I Celebrated Kartini Day by Cooking Ginger Honey Beef Stir Fry

Many people commented on my appearance. The round shape of my face, the size of my nose, the width of my forehead, the complexion of my skin, that I am a true embodiment of Javanese women. But beyond that, I have lived a life that many javanese women experienced,.

As a child, I grew up learning that women’s job is to macak, masak, manak (tidy up, cook, give birth). I was trained, and groomed by my elderly that the sole purpose of women’s life is to have a perfect family. I was told to be able to cook, for my future husband; to look good, for my future husband; to be fertile and healthy, so I can produce (many) good child(ren) for my future husband. I was told my whole life, that as a javanese women, that your main purpose in life is to please your future husband.

Khaleed Hoseini in Thousands of Splendid Sun once wrote that women job is to endure. Javanese women, many choose to endure. Choose to endure to leave all of their dreams to be a doctor, engineer, lawyer, for the sake of happiness of their husbands.

But there is a Javanese woman that I can always relate to. R.A Kartini. I don’t remember when did the first time I heard about Kartini. I feel like I’ve known her my whole life. But, I remember the first time I celebrated Kartini Day. My mother still has the picture in an album, that she even put captioned on every picture (this before instagram was cool). I was wearing green javanese basahan style kebaya, my hair was in konde with five straws of flowery hair accessories, full makeup with red lipstick. My male cousin was wearing purple beskap and blangkon with a fake mustache drawn by black eyeliner on top of his lips. Then I learned that these numerous number of 5 years old kids was paraded to the entire school neighborhood. Later in the afternoon, I remembered that my mother won a nasi tumpeng competition between women resident in the neighborhood. Then, it happened, every year of my entire school's life.

Kartini, through her letters, shows the world that women should have options to choose. To choose whether they wanted to get marry or not, to choose who are the person they want to marry, to choose who is the person that they want to cook for - even if that person is themselves - , to show the world that women should decide what they are aspire to be, to make their own decision for their own life. 

But in honoring her, we celebrated by glorifying women's role that she tried to change: good in cooking, being pretty and being an object. Through my whole education life, I never knew much about Kartini, at some point in my life I even questioned why she is national hero, simply because we never taught about her real fight, her point of view that she really believes in. We were told that Kartini is a javanese women who wear kebaya and stlye her hair in konde.

But Kartini, and all women are so much more than a kebaya, konde, and beauty pageant. Kartini, and many women in my life choose to endure, and to rebel. I choose to rebel, I choose to endure every negative comments that my close minded family threw upon me. I choose to fight for what I believe in. 

So, celebrating Kartini Day this year, I choose to cook for myself (and my sister who just happened to be around). 

My mother left to Malang the day before and left us with some beef chunks leftover. The Chinese root inside me craved for simple Chinese food then I decided to come up with a simple recipe to satisfy myself. 

I transformed the beef chunks into something sweet and salty by mixing it up with honey, garlic and ginger. I paired it with a simple recipe of hainan rice, simply because I am tired of just eating plain rice almost everyday. But honestly, the hero of these both recipe is always sesame oil. I always put sesame oil in most of my asian food recipe. It just bring the asian-ness to it. Lol. 

So here you go, I promise you this is so simple it only took you 10 minutes cooking this. Go ahead and try!

Ingredients:

Ginger Honey Beef Stir Fry

250gr of beef, cut in dice; 

2tbs of olive oil; 

2cm of ginger, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

3tbs of honey

3tbs of soy sauce

2tbs of sesame oil

Hainan Rice

1 cup of rice

4cm of ginger, sliced

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

2tbs of soy sauce

1tbs of oyster sauce

2 big scallions, 

pinch of salt

 

Instructions

Ginger Honey Beef Stir Fry

1. Pre heat olive oil, once heated add the diced beef. Cook each side until it's medium rare, set it aside; 

2. Put together in a bowl chopped ginger, garlic, honey, soy sauce and sesame oil, stir it. 

3. With the same sauce pan that use to cook the beef, add the sauce mix to the pan, bring it to boil. 

4. Once it boiled, add the beef and mix it well. 

Hainan Rice 

1. Rinse the rise in clean water, add enough water to it;

2. Add ginger, garlic soy sauce, oyster sauce and salt to the rice and mix it well;

3. Chopped the scallions, add it to the rice, and boiled it all until the rice cooked (or you can use electronic rice cooker). 

Serve all both together, you can also add simple soup stock that I wrote in my previous simple wonton soup recipe.

Simple Wonton Soup to Warm Up Your Cold Valentine's Day

In Indonesia, it’s not uncommon to have households assistant to take care of your household errands. From cooking, cleaning, and also babysitting. I am quite privileged enough to grew up with 2-3 household assistants who I always considered as my own family (Ibu Mahmudah is basically the one who raised me!).

