By Tanya Steele
The Yarra Glen Living and Learning Centre hosted a delicious Indonesian cooking class for the first time on Tuesday 18 April which was enjoyed thoroughly by attendees.
Justine, who lives and runs a business in Yarra Glen attended the class and said it was a fantastic hands-on day.
“It’s always interesting to learn about new ingredients and cooking,” she said.
The group made their own spring rolls, sampled some other Indonesian dishes and also got some recipes to take home.
Retired chef Tina and her assistant Jerrie enjoyed sharing their knowledge of the cuisine and are both of Dutch heritage.
“I was always very involved with the Dutch community. I ran the kitchen for 13 years at the Carnegie Dutch club,” she said.
“The Indonesian buffet was always one of the most popular items on the menu, especially the Rijsttafel or rice table.”
Tina prepared a number of dishes for attendees to try including chicken skewers and yellow rice known as Nasi kuning.
Indonesian style cooking is quite popular in the Netherlands, which stems from earlier Dutch colonisation of Indonesia.
Tina said the Dutch put their own spin on the cuisine over time, spring rolls tend to be much bigger in Holland and are known as “loempia”.
“The Dutch version is almost a meal in itself,” she said.
Participants were given the opportunity to expand their knowledge base, learning about different ingredients they hadn’t tried before.
Justine enjoyed learning about the bumbu merah, which is a red spice paste.
“Some of the spice pastes and what goes into them, they make a base for a lot of recipes,” she said.
Class attendees were given a little tub of the spice mix to take home with them.
