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Surely/Someday + Kitchen

Not so long ago, we met with Sun Wahyu from Surely/Someday + Kitchen, a Jakarta-based creative baker. We discussed with him about his philosophy in choosing his ingredients and his creative process. Not so long after that, we were making small batches of pandan powder for Surely/Someday + Kitchen to be incorporated in his products. A rather insightful discussion, read through to find out more what goes inside his creative mind and considerations.

 

1. In your creative process of baking, how do you usually start? Does it begin from an inspiration? An ingredients you want to use? Or is there anything else that makes your creativity runs wild?

Proses kreatif bisa melalui cara yang berbeda beda. Kadang terinspirasi waktu berdiskusi dengan orang dalam bidang berbeda, kadang bisa juga dari melihat tekstur, situasi sekitar, sejarah atau bahkan memori. Kebetulan gue suka hal hal kecil yang meng-intrigue dan story telling, itu juga salah satu dasar saat gue mencoba untuk berkreasi khususnya untuk proyek Fable on The Table. Seklise kedengarannya, tapi penting untuk selalu  punya rasa penasaran dan keinginan tahu lebih, bahkan dari banyak bidang selain bidang yang kita geluti.

Creative process can be done in few different ways. Sometimes, inspiration comes when I am discussing with people from different backgrounds, sometimes it can be from observing texture, the surrounding, history or even memory. I happen to like little thing that is intriguing and telling a certain story, which also becomes one of my foundations when I try to create especially for Fable on The Table project. As cliche as it sounds, but it is important to have curiosity and willingness to learn more, even from other areas apart from the things that we are working on.

 

2. How do you usually choose your ingredients? What are the considerations?

Biasanya berdasarkan rasa ingin tahu dan mencoba kalau bahan A B C ini rasanya akan seperti apa, atau bisa diapakan. Kebetulan gue sangat menghindari menggunakan pewarna buatan, jadi dengan batasan itu, salah satu dasar gue memilih bahan tertentu kadang untuk mendapatkan warna tertentu juga.

Usually it’s from curiosity and willingness to experiment what flavours do certain ingredients bring or what can I do with it. I try to avoid artificial colouring, so from that restriction, one of my considerations in choosing ingredients are also to achieve certain colour.

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Photo courtesy of Surely/Someday + Kitchen.

3. We know that lately you have been playing around with local ingredients, what made you to do so?

Gue selalu tertarik dengan perasaan nostalgia, dan gue rasa banyak yang menganggap sepele beberapa bahan lokal, hanya mungkin karena kita terlalu familiar dengan bahan tersebut atau belum digali lebih dalam lagi.

I am always intrigued with nostalgic feelings and I think lots of people look down to local ingredients just because we are too familiar with local ingredient or we have not dig deeper about it.

 

4. Which Indonesian ingredients is your favourite?

Pandan, gula aren, jahe dan kelapa. Ada 4 mah ga favorit yah, hahaha. Oh gue juga suka belimbing wuluh!

Pandas, palm sugar, ginger and coconut. And belimbing wuluh is also another favourite of mine!

 

5. What are the challenges in using local ingredients?

Ketersediaannya.

It’s availability.

 

6. You have used Blueboots Farm’s pandan powder in some of your creations, what’s the story behind it?

Sebetulnya waktu itu hanya ngobrol santai sama Sam tentang Blueboots Farm ada bahan apa saja, dan Pandan itu kan sangat mudah dibudidayakan sebetulnya, dan gue memang pengen pakai pandan sebagai bahan cookies, tapi kendalanya dulu adalah untuk menggunakan pandan metode paling familiar itu adalah dengan di ekstrak sarinya, dan kalau bikin cookies gue lebih prefer sebisa mungkin ga terlalu banyak liquid, jadi gue tanya ke Sam, memungkinkan ga sih kalau Pandan dikeringkan dan di jadikan bubuk, dan ternyata bisa.

Actually at that time I was just chatting casually with Sam about Blueboots Farm’s produce and how pandan is actually really easy to grow. I have always wanted to use pandan as an ingredient for my cookies, but the restriction before was the most commonly available substance is pandan extract. When I’m making cookies, I prefer not to use too much liquid, so I asked Sam, is it possible if pandan is dehydrated and turned into powder and Sam said yes.

 

7. Do you think that Indonesian ingredients have been exposed a lot or do you think there is a lot of work in introducing local flavours?