My grandmother used to be accompanied by a very nice, loyal household assistant that she even considered her as her own granddaughter. My grandmother made sure that she finished her school, paid for her diploma certification and even created saving account for her. 

One day, her mother came to my grandmother’s house and decided to bring her back to their village, and they were unsure whether or not she will come back to my grandmother’s house. We were skeptical that she would, but we kept in touch, asking her how she is and everything.  But one day trough a phone call my grandmother asked her whether or not she wanted to go back to Semarang. She said yes but she can’t. The reason is that she was going to get married. My grandmother understood but I didn’t.

Because she was a 13 years old girl. 

Mbak Si (not her real name) is a sweet 13 years old girl, which I also understand it’s illegal to hire her as a full time worker who worked above 3 hours a day. But the circumstances in my grandmother’s house was different. She worked, but mostly on taking care of my grandmother’s medication and my 5 and 2 years old cousin’s baby sitter. Other than that she still went to school and got full time salary and free accommodation. 

However, her family, like many other under privilege and less educated family who lived in rural area, believe that investing in her education, having her own saving account from her own salary is not the fastest way to get out of poverty. Marriage is. 

This adolescent forced marriage is not uncommon in Indonesia. When I was in law school, I had this initiative with some friends to provide legal assistance for under privileged society in rural area. Our assessment showed that most legal issues came from early and forced marriage, where most of them were performed under religious law or commonly known as nikah siri, where it was performed without being registered to government. The complexity of the problems extended to there are no marriage certification, where women and children are the most vulnerable. Many of them are left by their husband or sometimes their husband apparently already have previous wives before her and since there is no certification these young women and their children could not demand their rights. 

But, forced adolescent marriage is more complicated than that. My most concerned is actually about their health. Their children’s health. Child and mother mortality rate in Indonesia is very high, 359 out of 100.000 birth in 2012 (data by SDKI), where in some of the cases are because their mother’s adolescent body are not strong enough to bear a child. 

So this valentine’s day, instead of giving you story about my non existing love life, I would rather use your attention to raise awareness on this very important issue. 

This year valentine’s day UNFPA launched “I DONT” campaign with the aim to raise awareness that every year, millions of girls around the world are forced to say I DO, and it destroys their future. 

As a young woman itself, I could really resonate to that. What we need is not flowers, chocolate or promises that they do not intend to keep. What we need is opportunities. Opportunities to receive better quality of education, to have better employment, to be involved in decision making process, to receive health services including youth friendly sexual and reproductive health services, opportunities for us to have a better future. Marriage is not a solution to get out of poverty, investing in them is. 

Well, now that I got your attention to the issue, I will reward you with this simple recipe that could accompany you in discussing the importance of investing in young woman with your loved one this valentine’s day.

And since Jakarta has been raining for couple of weeks now (and surprisingly, Bundaran HI is not flooded!), a recipe of warm Simple Wonton Soup will definitely appropriate for the occasion. 

The only complicated thing about this recipe is that it takes quite some patience to make the wonton, but other than that, the ingredients are very easy but yet the taste of the soup is very rich. 

While you are making the wonton wrap, you can use that time to boil up the simple stock that I also feel you can use this for another soup recipe. It contains only ginger, garlic, scallions and soy sauce. 

The magic lies on the ginger and garlic, it creates strong smell and taste that it warms up your body when you sip the soup. 

I made around 12 wontons wrap and it only served 2 portions. But again, it always depend on how many wonton wrap that you are able to eat, the more the better I guess. 

So tonight, hopefully you got to try this recipe with your loved one, got yourself cuddle up, and share your thought about the issue that I just rant to you guys about. Tell them what you want for your future. 

So happy valentine's day people! Selamat mencoba! 

Ingredients

Wonton 

200 grams of chicken meat, minced

1 scallion, chopped thinly

1 tbs of soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

egg wash

Wonton/spring roll wrap

Stock

500 ml of water

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

4 cm of ginger, crushed

3 big scallions

3 tbs of soy sauce

salt and pepper to taste

1 big thinly sliced scallion to garnish

Instructions

1. Mix chicken with sliced scallions, soy sauce, salt and pepper; 
2. Use white egg for egg wash, take one slice wonton wrap, apply the egg wash in one side of the wrap, put the chicken mix in the middle, fold the wrap into two, and fold it again to the shape that you desired (I made the ribbon kind of shape by tucking in the middle of the wrap and fold the end of it); Make as many as you like;
3. While you are doing that, prepare the stock by put 500 ml of water in a large pot, add garlic, ginger, whole scallions, and soy sauce. Bring them to boil.
4. Once the stock boiled, put aside all the ingredients, add the wontons, and add salt and pepper to taste. 
5. Simmer until the wonton are cooked. Garnish with scallions. 

