Bison Penyet

There's this weird growing trend of "penyet" in Indonesia. It wasn't big about 5 years ago, and I think it started with ayam penyet.

Just what is penyet?

It literally means "crushed", but after reading several recipes online it just means the meat has been poked or slammed with a meat tenderizer. Like this

Or this

Alternatively, we Indonesians tend not to rely on specific tools that serve nothing but one purpose. Don't be surprised to see something like "stab the meat with a fork".

I read detik.com's tweets last week and saw an iga penyet recipe (beef spareribs). Went to the groceries and didn't find any beef ribs. And then I saw this bison steak.

I don't think I've ever had bison meat before. Since it's a game meat, I know it will be somewhat tough and lean. I decided to go ahead with it.

Appearance wise, it's not that different from beef.

I don't have fancy knife or kits to slice the meat thinly so I used my santoka knife to make about 3-5mm slices.

Simmer the meat in water, bay leaves, orange leaves, white peppercorns, lemongrass and salt. You can add coriander seeds and other spices. I don't have the other spices but I think it's a good base.

Simmer on low heat until there's no more water left on the pan. I think if you use high heat it will make the meat tough. After that, add some cooking oil into the pan and fry the meat until it's brown.

As for the chili that goes with the meat... they don't sell the exact type of chili pepper that they normally use in Indonesia (it's called "cabe keriting", or curly chili peppers). It's kind of spicy, not sweet at all, but not too spicy. It provides body to the chili paste. I tried mixing roasted red bell peppers and red hot thai peppers (small but deadly, yumm). It didn't turn up exactly like how the real chili paste should look and taste like but it's the closest that I can make given limited ingredients.

Place the meat on top of the chili paste, and it's ready to go!

How did the meat taste? A little "gamy" flavor but pretty much it's really close to beef.

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Hurricane Irene - Gone

Irene was my first hurricane experience and I didn't really know what to expect. I am always prepared with extra food and everything; kinda glad my parents always taught me that. Aside from that, I live in a temporary place - it's not my real home and I don't have a lot of things to take care about other than important documents and myself.

On Friday, I went to Wegmans to buy bottled water as recommended by any hurricane-related emergency prep websites. They were out of stock. I have about 9 bottles of water that I previously bought, so I wasn't too worried getting home empty handed.

Canned soup, snacks... everything's stocked up before there was any news of the hurricane too.

Friday morning, I saw fog covering the sky. It was rather scary and I thought it was bad enough for a prelude. According to forecast, the hurricane was supposed to come at around 4 a.m. on Sunday.

Rain and strong wind arrived at about 9 pm. Considering I live more than 5 floors above the ground, I couldn't hear any loud rustling noise of the trees. I wouldn't even notice that Irene had come if my friend didn't text me.

Just as a precaution, I set an alarm at 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Sunday in case if there were evacuation or some sort I could still save myself. Would be a little funny yet tragic if I missed the evacuation just because I fell asleep, right?

My brother called me around 3 a.m. to check on me. I was half asleep. And I guess I still couldn't hear anything at all. I told him that I'm perfectly fine and I don't think anything bad is happening.

The thunderstorms we had weeks before the hurricane was way scarier than this.

Of course, I wouldn't blame anyone (including the media) for making things hyped up - safety comes first. It's better to be safe and sorry, and as an Indonesian proverb that I had memorized by heart by now says

Sedia payung sebelum hujan

 which literally means prepare/bring an umbrella before it rains. Always be prepared in any kind of situation.

Even then, I still think that people really need to heed to warnings. When I read the news about the people who died this time, there was a surfer who went surfing as the hurricane came and another person died while driving because a tree fell on the car. I'm really sorry for them and their families, but I can't think why would people go outside when clearly there is a hurricane warning. You know. It's not like we have to evacuate to Europe for the hurricane. Just stay indoors.

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First Baseball Game

Went to my first baseball game ever. I was pretty excited. I roughly know the rules because we used to play some sort of softball in elementary school back in Indonesia called kasti (but since we aren't very hi tech or meticulous about the type of balls we're supposed to be using, we used tennis balls haha). That was fun!

The stadium was packed with people dressing up in Phillies T-shirt and even their baseball uniform.

The sky didn't look that bad when we first came to the stadium.

I didn't bother changing my clothes after work. And my hair was still tied to the back ^^;

We're seated at the arcade seating.

On top of everything, it was a free ticket. I have no complaints :)

The field looks pretty with the checkered pattern. We came a little early so I got to see how the sand part of the field was sprayed with water. My friend said it's done so the sand becomes soft and spongy, but not soaked wet to the point it becomes like mud.

The seat was kind of far from the batter but I could still see the players.

One thing that I was a little disappointed at when I was watching the game was the fact that most spectators don't really pay attention to the game. They were talking, drinking beer, checking their phones... They occasionally cheer for their team but the feeling I had was so different from watching a soccer or football game.

After the first part of 3rd innings the game was halted due to severe weather (thunderstorm).

Everyone seated in open areas were told to take cover.

The thunderstorm was pretty scary but I felt pretty safe indoors. Visibility was very poor. With the stadium lights at the back, the rain looked like specs of flour falling slowly from the sky.

During the game, I tried to take shots of lightning strike. One of my friends kept telling me it's impossible with a point-and-shoot camera like mine. I took about 500 photos and guess what?

Patience and persistence pay off afterall!

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Community Service: I'm a Big Kid

Community service is fun!

I'm not including all the pictures here because I probably need permission to post other people's pictures. Half a day with kids definitely drained all my energy (especially with running around chasing them). Eventually I became one of the kids playing for the entire time LOL

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Philly Cheese Steak

Since I live very close to Philly, I decided to go try Philly Cheese Steak. Like, the original one x)

My friend recommended me to look up online on how to order because yes they have a specific way to order and if you mess up with your order you have to go back to the end of the line and re-order.

