Resep Kue Tradisional Asli Indonesia

Berikut ini resep kue tradisional yang biasa dibuat oleh kaum hawa di rumah-rumah. Kue-kue ini termasuk ke dalam kelompok kue basah sehingga tidak bisa awet. Harus segera dikonsumsi. Pengolahannya pun terbilang sederhana. Bahan-bahan untuk membuat kue mudah diperoleh di warung-warung atau toko kue. Kali ini kita akan membuat kue bolu kukus, kue lapis, naga sari, kue talam, ketimus bulgur dan biji salak.

Di pasar-pasar tradisional dan di lapak-lapak pinggir jalan, kue-kue tradisional ini dijajakan dengan harga yang sangat terjangkau oleh masyarakat. Rasanya juga enak. Perlu diketahui bersama, tidak semua jajanan ini memiliki nilai gizi yang tinggi. Beberapa diiantaranya malah termasuk kategori "junk food". Oleh karena itu, jajanan seperti ini sebaiknya dikonsumsi sebagai makanan camilan saja atau makanan untuk teman ngobrol.

Berikut ini resep kue tradisional yang bisa Anda buat di rumah

Bolu kukus

Bahan-bahan:

5 telur

1/4 mangkok gula pasir

3 mangkok terigu

1 mangkok limun atau air kelapa

Panili, essence frambozen, essence citroen, coklat dan gincu merah.

Cara membuat:

Kocok semua telur hingga berbuih. Masukkan gula sedikit demi sedikit sambil dikocok terus-menerus. Lama-kelamaan hasil kocokan telur terasa kaku. Bila diangkat, adonan telur tidak terjatuh dari alat pengocoknya. Masukkan terigu sedikit demi sedikit sambil diaduk lipat potong (gerak memotong dan melipat). Tambahkan juga air limun atau air kelapa. Setelah semua tercampur rata, ambil seperempat dari adonan dan taruh coklat atau gincu merah. Ada dua adonan yaitu adonan berwarna merah dan berwarna putih. Ambil loyang cetakan bolu kukus (berlubang-lubang). Selanjutnya, dialasi dengan kertas minyak. Tuang adonan warna putih di dasarnya. Di bagian atas, tuang adonan berwarna merah. Masukkan loyang ke dalam wadah pengukus yang sebelumnya sudah mendidih airnya. Seluruh bagian loyang harus dipenuhi dengan adonan supaya bagian tengahnya terpecah dan membentuk layaknya bunga yang sedang merekah. Api juga harus dijaga stabil panasnya sehingga uap yang dihasilkannya juga banyak. Lama pengukusan membutuhkan waktu sekitar 15-20 menit (tergantung besar kecilnya cetakan). Jangan pernah membuka wadah pengukusan selama proses pengukusan berlangsung. Tunggu sampai proses benar-benar selesai baru wadah pengukus dibuka. Resep kue tradisional ini bisa Anda praktekkan sendiri dengan mudah.

Kue lapis

Bahan-bahan:

1 mangkok tepung terigu atau beras

1 mangkok tepung tapioka atau kanji

1 mangkok gula pasir

1 mangkok santan kental

Panili, garam, gincu merah, gincu hijau

Cara membuat:

Aduk semua bahan. Terkecuali gincu merah dan gincu hijau. Setelah terbentuk adonan, bagi adonan menjadi 3 bagian. Satu bagian untuk adonan berwarna putih. Satu bagian untuk adonan berwarna merah. Satu bagian lagi untuk adonan berwarna hijau. Siapkan alat pengukus yang airnya sudah mendidih. Siapkan loyang atau cetakan. Lapisi dengan minyak atau mentega. Ambil satu sendok makan adonan hijau ke dalam loyang panas sampai merata.Tutup kukusan tersebut. Setelah 3-5 menit, masukkan adonan warna putih. Ratakan dan tunggu sampai matang (3-5 menit). Masukkan adonan warna merah dan tunggu sampai matang seluruhnya. Setelah matang, angkat dan dinginkan. 

Naga Sari

Bahan-bahan:

2 mangkok hunkwe (tepung beras separuh dan hunkwe separuh)

1 mangkok gula pasir

2 mangkok santan kental

3-4 mangkok air

Pisang raja atau nangka dikukus, dipotong-potong

Daun pandan ditumbuk dan diambil sarinya atau dimasak dengan tepung dalam bentuk utuh

Garam

Cara membuat:

2 mangkok air untuk melarutkan tepung. 2 mangkok air lainnya untuk dimasak bersama dengan santan, gula dan garam. Untuk membuat naga sari berbahan dasar tepung hunkwe, begini caranya. Setelah air mendidih, tuang larutan tepung hunkwe sambil diaduk terus-menerus sampai matang. Setelah matang, angkat dan ambil sesendok sendok ke dalam lembaran daun bentuk persegi. Taruh irisan pisang. Lipat sampai rapi. Sedangkan untuk membuat naga sari berbahan dasar tepung beras, memasak tepung beras tidak usah sampai matang betul. Karena, setelah diberi irisan pisang selanjutnya dikukus lagi sampai matang.

