Martabak Manis| Sweet Martabak| Sweet Thick Pancake

Sweet martabak or martabak manis is one of authentic Indonesian sweet snack or camilan that I love and one of the famous street food in Indonesia. Martabak Bangka, Martabak 99, Martabak Terang Bulan and many more is just some of the famous brand of martabak. Back in Jakarta, you can find the martabak food stalls in every single corner of street. In my home in Serpong, you can just call or text messaging the ‘abang-abang’ or the seller and get the martabak delivery to your door. Hmm.. I wish this could happen in Sydney.. 😀

       My home made sweet martabak

Here in Sydney, you can find this sweet martabak, but only in some places like in Chinatown or some area. Since I’m new here, and live in Rockdale, 15 minutes by train to city, and suddenly I craved this sweet tasty fatty gooey sweet martabak, I decided made this on my own, home made, by my magic hand. *SUPER DROOLING* And I remember, one of my high schoolmates, Christa, posting the recipes on Facebook, and I change a little bit about the ingredients. So here’s the recipes..

Martabak Manis | Sweet martabak or Sweet Thick Pancake

Bahan-bahan: | Ingredients:

500 gr tepung terigu | 500 gr plain flour
150 gr gula pasir |150 gr sugar
2 butir telur, kocok lepas | 2 eggs, beaten off
650 ml air dingin | 650 ml cold water
1 sdt baking powder | 1 tsp baking powder
1 sdt ragi instan | 1 tsp instant yeast
1 sdt vanilla essence | 1 tsp vanilla essence
½ sdt garam  | ½ tsp salt
1 sdm margarine, cairkan | 1 tbs margarine or butter, melted
Coklat meises | chocolate sprinkles
Kacang tanah atau almond, potong-potong atau yang lebih mudah bisa menggunakan selai kacang | peanut or almond, chopped or peanut butter jam for the easy simple way
Biji wijen | sesame seed

Cara membuat : | Cooking method :

• Ayak tepung terigu | Sift flour
• Campur dalam mangkuk besar : tepung terigu yang sudah diayak, gula pasir, garam,  ragi instan. Aduk rata | Mix in large bowl: sifted flour, sugar, salt, instant yeast. Stir well
• Masukkan telur yang sudah dikocok dan margarine yang sudah dicairkan. Aduk rata | Put beaten eggs and melted margarine into the mixing bowl. Stir well manually or use mixer with medium speed
• Masukkan air dingin sedikit demi sedikit sambil aduk adonan sampai tercampur rata dan lembut | Pour the cold water gradually while stirring the dough until well blended and creamy
• Masukkan vanilla essence, aduk rata | Put the vanilla essence into the mixing bowl and stir well
• Terakhir masukkan baking powder dan diamkan ± 1 jam | Finally enter the baking powder and let stand ± 1 hour
• Setelah ± 1 jam aduk kembali adonan | After ± 1 hour, stir the dough back
• Panaskan wajan datar anti lengket dengan api panas, oleskan margarine pada permukaannya | Heat a non-stick flat pan with a high hot stove, spread margarine on the surface
• Tuang adonan sebanyak 1 cangkir teh atau sesuai selera (tebal atau tipisnya sesuai selera) | Pour the dough by 1 cup of tea or to taste (thick or thin according to taste)
• Kecilkan api, tutup wajan (sebaiknya gunakan tutup kaca agar mudah melihat adonan) | Lower the heat, cover the pan (use a glass lid so you can easily see the dough)
• Bila sudah ada gelembung-gelembung pada permukaan adonan, taburi dengan gula pasir dan tutup kembali wajan | When bubbles exists on the surface of the dough, sprinkle with sugar and close the pan
• Setelah matang (cek permukaan dan bagian belakang adonan agar tidak gosong) angkat | Once cooked (check the back surface and the dough to prevent burning) lift the martabak
• Potong martabak menjadi 2 bagian. Olesi permukaan dengan mentega asin | Cut into 2 parts. Spread the surface with salted butter
• Taburi permukaan martabak dengan coklat meises, kacang tanah cincang (saya sendiri menggunakan kacang almond cincang yang sudah disangrai) atau keju parut (karena saya tidak terlalu suka keju dan kebetulan sedang tidak ada di kulkas, jadi saya skip keju) dan biji wijen yang sudah disangrai. Kemudian lipat menjadi 2 bagian dan potong-potong sesuai selera | Sprinkle with chocolate meises or chocochips, chopped peanuts (I am using chopped almonds that have been roasted) or grated cheese (because I do not really like cheese and happened not to be there in the fridge, so I skip the cheese) and sesame seeds have been roasted. Then fold it into 2 parts and cut according to taste
• Olesi kembali permukaan dengan mentega | Spread the back surface of martabak with butter
• Selamat makan! | Bon appetite

