Indonesian Cooking Demo with Indonesia Eats at d.a. Niels Gourmet Kitchenware

It was quite shock when Marty, the store manager of d.a. Niels Gourmet Kitchenware called me last week.  He was telling me that he has a slot for cooking demo on Saturday.  I was happy but I was worried if I could make it since I wasn’t sure I was working or not on that day plus I only had 3 days to prepare and plan what dishes I should make.

Long short story! I made it.  Yeah!  This cooking demo wasn’t my first time but it was my first time to demonstrate Indonesian food.  Even though on Saturday there were two big events happening in the city, CFL (Winnipeg Blue Bombers vs Montreal Alouettes) and NHL (Winnipeg Jets vs Carolina Hurricanes), the cooking demo still had attendances.

I thanked d.a.Niels Gourmet Kitchenware for offering me this opportunity.  If you live in Manitoba and you haven’t been to d.a.Niels Gourmet Kitchenware you should go.  This place is to die for people who are chef and foodies; unbelievable wide selection of toys for us.  Pssttt I adore the   blender that was displayed at the store.    I was bragging about this store not because d.a.Niels Gourmet Kitchenware accommodated me for this event but I truly love this store long before I was being approached by Marty.  All people who join me at the Indonesian cooking demo were saying the same about this store.  They just love it.  It’s like an amusement park for foodies like us.

I was making 3 dishes and 1 beverage for this event; Gado-Gado Padang, Chicken and Egg Rendang, Yellow Chicken Strips (the chicken was marinated with Indonesian Basic Spice) and wedang jahe (Indonesian ginger tea).  I don’t have the recipe of Gado-Gado Padang in this blog but I do have a recipe of Gado-Gado Surabaya.  The only different of those two gado-gado dressing is the spice.  Gado-gado Surabaya is very basic coconut peanut sauce while Gado-gado Padang has more spices such as galangal, lemongrass, salam (Indonesian bay) leaves and kaffir lime leaves, and ginger.

Chicken and egg rendang was chosen since it is a faster cooking process than the beef rendang.  I still used the same rendang recipe that I have with a slightly twist by adding green cardamom. I also introduced them to Bumbu Dasar Kuning (Indonesian Yellow Basic Spice) for marinating the chickens.  I told them that bumbu dasar kuning is easy to make at home and can be kept frozen in ice trays.  It can be used for marinating any protein resources,  such as making sate klopo (coconut beef satay), grilled lamb chop, nasi goreng, mie goreng (fried noodle) or for a soup base.

At this event, I also introduced how fresh turmeric roots are looked like since I know most people here only know the powder form.  As well, I showed them how to prepare lemongrass for cooking.

All pictures were taken by cellphone.