Gado-gado

Gado gado is a classic Indonesian salad made with green beans, potatoes, carrots, cabbage and bean sprouts garnished with sliced boiled eggs and drizzled with a luscious peanut sauce. Gado gado is such a hearty and filling salad that it can easily be eaten as a complete meal.


Ingredients:

The sauce: Sambal Kacang (Peanut Sauce)

The vegetables:

112 g / 4 oz / l cup cabbage or spring greens, shredded
225 g / 8 oz / 2 cups French beans, cut into 1-cm / 1/2-inch lengths
4 medium carrots, peeled and sliced thinly
112 g / 4 oz /1 cup cauliflower florets
112 g / 4 oz / 1 cup beansprouts, washed

For the garnish:

Some lettuce leaves and watercress
2 hard-boiled eggs, quartered
1 medium-size potato, boiled in its skin, then peeled and sliced;
or 225 g / 8 oz of slices of lontong (optional)
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
1 tbsp crisp-fried onions
2 large krupuk, or a handful of fried emping, broken up into small pieces (optional)

Boil the vegetables separately in slightly salted water, for 3-4 minutes, except the beansprouts which only need 2 minutes. Drain each vegetable separately in a colander.

To serve, arrange the lettuce and watercress around the edge of a serving dish. Then pile the vegetables in the middle of the dish. Arrange the eggs, sliced potatoes or lontong, and sliced cucumber on top.

Heat the peanut sauce in a small saucepan until hot; add more water if it is too thick. Adjust the seasoning, and pour the sauce over the vegetables. Sprinkle the fried onions on top. Serve warm or cold. If you want to serve hot gado-gado, it can be reheated in a microwave oven. When reheating, however, do not include the lettuce and watercress, cucumber slices, fried onions, krupuk or emping. Add these garnishes immediately before serving.

Nasi liwet

This dish is the trademark of Solo, Central Java, even more than 'timlo' (see another page of this section).

The name 'sego liwet' or 'nasi liwet' means more or less 'boiled rice'.

It refers to the way the rice is done just for this dish; usually we boil some rice in a pot ('manci' in Javanese, 'panci' in Indonesian), and stir it until the bubbles come out, at which point we take the rice out and put it into the steamer, named 'dandang' in Javanese (there is no Indonesian name for it). Both kitchen props are made of alluminium.

That was before the advent of electric rice-cookers.

And this advent is householdwise -- until today, a lot of Javanese homemakers still cook rice that way, since electric rice-cookers, though might be affordable to many (as long as it is made in China, it won't cost more than US$ 15), suck too much electricity and in the end cause a jump of monthly bill.

Anyway, the Solonese 'nasi liwet' is dubbed so because the rice is to get cooked in the pot without ever getting transfered into a steamer. So it is considerably softer than the usual.

Of course we don't eat just rice; the Solonese have fixed what to be eaten with this kind of rice a few hundred years ago: fried 'jepan' with chili and coconut milk, which we call 'sambel goreng jepan' and in Indonesian it is called 'sambal goreng labu siam' (see the veggies section).

Then some thick coconut milk with a little salt, which is cooked until it got bubbles, called 'arèh', is put on the rice. Eggs and chicken boiled in coconut milk are also added. Then a little chili sauce, handmade, is to make the dish complete, plus a large shrimp cracker ('krupuk urang' in Javanese, 'kerupuk udang' in Indonesian).

Nasi liwet is that simple; so it is really beyond comprehension why the Solonese chose it as their character-representing dish, or why other people come to attach it to them.

Nasi Goreng (fried rice)

Nasi goreng is the Indonesian version of fried rice - that is what it means in Bahasa Indonesia. The dish is often accompanied by additional items such as a fried egg, fried chicken, satay, or krupuk (fried crackers / chips made of shrimp or vegetables). In many restaurants, when accompanied by a fried egg, it is sometimes called as nasi goreng spesial.

Nasi goreng can be eaten at any time of day, most Indonesian people often eat nasi goreng during breakfast, and mostly the ingredients are a previous day's dinner leftover. The rice should be cooked ahead and let it to go cold to make, and this is why the leftover dinner is used because the rice is preferably taken from day before.^[1] Nasi goreng is a complete meal but sometimes it is also part of a banquet.