Semua resep kue tradisional di atas sudah turun temurun dipraktekkan oleh kaum hawa di Indonesia. Bahkan, kue-kue ini dijadikan sebagai peluang usaha rumahan. Prospeknya tinggi karena banyak yang membutuhkan kue-kue tradisional ini. Terutama pada saat ada acara atau perhelatang-perhelatan yang diselenggarakan oleh masyarakat.

Honey, Sweetener Of Paradise

Throughout the ages, man has recognized the virtues of honey. In ancient civilizations, honey was hailed as the "nectar of the gods", the "elixir of life" and the "milk of Paradise". Even in the Bible, King Solomon's advice has been immortalized, "Eat honey, my son, for it is good for you."

In medieval Europe, physicians consulting eleventh century leechbooks would have prescribed a treatment of honey for medical complaints, including the plague, burns, and amputations. Things would not have been terribly different in Egypt or Sumeria in 2000 B.C. where injuries and illnesses were treated in much the same way.

While the miracle food went a long way to make lives and diets more comfortable, it played an equally significant part in death. Honey was there to cure the ancients, and it was also there to embalm them. In the "Odysseys", the body Archilles was buried "in the clothing of the gods, in lavish unguents and sweet honey." Alexander the great was also sent off to the "other world", placed in honey in a golden coffin. In ancient Egypt, honey was widely used to mummify corpses, being the best known preservative at the time.

To ensure that life was sweet and that Paradise would be even better, offerings had to be made to please the gods. King Ramses III of Egypt must have made quite an impact on the Nile god with his offering of 20 ons of honey. As this sweet ambrosia was universally believed to be part of the Divine Diet, it was widely offered to other gods as well including Artemis, Aphrodite and Dionysus, all of whom were associated with fertility and the abundance of nature.

Made from the nectar of flowers, this natural sweetener is made by bees as food for their larvae and stored in the hive during the winter months. After the nectar has been collected and brought back to the hive, the bees convert it into honey by fanning it with their wings to reduce the moisture content; natural enzymes are added to it as well as part of the process.

For every pound of honey, bees would have had to travel as far as forty thousand miles to collect nectar from two million flower. And in every one-twelfth of a tablespoon of honey is the lifetime's toil of a worker bee.

Each floral source bestow a distintive, different flavour and colour to the honey it produces. The colour of honey can range from water white to dark amber. Generally, the darker the honey, the stronger its flavour, and the lighter the honey, the milder it is.

Of the different kinds of honey available on the supermarket shelves, clover honey is the common, characterized by its delicate flavour and heavy body. One of the purest clover honey is produced in the Canterbury, Otago and Southland provinces of New Zealand where the expanses of land yield few other nectar sources. The fine flavour of alfalfa honey makes a perfect table honey, although the dark coloured tulip poplar honey is more of a favourite in many Arab countries. For those attempting self-improvement, sage honey might be an option worth exploring as its floral source is said to possess the power to make man wise by improving his memory. Sage honey, along with the mild flavoured tupelo honey, is known never to granulate.

The distinct, sharp flavour of manuka honey, produced from the manuka and kanuka trees native to New Zealand, is unique for its antibacterial property. The Maoris and early European settlers used the plant for medicinal purposes: its leaves were boiled and used for intestinal complaints and as a mouthwash, its sap treated burns and scalds and the seed capsules were used to treat open wounds.

The list of over three hundred floral varieties of honey goes on forever with the white-coloured orange blossom honey, buckwheat honey-popular with those who are health conscious-the sharp tasting honey made from thyme, and other exotic varieties such as vipers bugloss, nodding thistle and kamahi.

Today, almost 90 percent of the honey produced ends up in our breakfast menu as table honey. In our busy lifestyle, it serves as a quick energy booster as its sugars-fructose and glucose-are absorbed directly into the blood. Certainly a healthier option than caffeine, or mixing honey with opium to achieve a temporary high as the Chinese did in 600 A.D. At the same time, honey achieves the same sweetness as sugar but with less calories (64 calories per tablespoon).

Probably the most universal way of using honey is baking. A natural sweetener, it retains moisture in cakes and increases their storage life at the same time, and generally lends a richer flavour. Mild honey is more suitable for baking except in the case of fruit cakes when a stronger taste is required.

The taste of honey also blends well with other flavours. Used in marinades, it brings out the other aromas, adding an extra dimension to meat, chicken and sides dishes.

