Tahu Bacem (sweet marinated tofu) and fried cabbage

I am starving by Indonesian foods recently. I don’t know, maybe because suddenly I miss home. So I promise to myself that I will cook Indonesian foods this week.

Yesterday, I made “Tahu Bacem” I don’t know how to translate it into English, maybe sweet marinated hahaha. But, “the” itself means “tofu.” Bacem itself if a cooking technique originally from Central Java and Yogyakarta area (by history, these areas are included in Mataram area). Talking about foods from this place, then we talking about “sweet” foods. These areas are always well-known by sweet-savory foods and also slow-cooked foods. To write this article, I am asking my friend about what is the meaning of “bacem”? Then I just know that it means “marinated” in Javanese. Yes, it is… you need to add brown sugar when you boil the tofu.

So how to make it?
I found that the English recipes around the internet are tough. It is slow-cooked but trust me, as a person come from Javanese Dad… I think making bacem is not such a difficult thing.

What you’ll need:
* Tofu or it will be better if you have tempeh (but I guess it is quite difficult to find tempeh outside Indonesia)
* Sweet Soy sauce
* Brown sugar
* bay leaf

and a bit for spice paste:
* red shallots
* garlic
* coriander
* candlenut
* a bit cayenne pepper if you love spicy taste

How to make?
1. Grind all ingredients for spice paste.
2. Boil water. Then, put spice paste,sweet soy sauce, brown sugar, and bay leaf into the water.
3. Put the tofu into the water. Make sure that all of the tofu are entirely covered by the water.
4. Wait until the tofu absorb the seasoned water and you can see the color will turns into brown.
5. The last step is, if you want to eat this bacem… deep fried the seasoned-tofu, then voila! Enjoy 🙂

To make it complete, I eat this tahu bacem with warm white rice, sambal terasi (chili-shrimp paste), and don’t forget fried cabbage. Cabbage always taste better when you fried or boil it, trust me 😉

I have lots of cabbage as my friend sent it from her lab which is in a vegetable farm :’D I will use lots of cabbage for next home made foods hahahhaa.

That’s it! Happy tasting (if you have time of course 🙂 )