Gurih Is NOT Umami!

Well, I'm quite spilling out my opinion on this. But I need and we need to see this. Most of Indonesian people recently mistook the Japanese word umami for 'gurih". Believe it or not, according to chemical reaction Gurih IS NOT umami or savory.

This is the story that begins everything. My younger brother, Satrio, is a fan of  gurih cuisine. He wanted me to fry some tempeh with gurih flavour. I tried the fast and simple recipe, add the batter with ground garlic (1 clove) and coriander seeds (1 tsp), and add a half of sachet broth (Royco), that included some of MSG (monosodium glutamat, the infamous umami starter-potion). The result? My brother just said what I most avoid to face, "Sis, this is so....eneg (the Indonesian word for "taste too much in savoriness") My brother was Ok with that, but he questioned my ability to make another fantastic batter for fried tempeh. Few weeks later, my mother made unbattered fried tempeh (only tempeh, without the batter outside), with the combination of salt and sugar, the secret ingredients of all gurih cuisine. And she did it. My brother liked it a lot and told me that the tempeh was better than any fried tempeh he had before. So basically, the two words don't taste the same. But why it isn't the same has been debate for years. Even professional chefs like to confuse these two tastes.

Gurih : The Layered-Salty and Sweet

I have just browsed  about why salt and sugar taste so delicious when they're together (even better than apple and cinnamon, I guess). This is what have been written inside the site :

We like sweet because it signals calories, or energy, to us. And we like salt because we need it for normal bodily function. We have no sodium storage system, as we do with other minerals (i.e. we store calcium in our bones), so Mother Nature's solution is a built-in craving for it. The combination of these two positive biological responses is VERY pleasurable. To use an analogy, it's akin to hearing beautiful music while sniffing rose petals: two positive sensory stimuli.

maybe I can make the formula :
NaCl (small amount) + sugar (various) = gurih

Umami : The Infamous Savoriness

This is the picture of mononatrium glutamat or MSG, the ultimate source of umami.

So let's compare with the catalysator of umami. This is what I found on wikipedia

Umami represents the taste of the amino acid L-glutamate and 5’-ribonucleotides such as guanosine monophosphate (GMP) and inosine monophosphate (IMP).^[9] It can be described as a pleasant "brothy" or "meaty" taste with a long lasting, mouthwatering and coating sensation over the tongue. The sensation of umami is due to the detection of the carboxylate anion of glutamate in specialized receptor cells present on the human and other animal tongues.^[10] [11] Its effect is to balance taste and round out the overall flavor of a dish. Umami enhances the palatability of a wide variety of foods.^[12] Glutamate in acid form (glutamic acid) imparts little umami taste, whereas the salts of glutamic acid, known as glutamates, can easily ionize and give the characteristic umami taste. GMP and IMP amplify the taste intensity of glutamate.^[11][13]

so basically the formula of umami is amino acid L-glutamate. See the difference?

Telur Dadar, The Home Cooked Indonesian-style Omelette

I don't think telur dadar can be compared with French Omelette. It doesn't require milk like French Omelette. 

In My last post, we have made Nasi Goreng, that infamous Indonesian style fried rice. The Nasi Goreng, in my style was made by using grinding technique. Now it's time to use the second one, the slicing technique into easy cooking!

This recipe was made at the same time with the Nasi Goreng recipe. It's quite fast, easy, simple and delicious. Very suitable for a newbie of Indonesian cooking. Well, the taste is very distinctively Indonesian, though. It's very spicy, hot. I used a lot of bird-eye chili here, so you can reduce the amount of the chili if you prefer milder taste and aroma.

Ingredients:

1 egg, beatened

1 tsp salt

5 Sliced piri-piri Chili

3 Sliced shallots (if it's too tangy, use onion instead)

3 spoon of cooking oil (palm or coconut oil is preferred)

How to make :

• The raw version: Mix all the ingredients, except the oil. Heat the oil in the pan, in low-to-medium heat. When the oil is hot enough, pour the mixed-egg to the pan. Let it cooked until it browns. Flip it to the other side ( sorry for my eccentric and poor English). Wait until it browns. And it's done!
• The aromatic version : Add the salt into the beatened egg. Prepare pan and the oil, Heat it up in the low-to-medium heat. Stir fry the shallots, wait for second, after that add the piri-piri, wait until the spice-mix become aromatic. Then pour the beatened egg to the mixed spices. Wait until the egg browns. And flip it to the other side, wait until it browns. And it's done!

Good luck! :)

Easy Nasi Goreng, The Infamous Indonesian Fried Rice

Hello..this blog is dedicated to people who likes cooking, travelling and know what’s news in their life. Especially for you!

My name is Tina and I’m just an ordinary Indonesian old hag-oh sorry-woman. It’s very rude to call yourself old hag..hahahaha.

This blog is created for some reasons. I have watched so many Indonesian people on international cooking shows or culinary experts show, telling them that Indonesian cooking are ALL HARD-TO-COOK  cuisine. Well, I cannot simply say that Indonesian cuisine is easy. But most of our home cooking dishes are quite esy and simple. Even the spices are quite minimal. In this blog, I will present you my-hut-level kind of cooking. Simplicity- in Indonesian ways- is the spirit of this blog.

OK…for the simplicity-rationale, let’s skip to the recipe. This is the infamous Indonesian fried rice, Nasi Goreng. Nasi Goreng is just the Indonesian language for fried rice. It’s very simple, so simple it’s just need four ingredients.

My Super Simple Nasi Goreng

Main Ingredients :

a plate of cooked-rice

3 spoon of cooking oil (palm or coconut oil are preferred)

2 spoon of kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)

Condiments :

Sliced tomato

Sliced cucumber

Fried egg or omelette

The Ground Spices :

2 cloves of garlic

2 tsp kosher salt or ordinary salt

2 pcs of fresh Piri-Piri (or you can replace it with bird eye chilli)

2 pcs of fresh Cayenne chili pepper

Why I called these as the ground Spices? There’s two basic techniques in Indonesian cooking : the first is grinding with stone-mortar and the second is slicing the spices. The first, usually is used when the spices are hard, and need crushing process to blend e.g : nutmeg, caraway, candlenut, and salt, they are difficult to be sliced, so it's a lot easier to grind them in stone-mortar. Most of Indonesian like fresh, tangy and strong aromatic spices (we rarely use herbs, except for kemangi or Lemon-basil), so we use the first more for slice-able ingredients too. 

I prefer the first one since it naturally blends all the spices taste and aroma into one complex combination. The chemical reaction in grinding tech. is already complicated and we don’t need to type those complex things! Just try it!

How to Cook :

1. Prepare the rice. Grind the ground spices (garlic, salt, piri-piri and cayenne) with stone-mortar or you can use a food processor or dry blender to grind it ( I never have it and never use it, so sorry..)
2. Heat the oil in the low-heat level and fry the ground spices until it becomes aromatic (use your nose, not your eyes). And beware of how Piri-Piri become so 'wild' when it is fried.
3. Then pour the rice, stir it thoroughly, until the spices blend perfectly with all part of the rice. Pour the kecap manis and stir it thoroughly once again. Remember that the temperature must be maintain at the low-heat level. 
4. Wait untikl it become aromatic and blend perfectly (just in case, the kecap manis' colour spread all over the rice, turning it into light brown). And it's done!

Well, good luck!

P.S: This recipe is super simple, so the taste of every spices and ingredients will affect the taste and aroma of the whole thing. Don't replace kecap manis with soyu (Japanese soy sauce) or even the Chinese one for better result.