Padang and Papua cuisine

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I went to Festival Indonesia Timur and had Papua food for the first time. Since my father has lived in Sorong, in what is now Western New Guinea, I was always curious about the food. My father never ate local food, or he doesn't remember. What he remembers is that the Papua called him “white cockroach” and the Indonesians “blue monkeys”. Yet, in his free time he went into the Papua villages equipped with a stainless steel box containing medical scalpels. He was inspired by Albert Schweitzer, trying to perform minor medical procedures. My father was not a doctor but later in life he was licensed to be the first medical responder on board Shell tankers after completing an internship in a hospital.

Sagu cakes

For carbohydrates the Papua were depended on sago instead of rice. Sago is the starch extracted from the core tissue of Metroxylon sagu, the true sago palm. One palm can provide up to 300 kilogram of starch, but the extraction proces is laborious. You have to split the stem lengthwise.

A Sago palm is "harvested" so that the starch can be used for Sago production, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Photo credit: I, Toksave

You can make papeda from the starch, a congee, but also make solid cakes, called sagu. The fried cakes tasted a little sweet, so I guess the palm starch was mixed with a sweetener. Otherwise the meal consisted of stewed cassave leaf and stewed chicken. I would have ordered babi but I was with a friend who cannot eat pork, so I went with ayam instead.

Masakan Padang

There were also plenty of Padang food stalls. Masakan Padang is the food of West Sumatra and it is distinct from the usual Javanese food you will eat in The Netherlands. I am not an expert on Masakan Padang, but it seems they use more spices. It was amazingly tasteful.

Nasi Padang

I wanted to eat more but there is only so much you can eat in half a day. Below is a popular snack made from fishcake, cabbage, tofu, potato and peanut sauce. The name gives away its origins 燒賣; siomay. This Chinese snack has been incorporated into Indonesian food culture.

Siomay

Sauce for ayam setan panggang

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This is a recipe for a simple satay sauce based on kecap manis. You simply fry some shallot, garlic and rawit chili pepper in hot oil until fragrant.

Then you grind the shallot, garlic and pepper to a paste and mix it with kecap manis, some petis udang and salt.

The sauce is great for fried chicken but can also be used for satay. It is also popular as a sauce for fried tofu as a simple vegan dish. Add lontong rice, some bean sprouts (boil for 30 seconds), pickled cucumber and fried shallot for a complete meal.

Recipe for ayam setan panggang

Make a spice mix from 10 rawit, 5 lombok, 1 tea spoon white pepper, 1 tablespoon tamarinde juice, 1 tablespoon gula jawa (=sugar), 5 garlic and 1 tomato.

I ended up using more rawit and lombok than shown in the photo. You can use a kitchen blender. Fry the spice mixture in hot oil for 3 minutes. For the whole proces I used a wok on my Thai wood stove. I used the hot coal to fry the chicken.

Add chicken pieces and fry for another 3 minutes.

Now you will add about 300 ml water, a piece of ginger and lemon grass. Reduce until the water has evaporated. Add another 300 ml of water and reduce again.

Now the chicken is ready to be grilled.

Indonesian table

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An Indonesian table typically consists of lauk (fish, meat, egg, or other source of protein), sayur (vegetable), sambal, krupuk, and rice. Below is a mix of recipes from Java and Bali. Prep time was well over four hours, mainly because every dish needed a fairly complicated bumbu spice mixture, which had to be ground to a fine paste in a cobek. For rice we made lontong, which needs to boil for a pretty long time, at least one hour! To cool hang the plastic bag somewhere so any remaining moist can drip out. This was a collaboration with somebody who knows the Indonesian kitchen better than I.

No meal is complete without krupuk. Freshly fried krupuk is fragrant.

Sambal Matah Kecicang Khas Bali

This raw sambal is simply made by slicing the ingredients very finely and then pouring hot oil on top of it. I used pure coconut oil, about 5 tablespoons.

The ingredients:
Shallot or Indonesian onion (they are tiny)
Red chili pepper, for color green chilli pepper should be used as well.
Red lombok
Lemon grass
Daun jeruk purut (kaffir lime leaf)
Kecicang
Half a teaspoon of trassi
Lime juice
Salt
Black pepper

Sambal Matah Kecicang

Pindang Base Lalah Khas Bali

This recipe is quite simple. Make a bumbu spice paste of the following ingredients:

Shallot
Garlic
Red chili pepper (rawit)
Kemeri nut
Piece of kencur
Piece of turmeric
1 tomato
1 lombok

For this recipe two small pindang mackerel were used. Remove the head and fish bones. This is fish preserved in pindang style. Fry the pieces in oil until golden brown.

