Indonesian
Soto Lamongan (Turmeric Chicken Soup with Koya)
East Java's chicken soto from Lamongan: a clear turmeric-yellow chicken broth poured over glass noodles, cabbage, bean sprouts and thinly sliced chicken, and finished at the table with koya — prawn crackers pounded with fried garlic to a powder. The starch in a cracker is already cooked, so it gives the broth body in the bowl with no boiling. The pot stays clear; each person thickens their own bowl.
Papeda (Sago Starch Porridge with Yellow Fish Soup)
The staple of eastern Indonesia, from Maluku to Papua: sago palm starch slaked in cold water, then boiling water poured on while it is stirred, until the milky slurry turns in a moment to a clear grey glue. It is cooked by the kettle alone, with no pan, wound onto two sticks before it can set, and eaten under a turmeric fish soup (kuah kuning), swallowed rather than chewed. It is a starch gel cooked all the way and eaten before it sets.
Gudeg (Young Jackfruit Braised in Coconut Milk and Palm Sugar)
Yogyakarta's signature dish: young jackfruit, picked long before it ripens, braised for hours in coconut milk and palm sugar and eaten not as a fruit but as a vegetable that pulls apart along its fibres like meat. The red-brown is not from frying or burning anything but from teak leaves laid in the pot, and stopped wet it is a dish for the day, while cooked all the way down it keeps for days.
Daun Ubi Tumbuk (Pounded Cassava Leaves in Coconut Milk)
An Indonesian vegetable dish: cassava leaves pounded in a mortar, boiled, then simmered with a spice paste and coconut milk. Cassava leaves carry the same cyanogenic compounds as the root, and the "tumbuk" (pound) in the name is the step that deals with them: pounding breaks the cells and lets the poison out as a gas, and an uncovered boil drives it off. Never eaten raw.
Urap (Blanched Vegetables in Spiced Grated Coconut)
A Javanese vegetable salad: blanched or steamed vegetables tossed through seasoned grated coconut. Every other Indonesian dish here presses the coconut for its milk and then spends the recipe managing the fat that comes out of it. Urap presses nothing. The grated flesh is mixed raw with a pounded paste of chilli, garlic, galangal and lime leaf, steamed briefly, and turned through the vegetables as a coating rather than a liquid.
Kerak Telor (Charred Sticky Rice and Duck Egg Omelette)
A Betawi street snack from Jakarta, cooked with no oil at all so that it welds itself to the pan -- and then the pan is turned upside down and held over the coals. Every other pan instruction on this site exists to stop food sticking; this one needs it to stick, because only something welded on stays put when the pan is inverted, and inverting is the only way the top ever cooks. The scorched layer that forms underneath is the kerak the dish is named after.
Tempeh (Fermented Soybean Cake)
The Indonesian ferment in which boiled beans, given a mould and a day or two, become a firm cake you can slice. This site’s fermentation guide tells you what to do about mould: discard it, because scraping the visible part off does not help — the hyphae run deeper. Tempeh wants them to run deeper. The white hyphae of Rhizopus grow between one bean and the next and knit a mat, and that mat is the structure of the food. What holds things together on this site so far has been blood, salt-drawn muscle protein and swelling oatmeal. This is the first one where the binder is a living organism’s body.
Rawon (Black Beef Soup with Keluak)
The black beef soup of East Java. The colour is neither burnt nor soy: it comes from keluak, a fruit that is poisonous raw. It carries cyanogenic compounds, and it only becomes food after being boiled and then buried in ash and banana leaves for weeks, which turns it black, oily and faintly like chocolate. Most cooking that meets a toxin avoids it. This dish eats the part that was the toxin.
Mie Goreng (Fried Noodles)
Indonesia's national noodle dish: boiled yellow noodles thrown into a hot wok with a ground spice paste and sweet soy. The same seasoning over rice is nasi goreng — but noodles, unlike rice, go on drinking the sauce. Undercooking them, oiling them and keeping the time in the wok short is the whole trick, and it is the only one.
Beef Rendang
Indonesian Padang's celebrated dish: beef slow-cooked in coconut milk and a spice paste until the liquid reduces to a dark, clingy glaze. Layered with aromatics into deep flavor, it's often ranked among the world's most delicious foods.
Gado-Gado (Salad with Peanut Sauce)
Blanched vegetables, potato, boiled egg, and tofu on one plate under a generous pour of sweet-savory-spicy peanut sauce — Indonesia's beloved salad. Filling without a stove, with kecap-manis peanut sauce tying every element together.
Satay (Sate Ayam)
Indonesia's beloved street food: chicken marinated in turmeric and spices, skewered and grilled, served with a rich peanut sauce. Once marinated, grilling takes just 10 minutes.
Nasi Goreng (Fried Rice)
Indonesia's national fried rice — cold rice tossed hot in kecap manis (sweet soy) and sambal for a deep color and sweet-savory punch, crowned with a runny fried egg. Served with prawn crackers and cucumber.