Birthday Dinner: 2025

Page initially created: 2025-10-16.

Initial plan for 2025 Birthday Dinner is to feature dishes from Indonesia, with possible inclusions from Malaysia and/or Singapore. The model for the dinner is the Dutch Rijsttafel, which is typically rice with a fairly large number of side dishes, mostly curries. My idea is that I could fix a number of these dishes serially over 3-4 days, then heat them up for serving. This requires a fair amount of planning, which is the purpose of this document. At some point, this will be reduced to a menu and shopping list, and eventually will turn into a meal that looks like this.

Clockwise from the rib: green beans, cucumber-carrot, eggplant, pineapple, mushrooms, greens with quail eggs, lamb, chicken wings, pork in sweet soy, beef redang, and spiraling inward, gado gado (potatoes/vegetables/eggs in peanut sauce) over nasi goreng (fried rice).

Cookbooks

I'm working from the following cookbooks:

• Charmaine Solomon, The Complete Asian Cookbook [A]
• James Oseland, Cradle of Flavor: Home Cooking From the Spice Islands of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore [C]
• Sri Owen, Indonesian Regional Cooking [O]
• Heinz von Holzen/Lother Arsana: The Food of Bali [B]
• Sallie Morris: Cooking Around the World: Indonesian [M]
• Julie Lin: Sama Sama: Comfort Food From My Mixed Malaysian Kitchen [L]
• Dorie Greenspan: Baking With Dorie: Sweet, Salty & Simple [D]
• Ruth Reichl: The Gourmet Cookbook [G]

Recipes

I didn't come up with a set menu before shopping. I did some preliminary shopping on Monday (Thai Binh, Dillons), and I did some more in-depth shopping on Wednesday (Nifty Nut House, Lucky Market, Whole Foods, Dillons). As a result, I had a large pile of ingredients. I figured I'd scan through the cookbooks, and match recipes to ingredients. Dishes that should be served hot could be cooked ahead and warmed up. I started cooking on Friday, getting the first 5 recipes plus the orange spice cake done. I also prepped some of the gado gado, and made the peanut sauce. On Saturday, I cooked the rice, and the first stage of the chicken and ribs. I started the beef, and decided I needed to cook the lamb more. I had been considering a second cake from Dorie Greenspan, called Lisbon Chocolate Cake, which is layered like a chocolate mouse cake but topped with cocoa instead of ganache. This looked overly complicated to me, so I substituted a flourless chocolate cake I had made many times in the past.

1. Acar kuning [sweet-sour cucumber and carrot pickle with turmeric] [C:130]
2. Acar terung [south Indian-style eggplant pickle] [C:133]
3. Paceri nenas [Malaysian spiced pineapple pickle] [C:136]
4. Be celeng base manis [pork in sweet soy sauce] [B:54]
5. Kambing mekuah [balinese lamb] [B:64]
6. Rendang daging sapi (beef rendang) [C:304]
7. Barbecued pork spareribs [M:50]
8. Siap megoreng (fried chicken) [B:70]
9. Indonesian stir-fried greens [M:85]
10. Mushrooms in oyster sauce
11. Sambal goreng buncis (Green beans with coconut milk):
12. Gado gado [C:154]; also [M:86]; for this I also made Saus kacang (peanut sauce) [A]
13. Nasi goreng (Javanese fried rice): [C:183] Also [B:92,M:73]
14. Orange spice cake [D:119]
15. Flourless chocolate cake [G:739]

I considered many more recipes, but at this point it's probably not worth trying to keep track of them here. Rather, I want to compile several lists of ingredients. The first are ingredients that I used in various dishes above (numbers refer to menu item).

• Beef, top round sirloin {6}
• Lamb, semi-boneless leg (1 lb) + stew meat (0.5 lb) {5}
• Pork, leg (1.5 lb) {4}
• Pork, ribs (1 rack) {7}
• Chicken, wings (2 lb) {8}
• Rice, long-grain {13}
• Potatoes, yukon gold {12}
• Carrot {1}
• Cauliflower {12}
• Cucumber (kirby, regular) {1,13}
• Eggplant, Japanese {2}
• Green beans {11,12}
• Greens (kale, turnip, spinach) {9}
• Mushrooms (oyster, shiitake) {10}
• Orange {14}
• Pineapple {3}
• Eggs, chicken {12}
• Eggs, quail {9}

Also many ingredients that are used in multiple recipes:

• Oils (mostly peanut, but also canola, grapeseed, sesame, walnut)
• Butter, heavy cream
• Coconut cream, coconut milk
• Garlic, ginger, galangal, turmeric, macadamia nuts, lemongrass, shallots, scallions, onions (sweet, red)
• Chili peppers: Thai/bird's eye (green, red), Chinese dried (red)
• Lemon leaves, kaffir lime leaves, pandan leaves (fresh + dried)
• Lemons, limes
• Peanuts: dry-roasted, chopped, butter
• Soy sauce, double dark soy sauce, sweet soy sauce (kecap manis), fish sauce, tamarind concentrate
• Vinegar: white, cider, rice wine
• Salt (kosher, sea)
• Dried shrimp, shrimp paste
• Sugar, palm sugar, light & dark brown sugar
• Spices: cardamom (black, green, white, ground), cinnamon (stick, ground), cloves (whole, ground), coriander (seeds, ground), cumin (seeds, ground), fennel (seeds), ginger (ground) mustard (seeds), pepper (Aleppo, Szechuan), star anise, turmeric (ground).

The second list are ingredients I bought but did not use. They may have notes on possible uses that I simply didn't get to. Some of these I may use later, but the more perishable items will get thrown out.

• Pork, ground
• Pork, loin
• Pork, belly
• Duck, roasted, half
• Tofu, extra-firm
• Bananas (small, for frying)
• Banana leaves
• Asian pears
• Apples
• Coconut: whole, fresh, dessicated
• Cabbage -- could have used in acar, gado gado, or own (w/dried shrimp)
• Chives, Chinese
• Eggplant: small purple, round green -- several possible recipes; also have long purple left
• Water chestnuts
• Cilantro, culantro
• Basil (Thai, Vietnamese)
• Dill
• Mint
• Brazil nuts
• Chicken stock
• Rice, jasmine
• Soybean sauce
• Sweet bean sauce

The third list are ingredients I had on hand (mostly in freezer), and considered using but ultimately didn't.

• Fish, various kinds -- lots of good recipes here
• Crab, soft-shelled
• Squid, various
• Shrimp -- I thawed out 1 lb for shrimp sambal, but didn't make it (cooked it later); more in freezer

The fourth list are ingredients that I shopped for but didn't buy:

• Bean sprouts
• Bok choy (I usually buy baby bok choy)
• Celery, Chinese celery greens
• Daun pandan (Indian "bay" leaves)
• Kemiri nuts (candlenuts; sub macadamia nuts)
• Kencur
• Long beans
• Fruits: asam gelugor, jackfruit
• Sweet soybean paste
• Tempeh
• Vinegar (palm)

Leftovers

I threw a bunch of surplus shopping out after the dinner, but kept what I thought I could use later. I made more dishes over several days, running through the end of the week. These included:

• I had thawed out a pound of shrimp, expecting to make a shrimp sambal, but wound up doing a variation on Shrimp Bittman.
• I turned the piece of pork loin into a Chinese dish, Spicy Pork with Peanuts. I misremembered the recipe, so I started with a standard velvet marinade, then added the dark soy sauce when I realized my error.
• I boiled the pork belly, then turned it into Twice-Cooked Pork.
• I turned the roast duck into Duck Aceh-Style.
• I used the small purple eggplants to make Fried Eggplants with Coconut Milk.