Indonesia is a tropical archipelago with vast, rich resources, including very fertile land. The country produces a large variety of fruits, vegetables, spices and livestock, so it should be no surprise that Indonesian cuisine is diverse and employs all kinds of flavors and textures.
Fresh Ingredients, Low Fat
Traditional Indonesian foods tend to use a lot of fresh ingredients. For much of Indonesia, especially outside the major cities, produce and livestock are grown or raised and consumed locally. Consequently, the cuisines of the islands revolve around local harvest and are heavily vegetable based, often with lots of indigenous spices.
Indonesian cuisine typically has 20 to 25 percent fat, says Tuti Soenardi, head of nutrition at Indonesia's Nutrition and Culinary Foundation. Western foods average 40 percent fat or more, he says, attributing the difference to fresh ingredients that avoid processing or manufacturing.
Traditional Foods
To catalog the many traditional Indonesian foods would fill a very large volume. A few of the most famous Indonesian creations are featured in a rijstaffel, Dutch for rice table. A traditional rijstaffel is a sampling of traditional Javanese and Balinese dishes centered around a large bowl of steamed white rice.
These dishes often include gado-gado, which is blanched green beans, carrots, bean sprouts, tomatoes, baby bok choy, baby corn, hard boiled egg slices and tempeh covered in creamy peanut sauce; babi ketchap, which is stir-fried vegetables and pork; daging samoor, which is sauteed beef and vegetables); lumpiah, or Indonesian spring rolls); satay, which is spiced, skewered chicken with peanut sauce); and cap cay, or sauteed mixed vegetables. Most of these are served with complementary sauces and relishes.
Street Foods and Nasi Padang
Tasty, hot, fresh, and cheap street foods are ubiquitous in Indonesia. One common standard is freshly made lumpia, or spring rolls with peanut sauce. Bakso is a dish of beef meatballs in a soup with noodles, tofu and egg. Soto is a hot soup with vegetables and meat, usually chicken, beef or mutton. Nasi goreng is a spiced, season fried rice that can often be ordered with chicken. Mee goreng is the same as nasi goreng, but with noodles instead of rice.
Nasi padang is a cuisine that originated in Sumatra and now can found in small cafes and stands throughout Indonesia. It involves a large number of foods precooked and placed on plates or trays. You select which items to set atop a plate of steamed rice and then choose a coconut-milk based curry sauce to pour over it. Typical padang food choices include roasted chicken, spiced beef, hard-boiled eggs, sauteed leafy green vegetables, potato cakes, fish cooked in spicy sauces and steamed jackfruit.
Tags: peanut sauce, fresh ingredients, Indonesian cuisine, Indonesian foods, soup with, spring rolls, with noodles