Next fry the spice mixture in oil, using the oil you just fried the fish in enhances the flavour. Add the fried fish and some water. The recipe said: add a salam leaf, I accidentally added a kaffir lime leaf. Fry until the sauce is reduced and the fish is ‘dry’.

Pindang Base Lalah Khas Bali

Asinan Sayur Betawi Bumbu Kacang

Asinan are pickled vegetables, as the word ‘asin’ implies, in salty brine. We made a version popular in Jakarta. The brine was made by boiling water (about 500 ml) and adding palm sugar and tamarind (sweet and sour) and a spice mixture made of:

3 lombok
6 small spicy chilli peppers
60 gram fried peanuts
3 cloves of garlic
5 gram dried shrimp soaked in hot water

For vegetables we used cabbage, bean sprouts, carrot and cucumber. Tofu is also a great option. Shred the vegetables finely and pour the liquid over the vegetables. Add some whole peanuts before serving.

For this bumbu you need peeled peanuts.

Satay ayam

I have made satay ayam and the dark sweet peanut sauce quite often. You can read the recipe here: Homemade sateh sauce from Java

Teri kacang

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An Indonesian side dish. The word literally means anchovy (teri) peanuts (kacang). There are three components: fried small anchovy, fried peanuts and a bumbu spice mixture.

Grind below ingredients together to a fine paste (bumbu):
25 cloves of small shallot
5 cloves of garlic
100 grams of lombok
2 handfuls of red chili

Prepare below ingredients:
3 cm galangal (smashed)
8 kaffir lime leaves
50 grams of palm sugar
1 tablespoon tamarind with a little water

Fry 200 gram peanuts with skin.
Fry 200 gram salted anchovy (they should be about 3 cm long) until crispy.

Fry the bumbu in oil, add (in this order): galangal, kaffir leaves, palm sugar, add tamarind with the water. Fry until the oil separates.
Add the anchovy and peanuts, mix and cool. This will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks.

Teri asin

Work lunch.

Pindang

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Pindang is a cooking method which consists of boiling (or steaming) in brine. It is a ‘wet’ preservation method. If a recipe calls for pindang fish, this fish is boiled/steamed in brine with tannin containing spices. A pindang fish can be fried when used in a recipe.

Fishery Industrial Research, Volume 5, Nummer 1

Pindang cabe ijo (pindang green peppers)

Take 8 small pindang fish. Fry the fish in hot oil. To prevent the oil from splattering sprinkle some flower in the hot oil. Set aside.

Chop 8 small sjalot, 2 gloves of garlic, 100 gram green chili (slice diagonally in 2 cm pieces, 4 cm galangal (smash), 3 salam leaves, 2 small tomatoes (unripe is fine), a handful of peteh beans.

Fry the onion and garlic first. Add the green chili, galangal, salam leaves and add a little water. Add salt and a little ketjap manis. Add the fish, tomatoes and peteh beans.

Serve with rice.

Pindang base lalah kas Bali

Use pindang fish, remove the head and fish bones. Fry in oil.

Make a paste using the following ingredients:

6 small red onion
5 cloves of garlic
8 small chili peppers
3 hazelnuts
1 piece kencur
1 piece turmeric
1 tomato
1 lombok

Fry the paste in oil. Add a daun leaf. Add the fried fish. Add some water and simmer. Add salt and black pepper. Simmer until the sauce is reduced.

Pepes Ikan Pindang Khas Bali

A variation on the recipe above is to make the spice paste first, without the fish. Once the spice paste is finished, take a banana leaf and wrap the pindang fish with some tablespoons spice mixture. Steam the banana leaves and finish by grilling the banana leaves over a fire.

Make a paste using the following ingredients:

18 small onions
8 cloves of garlic
2 turmeric chambers
2 segments of ginger
2 segments of kencur
5 candlenuts (toasted)
12 small chili peppers (rawit)
1 tbsp coriander
1/2 tbsp salt
4 lombok
shrimp paste
enough water

Grind to a paste, add water and simmer with a little oil. Add daun leaf and 2 sliced tomatoes. Simmer until the tomatoes are dissolved. Add black pepper powder to taste and sugar.

Sambal

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There are literally hundreds of different sambal in Indonesia, some are raw, some are fried. Below a modest collection of sambal I want to have in my repertoire.

Sambal bajak pedes seger banget

Badjak means ‘ pirate’ but in a sambal it means the sambal is fried. Pedes is ‘spicy’ and seger banget means ‘very fresh’.