Honey also works well with sauces, ensuring greater body and enhanced flavour. Used during roating, it is able to penetrate the meat, something dry sugar cannot do. To get the distinct taste of honey in meat or confectionery, a more full-bodied, darker variety of honey should be used. Mild honey, usually of a lighter colour, teases the palate with a subtle, underlying hint of flavour. The coupling of honey and tea has long been an item in the western world just as milk and honey, and lemon and honey have been as a means to soothe the system.

One problem with honey is that when it is stored over a period of time, it tends to ferment. While processing honey, yeast, which causes fermentation, is killed by heating. This, in turn, injures the honey if the temperature is too high. In general, darker varieties of honey spoil faster through heating than lighter ones. Still, fermented honey has not always been distasteful. Mead, an alcoholic drink mae from fermented honey, has been popular since antiquity. Residues from mead were found in a Bronze Age grave, medieval poems spoke of mead drinking parties and records gave evidence that 24 tons of mead were used in 1590 to celebrate the wedding of the princess.

Should table honey begin to ferment, it can still be used for baking and in the sweetening of fruits. To ensure that honey is properly stored, it should be kept at 11 degrees C and at 60 percent relative humidity. Granulation occurs when the sugar crystallizes. To dissolve the crystals, stand the jar in fairly hot water for about an hour. If granulated honey is required, some honey which has already granulated can be added as nuclei in the formation of more crystals.

In the hunt for honey at the supermarket, the different forms in which it is available can be confusing. The most common is liquid honey with which we are most familiar. When honey is sold still in the honey comb, it is lebelled comb, or cut-comb honey. In this case, the honey comb is edible. In "organic" honey, neither chemicals nor heat were used during production and processing, and the bees were not fed with sugar to aid in the honey production. Creamed honey is probably the purest honey. A product made entirely of honey, it is processed based on honey's natural tendency to crystallize.

While honey may pale in comparison with other glamorous foods, the world of Pliny the Elder might be mentioned: "Whether it is that this liquid is the sweet of the heavens or whether a saliva emanating from the stars,....it comes to us pure, limpid and genuine.

Sushi, Art And Tasteful

Sushi refers to bite-size morsels of vinegared rice topped with slivers of raw seafood or other condiments. Probably the most common type of sushi is maki, meaning roll in Japanese, which is made by wrapping rice and condiments in nori seaweed. Maki can be divided into three main groups: maki, futomaki and temaki, or California roll. Both maki and futomaki are more or less the same, differing only in size, with futomaki being the bigger of the two. Hand-rolled into a cone, temaki is modified version of the traditional sushi roll, a result of foreign influences on Japanese cuisine. 

Nigiri-sushi is also popular, created just about 200 years ago. The rice is shaped like a pillow and usually draped with raw fish or shellfish, like maguro, red snapper, yellow tail, sea eel, cuttlefish, and shrimp. Like most exotic foods, nigiri-sushi is an acquired taste. It certainly takes some getting used to, especially the more unusual varieties like octopus, herring roe, and mirugai or giant clam.

Sushi

The most aesthetically pleasing, however, are the chakin and bijutsu, or art sushi, except that they are spherical in shape. Small and dainty, they were traditionally prepared and eaten by women only. To make them, a suitable amount of rice and the accompanying condiment is placed in a piece of cloth and quickly twisted into a ball so that the hot rice would not burn their hands.

Bijutsu sushi is elaborately decorated, with the highest priority given to aesthetic. Playing on the psychology of the dinner, it is usually served as an appetizer to put the dinner into the right frame of mind. This variety of sushi provides the chef with an opportunity to exhibit and impress with his creativity. 

The different kinds of sushi can be served on their own, as zensai or as an essential part of kaiseki meals. While raw seafood is generally the rule in nigiri-sushi, temaki and futomaki- usually stuffed with egg, cucumber, vegetables or fruit, such as avocado- are choice selections for the uninitiated palate.

It is acceptable to eat sushi with fingers. To savour each morsel's flavour, only the topping should be dipped into the soy sauce, and only just so that it complements, and not camouflages, the taste. To take it one step further, it should be placed in the mouth upside-down so that the topping comes into contact with the tongue first. True sushi lovers would clear the palate with slices of ginger between servings.

Also called a 'Japanese sandwich', sushi was conceived when 18-century gamblers in japan did not want the bother of a proper meal to interrupt their game. A convenience food at the time, it is now considered part of Japanese haute cuisine.

Sushi is graded into three categories of merit: matsu, take and ume. A selection of the top-of-the-line matsu sushi would include most shellfish, such as scallop, round clam, abalone, sea urchin and sirloin tuna called toro. A level below that would be take sushi which would feature maguro, red snapper and hamachi. Perhaps the least exotic would be ume sushi with toppings like cucumber, egg or avocado.

