Indonesian Cuisine

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Indonesian - Cooking and Food

Overview of Indonesian Cuisine History
Indonesia, the world's largest archipelago, is surrounded by tropical oceans and spans the equator. Often known as the Spice Islands, it has been a major source of many spices since ancient times, traded around the globe. Ginger, black and white Peppercorns, cubeb pepper, long pepper, and Galangal were exported to medieval Europe, while others such as Nutmeg and Cloves grew nowhere else in the world. The diversity of its cultures is reflected in the range of localized cuisines and traditional eating habits. The many different cultural regions each have their own invididual and unique culinary traditions. Additionally, many Indonesian dishes show influence from contact with Chinese, Indian, Persian, Arabic, and Dutch cuisines.

Like people in most Asian countries, Indonesians eat three meals a day, with rice as the staple food except in Maluku, parts of Nusa Tenggara, and Irian Jaya, where sago palm flour, cassava, and sweet potatoes are the staple food. The Indonesian diet most commonly consists of soup, steamed rice, several main dishes (based on red meat, chicken, fish and crustaceans, and vegetables), with tropical fruits for dessert. These are often served and eaten at once, which can be an entirely new experience to Westerners who are used to eating meals served as one course after another. A typical Indonesian breakfast consists of coffee and nasi goreng, fried rice made with rice left over from the previous night's dinner. Lunch is steamed rice, a meat or fish dish, vegetables and soup. Indonesian suppers are light and consist of dishes similar to those eaten at lunch. Leftover dishes are generally served at the following meal, so there is little waste. Desserts of seasonal fruits complete a typical Indonesian lunch and supper. Snacks are popular, too, commonly eaten in mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and before bedtime, often purchased from wandering street vendors. These can include savory dishes like saté (skewered grilled meat with various sauces), sweets such as pisang goreng (banana fritters) and tapé (fermented sticky rice or cassava), and sweet-and-savory dishes like rujak, made of sliced and chopped fruits and vegetables with a sauce of ground peanuts, sugar (brown, red, or palm), and hot chilis.

Curries (spicy sauces diluted with coconut milk) and the addition of cumin, coriander, and caraway in many Indonesian dishes may have been contributed by contact with India. A variety of soybean products, such as tahu (tofu), taogé (soy bean sprouts), and ketjap (soy sauce); different kinds of noodles; and the popular bakso (fish dumplings in soup) are legacies of early and continuing contact with Chinese merchants who traveled to Indonesia. The Dutch brought vegetables such as cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, potatoes, and string beans, adding them to the wide number of vegetables already available in Indonesia’s flavorful and spicy cuisine. The Arabs brought kebabs (skewered meat cubes), martabak, and dill and fennel were added to round up Indonesia’s already busting array of spices.

The so-called rice from the typical Indonesian feast becoming table (rijstafel), an elaborate meal adapted by the Dutch in colonial times, is perhaps an aspect of Indonesian cuisine most familar abroad. Since becoming independent from the Netherlands in 1948, Indonesia has turned itself from a rice importing nation to a rice exporter, and has established itself as the fifth largest producer in OPEC.

Cuisines of Indonesia


By Geographic Area and Style:



Add an Indonesian Article or Recipe: createpageform-indonesian Indonesia comprises 17,508 islands (about 6,000 of which are inhabited), more than 300 distinct ethnic groups, and over 700 languages, many of them related. Additionally, Indonesia is divided by the Wallace Line, so the climates, as well as indigenous flora and fauna, are significantly different to the west and the east, with the east (Nusa Tenggara) being considerably drier. Thus there is no single Indonesian cuisine, but rather a wide range of different culinary traditions, localized to specific regions, some with well-known cuisines.

In West Sumatra the region inhabited by the Minangkabau ethnic group is famous for its hot spicy dishes. This cuisine is often known by the name of the area's major city, Padang, and Padang restaurants are not uncommon on other Indonesian islands and overseas. Usually the food is prepared on the spot, outside the restaurants of Padang, so that people can see the fresh food and its consistence as they walk inside.

In North Sulawesi spicy food is also very common, and Pork is served there as well. This is basically an exception, because pork is usually not used in any of the Indonesian dishes, most of the population being Muslim, although pork can be found in Chinese restaurants in Indonesia.

The island of Java is divided into several distinct cultural regions. The cuisine includes vegetables, soybeans, Beef, and Chicken, whereas in other regions, especially the eastern parts, seafood is the chief protein. Savory dishes in Central Javanese cuisine are often distinctively sweet.

The island of Bali is possibly the best known to foreigners, and Balinese cuisine is distinctly different from the cuisines of Java, Padang, and other regions. Because the Balinese are Hindu Bali, not Muslim, they often eat pork, and drink local alcoholic beverages, such as tuak, palm wine, and brem Bali, rice wine.

Indonesian Food Glossary
Finding the ingredients for a Indonesian Recipe is not so easy when you do not know the names of the ingredients. Take time to make a list of ingredients and the name they may be found under at the Local Markets.


