Martabak (Indonesian meat pie/wrap)

One of my favorite late night snacks in Jakarta is Martabak. A simple street food, cooked to order, good for your evening/mid night snack or even as an appetizer. The stalls are usually very noticeable with the many chicken and duck eggs covering 1/3 of their glass.

There are 2 choices when it comes to ordering a portion, the meat/savory or the sweet. I love both of them but this time, I am introducing the meat martabak, which is cooked ground beef and eggs, wrapped in a thin dough and deep fried. I always ordered it with duck eggs, but since I don't have duck eggs, I'll use chicken eggs.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb ground beef
5 finely chopped scallions and shallots
5 large eggs
1 tsp of nutmeg (or coriander)
1 tsp of salt
Oil to deep fry

Wrapper:
Spring roll wrapper

Side of Pickled diced cucumber:
1 cucumber
1 carrot
Shallot
Thai chilli
Water
Sugar
Vinegar
Salt

Brown sauce:
2 tbs soy sauce and water
1 tbs ketchup
1 tbs chilli sauce
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp tamarind

Martabak:

1. Heat 1 tbs of oil in a pan and add shallot, fry until fragrant. Add scallions then beef, season with nutmeg and salt. Discard excess fat. 
2. In a another bowl, mix the beef mixture with eggs (I usually add in a dash of salt, not too much, you don't want it to be too salty).
3. Fill each spring roll with 2 tbs of the mixture and fold to form a rectangle shape. Deep fry, 4 minutes each side or until brown. Don't forget to hold your spatula against your martabak so it stays the same shape.

Pickled diced cucumber:

1. Peel and cut cucumber in half, remove seeds and dice.
2. Peel carrot and dice.
3. Clean shallot, cut in to small pieces, do not dice.
4. Clean Thai chili.
5. Put all ingredients in a bowl, add in 1/2 - 1 cup of water and 1 tsp of sugar, vinegar and salt or enough to give it a sweet and sour yet tasty taste.

NOTE: It will be soupy but we do not usually drink the soup. It is just to give taste to the cucumber and carrot.

Brown sauce: 

1. mix all the ingredients together.

It looks complicated but it really isn't. The whole process should take no longer than an hour, but it depends on how many martabak you are frying.