We miss eating-out but I guess a lot of people start doing cooking at home just like me or simply ordering food through grab food, go-food, etc etc during this Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) time.

If you’re new to the game, you can learn some basics stuff on cooking, just like me. I started to learn HOW TO BOIL WATER. Hahahaha, bad joke.

Here’s the thing, I didn’t buy new stove when I moved to this place in 2018. I didn’t even have rice cooker. I only had microwave, so I can heat the instant food from convenience store or leftover from restaurant, and electric kettle, so I can make my own brewed coffee or ginger drink.

In the beginning of the ECQ period, I went to the home appliances store to buy rice cooker, which I think is the basic of all the cooking ware. I think, at least I can have rice, the basic food for Asian like me. But what about the other meals??

I survived the few first days of ECQ with canned food then I started to cook noodles and other complicated cooking food in the first weekend. And Yes, I cooked them by using rice cooker only. For the vegetables and noodles, I only blanch them in a pan.

One of the first meals I cook by using rice cooker is a filipino food, Adobong Pusit or Squid Adobo. In Indonesian, I’m not really sure how to call it, usually I call it Cumi Item.

Here’s the ingredients I used for Squid Adobo and how I cooked it.

Ingredients

1. Around 500 grams medium-sized squid cleaned; 
2. 1 piece large onion diced;
3. 2 pieces medium sized tomatoes diced;
4. 1/2 cup soy sauce;
5. 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar;
6. 1 cup water;
7. crushed and whole cloves garlic;
8. 1 teaspoon sugar;
9. Salt and pepper to taste;
10. 2 tbsp olive oil;
11. 2 pieces green chilli;
12. 2 pieces red chilli.

The medium-sized squid is the best suitable squid for this recipe.

The quantity of the onion, tomato, and garlic can be modified. You can add more of them if you like them or simply put them in lesser quantity if you don’t really like them. Meanwhile the green and the red chilli can be used for garnishing.

How to Cook Squid Adobo in Rice Cooker

1. Place your phone, iPad, laptop, or any gadget you use, to peek on the recipe on how to cook Squid Adobo in Rice Cooker, in the very convenient place. Let’s start now!
2. Pour-in olive oil into the rice cooker and put-in the garlic and onions into the completely dry rice cooker pan.
3. Turn on the rice cooker (turn the switch to “cooking” mode). It is best to put in the spices when oil is not yet hot so flavors are squeezed out more fully as heating is initiated. As the rice cooker heats on, spices will be sautéed. 
4. Continue to sauté the garlic, and onions until the spices as mildly brown (avoid burning the spices). Then put-in the tomatoes, and cook for 2 minutes. 
5. Put-in the squid then cook for 2 minutes. Pour-in soy sauce, vinegar, and water. Add salt, ground black pepper, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and sugar then stir. Bring to a boil and simmer for 8 minutes.
6. Serve and enjoy the quarantine dish!!

You can use a stopwatch so the cooking time can be just right, or simply just use your feelings. Make sure you don’t cook this much longer than the indicated time to avoid the squid texture becomes rubbery. Remember you want to eat the squid not a rubber sandal.

For Bahasa Indonesia version, you can read it here.