Though I generally don’t miss home that much but there are things such as the food and my cat that I sometimes miss. I miss savory- battered and deep fried snacks that I rarely find around here. Thai street food can be interesting but it’s not as what I can find back home. Though they bear some resemblances, I honestly consider Thai snacks pretty healthy. Perhaps, they have been influenced by the tourist and is catered towards them. Even I have visited local markets and even to me, they look pretty healthy. Anyhow, since I miss indulging in unhealthy food, I decided to introduce everyone at the hotel of Bakwan. Because the diversity of the guest, I also make a slight alteration to the original recipe which is usually using a lot of oil in the fying process to healthier amount of oil.
This snack is commonly found in street food and hawkers in Indonesia. Bakwan can be anything and depending where you’re from Indonesia, the ingredients can vary. This time, I was trying to stay to be basics because the availability of Ingredient. I tried to only find vegetables I can find from 7/11. That's why, I was only using carrots, cabbage, and corn. As for the meat, I was using pork (Ham) from 7/11 but ideally, it's shrimp. For the batter, back home, there is a special batter for this but here, I have to be a little bit creative. I could only find cassava flour and I added some salt and pepper to the batter. Not to mention, I also add one egg to help everything sticked together.
When making this, I was asking for a help from my burmese friend. At the same time, I was teaching her how to make Bakwan.
She was the one who fried it, and I told her to add a little oil and heat up the pan. Then taught her how to mix everything and shaping it. At first I showed her how to shape bakwan but since we only have spoon, the shape wasn’t exactly the best. But it was quite decent for a homemade and not-for-sale bakwan.
We ended up enjoying the snacks together and I asked some of my hotel/hostel friends to try it. Apparently, they all loved it and finding the snack pretty interesting. To be fair, I tried to make a slight healthier version of it as for some people, they can’t eat anything that is too oily. Pairing the snack with chilli sauce, I was just so happy to taste home even miles away from it.