Friday, December 5, 2008

INDONESIAN CUISINE

Indonesian cuisine reflects the vast variety of people that live on the 6,000 populated islands that make up Indonesia. There is probably not a single "Indonesian" cuisine, but rather, a diversity of regional cuisines influenced by local Indonesian culture and foreign influences.

Throughout its history, Indonesia has been involved in trade due to its location and natural resources. Indonesia’s indigenous techniques and ingredients, at least in the Malay World parts, are influenced by India, the Middle East, China and finally Europe. Spanish and Portuguese traders brought New World produce even before the Dutch came to colonize most of Indonesia. The Indonesian island of Maluku, which is famed as "the Spice Island," also contributed to the introduction of native spices to Indonesian and global cuisine. The cuisine of Eastern Indonesia is similar to Polynesian and Melanesian cuisine.

Sumatran cuisine, for example, often shows its Middle Eastern and Indian influence, featuring curried meat and vegetables, while Javanese cuisine is rather more indigenously developed. Elements of Indonesian Chinese cuisine can be seen in Indonesian cuisine: items such as bakmi (noodles) and bakso (meat balls) have been completely assimilated.

The most popular dishes that originated in Indonesia are now common across most of Asia. Popular Indonesian dishes such as satay, beef rendang, and sambals are also favored in Malaysia and Singapore. Soy-based dishes, such as variations of tofu (tahu) and tempe, are also very popular. Tempe is regarded as a Javanese invention, an adaptation to the loss of forests, which precluded hunting as a source of protein food. Indonesian meals are commonly eaten with the combination of a spoon in the right hand and fork in the left hand, although in many parts of the country (such as West Java) it is also common to eat with one's hands.

Rice is a staple for all classes in contemporary Indonesia, and it holds a central part in Indonesian culture: it shapes the landscape; is sold at markets; and is served in most meals as a savoury and sweet food. Rice is most often eaten as plain rice (nasi putih) with just a few protein and vegetable dishes as side dishes. It is also served, however, as ketupat (rice steamed in woven packets of coconut fronds), lontong (rice steamed in banana leaves), intip (rice crackers), desserts, noodles, brem (rice wine), and nasi goreng (fried rice).

Rice was only incorporated into diets, however, as either the technology to grow it or the ability to buy it from elsewhere was gained. Evidence of wild rice on the island of Sulawesi dates from 3000 BCE. Evidence for the earliest cultivation, however, comes from eighth century stone inscriptions from the central island of Java, which show kings levied taxes in rice. Divisions of labour between men, women, and animals that are still in place in Indonesian rice cultivation, can be seen carved into the ninth-century Prambanan temples in Central Java: a Water buffalo attached to a plough; women planting seedlings and pounding grain; and a man carries sheaves of rice on each end of a pole across his shoulders. In the sixteenth century, Europeans visiting the Indonesian islands saw rice as a new prestige food served to the aristocracy during ceremonies and feasts.

Rice production requires exposure to the sun. Rice production in Indonesian history is linked to the development of iron tools and the domestication of Wild Asian Water Buffalo as water buffalo for cultivation of fields and manure for fertilizer. Once covered in dense forest, much of the Indonesian landscape has been gradually cleared for permanent fields and settlements as rice cultivation developed over the last fifteen hundred years.

Other staple foods in Indonesia include maize (in drier regions such as Madura and the Lesser Sunda Islands), sago (in Eastern Indonesia) and root tubers (especially in hard times).
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Sambal Uleg

Chilli sauce ulege,food,maknyus,recipes

Ingredients:
2 1/4 lb Red chillis
3 ts Salt

Instructions:
  • The ulek-ulek is the implement you use to crush candlenuts, chillis, etcetera in a cobek.
  • Sambal Ulek is made of chillis that have been crushed this way.
  • This is a very basic sambal, which is useful to keep in quantity, so that you can use it for quite a lot of recipes which specify red chillis as one of the ingredients.
  • As this sambal can be stored for at least 2 weeks in the refrigerator, it is worth while making quite a lot of it.
  • But to crush the chillis in a cobek with the ulek-ulek is very laborious.
  • A food processor is a great help here.
  • Seed and chop the red chillis roughly, then put all these into a saucepan and half-fill the saucepan with boiling water.
  • Boil the chillis for 8 minutes.
  • Drain, and put them into the food processor, using the blade for mincing meat.
  • Let the machine run for a minute or so.
  • For Sambal Ulek you don't want the chilli paste to be too smooth.
  • Put this sambal into a jar, stir in the salt, cover the jar tightly and keep in the refrigerator.
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