FOODIE RECIPE: Martabak Telur

Hello foodies!

I’m back to share with you one of my favourite go-to recipes! It’s an Indonesian classic and it’s one of my mom’s recipes. Although my mom is not much of a cook, whenever she does cook it was amazing. This is one of the few things that she did make for us growing up and we LOVED it.

What is Martabak Telur?

Honestly, it’s really hard to put into words but if I had to I would say it’s like a savoury pancake. There is it’s sweet counterpart: martabak manis (manis = sweet), where it’s literally like a thick pancake sandwich filled with the most delicious fillings: chocolate, cheese and condensed milk, oh an obscene amount of margarine/butter. Now the telur version is different in that it’s not really a thick pancake. In Indonesia, it’s more like a crepe, but here we make it with spring roll wrapper! The telur translates to egg and the martabak is filled with beef, egg and lots of scallions/green onions.

It’s actually quite easy to make, just a little more time consuming. However, trust me, the result is definitely worth it!

ingredients

• 1 package of Doll Spring Roll Pastry (red packaging)

• 6-9 large eggs

• 2-3 bunches of green onions, chopped into thin cylindrical disks

• 1 pound of ground beef

• 3 cloves of garlic, minced

• fish sauce

• ground white pepper

• chicken bouillon powder

• salt

• vegetable/canola oil for frying

instructions

1. In a large skillet, heat up 1 tbsp of oil. Into the oil, but in the minced garlic and fry until you can smell the garlic fragrance - you are not trying to brown the garlic. Add the ground beef. Fry until the beef is cooked. Add in a pinch of salt and pinch of pepper. Take off heat and put aside.

2. In a large bowl, crack three eggs and whisk generously with a fork. Add in about 1.5 tsp of fish sauce, 1/4 tsp of white pepper and 1/4 tsp of chicken bouillon powder, mix thoroughly. Please note that the amount of spice can be added according to your liking! I would try frying one martabak, taste, and adjust accordingly.

3. Add into the egg mixture, a couple spoonfuls of the cooked beef and a couple spoonfuls of the chopped green onions. Now there is a reason why I put a range for a lot of the ingredients - it all depends on how you like your martabak. If you like more meat, then you can add more to each martabak you make. If you like more green onions, you’ll need to chop up close to three full bunches and if you like less, then you won’t need as much. This recipe is really flexible! Same with the egg, once you finish up this batch of egg mixture, you can crack 3 additional eggs and follow the same procedure.

4. Take a sheet of spring roll wrapper and add one spoonful of egg-beef-green onion mixture into the middle (about 2 tbsp). You do not want to fill the entire square of wrapper, but just the middle. Make sure you add enough egg into the middle too, because this is what will make it fluffy! Now you are going to wrap the mixture in the middle with the edges of the wrapper, like a rectangular gift. Fold the top and the bottom of the wrapper to meet in the middle, enclosing the egg mixture. Use the a little of the egg mixture to coat the remaining sides of the wrapper and bring the right and left sides to meet in the middle. Ensure that the martabak package is closed. Repeat this step for the rest of the wrappers. My advice is do three, fry and then do another three and then fry, and so on. This way your martabak is not dry before you fry it.

5. Take a large skillet and fill it with an inch of oil for frying. Place the martabak, seam side down, into the hot oil (medium high heat). Use a spatula and VERY CAREFULLY direct/flicking some oil to continuously flow on top of the martabak filling. To make this step easier, you can also take a spoon and spoon some of the hot oil on top of the martabak filling over and over again, until it puffs up . Once the edges of the martabak becomes golden brown and the middle is puffed up, turn the martabak over to cook on the other side. Make sure that when it’s flipped over, the middle is puffed up or else it will flatten and not be fluffy. This is why it’s important there is enough egg in the middle of the spring roll wrapper, because it’s the egg that causes the martabak to be puffed up!

6. Once the other side is also golden brown, take out of oil and let cool before eating. Note: I usually only do 3 martabak at a time in the pan because you need to make sure that the oil is continuously going on top of the martabak to make it puff up.

I’m hoping to do a video demonstration of the folding and frying soon! Enjoy and please let me know if you have any questions :)

Kim :)