
5. Mix everything together: boemboe mixture, mashed corn, egg, flour, leek and celery.
6. Heat the oil and bake the corn fritters; approx. a spoon of batter each.
7. 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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