50 gr green small chili’s
10 pieces of red small chili’s
3 pieces of garlic
1 jeruk limau (a type of small lime)
tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Chicken stock powder
A little micin =MSG (optional)

Clean the chili’s and make a small cut to expose the inside. Fry the chilies and garlic in hot oil for a short while. Just before they start to brown. Take out the chilis and garlic. Mash the chilis and garlic together with salt, sugar, chicken stock powder and MSG in a cobek. Add a little of the hot oil and mix. Finish with squeezing some jeruk limau over the sambal. Serve in de cobek.

Jeruk limau

From the YouTube channel CR Cook.

Sambal Matah

A raw sambal from Bali. Simply mix the below ingredients.

3 shallots, peeled and sliced in half length-way, then finely crosswise sliced.
7 rawit (bird’s eye chilies), sliced.
3 stalks lemon grass, only take the white and tender part, bruised and finely sliced.
1 tsp salt.
black pepper.
5 tbsp extra virgin coconut oil.

Add for a more luxurious version:

Kaffir lime leaves, finely sliced.
1 tsp roasted trassi, finely grated.
Freshly squeezed kaffir lime juice.
Grated kaffir lime skin.
Kecicang. If you add the flower buds it is called "Sambal Matah Kecicang"

Etlingera elatior or kecicang.

Sambal Matah Kecicang

Paon Bali

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Paon Bali is an authentic Balinese restaurant in the Eastern Docklands in Amsterdam. There is only one option on the menu and you need to send a WhatsApp to reserve your take-away meal. The owners are great. When I lamented that I couldn’t buy kecicang for the sambal, the lady gave me some kecicang from her freezer. I always eat my Paon Bali take-away with my hands. No need for forks or spoons.

Nasi Languan
Sate lilit ikan, tambusan be pasih, pindang base tomat, gerang bawang jahe, jukut urab, cumi suna cekuh, sambal udang, sambal matah kecicang, kacang tanah goreng, nasi merah/pitih en sup ikan.

Sambal matah kecicang. Raw sambal with bongkot flowers.

Tambusan be pasih.

 

Sayur lodeh

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The joy of cooking in the garden. My only wish is to have a proper blazing hot wok burner for outdoor use.

The name simply means: softly boiled (lodeh) vegetables (sayur) in Indonesian. This dish is typical for Java and therefore ubiquitous in Dutch Indonesian restaurants. The dish breaks down in three elements: the spice paste, coconut milk and vegetables plus a protein.

To make the spice paste pound together:

Garlic.
Onion (preferable small Indonesian shallot).
Kentjoer.
Trassi.
Fresh chilli peper for heat. Rawit are small and hot.
Kemeri nuts.
Ketoembar (coriander seeds).
A few shavings of palm or coconut sugar (sold as a solid stick).
Salt.

Quantities according to taste. Fresh yellow root (kunyit) can be added for a different color. Below a version with some fresh jeruk (kaffir lime) leaves, salam (bay leaf) leaves and kentjoer (Kaempferia galanga).

Reserve a piece of galangal to simmer in the stew. Smash the galangal to open up the fibres.

The choice of vegetables is really up to what you can get. I like to use as many typical Asians vegetables. This time I used:

One chayote (imported to Asia from Middle America) cut in chunks.
A carrot cut in rough matchsticks.
Green beans (yardlong bean would be perfect but can be expensive).
Half a oxheart cabbage (spitskool).
Collard greens. I used po choy also known as Chinese spinach.
Tempeh as in: fermented soy bean cake.

Once everything is prepared the cooking is simple: fry the spice paste in hot oil for about 4 minutes until fragrant. Add the can of coconut milk and bring to a boil. Add vegetables and extra water so the vegetables are covered. Add the smashed galangal.

Simmer until the vegetables are cooked. Add the collard greens in the last 5 minutes. Turn the heat off and let it stand for a couple of hours before reheating and serving.

Homemade sateh sauce from Java

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For Sateh babi (pork) or sateh ayam (chicken):

9 red shallot.
2 table spoons vegetable oil.
1 clove garlic.
3 rawits.
50 gram freshly fried peanuts.
1 teaspoon trasi bakar.
3 tablespoons kecap manis.
juice of one jeruk limo.

Cut the shallot in fine slices and fry until crispy in 1 tablespoon oil. Use a mortar to grind the garlic, rawits, fried peanuts, trasi, half of the fried shallot and 1 tablespoon oil and salt to a paste.

Transfer the paste to a bowl and add kecap manis and the juice of the jeruk limo. If the sauce is too thick add water. Pour the sauce over the sateh and sprinkle the rest of the fried shallot on top. This sauce is very sweet and spicy.

Marinade for the meat:

3 gloves of garlic, minced.
5 table spoons kecap manis.

From: De Complete Indonesische Keuken, 785 authentieke recepten van de verschillende eilanden,  Lonny Gerungan (2002).