POPULAR INDONESIAN FOOD RECIPES / Became guest cook in Beyond Indonesian Kitchen event

Merhaba From Türkiye 👋

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Today's post might be a bit longer than usual. Cause I will tell you a little more about Indonesian cuisines- my beloved country 💓

Last Friday I was lucky enough to be a guest cook for Beyond Kitchen by young chef and gastronomy - Mohammad Alard. We cooked and served some Indonesian menus for our expat fellows in Istanbul.

Beside cooking, I also presented and tell to the guests about the dishes they enjoyed that night. And I am going to share to you as well 😊

Well, where can I begin?
Indonesian has the most unique cuisine in the world due to the combination of cultural diversity and its geography.
Most Indonesian food is prepared with contrasting flavors, such as a spicy-sweet or hot sauce served over a bed of plain white rice, a popular meal throughout the country.

We serve simple foods in general, but using plenty of herbs, various roots, spices, leaves and grasses adds zest to most of our meals. Some of you may think that Indonesian foods are spicy and hot because we use chili pepper on mostly every dish. But it's not really true. In fact, the most widely used spices are cumin (caraway), coriander, and ginger. All relatively mild spices and give such a mild aromatic dishes.

Some other countries have bread as a staple food. In Indonesia, rice is the most important staple food. We eat it for breakfast until dinner. İt normally accompanies every meal too. For daily consume we eat steamed white rice. Even you may find some other type of rice such as white Glutinous rice and black glutinous rice. But those glutinous rice usually being used for our snack (jajan) , cakes or on sweet treats. check Indonesian food category  and Indonesian snack (kue) for more.

But rice is not the only staple for All Indonesian. In eastern Indonesia, like Maluku, we can find sago as their staple food. And some other regions people eat cassava and corn as main staple. 

The most common method for preparing food is frying, sautéing, and steaming. Although of course grilling, simmering, roasting, and even baking are also popular. 

Besides famous with a variety of spices and herb, using coconut is commonly find in mostly Indonesian foods. We use coconut start from its flesh, its water, coconut milk, until its leaves. Coconut used in main dishes, side dish until sweet treat.

For as many similarities that exist across the islands, there are just as many regional differences. Bali, the most widely recognized Indonesian island, is home to cooking duck and babi guling (pig). Minahasa enjoys mice and dog. 
Check my latest Balinese satay lilit ( Sate lilit Bali) as well.

And you may hear about the durian fruit, an oval, football-sized fruit, although many Westerners consider its smell to be foul and unappetizing.

Besides durian, we are a paradise of many exotic and tropical fruits like pineapple, avocado, mango, jack fruits, buah salak (thorny palm fruits/snake skin fruit), mangosteen, rambutan, longan, and many more I can not mention here.

And now I will talk about most popular Indonesian foods and you should try while you were visiting Indonesia-which is mannnyyyy! 🙌
But I am not going to share that popular rendang today 😊. Cause we didn't serve it that night.. You know , cooking rendang needs hours and hours to prepare. I will share it at other times on a different post.

The dishes we presented last Friday are: 

• Indonesian salad; gado gado, Click here for the recipe. (Jakarta gado-gado version here)
• Cilok ( tapioca balls in peanut sauce), 
• Vegetable Risoles, Recipe will be on other post
• Chicken satay. Find my recipe here, here, here or here
• Satay tempeh ( vegetarian version), recipe below
• Nasi Goreng (Indonesian fried rice), check my post here and here for the recipe
• Es teller (sweet treat, fruits in coconut milk). The recipe will on another post. 

Some recipes I already post before you can check the link I attached. Some I will post on different posts, and I will post Cilok recipe below.

We prepare our chicken satay for non-vegan customers. And satay tempeh for a vegan version

GADO GADO

Gado gado is one of the popular Indonesian dish. It's on the list of Indonesian national dish among with others.
It's  a dish consisting of a mix of pre-boiled vegetables and fried tofu (or sometimes with tempeh) and dressed with creamy umami peanut sauce then served with kerupuk (shrimp cracker or other type of cracker). Lontong or rice cake also serve as a complement. Adding simple chili sambal is most people choice to enjoy this delicious and healthy gado gado.
We have a dozen types of gado gado. Every region has their own version of gado gado. From East Java, Surabaya gado gado is most popular. İt is slightly different from gado gado in Jakarta / Betawi. In middle java people also serve different kind of gado gado. But all gado gado using one same ingredient; Peanut sauce as dressing.

Last Friday I served gado gado from my homeland Surabaya city. And how to make Betawi style gado gado click here.
The different from those 2 cities are vegetable used and how to make peanut sauce.
Surabaya gado gado using coconut milk to make the sauce and then cook and thicken by adding a small amount of rice flour solution. 
While Jakarta/ Betawi gado gado, peanut sauce grind with garlic and chili and palm sugar. Jeruk nipis (kaffir lime juice) adding into it so the taste is slightly sweet, umami with a sour touch of jeruk nipis.

For Gado gado (surabaya version) recipe check my post here.

Gado Gado

CİLOK

Cilok is a street food that become more and more popular this few years. İt made of mix tapioca starch and flour, garlic, and some spices. Add hot boiling water/ broth and shape a marble-like shape. Cook over boiling water. Add spicy peanut sauce and kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) and enjoy. It's a typical West Javanese food.