Sweet martabak with peanut butter, chocolate sprinkles and sesame seed

Need a car or van, just use GoGet!

On my previous writes, about House moving, I mentioned about GoGet car. Maybe some of you never heard about this before. Actually that was also my first time heard about GoGet car.

When we decided to buy furniture from IKEA, we decided to rent a car or van. We’re browsing something on internet about rent a van so we can put in the bulky furniture there.

At first, I was browsing on gumtree, van for rent is about $55-$65 per day. For smaller car, like Hyundai or Corolla is about $20-$40 per day, depend on the car year and model. But, we’re not sure what car rental agent should we choose.

Then, Yan, remembered seeing car parked near our old house neighborhood, in Glebe. It’s Yaris and got GoGet stickered on all over the car body. When he got home from Uni, he saw that same car, parked on the same place for a week, look dirty (because it was raining in Sydney). So, he was wondering why is that car is always there. It looks like no one owned the car. So, he browsing on internet about GoGet, then.. TADAAAAA.. GoGet is a car rental service and also has a van.

You just have to register online and they sent you a member card by mail post. It’s easy to do. But on our experience, since we used it on IKEA store, we got our member card there.

Ooooh… at first they (IKEA staff) wasn’t sure about Yan driving license (His driving license is from Indonesia) because it’s in Bahasa Indonesia, not in English, although under the ‘Surat Ijin Mengemudi’ written ‘Driving License’. So, he told us to call the GoGet staff directly to make sure about this. Then Yan call some guy from GoGet and he told us to send an image of Yan’s driving license through e-mail. And again.. TADAAAAA … he said he can use his driving license, no need to translate it to English.

Yan’s Indonesia Driving License

So, that was our first experienced used the GoGet service, driving a rent van *not just small car*, on a foreign countries, not know about the route *we have faith in Google Maps* *never driving car on our own before* and for sure, with different driving culture.

Looks like I’m very calm when writing this, but in fact, at that actual time, MY STOMACH WAS SICK, I WANNA THROW UP, MY HEARTBEATS FAST, I WAS SWEATING, and my mouth wouldn’t stop mumbling, praying to God to help us through this terrifying driving car experience.

The 45 minutes driving was like 2 hours! Time goes slow when you feeling nervous, and *again* TADAAAAA.. We got home safely. Thanks Lord, our savior.. and also thanks to GoGet.. Really help us on our house moving.. ;*

House moving in Jakarta and Sydney

It’s been 10 day since we’re moved to our studio apartment in Rockdale, suburbs in NSW, about 15 km from Sydney. It’s more private, we don’t have to share the bathroom with 4 other people, and we have our own kitchenette, with bar fridge and microwave! Yaaay! And one thing we really like about our studio is it has large balcony, so we can dry our wet clothes *blah*. For now, the balcony only has that function, but in the future, we *ME* already imagine about making our own home gardening and some lazy space for afternoon tea.. *blah again*

We are very pleased staying here, 2 minutes walking to McD,  5 minutes walking to the plaza (Woolworth, Aldi, Big W, Reject Shop), Target is near, Asian store is near, 10 minutes walking to train station,  and I’m guessing the building is still new. We love it!

