Indonesian cuisine is one of the most diverse, interesting and complex the world
over. Indonesia itself is an archipelago which incorporates hundreds of islands and distinct cultures - each with their own cuisines, themselves influenced by those of their neighbors, traders and colonizers. As a whole, the
cuisine can be characterized by the abundant use of spices (after all, the famous spice islands are in Indonesia), often combined with fresh herbs to create
sambals, or spice pastes, used as rubs for meats or bases for curries. Indonesian cuisine is often very spicy - rivaling that of Thailand and India, both of which have influenced it. In my cooking, I have turned the
spicing down considerably as I would not otherwise enjoy the tastes.
For this part of the project, I have cooked some of Indonesia's most popular national dishes - though they all, of course, have regional origins. In the past, I cooked Balinese cuisine, and will be visiting specific Indonesian regional cuisines in the future.
In addition to the dishes below, I also made beef sate with peanut sauce, but I didn't write the recipe after I cooked it and have since forgotten it. No matter, I will cook this dish again as part of my Jakartan culinary adventure.
See also Ambonese, Balinese, Jakarta, Javanese recipes.
