Indonesian Cuisine

Credit photos Andra Dănilă

Indonesia is an archipelago comprising more than 13,000 islands. 6,000 islands are populated by 238 million people, making it the world's fourth most populous country. It is the largest archipelagic state in the world, by area and population. Indonesia consists of hundreds of distinct ethnic and linguistic groups. The largest ethnic group are the Javanese. 

Indonesian cuisine varies by region and is based on Chinese, Spanish, European, Middle Eastern, and Indian precedents. The main Indonesian cooking methods are frying, grilling, stir frying, boiling and steaming.

Main ingredients for Indonesian dishes are:

Rice holds the central place in Indonesian culture. Rice is often eaten as plain rice with just a few protein and vegetable dishes as side dishes. Rice can be served cooked in coconut milk, sometimes with turmeric, steamed in woven packets of coconut fronds or in banana leaves, as rice crackers, desserts, noodles, rice wine, fried rice (nasi goreng, considered the national dish of Indonesia).

Indonesian traditional meals usually consist of nasi (steamed rice) as staple, surrounded by sayur-mayur (vegetables and soup) and lauk-pauk (meat or fish side dishes). Each dishes are placed in piring saji or separate communal large plates or bowls.

Wheat is not a native plant to Indonesia, Indonesians began to use it for wheat-based foods, Chinese noodles, Indian roti, and Dutch bread. Indonesia is one of the world's major producer and consumer of instant noodle, and instant noodle has become a staple in Indonesian households for quick hot meal.

Vegetables are widely used in Indonesian cuisine: spinach, water spinach, genjer (yellow lettuce), melinjo, papaya, beans, eggplants, cassava leaves, cabbage, cauliflower, potatoes, carrots, cucumbers.  They are eaten raw, in salads, in soups, sautted with garlic, in stir fries, curries or boiled.

Meat: poultry (mostly chicken and duck), beef, water buffalo, goat and mutton. The meat can be fried, grilled, cooked as soup, cooked in coconut milk or can be processed to be thinly-sliced and dried, or made into abon (meat floss).

Seafood, a lot of seafood (it is quite normal for an archipelagic country): tuna, milkfish, mackerel, anchovy, swordfish, shark, shrimp, crab, mussel, and so on. Seafood are usually being grilled, boiled, fried or in a soup.

Peanuts are widely used in many Indonesian dishes to garnish many dishes, in marinades and dipping sauces. Peanut oil is one of the most commonly used cooking oils in Indonesia.  Coconut milk is used in many recipes from savoury dihes to desserts. There are two types of coconut milk, thin coconut milk and thick coconut milk. The difference depends on the water and oil content. Thin coconut milk is usually used for soups, while the thicker variety is used for desserts.

Spices and other flavorings are often used for Indonesian dishes: nutmeg or clove (native spices to Indonesia), black pepper, turmeric, lemongrass, shallot, cinnamon, coriander, tamarind (from India), ginger, and garlic (from China).

Here are some dishes my daughter, Andra, tasted during her journey to Indonesia:

Java

Bali

Food from Argentina: Empanadas

An empanada is a stuffed bread or pastry baked or fried filled with a variety of fillings. The stuffing usually consists of a variety of meat, cheese, huitlacoche, vegetables or fruits, among others.

There are different national variants in many countries in Southern Europe, Latin America, the Southwestern United States and parts of Southeast Asia. Empanadas trace their origins to Galicia (Spain) and Portugal. The name comes from the Galician, Portuguese, and Spanish verb empanar, meaning to wrap or coat in bread.

They first appeared in medieval Iberia during the time of the Moorish invasions. Empanadas filled with seafood are mentioned in a cookbook  published in Catalan in 1520 among the recipes of Catalan, Italian, French, and Arabian food. Empanadas are believed to be derived from the Indian meat-filled pies, samosas. All these pastries have common origins in India and the Middle East.

Empanadas are very popular and consumed throughout Argentina, often served at parties as a starter or main course. They arrived in Argentina some centuries ago and today they can be easily found in little pizzerías as well as in many restaurants.

The dough is usually of wheat flour and beef drippings with fillings differing from province to province. It is chicken, ground or cubed beef, perhaps spiced with cumin, paprika or pepper; others including onion, boiled egg, olives or raisins. They may also contain ham, fish, humita (sweetcorn withwhite sauce) or spinach. Empanadas can be baked (Salta-style) or fried (Tucuman-style). The  dessert empanada has a fruit filling.

In big cities, empanadas are more commonly eaten as take-away food, sourced from restaurants specializing in this dish. They usually carry dozens of different varieties, which is not the case in northern provinces, where empanadas are usually made at home, with more traditional recipes.

During Lent and Easter, empanadas de Cuaresma filled with fish (usually dogfish or tuna) are popular. Also popular are the so-called Arabian empanadas, filled with beef, tomatoes, onion, and lemon juice, similar to the fatayer made in the Levant.