Mungkin beberapa sudah familiar yah, tapi sewaktu gue ikut salah satu event di coffee shop, gue baru sadar kalau latar belakang elu sebetulnya cukup mempengaruhi akses elu dengan bahan lokal, sebagai contoh sewaktu Blueboots membawa pisang ambon lumut (pisangnya mentok cuma hijau ga bisa kuning, cuma super manis dan wangi), ternyata banyak yang belum tahu, kalau asumsi gue, mungkin ada beberapa orang yang terbiasa membeli pisang cavendish, jadi hanya tahu varian pisang  seperti itu, dan padahal ada banyak varian pisang yang berbeda di Indonesia, dan masing masing pisang punya fungsi sendiri. Tapi bagi yang masih suka beli ke pasar, mungkin udah familiar dengan pisang ambon lumut tadi. Ini salah satu contohnya. Tapi gue rasa dengan adanya anak anak muda yang tertarik bergerak di bidang agrikultur, mungkin ke depannya bisa meng-introduce bahan lokal.

Perhaps there are some that’s already familiar. However when I joined one of the events at a coffee shop, I just realized that your background is affecting your access to local ingredients. As an example, when Blueboots brought pisang ambon lumut (the banana can only goes green – not even yellow – but it is super sweet and has a strong fragrant), apparently a lot of people didn’t have any idea about it. In my assumption, perhaps people are too used in buying cavendish banana, so they only know that variant of banana although there are lots other variants of banana in Indonesia and each of them has their own usage. But for those who still go to traditional market, I think they are quite familiar with that pisang ambon lumut. That was one example. But I think with lots of young generation with interest in agriculture, hopefully in the near future they can help to introduce local ingredients as well.

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8. How do you marry modern way of baking with local flavours?

I’m not sure what i do is something modern though, karena sejujuranya gue lebih tertarik gimana mengangkat nilai yang sudah ada, tapi tidak mendeskontruksi terlalu jauh sampai jatuhnya gimmick. Terus terang gue sendiri masih mencari tahu bahan bahan lokal yang menarik untuk dikembangkan. Tentunya gue rasa pasti tidak jauh jauh dari media cookies, tapi tidak menutup kemungkinan untuk dikembangkan ke arah yang lain juga.

I’m not sure what I do is something modern though, because to be honest I am more interested in how to elevate the existing value but not deconstructing it too far until it becomes a gimmick. To be honest I’m still looking for local ingredients which are interesting to be developed into my products. Of course I think it’s not going to be far from cookies, but it doesn’t restrict any opportunities for it to be developed to another direction as well.

 

9. Lastly, you also have your own garden at the back of your house, do you use those plants as your ingredients too? What grows there?

Iya ada beberapa bahan yang gue tanam sendiri, mostly herbs and spices. Sereh, pandan, thyme, mint dan yang terakhir lumayan sering gue pakai, bunga telang.

Yes I do have some ingredients that I grow on my own, mostly herbs and spices. Lemongrass, pandan, thyme, mint and the last one is something that I commonly use lately, telang flower.

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Growing This Funky Plant

This is the first time Blueboots Farm tried planting Daikon radish and we are pleasantly surprise how easily and quickly they grow. We started planting the radish seeds in seed trays filled with good compost, cocopeat and rice husks. After 2 weeks, the seeds sprouted baby seedlings ready to be planted into the soil. Alternatively, you can also plant the seed directly into the soil 1.5 cm deep.

Daikon radishes need more space than garden radishes. About 15 cm apart from seedling to seedling and 50 cm apart between rows will give sufficient space and nutrition for the radish to grow up 40 cm long and 8 cm wide!

The picture shown above is about 40 days old daikon radish. We are planning to harvest the daikon radishes when they are 60 – 70 days old. Let’s see how much bigger and bolder they will grow up to!

Daikon radish can be turned to many versatile dishes. From eating it raw in salads, boiling it in soup, roasting it with olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper to pickling and fermenting the radish for tangy and crunchy accompaniment to that Korean fried chicken. Oh, the list go on… how can you not love this wonderful produce?

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The Season’s Best Produce

We have about 60 trees of clove trees in our mini forest. In June, the forest will be infatuated with the smell of cloves. It takes skills and experience to harvest cloves as the tree is tall and we do not want to break its branches. Farmers uses wooden ladder and a basket trap to collect the cloves. After harvesting, we will dry the freshly-picked cloves under the sun for about a week.

