Spiced syrup

I made several batches of Baklava during holidays, found out that the syrup for Baklava is quite versatile. Try this with plain yogurt, cheese, fruit, chai...

ingredients to make syrup (adapted from "Spice" cookbook by Ana Sortun)

1 1/2 cups water

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup honey

2 cinnamon sticks

5-6 whole cloves

2 tsp fresh lemon juice

In a small sauce pan, combine all the ingredients except lemon juice, bring it to boil on high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes until the mixture become syrupy. Stir in the lemon juice.

to make chai

Boil some low fat milk in a small sauce pan with 3 cardamom pods, a dash of ground ginger and tea bags (or loose tea leaves, I use Indian kind Ceylon tea bags). Simmer for 3-5 minutes and remove the milk skin on top, mix in some syrup.

If's Sambal

My Indonesian friend If makse great Sambal dishes. I was able to create quite similar taste after eating his food so many times and bugging him terribly.

these are pretty much everything you need to make If's Sambal.

1 bottle of Sambal olek

3 shallots

3 tomatoes

6 garlic cloves

and 2/3 Cup of white sugar

In a food processor, grind all the ingredients together to make chili smoothie.

Heat 1/4 Cup of Carnola oil, cook the chili mixture for 1 hour in low heat, stirring once in a while.

Here's the final product,

beautiful Sambal!

This Sambal can be foundation for so many yummy dishes.

I'll present some of them later on the blog.