Variety is the spice of life and nowhere is this more than true in Indonesia. A vast and beautifully diverse country dotted over more than five thousand kilometers of tropical oceans across the equator. Indonesia is the world's largest archipelago which from the air, is like a beautiful necklace of aquamarine and sapphire and emerald hues, strung between Australia and mainland Southeast Asia, and home to nearly two hundred million people. With these enormous number of people and over 17,000 islands, there are no arguments that we are looking at more than a hundred ethnic groups and more than three hundred distinct dialects/languages.

Indonesian food is, unquestionably, some of the most delicious in the world. There isn't much subtlety about it, but what a great awakening for your taste buds! This doesn't mean that every dish is hot or pungent, but there's always a combination of sweet and sour and salty tastes; unexpectedly gentle coconut-milk sauces fragrant with lemon grass or other herbs; crisp textured accompaniments; hot sambal to be tasted in tiny quantities; all of which create an awareness that what you are eating is not just body fuel but an expression of culinary artistry.

Indonesian recipes and cooking combines the spicy flavors of chilies, herbs and other aromatic seasonings with the sweetness of fresh coconut, palm sugar and peanuts, and the sourness of limes, lemon grass and tamarind. Meals are often served with small bowls of sambal, spicy relishes made from combinations of coconut, chili and shrimp paste.

Sweets are mostly made from glutinous rice, but don't shrug them off with the thoughts of rice pudding - there's not the slightest resemblance. The rice might be steamed in tiny baskets woven of fresh leaves, sweetened with palm sugar, flavored with fragrant leaves and flowers; or it might be ground and cooked with coconut milk to a smooth paste, flavored and colored and poured in unbelievably fine alternate layers of white and green or pink or yellow or chocolate.

With such a diverse culture, it is not surprising that its cuisine is also varied. However, through out Indonesia, rice is the preferred staple. Spices are important ingredients in Indonesian cuisine. The spices are producing those distinct flavors of the food people eat. Every region of the archipelago will identify itself with a famous dish or peculiar method of preparation. One region that is so famous with its distinct cuisine is Padang in West Sumatra. This region is famous because of its hot spicy food. You can almost find Padang restaurants in every corner of other regions. All food is freshly prepared every morning and displayed for customers to see as they walk in to the restaurant. This method can be considered unique even in Indonesia itself.

Basic Equipment
Preparing Indonesian cuisine does not require any complex equipment. One important item you will need is a solid wooden chopping block and the bigger the block size is the better. Another item that is equally important as the chopping block is a heavy cleaver. These two items does everything from chopping up a while chicken to mincing meat and seafood, bruising a stalk of lemongrass to smashing cardamom pods so they release their fragrance.

One task of cooking Indonesian cuisine 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 is very 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. Not to forget, a frying shovel or spatula is an essential partner of a wok.

Cooking Methods
Indonesian cooking methods are similar to those used in any other Asian or Western kitchen especially the basics such as blanching, broiling, steaming, frying and deep frying. However, there one important basic that you need to know how to prepare. It is how to prepare what is called the basic spice paste. There are varieties of basic spice pastes and they are called basic because they are the seasoning bases of almost all Indonesian dishes.
In Indonesia, a saucer-shape granite grinding stone (mortar) and pestle are used. Ingredients are peeled as necessary and sometimes chopped or sliced into small pieces so they would be easier to grind. The pestle is used with a backwards and forwards motion across the mortar until the ingredients are blended together into a smooth paste. If you are using a blender or a food processor, the order of processing the spices is much the same as using a mortar, but in some cases you might need to add some liquid to keep the blades of the machine turning during the blending process. The liquid could be oil if the spice paste needs to be fried or either coconut milk, stock or water if the spice paste is to be simmered.

The order to be followed when grinding spice paste ingredients is the hard items first although at most times I like to grind garlic and shallots first. The hard items are dried spices, nuts and tough fibrous rhizomes such as galangal, lemongrass. When all of these ingredients are fine, add softer rhizomes, such as turmeric, ginger and fresh soaked dried chillis. Once all of these are quite smooth, then add ingredients that are full of moisture, such as shallots and garlic. Finally, you add shrimp paste and tamarind juice or any other kind of juices and process to mix well.

This spice paste often then needs to be fried or simmered depending on the recipes. If it needs to be fried, just use a little bit of oil over low to moderate heat and stir fry it until it starts to smell fragrant. This usually takes only 2-3 minutes. Sometimes, pieces of meat and poultry are added to the paste and stir fried until these are well coated and the color has changed.

Another process that you might need to know since Indonesian cooking often use banana leaves to wrap its dishes is how to correctly wrap them. Most of them are the ones that need steaming such as seafood dishes. Another type of dishes that use lots of banana leaves for wrapping is the desserts.

Ingredients used in Indonesian Cooking

Indonesian Recipes

» Basic Spice Pastes     » Sauces    » Appetizers    » Desserts    » Meat Dishes
» Poultry Dishes    » Rice Dishes    » Seafood    » Soups & Noodles

 Balinese Recipes (coming soon)

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