Many new variants after getting popular from "kampung" (village/ alley) food until becoming restaurant menus now. You can find it full vegan version and to non-vegan version. Some fill/mix with meat.

Cilok / Indonesian chewy tapioca ball in peanut sauce recipe
By: Çitra's Home Diary

Ingredients:

🍡 350 gr tapioca starch
 🍡 400 gr AP flour (less AP flour for chewier, reduce the water/ broth)

 🍡 ±700 gr broth/water. Hot boiling

🍡 4 Tbsp oil
 🍡 3-4 spring onions, finely chopped

 🍡 5-6 cloves of garlic, mashed

 🍡 1 Tbsp Salt or to taste

 🍡 1 tsp black Pepper

🍡 Powdered Chicken/ mushroom bullion.--> optional

How to:

1. In big bowl, sift together all flour. Add in garlic, spring onion, salt and pepper. Pour in hot boiling water, slowly just until can be shape, you may adding less water than require above.

2. Make a marble shape and cook in boiling water until floating.

Note: Recipe can be halved.

Peanut sauce:
§ ± 300 gr peanut
§ ±6 garlic
§ 2-3 red chili pepper (add birdeye chili for spicy version)
§ 1-3 Tbsp Tamarind paste
§ Sugar and salt

§ 2-3 Tbsp cooking oil
§ Enough water

How to:

Heat cooking oil in a pan/ wok. Stir fry all ingredients for sauce except tamarind. 

Blend to smooth, use blender or mortar & pestle to do that process. Add enough water and cook until bubbling, add tamarind paste, salt and sugar. Check the taste, it should slightly sweet, umami (salty) and a bit sour (not too sour).

Move to clean jar and ready to use.

How to serve cilok:

thread cilok onto a short skewer. Flush with peanut sauce, add kecap manis and hot chili sauce is optional.



RISOLES

From the Dutch language: rissole. It is a fried pastry filled with meat, usually minced meat, and vegetables wrapped in a crepe dough, and fried after being coated with flour, egg and bread crumb. This dish can also be baked in the oven, and served as an hors-d'oeuvre or mild entrée.
As cilok you can make this in vegan version also.

Indonesian enjoy this with fresh birdeye chili pepper.

You can check my previous post here how to make rissoles in vegan version. I will post the recipe in separate blog post soon, İnshaallah.


SATAY / SATE

Satay is a very popular delicacy in Indonesia; Indonesia's diverse ethnic groups' culinary arts have produced a wide variety of satay. In Indonesia, satay can be obtained from a traveling satay vendor, from a street-side tent-restaurant, in an upper-class restaurant, or during traditional celebration feasts. In Malaysia, satay is a popular dish—especially during celebrations—and can be found throughout the country.

Satay is a grilled meat dish famous throughout Southeast-Asia. Indonesians consider it a national dish conceived by street vendors. These tasty meat skewers are most popular with chicken, beef also lamb or mutton. We also have vegetarian satay version use tofu and tempeh instead of meat. 

Traditionally it is served with white steamed rice or cake rice (Ind; ketupat and lontong). 

And generally, it is served with fresh cucumber pickle as well. Some area (like Madura island) serve together with bone soup or in middle Java serve this satay with gulai tongseng.

In Indonesia itself there are many types of satay from various regions and of various ingredients. For example, from Padang city (Sumatra), I like satay Padang. 

There are also "sate kelapa" (beef satay wrapped with grated coconut-My best favorite)-it's mostly common from Madura Island. 

Balinese satay calls "sate lilit", it's a spiced minced fish and chicken wrapped in lemongrass.

Quail eggs satay, clam satay, 'tempeh', and tofu satay or mushroom satay for a vegetarian option.

And there are dozens of other types of satay. 

For nonvegan satay recipes you can check here, here, here or here

For coconut-wrapped satay check here

Balinese satay, " sate lilit", click here.

Chicken Satay

NASI GORENG (INDONESIAN FRIED RICE)

Nasi goreng had the same beginnings as other versions of fried rice; as a way to avoid wasting rice. Frying the rice could prevent the propagation of dangerous microbes, especially in pre-refrigeration technology Indonesia, and also avoid the need to throw out precious food. Nasi goreng is traditionally served at home for breakfast and it is traditionally made out of leftover rice from the night before. Besides ingredients like shallot, tomato, pepper, and chili, the rice is fried with scraps of chicken or beef; usually leftovers from a chicken or beef dish.

It can refer simply to fried pre-cooked rice, a meal including stir-fried rice in a small amount of cooking oil or margarine, typically spiced with kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), shallot, garlic, ground shrimp paste, and chili and accompanied by other ingredients, particularly egg, chicken and prawns. There is also another kind of nasi goreng which is made with ikan asin (salted dried fish) which is also popular across Indonesia.

ES TELLER

It is a fruit cocktail from Indonesia. Avocado, young coconut flesh, cincau, jackfruit and other fruits are served with coconut milk, sweetened condensed milk, Pandan leaf (normally in the form of coco pandan syrup), sugar, and a tiny amount of salt.

This concoction, created by Murniati Widjaja, won a competition to come up with a national drink for Indonesia in 1982

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