It's not that hard... basically you have to order the cheese steak in 3 words:
1) How many cheese steak you're ordering
2) What kind of cheese do you want (whiz sauce or provolone)
3) With or without onion ("wit" or "wit-out")

So let's say you want to order 1 cheese steak with whiz sauce, you'll say:

One, Whiz, Wit

And within about less than a minute they'll get the cheese steak ready. You can add condiments like pickled peppers, tomato sauce, or mustard sauce later.

I went to Pat's and Geno's, which are right across each other. I personally like Pat's better because the meat is more juicy and it's more flavorful, but hey there's no harm trying both of them :)

If only the portion size is a little smaller.... that would be great.

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Jerky

Not trying to be a jerk, but it's called "jerky".

From wiki:

Jerky is meat that has been cut into strips, trimmed of fat, marinated in a seasoned sweet rub or liquid, and dried or smoked with low heat (usually under 70 °C/160 °F) or is occasionally just salted and sun-dried. The result is a sweet (occasionally semisweet or savory) snack which can be eaten immediately, or which can be stored for months without refrigeration.

The word "jerky" comes from the Quechua term charqui, which means to burn (meat).^[1][2] Jerked meat was one of the first human-made products^{[citation needed]} and was a crucially important food preservation technique for survival.

So yes, we also have the Indonesian version of beef jerky called dendeng. Some people like me would also describe bakwa as pork jerky.

I went to Alaska for my graduation trip, and I found more interesting jerky meats:

Venison meat

Caribou meat

Smelled and tasted fishy. They're not bad but they're not my favorite.

Aside from the salmon jerky, I think most "exotic meat" jerky is basically a mixture of meat, primarily pork. So technically I was eating just a tiny portion of venison or caribou meat within that strip of meat.

I also found alligator jerky down in New Orleans. But again, they're not 100% alligator meat.

I was a big fan of jerky at one point of time. Its sodium level is sinfully high but overall jerky has lower calories than other types of snacks like potato chips. It's also generally high in protein content.

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Mooncake

It's finally the time of the year again! I think I haven't had mooncake for about 3 years because there wasn't any shop that I know of around campus that sells mooncake.

I went mooncake hunting around Philly's Chinatown today. Didn't find much varieties. They don't even have soft skins. Or maybe soft skins only exist in Singapore. Either way, flavor choice is very limited. I expected to see at least chocolate or coffee flavor; I only found lotus paste (a must), green bean, red bean, black bean, and green tea.

...please ignore the egg tart; you know it's an egg tart on the right corner, right? ^^;

From top left: black bean, white lotus paste

From bottom left: Red bean, green tea, white lotus paste, green bean

White lotus

this is the only character I can read (in Japanese it's read Sencha, meaning "green tea"; I don't know how to pronounce it in Chinese)

Some mooncakes have no characters on top of them, but they have somewhat intricate patterns.

These two big ones have salted egg yolks inside; the mini mooncakes rarely have those. That's the only reason I bought them.

Some people just munch them straight, but I like to cut them into slices before eating them.

Green bean

White lotus

Green tea

Red bean

White lotus with yolk

Black bean with yolk

My reviews? To be honest, none of them met my standards. Mooncakes in Singapore are so much better. But hey I guess that can't be helped; the market for mooncakes is probably not as big as the market in Singapore. Afterall, no one in my workplace knows what mooncakes are (the non-Chinese ones, of course).

But no matter how much you like mooncakes, be mindful with its Calorie content, especially those with egg yolks. I once read on Strait Times about 5 years ago (when I was in junior high school) that a normal size lotus paste mooncake with yolk gives you 2000 Calories (and if you follow the 2200 Calorie per day rule, that's almost everything you can eat in a day!). And I know in Singapore they also have DOUBLE yolk mooncakes. Yes, two egg yolks in one mooncake. LOL.

Just be careful not to overeat the mooncakes ;)

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Braised Duck

Whenever I got back from work I just feel like leaping on my bed and take a nap. On top of that, working in a food company means you're pretty much surrounded by food. I used to have dinner at 5:30 ish, but now I can wait until 8 for dinner.

It's Friday and I got back from work early so I thought I'd cook something a little bit fancy for dinner tonight: braised duck.

Wegman's is an awesome place to shop compared to Super Walmart. Well, it's not that I have a choice - Wegman's is closer than Super Walmart in my new town so I don't see why I shouldn't go to Wegmans. I found duck leg (yes, not a whole duck! Finally, something that can be finished in a single serve!). It's more expensive overall to buy duck leg from than to buy a whole duck but I only need one duck leg so I gave it a shot.

Very simple steps and ingredients:

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp + 2/3 cup soy sauce

1 tbsp + 1 tbsp sugar

1 star anise

3 cloves

1/4 tbsp nutmeg

1/4 tbsp white pepper

10 garlic cloves, pressed

about 500g meat (duck/pork/chicken)

500 ml (16 fl oz) chicken stock

Directions:

1) Heat the oil, then add 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sugar, star anise, cloves, nutmeg, white pepper and garlic cloves. Fry until it's fragrant.

2) Add meat. Turn every 10 seconds to make sure every part of the meat is coated with the sauce. Do for about 5-8 minutes.

3) Add the rest of the soy sauce and sugar and chicken stock. If it doesn't submerge the meat completely, that's fine as long as you keep flipping the meat over to make sure that all parts are cooked.

4) Cover and let simmer for about 45 minutes on low heat.

Aaaand it's done!

I love braising because you can do something else during the 45 minutes wait. 

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