Honey Glazed Chicken and How I Measure My Success

Last week, I wrote about how gender stereotype has led us to challenging expectation from society, specifically on my cooking skill and how it is irrelevant to the idea of settling down.

A lot of friends are encouraging and second the idea of ranting about feminism and good food, but some friends are just too lazy to read my blog and left comments exactly the way the stereotype goes. An irony. One left a comment ‘now all you gotta do is to find a husband to finish the food’. It ended up being (perfectly) responded by my fellow female friend saying ‘oh no need to worry, Vivi (and I) can finish the food with no help of any man!’. Some people seems to think that the idea of me cooking for myself, for my peace of mind is just not enough.

What is it with society and their obsession about limiting women's success rate to their marital status? 

Few weeks ago, there was this female moderator for a governor’s candidate debate that happened to be a 47 years old single woman. Comments were flowing in, and it came to no surprise that the majority of the comments are how it’s a shame that she is not married, and people speculated about the reason why she is not married, how she is a (quoting Chinese term) leftover woman; who are not desired by men. Fun fact: she has two master degrees from highly ranked universities, a news anchor, and has her own business, but no, they don’t see that as measurement of success for women. 

In other way, being married and/or a mother also hinder women to advance their career. I was interviewed by a state-owned enterprise for an opportunity for the past month, and throughout interview process (3 times by the way) they always asked me the same question, with the same 'sorry not sorry' notion to begin with.

My marital status, whether or not I have a boyfriend, and if marriage is one of my goal in short term. I was not very sure about their intention, but they always said, it's normal to get that kind of question if you are a woman. From my understanding is the fact that my marital status, and my intention to be single or to get married will affect me to achieve my career goal, and the fact that they don't ask this question to the male applicants are bothering me. 

Nevertheless, at some point I kind of understand where are this question coming from. In Indonesia, where our culture strictly rules women to be submissive, there is this common practice where married woman always go along with their husband no matter where they go, that woman, is the one who had to sacrifice their career for the family. There is this man, a self proclaimed ustadz once tweeted that those career women who take control of their life, and most probably also their relationship are scary women. 

What I wanted to highlight is actually whether a woman choose to be single, married, being a mother or childless there is always stereotype, where mostly are negative and will disadvantage them to achieve something. People need to stop creating this relevancy between gender, their marital status, or their motherhood for their ability to do work or vice versa

When I talked about this issue with an American friend, he told me that those very personal questions would be illegal in America. He also told me that I don't fall into the stereotype of the submissive Indonesian woman, quoting him "You will not go that far in throwing away opportunities for any man". I am not saying that it is something western, and I am not trying to say that if you choose to go follow your husband (or partner) it is something wrong. It's a matter of choice, personal choice, and society should not take that as a measurement whether they are succeed or not, the measurement of their success should come within themselves.

We talked about this while cooking Honey Glazed Chicken for brunch. My success rate in cooking this recipe is simply that the taste of the spices needs to be well absorbed to both the flour-mix and the chicken. The key is to also marinate the chicken with spices in addition of coating them with the flour-mix. 

But the hero of this recipe is actually the honey! The thing is, since we are using spicy sauce, some people prefer not to eat spicy food, so adding honey as sweetener and to reduce its spiciness definitely worked very well. You need to let this 3 ingredients sauce simmer and thickened for approximately 20 - 30 seconds before you add the chicken into the sauce pan and mix it well. 

As I cooked this for brunch, I completed the dish with a side dish of stir-fry pok choy with garlic so the overall brunch menu are balanced, not too sweet, and not too salty.

Good thing about this recipe is that you can substitute the meat with any meat. I never tried with fish tho, but since there are recipe of sweet and sour fishes menu so I guess it will also goes well with fish. 

Let me know if you try this recipe (or if you tried it with fish!)  by sharing it on Instagram, you can also tag me @anindyavivi and put #ObrolanDapurVivi #ViviKitchenRant on your post.  

Selamat Mencoba! 

