Tag Archives: Passion Magazine

Recipe

Recipe: Es Pisang Ijo – by Chef Woro Prabandari (Passion, 2017)

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When challenged to create a modern Indonesian take on dessert, Chef Woro showed no signs of hesitation when she chose Southern Sulawesi’s pride and joy – es pisang hijau.

Her contemporary take for this dessert is to create the klepon-based sphere that contains the banana itself. Rather than the usual banana-shaped klepon, she chose the sphere shape as a more elegant approach for the street dessert.

Chef Woro also shaped the bubur sumsum into noodles, creating a nest to put the sphere in place. Additionally, she added dots of sweet frambozen syrup as an important representation of the much-loved syrup from the traditional version. To give the extra crunchiness, there are banana biscuits – crushed and spread all over the plate.

INGREDIENTS

Pisang hijau sphere
150 gram Pisang tanduk, steamed
100 gram Rice flour
50 gram Glutinous rice flour
50 gram Sagoo flour
50 gram Granulated sugar
50 ml Suji leaf extract
50 ml Pandan leaf extract
150 ml Coconut milk

Coconut milk porridge / bubur sum sum
25 gram Rice flour
60 gram Granulated sugar
5 gram Salt
500 ml Coconut milk

Frambozen syrup
100 gram Granulated sugar
50 ml Water
To taste Frambozen essence

METHOD

Pisang hijau sphere:
1. Steam pisang tanduk for 15 to 20 minutes until it becomes smooth. Make into round shapes.
2. Mix well other ingredients and cook until sticky and spherical. Fill it with the round-shaped steamed banana.
3. Steam for additional 15 to 20 minutes. Cool it down and ready to serve.

Bubur sum sum:
1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Cook until bubbly and cool it down for 5 minutes.
3. Chill first before served.

Frambozen syrup:
1. Bring sugar and water to boil for 10 minutes.
2. Add frambozen essence into it and cool it down.

How to style the dish:
1. On the plate, make the bubur sum sum into pasta shape.
2. With the bubur sum sum as the foundation, put the banana sphere on the top.bi
3. Decorate the dish with frambozen syrup drops. You can decorate it with biscuits to make it crunchy or other garnish if you like.
4. Enjoy!

Original link:
http://www.passionmedia.co.id/b/es-pisang-hijau

Images by: Dwi N. Hadi

Interviews

Chef Woro Prabandari: Aspiring Beyond Loyalty (Passion, 2017)

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There’s more to it than just loyalty from the prolific chef Woro Prabandari. For more than two decades now and a title of Executive Pastry Chef at Grand Hyatt Jakarta, the motherly chef shared PASSION the recipe for excellence in career and balancing it with family and pastime.

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How did you find out about your passion with pastry?

I think it’s because at one point during my childhood, I started giving a hand to my mother when she’s in the kitchen. For some reason, I had always been keen with baking and we started by making the classic stuff. My mother used to cook for events at my father’s office, so that’s how I became accustomed with the know-hows in the kitchen and became serious at it.

How was the beginning of your love story with Hyatt?

After some time seeing myself really into cooking, my parents decided to enroll me to hospitality school and ever since day one I already focused myself with pastry. Before my graduation, I applied for internship at Hyatt and got accepted. As you can see, the rest is history.

Care to tell us a bit about your career here until you reach this height?

Initially I was assigned as part of the pre-opening team for Grand Hyatt Jakarta and received training at Hyatt Aryaduta. In the early nineties perhaps only a handful of five-star hotels can be found in Jakarta and expatriates were so many back then. However, seeing that only a few women were in professional pastry industry at that time, I decided to prove my mettle and spend the extra hours refining my skills.

I took the opportunity to train also whenever I can with fellow pastry chefs after hour, and the veterans. For example since the beginning of my career there’s Mr Gottfried Schützenberger, Hyatt international pastry legend, and one time I was also tutored by Pierre Hermé himself.

Chef Passion Media

What was the turning point of your career?

Professional competitions. Singapore was hosting 1992 Salon Culinaire and I volunteered to participate in the tournament with a small team. Working in the kitchen requires me at least 12 hours a day and we had to focus only with work. Only then after working hours, the team gathered to spend the extra time for planning and practicing. I usually got home late around midnight and had to be back at work again at 7am the next day!

Our sacrifice was not without reward. We won the gold medal for dessert platter category and I got promoted not long. Apparently the company appreciated the effort!

The following Salon Culinaire competitions were held in Jakarta and I participated again, until finally I was appointed as Pastry Chef back in 1998. Now I’m giving the rein to younger chefs and enjoy tutoring them for competitions.