Clove has been an important commodity for Indonesia since the trading era. It is one of the most sought after spices for its usage as medicine to cigars. Native to Maluku island, which commonly called as the Spice Island, we are lucky to have clove in our mini forest to learn from.

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Gooey Peanut Butter Cookies

Been wanting to try a gluten free cookies? Try it with our flourless peanut butter cookie recipe! We recommend dipping it in hot milk if you need some midnight snack.
Ingredients
1 cup Blueboots Farm Peanut Butter
¼ cup mix of brown & white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla

Yield: ~ 1 kg cookie dough

Method
Preheat oven to 180oC
Cream peanut butter, vanilla, eggs and all sugar until smooth
Add baking soda and salt, mix thoroughly
Scoop the dough according to prefered size
Bake for 10 minutes, rotate in between.

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Rainy-Day Soup

If you have a slow cooker or a crock pot, this recipe will be super easy. Just dump all of the ingredients into the pot and let it cook on its own. Not only easy, this soup is also nutritious, which may help when you’re feeling under the weather.

If you don’t have a slow cooker, here’s how to cook up some comforting bean soup (straight from mom’s recipe book):

1 water chestnut, finely diced
1 large section of lotus root, sliced
0.5 kg fresh peanuts
2 carrots, diced
1L water
Salt & white pepper to season

  1. Put the water chestnut and water into the pot
  2. Once boiling, add the lotus root and peanuts (for a heartier soup you can add 0.5 kg diced chicken meat at this point), cook until simmering, then add the carrots,
  3. Once they are all cooked (about 12-15 minutes on medium-high heat) taste and season the soup

A cup of warm soup is best shared during the rain, enjoy.

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5 Tricks to Improve Your Soil

Ever wanting to have an edible garden of your own? Home garden filled with chillis, tomatoes, herbs and leafy vegetables at hand’s reach? Before going into details on how to plant, we need to improve the structure and fertility of the soil before planting plants into the ground. Like humans, plants need a balanced diet of beneficial microbes, minerals and nutrients. Here is 5 easy tricks you can apply:

  1. Adding composts, composts & composts! Adding composts to current soil in the garden is the easiest and sure way to improve fertility and structure in the soil. Adding composts will enhance the water retention of the soil and increase the activity and number of soil organism. You can get supply of composts from local organic garden stores or local farms that you can contact. Composts are decomposed organic matter made from kitchen waste, animal manures, unused green leaves and dried leaves. All piled up to decompose till the pile becomes a dark and soft black soil called humus.
  1. Make permanent raised garden beds. Making raised beds will ensure that nutrients do not easily run-off from where the plants will be planted. It also prevents from stepping on garden beds that will compact and destroy soil structure. Raised beds also increases the drainage of excess water during heavy rainy season
  1. Planting cover crops on exposed soil. Recommended cover crops are plants from the legume family such as gotu kola (antanan), peanuts and clover. Legume plants as mentioned grow easily in any type of soil and are purposely planted to condition infertile soil. These plants capture nitrogen from the air and add free nitrogen into the soil. They also can also can be a good source of greens/biomass needed for composting or chopped off and drop it and mix it to the soil so as to add organic matter. Planting cover crops will also retain water needed for plants and microbial activity.
  1. Reduce tillage on soil. Heavy tillage is needed only in the beginning part of gardening when deep-rooted weeds like teki and alang-alang need to be taken out of the soil. However, after that tillage should not be frequently done as it will destroy the natural soil layer/ structure you have built over time. In order to loosen soil, a broad fork can be used to poke through the soil in a slow motion without bringing much disruption.
  1. Never use herbicide or pesticide. Using herbicide or pesticide will instantly kill millions or billions of soil organism that we need for growth of healthy plants through a whole biodiversity and activities of the soil web system. It will need a great amount of time again to achieve to its healthy state again.
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What’s In Blueboots’ Peanut Butter

There are plenty peanut butters you can choose from out there, you have tasted lots of peanut butter out there, but have you tasted Blueboots Farm’s?

Our peanut butter consists of the amazing natural produces which are good for your body. Most importantly the main ingredient, which is the peanut, is organically grown at Blueboots Farm. We select the best peanuts seeds with every season of planting and feed the soil with our own Blueboots compost and liquid fertilizer to make sure that the peanuts contains an array of nutrients and reach its maximum flavor and creaminess.