Recipe for 2 servings:

Ingredients:

Fried Chicken

1/2lbs of boneless, skinless chicken breast (you can also use chicken wings), cut striped;

2 tsp of chili powder

salt and pepper to taste

200gr of all purposed flour

1 tsp of salt

1 tsp of pepper

1/2 tsp of garlic powder

1 egg, beaten
Oil to fry

Sauce

1 tbs of butter/margarine

2 tbs of spicy sauce (you can also use bbq sauce)

1 tbs of honey
Garlic Pok Coy Stir Fry
Pok coy, whole or chopped, as desired 
1 tbs butter or margarine
3 cloves of garlic, chopped
1 tsp of soy sauce
2 tbs of water
salt and pepper to taste 

Instructions:

 Honey Glazed Chicken

1. Seasoned the striped chicken breast/chicken wings with 1tsp of chili powder, salt and pepper. Set it aside for at least 10 minutes;
2. Mix the 200gr of all purposed flour with 1tsp of salt, 1 tsp of pepper, and the rest of chili powder, whisk it well; 
3. Coat the marinated chicken with flour-mix, beaten egg, then coat it again with flour mix; 
4. Heat the oil in low temperature, once it heated fry the chicken until golden brown (at least 10 minutes), drain, and set it aside;
5. Heat butter, once heated add 2 tbs of spicy sauce, let it simmer, then add 1 tbs of honey, mix it well and let it simmer; 
6. Add the fried chicken, mix it well until all chicken are coated with the sauce.

Garlic Pok Coy Stir Fry

1.  Heat 1 tbs of butter or margarine, once it melted add chopped garlic, saute; 
2. Add soy sauce and water, stir; 
3. Add soy sauce, stir fry, then add salt and pepper to taste.

Margarine Fried Chicken : Easy but Fancy

Growing up with classic wise words from my Javanese elders back in Central Java on roles that each gender should bear, I was constructed to believe that it is a woman job to cook and clean the house, thus a woman need to be a good cook to keep their husband around and eventually have a very happy married life.

Fortunately (sorry grandma!) I was rebellious enough to think that kind of social construct is ridiculous. Even so, as a good granddaughter I am, I still tried to please my grandma and decided to learn how to cook. Long story short, instead of hating it, I found cooking is stress relieving.

I can not really judge myself whether I am a good cook or not, because I have my cooking failures. Not all my recipes are good (but I promise you I will only share the good ones). But when it comes to pleasing my dearest people taste bud and appetite, it seems that I am always succeed.

The thing is, I just feel like I kind of badging in to the stereotype of how woman must be able to cook, since every time I cook, some people will just say 'oh, you are going to be a good wife' , or 'I wonder why aren't you settling down when you have this good cooking skill' . Well, my standard of settling down needs to benefit both parties, I will not settling down just because my ability to 'please' a man.

Speaking of how I started this rebellious beliefs against social construct, in my very first post of this blog I will share you my first ever successful recipe of my own creation (well, maybe some had same recipe because it is actually a very common Asian food). But still,  I am gonna call this recipe Margarine Fried Chicken ala Vivi.

I was 18 years old the first time I cooked this recipe. Since then, it has become my signature dish.

Easy but fancy is I think the best way to describe this dish. Chicken is cheap, easy to find, easy to cook, and it got nutrition. The other ingredients is a very common cooking ingredients that you can find very easily in many Indonesian households; margarine (duh!), soy sauce, and black soy sauce.

The thing about this recipe is that with diced bell pepper, and sliced onions as vegetables add - in, also completed with the main food of Asian people, rice, you can definitely able to fill many people tummies with very small amount of ingredients.

By marinating the chicken with minced garlic and salt long enough I can guarantee you that you will taste another level of traditional Indonesian delicacies of their authentic fried chicken.

In addition, you need to remember the key to a successful margarine fried chicken is that you need to  cook the chicken perfectly. Make sure you heated up the oil in low heat before you fry the chicken in also low heat temperature. By doing that you will avoid the chicken to get sticky on the pan, and you will get the perfect crisp on the outside and moist on the inside fried chicken.

So, give this recipe a try, and share me your result by posting on your instagram and do not forget to mention me @anindyavivi and also give a hashtag #ObrolanDapurVivi #ViviKitchenRant

Ingredients:
1/4lbs of chicken wings, marinated with 3 cloves of minced garlic and enough salt for 20 - 30 minutes;
1 big white onion, sliced
1 green bellpepper, diced
1 chili padi, chopped (optional)
4 cloves of garlic, chopped
6 tbs of margarine,
4 tbs of sweet soy sauce,
2 tbs of soy sauce,
oil to fry, and
salt sugar and pepper to taste

Instructions:

1.  Heat up the frying oil, once it's hot fry the marinated chicken with medium heat for about 10 - 15 minutes until it's cooked, and drain them from the oil excess, put it aside;
2. Heat up 2 tbs of margarine, add white onion, garlic and chili padi, saute until the aroma come out. Add the green bell pepper, and add another 2tbs of margarine, add the fried chicken, stir them together.
3. Add sweet soy sauce, soy sauce and the rest of the margarine, stir them together for about 5 minutes. Add little bit of salt, sugar and pepper to taste. Mix well. 

(bahasa indonesia klik baca selengkapnya)