What are your plans after you retire in the future?

There are so many offers asking me to teach. I’d really like do that in the future!

We heard that you like traveling. Tell us a bit about that.

Traveling is something that I do from time to time with the family. I take pleasure by dedicating myself for the company and rarely take a leave. That’s why I have so many days to spend for holiday!

Recently we went to Bali with the whole family – me, my husband, and our three sons. We prefer visiting beaches and of course, eating. Having a privilege as part of Hyatt family enables me to visit their properties everywhere in the world. Certainly going with the whole family is important to maintain the work-life balance.

Original link:
http://www.passionmedia.co.id/b/woro-prabandari-aspiring-beyond-loyalty

Images by: Dwi N. Hadi

Interviews, Jakarta, Medan

La Maison, The Mansion of Macarons (Passion, 2017)

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As a newcomer in Jakarta’s fierce pastry shop competition, La Maison quickly announced itself as a pastry shop with an interesting specialty – macarons!

Established in 2011, the company actually started as an online shop. The drive to move forward came from the simple, pure love of baking of its owner Stella Lowis including the pursuit of building her own pastry shop one day.

For Ms. Lowis, her version of pastry shop should be a refined one, based also by her serious education background at Le Cordon Bleu, Australia. “I gained a lot of experience by working part time as a pastry chef at several restaurants and catering company that supplies pastry for five-star luxury hotels”, said Stella. When she returned to Indonesia, Stella worked together with his brother, Harryck Lowis, to experiment over many recipes until finally they’re ready to share it with everyone.

Persevering for several months initially, orders since then had been coming non-stop. After some time realizing, it’s time for her to build her first shop in Medan. Her unique take on pastry was warmly welcomed there. Years passing by and La Maison have started to take shape and grow into something more significant. Finally, it’s high time for her to spread out the wings of La Maison to Jakarta – the one city where appreciation of pastry is at its zenith in Indonesia.

Speaking about the characteristics of this pastry shop, La Maison is almost exclusively promoting a vast array of macarons – a complicated confection that has gained prominence over Indonesian pastry world for the past few years.

“This small tidbit requires delicate hands and a very complex balance between texture and flavor. Its smooth top, ruffled circumference, a flat base, has mild moistness, and it should easily melt in your mouth. Now that’s what we’re aiming for and the challenge proved to be exciting”, said Stella smiling vigorously.

Taking it to the next level, La Maison’s mind-blowing innovations are macaron flavors which are inspired by Indonesian cuisine – such as Nasi Uduk, Lemper Ayam, Martabak Bangka, or even Sate Padang. “One of our best-selling however, is the Salted Popcorn Macaron. Although people tend to perceive macaron as something sweet, the savory version is actually a success”, shared Ms. Lowis.

From the cakes department, Stella personally admits that each and every of them has to be made with passion by using the finest ingredients and decorated with utmost care. “Two things taken into consideration are taste and also the aesthetic elements”, she said. One of La Maison’s signature cake (and apparently everyone’s favorite) is the Mademoiselle – a refreshing take of almond cake with layers of fresh watermelon, strawberries, red dragon fruit, and decorated with red rose petals.

To fully proceed professionally, Stella observes the trend as well. “Locally speaking, pastry has come a long way in our country. People used to buy cakes only for special occasions but now they have found the simple pleasure of enjoying it any time”, she said. Her remark here pointed out how strategic this move to cater Jakartans who are increasingly fond of dining out and nibbling with pastry.

The pastry industry in Indonesia has grown exponentially for quite some time now and shops can be found in many corners of Indonesian cities. The global trends, more or less, influence the demands especially now in the digital era where customers can simply access interesting pastry innovations by browsing through the social media.

So the next question would be, what’s after this for La Maison? Stella is certainly aiming to expand to other cities and in-between, she hopes to engage in interesting collaborations with legends in pastry industry. What’s even bigger in mind for her though is to keep on improving and serving the best for her beloved customers. (RF)

LA MAISON | www.lamaison.com
Jalan Biduk no. 66, Medan
T: +62 821 6602 6668 / +62 61 4573 745
Opening hours: Mon-Sun, 11am – 5.30pm

Grand Indonesia, East Mall – Jakarta
T: +62 811 987 6668 / +62 21 2358 1331
Opening hours: Mon-Sun, 10am – 10pm

Original link:
http://www.passionmedia.co.id/b/la-maison-the-mansion-of-macarons

Images by: Passion