February 14

February 14

Today we left the Abu Pensione Hotel, we did have a great time there..
We made a deal with Selvy and her husband to drive us to Bandung (his birthplace). The agreement was that she would also show us a tea plantation on the way and watch the making of tea, in the factory.
We had a luxurious Mercedes to be driven around in and even the air conditioner worked and Selvy's husband was a very nice guy.
The traffic was stop and go all the way to the punjak pass, a 2 lane "highway", that took us from Bogor to Bandung in just short of "7 hours.
The tea plantation was impressive, and like all other tea plantations was initiated by the Dutch.

A good book was written about the plantations of Colonial times by author Hella Haase the title is :

"Heren van de Thee" a book about the lives of tea plantation owners.

Menno, selecting only the finest of leafs, for Tine....

We had a nice cup of tea at the plantation and some pisang goreng.
We listened to stories of how the Indonesians own this tea plantation now and how the Chinese had "stolen" the tea growing skills from the Indonesians.....yea...right !!!!
For lunch, our guide and former landlord, stopped at a typical Madura restaurant where we ate rice, fried fish, sambal and kan-kung aka water spinach. It was quite delicious....

Pavillion

We arrived at our hotel, only to find out that it was sold out, due to a misunderstanding, because we thought that Salvy had reserved. Instead we found a sub-decent hotel, Hotel Serena, where we got a room for $15.-- a person.
The room was small, but clean and has airconditioning that sorta works, when you place your door key in a "power-on" slot. So...when you leave your room, and remove the key, all power goes off and within minutes, the room heats to outside temps....
We left for some supper and ate some sambal goring ati, sambal goreng tabor, ajam goreng, and white rice..very tasty.
I managed to sent off some blogs and will now reload my IPad.

Thank you Kim and Ed for getting me this great Christmas gift...without it, I would not be able to blog these experiences.....

Glossary:

Sambal Goreng  is a dish that contains sambal, with bumbuh and it is fried, thus....

Sambal Goreng Ati is a dish with chicken livers added to the above.

Sambal Goreng Tempeh has fried tempeh added to the above.

Recipe for

Sambal Goreng Telor  (Spicy Eggs) 

Ingredients:

5 Eggs, hard-boiled and Sliced into halves

2 tbsp Peanut oil

1 medium Onion, chopped **

2 Cloves garlic, chopped **

1 Candlenut **

1 x 2” piece of fresh Laos (galangal) **

2 hot red peppers (about 2 tbsp) **

1 tsp. roasted terasi **

Salt to taste

1 tsp Brown sugar (or better yet, use palm sugar, aka Gula Jawa)

1 Salam leaf (Daun Salam maybe substituted with fresh bay leaf or curry leaf)

1 cup Coconut milk

Method

1. Place all ingredients with the ** in an ulekan and process to a paste
2. Place the sliced eggs in a serving dish.
3. In a wok, heat up peanut oil.
4. Saute the bumbuh of onion, garlic, candlenut, laos (galangal), hot peppers, terasi and salt.
5. Be cautious to avoid burning.
6. Add brown sugar (or palm sugar), salam leaf and coconut milk.
7. Bring mixture to boil and then simmer for 10 minutes.
8. Pour mixture over hard-boiled eggs and serve.

ulekan with bumbuh preparation