Brunei Unit

Let’s learn all about the country of Brunei with this fun geography lesson! (I’m going for the simple dive right into the lesson rather than giving you lots and lots of information to read through, what do you think?)

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Brunei unit resources

Not too surprisingly, a country that you could fit over 100 of, does not have any books in the library. Honestly, I wish they did because that would be AWESOME!

• Asia notebooking pages
• 23 Surprising Facts about Brunei!
• Most Interesting Facts about Brunei

And of course the Geography Now episode:

Brunei recipe: Murtabak (meat crepes)

I found a whole group of main dish recipes for Brunei, and was fairly sure I could find all of the ingredients for the Murtabak, that and I love crepes even if they’re insanely a lot of work.

However once we started making it, the instructions are more like making a meat pie or empanada than a crepe.

Brunei meat pie recipe

• butter or cooking oil
• 1 pound flour (3 2/3 cups)
• 1.5 cups water
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 pounds ground beef (the original recipe called for ground mutton, but I don’t have easy access to that)
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 onion diced (I minced it)
• 2 heaped tablespoons toasted coriander seeds (I just used 2 tablespoons ground coriander, which wiped out my coriander supply)
• 1 level tablespoon aniseed (I hate aniseed and the suggested substitute was caraway seed)

Let’s get this recipe started!

1. Fry turmeric in some oil. Then add the ground beef, onion, coriander, and aniseed (or in my case caraway). Cook until well browned, then take off the heat.
2. While that is cooking mix the flour, baking powder together in a bowl and then add 1.5 cups water. Knead into a smooth dough. Cover and leave the dough for 30 minutes (the original recipe said a full night, but that wasn’t happening).
3. Start heating oil in a frypan.
4. Divide the dough into 4-6 pieces and roll it out. In the middle of your dough add the meat mixture, then wrap the dough around the meat, making sure to seal the edges.
5. Put the meat pies into the oil and cook them for a couple of minutes on each side. I think it was about 5 minutes.

Brunei Meat pie

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Brunei meat pie is a nice dish to cook as you learn about this Asian country.

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes

Additional Time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 2/3 cup flour
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 pounds ground beef
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 onion minced
• 1 tablespoon cardamom
• 2 tablespoons ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon caraway seed

Instructions

1. Fry the turmeric in a little oil. Then add the rest of the ingredients for the meat mixture (ground beef, salt, onion, cardamom, coriander, and caraway), and cook until well browned. Once done take off the heat.
2. While that is cooking start mixing the dough. Stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. Then slowly add in the water, kneading the dough until it is smooth and firm. Cover and set aside for at least 30 minutes.
3. Start heating oil in a fry pan to cook the meat pies.
4. Divide the dough into the number of servings you plan, and roll it out to desired thickness. In the middle of the dough spoon a portion of the meat mixture, and then fold the dough around the meat making sure to seal it well.
5. Put the meat pies in the heated oil and cook for about 5 minutes per side.

Brunei Notebooking pages

What I’ve learned is oil is incredibly important to Brunei. Like 95% of their economy is based off oil production. That is a scary large percentage. As a matter of fact because oil production is so important to Brunei’s economy, most of their food is imported. Which is a little bit of a scary fact to me.

That and I was immensely amused at the idea of a town in the ocean built entirely on stilts, that is incredibly amusing.

Some more learning fun to check out

• The start of World War 1
• Europe Unit
• Zoo Animal Unit

“Brunei. The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque.” by Bernard Spragg is marked with CC0 1.0