Rowing and Merdeka Celebration

It was a celebration on Kiwi rowing team yesterday at rowing finals. Mahe Drysdale (if you watched the Olympic opening ceremony, he was the flag bearer for NZ team) won bronze while he was really ill and that was the first medal Kiwis Olyimpic team had made. Although Coles and Haigh only came 5th on women's pair final, the men's pair Bridgewater and Twaddle won bronze medal. It was the twins Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell who had won first gold medal for NZ. Must be an exciting moment for them to know that they did it just 0.01 inch from the Germany team at the finish ruler while they even thought they lost from the Germany. It was just a golden moment to watch this race. The night before I went to bed, Roulston was just cycling on the track. I did not watch Valerie Vill on shot put. I thought it was going to be on on Sunday, but it seems I missed it last night. She did get the gold medal. Well done, team!! (To think about this grand event, I have a dream to go there and capture all of those moments... It would be honoured to be able to go with the team and watch and capture great moments. I am sure professional sport photographers are on top of the world at this present!)




It is raining here now while we're hoping to be able to move the sheep up to the old shed. I think we can do it today although me and hubby are still having this miserable snorty cold, but it's the rain which stops us. With a quick move, then we were able to walk the sheep about 300m away from our driveway up to the shed. Back to the paddock, I manage to go to the orchard and have a look at our early Spring blooms. It was a shame really, as the day is really wet and there are no bees to pollinate them. I brought my brush with me and tried to do it myself. I don't know if it does work or not, I guess, we just need to see in Summer, besides it is too wet to work on pollinating.

Today is the Indonesian Independence Day celebration and there's a food bazaar somewhere in Auckland but I don't think we can make it. I've cooked Indonesian food myself last night just to give a tribute to my home-country.



Ayam Rica-Rica (Chicken with Sweet and Tomato Sambal Sauce)

1kg chicken portion, washed and trimmed
1 tsp coriander seeds, crushed
1 clove garlic, crushed
2 tsps tamarind paste
salt
1/4 cup hot water

Sambal

5 red chillies (add more if you'd like hotter), minced
3 small shallots, sliced thinly
3 tomatoes, chopped
1-2cm ginger root, bruised (or if you like it a bit gingery, you can make a paste of chillies and ginger in a mortal and pestle)
salt
sugar
oil
diced limes (I use Tahitian limes--if you see the skin is yellow--unlike other green-skin limes).

Dilute the tamarind paste with hot water. Add in the crushed coriander, garlic, and salt. Marinade the chicken in the mixture for 30 minutes or so. The more you marinade them the more flavoursome they'll be. Drizzle some oil, massage the chicken portion with it. Arrange them on a ovenproof dish and bake, covered, at 160C for 30 minutes. Uncovered and then fan-bake until the chicken are browned, turned over and fan-bake the other side until brown. Remove from the oven and keep warm while you're making the sambal (or you can make the sambal first and reheat just before serving when the chicken are just hot from the oven). Serves 8-12.

Sambal

Heat the frying pan. Pour in the oil. Cook the sliced shallots until soft. Add in the chilli paste, and then ginger. When the mixture is fragrant, add in chopped tomatoes. Let the tomatoes go soft and then you can add salt and sugar to season. Sprinkle the diced limes. Spoon the sambal on the hot chicken.




I also made Sagon, Indonesian coconut slice, to participate on Indonesian Food Photo contest, hosted by IndoRecipe on Flickr Group. If you can click the photo, it will take you to the recipe as well. There's still time to enter. When you cook Indonesian food today, please remember to take a good photo of them. You may be winning something!

And here are some more photos of our holiday you may want to view.