We are allowing the soil to get nitrogen for its fertility from rotating the crops. This will ensure that our peanuts are getting the nutrients they needed in the natural way.

Another thing that goes in Blueboots Farm’s peanut butter is coconut oil, which is actually good for digestion and lowering bad blood cholesterol! Then to sweeten things up just a tad bit, we are mixing in organic coconut palm sugar that goes through less processing, allowing it to contain most of its nutrients. The peanut butter is sweet but not too sweet, making sure that you can taste the peanut as the main ingredient. Last but not least, the magic ingredient is sea salt, that makes every sweet thing has an edge to it. We are using sea salt because similar to coconut palm sugar, it goes through less processing, only the evaporation of sea water body. It allows sea salt to retain each minerals aside from sodium and chloride, which is important to our body’s electrolyte balance.

There you go! Now you know what goes into our creamy and yummy peanut butter. If you are keen to taste our peanut butter please contact us or comment on our post.

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5 Facts About Blueboots Farm Everyone Think Is True (But It’s Not)

Some days you wondered, who are the people behind these fruit and veggie posts you see on Instagram. You then started to make your own hypothesis of who actually planted them. Is it some old farmers in a rural area? Do they use the latest technology in growing the crops? Where do they get their seeds from?

Read through to read about what people commonly think about Blueboots Farm and the truth behind it.

  1. Blueboots Farm is located in a remote rural area. We are actually located in Cijeruk, Bogor, 30 minutes off the city of Bogor. The same main street as Warso Durian Farm.
  1. Blueboots Farm is owned by an old rich man. We’re definitely not old, we are young farmpreneurs who take on the challenge of growing food sustainably, with the help of local Cijeruk farmers in the area (although they look old, they’re soul and spirit is as young as us). We are also working with fresh graduate from IPB to strengthen our knowledge on growing food.
  1. In order to get the best harvest we use pesticide. In order to stay to our vision, we’ve been trying to find ways to keep our farm sustainable and organic. Therefore we make our own bio-pesticide from natural ingredients found easily on the farm. Like neem, suren, papaya leaves and many other smelly or bitter plant that deter pests.
  1. We grow the same crops all the time. In order to reduce the number of pests and maintain a healthy soil, crops rotation is implemented. We never plant the same kind of crop after each season.
  1. We have strong background in agriculture. False. We studied totally different things but we are keen to learn about agriculture. Most of our knowledge and skills came from asking around, learning from local farmers and doing things hands-on. There was definitely lots of trial and error and even now we are still trying different things to achieve the best result by combining traditional and modern methods.

We hope what we do will inspire and positively impact our community. Follow Blueboots Farm’s progress as we strive towards a better future for farming!

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The Local’s Superfood – Centella Asiatica (Pegagan)

Good morning!

Another new day, another new knowledge about our local superfood. We will kickstart the day in knowing about Centella Asiatica also known as Gotu kola, pegagan, daun kaki kuda and lots of other names depending on how the locals know it as. This plant is not to be easily dismissed. Knowing Gotu kola’s benefit will help improve or treat your health.

Indonesia is blessed with abundant of powerful and useful wild plants if we have the power of knowledge on the benefits of all the wild plants. Gotu kola is not a new found herb that is discovered for its tremendous health benefits but it is a forgotten plant due to our shift of importance of getting our essential nutrients with other valued vegetables, fruits and even health supplements.

Gotu kola can be easily found growing wildly in farms, open-field, roadsides etc. if we look closely enough. It has beautiful spade-shaped leaves or horse-hoof like leaf that can be easily identified.

Gotu kola is generally good to boost our immune system but however, it is really worshipped for its used as a combat to high blood pressure, boosting central nervous system, improving circulatory system, repairing skin, protecting veins and blood vessels and antibacterial properties.

If anyone is facing any health issues with the above mentioned, please read more about Gotu kola and let Blueboots team know if you need this herb. We have plenty growing in the farm.
Blueboots’ favourite way of consuming Gotu kola is adding fresh leaves to salad, blending it with basil to make pesto and also into powder dehydrated in low temperature to add to juices. Better eaten fresh for maximum nutrients.

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Fresh Jam at Sunday’s Best

Blueboots will be featuring our fresh from the farm Rosella Jam. Dark crimson red jam with delicious flavour that will be a wonderful accompaniment to bread, scones, cheese and even meat.

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