Every region in Argentina has its own style:

The Tucuman Province is home to the National Empanada Festival, held each September. They have three traditional varieties: beef, mondongo (tripe), and chicken, although mondongo and chicken are the most traditional. Spring onions, pimento, and vinegar are often added to the meat, while potatoes, peas, and olives are used only rarely. The dough is a simple mixture of flour, water, and lard.

The Salta Province produces empanadas salteñas, tend to be smaller than the Tucuman variety and are prepared without the addition of fats or oils. In addition to the usual flavors, they also have spicy beef. Fillings often include potato, egg, red pepper, and green onion.

Jujuy offers beef, chicken, goat, and even llamas. They put chili, onion, and peas in their empanadas.

The empanadas from Córdoba are sweet and made white sugar, beef, raisins, potatoes, and olives.

Catamarca and La Rioja, provinces in western Argentina, are often made with garlic, potatoes, ground beef, onions, and olives.

Entre Rios has a special empanada that is stuffed with milk-soaked rice.

In Corrientes, Misiones and Formosa, the empanadas are sometimes made with mandioc flour.

La Pampa has empanadas that reflect the tastes of its neighbors (Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Mendoza, Patagonia); fillings commonly include red peppers, carrots, hard-boiled egg, and currants.

In Patagonia, the most common filling is lamb. On the coast, seafood empanadas are also quite common.

Gibraltarian cuisine

Gibraltarian cuisine is a mix of Mediterranean (Spanish, Italian, Maltese) and British cuisine.

I visited Gibraltar just for one day after spending ten days in Spain. Everything around looks like British so I prefered to eat in a pub, on the terrace, in front of The Governor House. Of course, I enjoyed some fish and chips and a glass of beer.

Fish and chips is an English dish, consisting of battered fish, commonly cod or haddock, and deep-fried chips. It is a common take-away food.

Fish and chips became a stock meal among the working classes in the United Kingdom during the second half of the 19th century due to the development of trawl fishing and of railways which connected the ports of the North Sea to major industrial cities, which meant that fresh fish could be rapidly transported to the heavily populated areas.

Deep-fried fish was first introduced into Britain during the 16th century by Jewish refugees from Portugal and Spain. Deep-fried chips may have first appeared in Britain in about the middle of 19th century. Charles Dickens mentioned chips in "A Tale of Two Cities" (published in 1859): "Husky chips of potatoes, fried with some reluctant drops of oil". During World War II fish and chips remained one of the few foods in the United Kingdom not subject to rationing.

The first fish and chip shop was opened in London in 1860. Early fish-and-chip shops had only basic facilities. Usually these consisted principally of a large cauldron of cooking fat, heated by a coal fire.

The modern fish-and-chip shop sell fish with the particular species named; so "cod and chips" now appears on menus rather than the more vague "fish and chips".

Unfortunatelly, I had no time to taste some typical dishes, as I like to do everytime I visit a new place.

Examples of Gibraltarian cuisine:

- Calentita, Gibraltar's national dish is a baked pancake-like dish made with chickpea flour, water, olive oil, salt and pepper. The word calentita is the informal diminutive of the Spanish word caliente, and means "nice and warm (or hot)". Calentita goes back to the 16th century. The name may have come from street vendors who would shout "Calentita" to sell their freshly-cooked wares. It has been suggested that the origin of the calentita is in the food culture of Sephardi Jews from the Barbary Coast. 

- Rosto, a pasta dish of Italian origin consisting of penne in a tomato sauce with beef or pork, mushrooms and carrots (or other vegetables) and topped with grated "queso bola" (Edam cheese).

- Fideos al horno (baked noodles in Spanish), a baked pasta dish consisting of macaroni, bolognese sauce, and various other ingredients including egg and bacon, usually topped with a grated cheese or béchamel that melts during the baking process and aids in binding.

- Panissa, a bread-like dish similar to the calentita. Sharing its Italian origins, it is a descendant of the Genoese dish with the same name. Unlike calentita the ingredients are first cooked in a pan to form a paste which is then left to set. When the polenta-like dough is set, it is cut into small strips and fried in olive oil.

- Bollo de hornasso, a sweet and dry bread similar to the Spanish hornazo. It is made with self-raising flour, sugar, eggs, butter or margarine and aniseed. Bollos de hornasso are eaten around Easter just as in Spain, but in Gibraltar they are also popular during Christmas. Gibraltarian hornassos can normally be distinguished from the original Spanish hornazo as they do not tend to be decorated with hard-boiled eggs (however, Gibraltarian families of Spanish descent may still decorate them in this manner). It is usually glazed with beaten eggs.

- Japonesa (English: Japanese lady) is a sweet fried doughnut filled with a custard-like cream. Japonesas are usually enjoyed at teatime or as a snack. They are traditionally coated in syrup or granulated sugar. The origin of its name is unknown but resembles the Japanese dorayaki.