Rendang: world's most delicious food

It's totally true! Beef rendang took the top spot in CNN GO's list of best food in the world. OK, so Facebook polling isn't exactly scientific. But whatevs, a dish that takes hours to labour over definitely deserves to be named the best food in the world.


This the second installment to my (seemingly ridiculous) journey to cooking the Top 40 Indonesian food. This version of rendang slightly omits some spices which I couldn't find in Swiss supermarkets. It's probably not the most traditional way to cook it, but for me it worked. And I figured it still tastes pretty good, since I made this at a dinner party last weekend and not a scrape of rendang sauce was left on the plate :) 

Terong Balado (Spicy eggplant): Being Indonesian means – part 2

... continued from here

Being Indonesian means…

You can never make up your mind when ordering in restaurants, so you just order everything and end up with too much food.

See, what people don’t understand is when one grows up having a rijsttafel (rice table) at every meal, it’s hard to pick ONE main dish per meal. A rice table is when you eat rice with multiple options of side dishes (‘lauk pauk’), anywhere between 3 (typical lunch) to 40 (a feast).

Cah Kangkung (stir fried spinach): Being Indonesian means - part 1

Cah Kangkung (Stir fried spinach)

I was just thinking about this today and decided to write it down... Of course it's nothing serious, just a small reflection :) 

Being Indonesian means…

You need a hint of chilli in every single dish you eat, no matter where you are. This may lead to (erm, interesting) habits such as:

• Having packets of chilli sauce (the stock standard sambal ABC) in your handbag ready to whip out and pour on any meals from street food to Michelin star food. 
• Knowing the word for chilli sauce options in many cuisines. I can count the words sambal, togarashi, aji, tabasco, chipotle, la jiao you, piri piri, and harissa in my vocabulary. I thank my mum for teaching me most of these (she is completely obsessed with chili).

Cooking up a feast at Paon Bali in Ubud, Indonesia

I've been going to Bali pretty much every year since I was 4 years old. When we go, we normally keep our holiday plans to pretty much a minimum so that we can spend as much time as possible between our place and the beach. OK, except one time when M and I decided to get married in Bali. The only time I actually set foot on the beach during that trip was seriously only during our wedding ceremony! But that's another story ;)

Anyway, every so often we venture out and try to discover new touristy things. Last December, we found the Paon Bali and absolutely loved it. It's a cooking class located in serene Ubud in the north of Bali, run by a husband and wife team, the funny Ibu Puspa and Pak Wayan.

Welcoming the Saka New Year in Silence (Nyepi in Bali)

The Balinese celebrate the end of the Hindi Saka calendar with the epic Ogoh-Ogoh parade.

Last month I managed to squeeze in a 3 day vacation amid the hecticness that is my research roject in Indonesia. Escaping the craziness of Jakarta, I went away to stay at my parent's little piece of heaven for the long weekend of Nyepi in Bali. Nyepi Day (Silence Day) commemorates the New Year in the Saka (Hindu) calendar. This was actually my first time being in Bali for Nyepi and it was such a treat!

Siomay Bandung Dumplings – a fleeting visit to Paris van Java

Mt. Tangkuban Perahu, Bandung

Jump to recipe

I’m spending the next three weeks in Indonesia to do some work for my research project. This is possibly the longest time I have spent in my home country in my entire adult life. In the next 3 weeks, I’ll be doing some island hopping and am looking forward to adding at least another three Indonesian cities to my travel list.

The first stop is a fleeting day trip to Bandung, about 3 hours south east of Jakarta, which is also the capital of West Java province. Leaving the craziness of Jakarta at the crack of dawn, I finally reached Bandung at 9am. As soon as I arrived, I was instantly reminded of the Jakarta I grew up in… the fresher air, the cooler climate, the (slightly) slower pace of life, the becaks (cycle rickshaw), and generally nicer people.

Peanut Sauce (Sambal Kacang)

Peanut sauce (Sambal Kacang) is a star condiment of Indonesian cooking. OK, so every country in South East Asia always tries to claim it as one of theirs. But who wouldn’t? There’s nothing not to love about peanut sauce. It’s so yummy, easy to make, and so versatile. We eat it with pretty much everything, from satay (sate), dumplings (siomay), salad (gado-gado or ketroprak), to rice and any meat dishes.

Peanut Free Sweet Chicken Satay (Sate Ayam Manis)

Jajanan Solo (Solo 'snack' foods)

I blame my sweet tooth on the wonderful Solonese food that I grew up on. Solo is located in Central Java with a magnificent regal culture. It's so obsessed with royals that they decide to upkeep four kingdoms in the area the size of Adelaide, each with its own batik print and imperial outfits. (Kate Middleton eat your heart out). And of course, the amazing, sometimes verging on ridiculously unhealthy obsession with eating (sweets containing half a kilo of sugar AND condensed milk, tripe soup, fried intestine crackers, anyone?).

Mie Goreng: Makan-makan!

Food coma in Solo, Central Java (top left); just a regular Tuesday night dinner at my house (bottom left);
breakfast of champions (right)

There are two things about Indonesia that always fascinates my BFF (boyfriend forever i.e. husband), M. The first is obviously the surfing, which unfortunately he doesn't get to do much in the landlocked country of Switzerland... :( Anyway that's another story... The second is the simplicity of the language, at least compared to German which we have been struggling with for a year. No grammar, no tenses, no gender, no conjugation. But the best thing is that a plural noun is just the single noun repeated twice. Like 'anak' is a child, 'anak-anak' means children. His favourite words are those that are already repeated in a single form (spider = laba-laba, spiders = laba-laba-laba-laba...?).



The word to eat (=makan), when 'pluralised' into makan-makan means the favourite past time of Indonesians: feasting! Seriously Indonesians love eating!! But thanks to some good genes, they are always so skinny! I on the other hand, share the love of food that most Indos do as well... but after changing diets when moving to Australia (I blame Nutellas in boarding school), somewhere along the line I've lost my Asian skinny genes and adopted the fresher-ten genes which never really seemed to go away even after I finish my degree and got a job... (FYI: the fresher-ten is the 10 kilos you put on in your fresher year)