About
Hey! Nice to meet you! My name is Anita. I am the cook, author, and photographer behind Daily Cooking Quest. I started this blog on June 1st, 2013 as a way to chronicle the many recipes that I have learned from my Mom, my friends, and from so many cookbooks, magazines, and other bloggers along the way.
My Mom is the best cook that I know, even among my many aunties who are all great cooks. When I was younger, the big family gathering usually involves a pot luck with everyone chipping in, but my Mom’s food invariable ends up being the best! So, you can imagine how miserable I was when I went to the United States for college, and then grad school too. With Mom thousands of miles away and having no access to Indonesian food, let alone Chinese Indonesian food the way my Mom prepares it finally pushed me to start cooking.
Looking back, you wouldn’t really want to taste some of my first attempts, especially in the first year, even I wouldn’t want to taste it now. But, I am getting much better since then, even Mom agrees, and that is the biggest compliment I will ever get! I believe I have learned some valuable lessons along the way, and this is my way of sharing all those hard earned lessons with the world. I hope you will give the recipes a try and I am always happy to receive any comment or feed back you may have.
My favorite Indonesian and Chinese recipes
Like most food bloggers, I started this blog as my personal repository of favorite recipes. As an Indonesian expat, Indonesian food is the one thing I miss and crave all the time. Since I currently have 300+ Indonesian recipes, I think it’s high time I give a primer on which Indonesian dishes you need to try:
- gado-gado (Indonesian salad with peanut sauce)
- nasi uduk Betawi (Jakarta fragrant coconut rice)
- soto betawi (Jakarta beef soup)
- sop buntut (oxtail soup)
- rendang sapi Padang (Padang style beef rendang)
- mi goreng kampung (Indonesian fried noodles)
- opor ayam (chicken in coconut milk)
- kering tempeh (fried tempeh with sweet and spicy glace)
- bakwan sayur (vegetable fritters) and bakwan jagung (corn fritters)
- lapis legit (thousand layers cake)
Indonesia is a big multicultural country with many ethicities. My family is Chinese Indonesian, and I would roughly guesstimate that we eat about 50% Indonesian food and 50% Chinese food. I guess it is no surprise that my blog currently has 200+ Chinese recipes! Most people are familiar with Chinese food, so you may not need a guide, but here are my 10 personal favorites:
- Chinese pan fried fish with soy sauce
- bok choy stir fry with oyster sauce and garlic oil
- steamed tofu
- simple braised tofu
- Chinese chicken herbal soup
- Chinese ginseng herbal chicken soup
- winter melon soup
- bak kut teh (pork ribs in spices and herbal soup)
- Chinese peanut cookies
- Chinese almond cookies
I love simple and easy recipes, but I won’t sacrifice taste and authenticity. I actually use my own recipes to prepare food for my family and I strive to document them as faithfully as I can on this blog. That said, I’m only human so please let me know if you find a mistake in my recipes.
Photography
All my photos are taken with Canon EOS Rebel XSi with its kits lens, a really basic DSLR. I am proud to say that some of my photos have been accepted in the following sites:
Press
Daily Cooking Quest has been featured in BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Flipboard, The Kitchn, Brit + Co, MyFitnessPal, Boston Magazine, Yummly, and foodgawker, among others.
