“Acehnese chicken with curry leaves” from “coconut and sambal”

Kirstin: I am not sure what’s been going on this past week but I’ve been on a major Indonesian/Malaysian food thing. The first cooking that I learned about when I moved out of my home, was Indonesian. I have no idea why, but there you go. And that was back in the days when it was super difficult to get the right ingredients. And I mean everything quite often ended up being substituted even though we lived in Camden, the source of many an interesting food. Nowadays, it’s much easier. And yet, this was the first time I had fried curry leaves. And they were just incredible smell through the house and tasted delicious. I do love an Indonesian curry; they are dried than others and the flavours are fresher (to my palate anyways). This books is also fascinating because a different sambal is suggested for each recipe. Brilliant!

“Prawn and chicken fried noodles” from “coconut and sambal”

Kirstin: It’s Monday night, the heatwave is over and I’m back at the hob, frying up prawns, chicken and some lovely Indonesian flavours. While I was cooking this up, I was sure there would be leftovers, but no. Every last morsel was devoured. And Tate wants to cook this at Uni, all of which makes this already a winner of a recipe.

“Roasted chilli coconut chicken” from “coconut and sambal”

Kirstin: It’s a roast chicken, but it’s also an amazing Indonesian curry. Where does it come from? I pre-ordered this book months ago and it finally arrived a few weeks back, when I was in the midst of Palestinian food happiness. As the quest for a Sunday roast-chicken recipe came around again, I thought I would take a look at the book for inspiration. This recipe was everything I needed it to be. Quick, full of flavours and incredibly tasty. I had to start early in the morning by frying up a whole load of chillies and garlic to make a paste for the marinade, the remains of which became part of the sauce at the end after roasting. Cooking this reminded me that the first cookbook I bought when I moved into a flat with Tom was Indonesian. So it’s lovely to return to those chilli-coconut flavours, and it’s wonderful to be able to get the ingredients so much more easily these days. I’m already looking forward to cooking more recipes from this book. Oh yes!