Not only are the toppings important in sushi making, but the consistency of the rice must also be just so. Ideally, it should be soft and sticky when steamed. If allowed to get mushy, the whole sushi would be ruined. Of the two major types of rice produced, the round, short-grain Japanese rice is preferred to the long-grained Indian strain. Once the rice is cooked, it is flavoured with vinegar, fanned to room temperature and stored in a tub covered by a cloth. Unlike most foods, sushi rice cannot be kept in the refrigerator.

While the texture of the rice must be perfect, the pressure applied while moulding each morsel is just as important. For both maki and futomaki, a bamboo mat is used to roll the sushi into shape to give a firmer hold and create the straight edges. Temaki, on the other hand, is hand-rolled so that the rice grains are not so densely packed. Nigiri sushi made by masterchefs would be firm enough to hold together yet crumble immediately when eaten.

There are also rules under which sushi is served. To the Japanese, nothing sliced should be served singly or in three's. A single slice, called hito kire, also means 'kill' in Japanese, while three pieces are called mi kire, which means to kill oneself. Certainly not an auspicious start to a meal. Another unforgiveable to present a guest with a platter of four sushi pieces, as the word for 'four' in Japanese also sounds like the word for death.

To be on the safe side and not cause any offence, one could consider serving morikomi-sushi where an assortment of sushi, like nigiri and maki sushi, are arranged on a platter as a party dish.

Sushi can be regarded as the principal fast food in Japan. While hamburger outlets can be found throughout the western world, sushi bars are just as widespread in Japanese cities and neighbourhoods. In fact, sushi bars are, to the Japanese, what pubs are to the English. Walk into any of them in Japan and what will strike you is the general air of camaraderie among the patrons and the chefs.

Accommodating a handful of diners seated on stools, the chef wields a deft hand behind the counter, rolling and moulding a vast range of sushi. In glass-topped display cases, a colourful array of sushi ingredients give visual impact to the sushi bar, designed to look like an old-styled Japanese cottage. Serious sushi eaters sitting round the counter get the morsels tailored to their individual taste from a melange of seafood in front of them. Bright red maguro, pink salmon, orange fish roe and dark green nori seaweed are merely tips of the iceberg. Served on lacquer trays, sushi eaten with shoyu and downed with hot tea or cold beer, followed by an appreciative belch or two.

When one speaks of sushi, it is only natural that sashimi springs to mind. Considered the 'queen of delicacies', it is dish which no Japanese meal can do without. One could say that sashimi is generally 'sushi without the rice'.

The taste of raw meat is not necessarily unpleasant and can be quite an adventure in texture and taste. The subtie flavour of paper thin slices of fish and shellfish is wickedly combined with the explosive sensation of wasabi, so potent that it kills all bacteria on the fish. Preparing sashimi is delicate procedure, whereby the chef's skill is tested from the moment he makes his choice of fish to the time he arranges the shasimi on the plate.

Freshness is the essence of sashimi. The choice of fish, therefore, must be the most crucial step in preparing the delicacy and frozen fish is decidedly not tolerated. As a rule, the fish is killed and bled immediately before it is cut and served at the dining table. Clear, prominent eyes, bright red gills and firm elastic flesh are sure indicators of freshness. Food suitable to go under the sashimi knife include maguro, red snapper, salmon, prawns, and bonito. For the connoisseur, horse-meat, round clam and the infamous puffer fish sashimi can be an exotic encounter.

For the less courageous, isebi-no-ikezukuri, live green lobster, might be an option. As with all other sashimi, only fresh lobster will provide the fine texture required of the dish. Green shelled lobster from Sydney make a strong flavoured sashimi, while Tasmanian and Victorian lobster has a more delicate flavour.

For major celebration, an impressive dish called sugata-zukuri, or whole snapper, would definitely feature.Presented with head, tail and even bones, it serves as a bed on which the sliced flesh of the fish is arranged. Usually, lemon slices are placed in between the sashimi to garnish as well as to serve as a tangy complement.

Wasabi and soy sauce are a must for every dish of sashimi. For variation in taste, though, other ingredients like ginger, sesame, pickled plums, and sesame oil can be used with soy sauce.

Simply slicing up the fish is not enough to create 'genuine' sashimi. The presentation is equally important and the chef must be an artist of sorts, using his artistry to create a dish pleasing to both the palate and the eye.

The wide range of ingredients used in mori-awase, or combination sashimi, allows great scope for the artist-chef to experiment and to exhibit his creative talent, making the most of the texture, colour and shape of each slice.

One could soak in a whole culture just sitting on a tatami mat and picking at sushi and sashimi, hailed as the soul of Japanese cuisine. Frugal, yet so refined.