The main ingredients for the plain nasi goreng include pre-cooked (and preferably cold) rice, soy sauce, garlic, shallot and some spring onions for garnishing. For the special one, add fried egg, a cracker, some slice of raw tomatoes and cucumbers.

Nasi goreng can also be found in restaurants in western countries, mostly in Chinese and Indian ones, but with local adaptation. For instances, by adding some curry seasoning. In the Netherlands, several Indonesian-Chinese restaurants offer nasi goreng with selected original spices to suit the Dutch taste.

Here is Indonesian Fried Rice recipe ;

INGREDIENTS

* 1/2 cup uncooked long grain white rice
* 1 cup water
* 2 teaspoons sesame oil
* 1 small onion, chopped
* 2 cloves garlic, minced
* 1 green chile pepper, chopped
* 1 small carrot, sliced
* 1 stalk celery, sliced
* 2 tablespoons kecap manis
* 2 tablespoons tomato sauce
* 2 tablespoons soy sauce
* 1/4 cucumber, sliced
* 4 eggs


DIRECTIONS

1. Bring the rice and water to boil in a pot. Cover, reduce heat to low, and simmer 20 minutes.
2. Heat the oil in a wok, and cook the onion, garlic, and green chile until tender. Mix in the carrot and celery. Stir in the rice, and mix in kecap manis, tomato sauce, and soy sauce. Continue cooking about 1 minute, until heated through. Transfer to bowls, and garnish with cucumber slices.
3. Place eggs in the wok, and cook until set. Place in the bowls over the rice and vegetables.

Lontong

Lontong is an Asian dish made of compressed rice that is then cut into small cakes.

Popular in Indonesia and Malaysia, the dish is usually served cold or at room temperature with sauce-based dishes such as gado-gado and salads, although it can be eaten as an accompaniment to other dishes such as curries.

Lontong is traditionally made by partly cooking the rice and packing it tightly into a rolled-up banana leaf. The leaf is then secured and cooked in boiling water for about 90 minutes. Once it is cooled, the rice compacts and can be cut up into bite-sized pieces.

Alternative ways of cooking lontong include placing uncooked rice into a muslin bag then letting the water seep in and cause the rice to form a solid mass (Ingram, 2003).

Lontong is a popular slang word used by Indonesia leading IT company in order to describe useless people, who never give any value.

How to weaving ketupat

take alook at the video how to weaving ketupat.

Ketupat

Ketupat is a type of dumpling from Indonesia, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia and the PhilippinesPuso), made from rice that has been wrapped in a woven palm leaf pouch which is then boiled. As the rice cooks, the grains begin to expand to fill the pouch and the rice becomes compressed. This method of cooking gives the ketupat its characteristic form and texture of a rice dumpling. Ketupat is usually eaten with rendang (a type of dry beef curry) or served as an accompaniment to satay. Ketupat is also traditionally served by Indonesians and Malays at open houses on festive occasions such as Idul Fitri (Hari Raya Aidilfitri). During Idul Fitri in Indonesia, ketupat is often served with chicken curry, accompanied with spicy soy powder. Among Filipinos, puso is also traditionally used as a pabaon or a mobile meal, traditionally brought by workers as a type of packed lunch, served with any selection of stews.

There are many varieties of ketupat, with two of the more common ones being ketupat nasiketupat pulut. Ketupat nasi is made from white rice and is wrapped in a square shape with coconut palm leaves while ketupat pulut is made from glutinous rice is usually wrapped in a triangular shape using the leaves of the fan palm (Licuala). Ketupat pulut is also called "ketupat daun palas" in Malaysia.

In Indonesia, ketupat sometimes boiled in thin coconut milk and spices to enhance the taste. (wikipedia)

Rice

Rice is a staple for all classes in contemporary Indonesia,^[1] 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), intipbrem (rice wine), and nasi goreng (fried rice).^[2] (rice crackers), desserts, noodles,

It was only incorporated, however, into diets 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 SulawesiJava, 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 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.^[1] dates from 3000 BCE. Evidence for the earliest cultivation, however, comes from eighth century stone inscriptions from the central island of

Rice production requires exposure to the sun. Rice production in Indonesian history is linked to the development of iron tools and the domestication of 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.^[1]