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Preparation Methods for Indonesian Cooking
The most important thing in the preparation methods of an Indonesian meal, is the fact that lunch is prepared all morning long, and is served all at once. Most meals include the long-grain rice as the main side dish for any other food. No matter the dishes served in a meal, they are often accompanied by several Sambals, which are actually spice relishes that are mixed with the food. A great thing to remember when cooking a traditional Indonesian meal is the fact that coconut milk is often used in the preparation method. Coriander, pepper, and garlic are also very much used in the process, but coconut milk is still the main secret of this cuisine. If you plan on learning al the important methods that the Indonesian cuisine used for the preparation process, you must know how to use banana leaves to wrap dishes, since this plays a great part in the methods used in the Indonesian kitchen.

Special Equipment for Indonesian Cooking
When sitting up an Indonesian kitchen there are a few essentials that will not only make your meals a success but will also make it much easier to prepare them. The most important equipment when starting to prepare an Indonesian meal, are the solid wooden chopping block and a heavy cleaver, which will do al the work for you, from mincing the ingredients, to chopping Chicken meat or vegetables. When you plan on cooking in an Indonesian manner, you will be in need of a lot of pots and serving spoons, spatulas, forks, turners, scrapers and tongs. Also, a saucer-shaped granite grinding stone, together with a granite pestle is used in preparing special condiments needed for the recipes. Borrowed from the Chinese culture, a woven bamboo steamer is always good to have in preparing many Indonesian dishes. When frying ingredients in deep oil, a Wok is very ideal for this preparation, since it requires less oil then a conventional deep fryer. A frying shovel or spatula is required when you use the wok for deep-frying, so make sure you have them available as well. Deep serving dishes are required for the traditional Indonesian soups. You need to consider cover lids and insulated food carriers to keep the temperature of the food constant, if you plan on serving the dishes at their optimized temperature


 * Solid wooden chopping block- The larger sizes are most appropriate for this style of cooking.
 * Heavy Cleaver- used in combination with the chopping block, it is an invaluable tool for chopping up  meat's and seafood, bruising a stalk of lemongrass, or smashing cardamom pods so they release their fragrance.
 * food processor- When cooking Indonesian cuisine one thing that is very important is grinding or crushing the seasonings that form the basis of countless Indonesian dishes. To do this, traditionally and still popular nowadays especially in Indonesia itself, a saucer-shaped granite grinding stone together with a granite pestle is used.  This granite saucer also often used to serve sambal (chili sauce).  However, in this modern era and in other countries other than countries in Asia, it is probably hard to find this tools.Therefore, food processor or blender should be sufficient to do this task.
 * Chinese woven bamboo steamer- is always good to have in preparing many Indonesian dishes. The steamer made with bamboo is preferred to a metal steamer because it absorbs more moisture rather than letting it fall back into the food and this steamer is also could perfectly sits inside a wok just above the boiling water.
 * Wok- ideal for deep frying because it requires less oil then a conventional deep fryer.  Moreover, it allows just the right amount of evaporation for those dishes which begin with a large amount of liquid and finish with a thick sauce.
 * Frying shovel or spatula- is an essential partner of a wok.

Indonesian Food Traditions and Festivals
Indonesian food traditions have been passed on by ancient civilizations, especially Hindu, which has made the balance between nature and eating habits a big important deal. The most significant tradition in the Indonesian culture is the display and presentation of food in form of a big buffet. Dishes aren’t served separately in different courses, but rather all together so everyone can have any dish, sweet or salty. Indonesia has a mixture of religions and festivals spread around the country. Things and events celebrated in Bali may not be in celebrated in Lombok and vice versa, so the festivals depend on the region as well as eating habits and methods. In June there is the international Indonesian food festival, when people celebrate this special cuisine all over the country. Special fests take place, and recipes containing mainly seafood, Chicken Satay, Gado-Gado and light salads are offered in a big buffet. Traditional dances take place as well. Interpreted in the Indonesian culture, they have been influenced by ancient civilizations and cultures, especially Hindu, who has left the legacy of the famous Javanese and Balinese dances.

People in Indonesian Food
Among the many chefs in the world, the Indonesian ones are probably some of the most creative ones. Combining available ingredients depends on the chef’s personal method, and can result in Indonesian dishes that will become even more original and delicious than the already spectacular ones. Indonesian chefs are passionate about their traditional dishes and they enjoy presenting them to foreigners, and visitors of their native places, people who have never tasted their dishes before Unlike other regions on the planet, Indonesia is a country of many secret ingredients that are kept secret by its chefs, and are not revealed for the sake of the originality of the Indonesian dishes. But the chef’s skills are all blended in preparing the specific dishes that are all served together, and not apart from another. So the chef has to have great skills to be able to coordinate every course to be ready in the same time, no matter whether its bakmi goreng" (fried noodles), gado-gado" (vegetables salad with a Peanut sauce), or a soup that need to be served hot. So if you want to try a special Indonesian dish, all you can do is enjoy a meal prepared by one of the specialists in this domain, and trust his judgment and skills.
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Indonesian Cuisine Related Recipes

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