But, the house moved was really challenging for us. We have 2 big suitcases, 1 super humongous suitcase, 2 medium bag and 2 backpack. Fiuuuuh.. Just write this made me sweating. We finished delivered all of this in 2 days. In the next day, we went to IKEA Tempe to buy our mattress, dining set, coffee table and other small stuffs. We have back pain, sore and bruises all over our body because we lifted all those super heavy things on our own!!!

So, I just want to share the house moving differences in Jakarta and Sydney, based on my experiences.

• In Sydney, if you want to move out, you have to clean the rooms *no hair and dust*, wash the sheet and blankets, clean the window until there’s no finger print. All of these regulations is written in tenancy contract.  You have to do this, if you want your bond back . In Jakarta, many people is irresponsible, they move out not cleaning the room or house, or many of them stealing the furniture or not paying the bills..
• Based on our experiences when we delivered our suitcases, we walked to the nearest (800 m) bus stop. It’s not near at all! *crying*. FYI, our suitcase weight of 35 kg + 10 kg backpacks. If we want to spend $75 on taxi ride, our life would be easier.  The thing was we didn’t. It is way too expensive. In Jakarta, we just lift the suitcases to our car and drive to new house. The only problems you have to deal is traffic jam. You could spend 2-3 hour stuck in traffic. Or, you can call the taxi and it will show in front of the house, for 15 km, you just have to pay approximately 200.000 – 300.000 rupiahs, equal to $20-$35. Cheap isn’t it compare to $75?
• The leading home furnishing store, not only in Sydney but around the world, the great, the famed, IKEA, was our first choice to buy furniture. I admit it was really fun, and considered it as a treat. IKEA have many impressive and awesomely cool showroom, but it’s still self serviced, meaning, you have to lift the furniture yourself. If it’s cute, small furniture, like small lamps or small coffee table to your car, it’s still okay. Try lifting the king or queen mattress, or big cabinets.. Wuoooh, you’ll feel back pain, sore and bruises all over your body *like us*. In Jakarta, IKEA building is still under construction. There’s one home furnishing store similar to IKEA, it’s Informa, here you just select the item you want to buy, pay, and pick date and time, where and when you want to deliver the furniture, direct to your home. No back pain, sore, nor bruises. Nop!

Courtesy of Enzeline Image

• Oooh, this is the caused of our back pain, sore and bruises. Yep, our IKEA queen mattress, dining set and coffee table. First, our suffering was lift all this things to our GoGet van, on IKEA parking area. Our second misery is our studio apartment is on 2nd floor. No lift. Just stairs and just the two of us. We have to lift all those things ourselves to 2nd floor. You can’t imagine! While in Jakarta, you can ask for help to lift heavy furniture from housing security guy or ‘tukang ojek’ or house maid, or for the simple way, you can hire the moving truck agent for more or less 500.000 – 800.000 rupiahs (equal to $50-$85) including driver, gasoline, toll fee and handyman.
• Last, but i believe it’s not the least, all heavy furniture and other small stuffs already in the studio apartment, the room was real messy. Furniture boxes everywhere, suitcases blocked bathroom door, stuffs all over the place. I want to clean up the rooms, but I’m tired and super sleepy.  Then, we decided just to unwrapped the mattress and cover it with bed sheet, and we just closed our eyes then sleep. Pretending nothing’s wrong the messy room. Here, I can’t call my mom to help me clean up the room or hired the house maid like i did in my house in Jakarta. I just have to clean this unbelievable messy room the next day..

Back in Indonesia, many friends and families think that moving abroad to other countries was awesome. I didn’t say it wasn’t. It is amazing experience, but you have to be independent, on your own feet, and super tough. It wasn’t easy. Never easy, since the day you’re prepared for leaving hometown, until now, almost 2 months here in Sydney. 

There’s one quote about how I feel, the lesson I learnt :

Life begins at the end of your comfort zones – Neale Donald Walsch