Indonesian Food - Much More Than Nasi Goreng!

Hi, my name is Anthony, and I run The Travel Tart – Offbeat Tales From A Travel Addict. I focus on the funny, offbeat and unusual aspects of world travel today, and this includes food!

I’ve tried all sorts of weird stuff around the world, such as guinea pig, horse and airline food. But today, I’m going to write about the amazing variety of Indonesian food. It’s not just the famous Nasi Goreng which every traveller in Bali has tried in copious quantities.

Since Indonesia is an incredibly diverse country, this diversity is also reflected in the food. Each island (and province) has a distinct cuisine. For example, Sumatran food is very spicy, and this contrasts with the Bandung area of Java where food has a sweet tinge. You will discover all of the wonderful quirks if you spend a bit of time traversing this archipelago.

As part of this cuisine, there are also combinations of food that may seem unusual to us in the Western World upon first hearing. However, they taste great, and this is the focus of this article.

Here are some examples:

Teh Telur – Tea With Egg
Tea with egg is probably not the most obvious combination when it comes to downing a hot beverage. Most westerners usually have tea with milk, and their eggs poached or scrambled.

I never thought about combining my solid and liquid components of breakfast into the one single source of sustenance as a midnight snack. However, I tried Teh Telur in Pekanbaru in central Sumatra with some of the locals at a street stall.

In terms of making tea with egg, firstly crack one egg into a glass, and whisk until frothy. Then add sugar, sweetened milk and boiling tea to the mix. And presto, you have tea with egg – a fantastic way to have a protein mix! If you have a few of them in a day, you might become the biggest beefcake in your town! And Teh Telur is delicious!

Rujak Cingur – Cow’s Nose With Satay Sauce
Rujak Cingur is a specialty dish of the East Java city of Surabaya, and is somewhat of a fascinating meal. Think crunchy and meaty at the same time.

The ingredients for Rujak Cingur are the following: sliced cow’s nose (including the cartilage), peanut sauce, shrimp paste, noodles, cucumber, tempe (a local ingredient consisting of fermented soybean cake), pineapple, and immature mango. The nose meat is cooked on a pan with all of these ingredients, and the satay sauce is added last to smother the mix.

In terms of how to eat this – basically, use your knife and spoon to load the mix into your mouth, and start munching away without trying to think of what you are eating! You will know when you are eating the nose when you firstly chomp on the soft meat, and then on the crunchy cartilage bits! But overall, this dish is also a surprise packet and tastes good!

Kacang Memet – Shaved Ice with Condensed Milk and Red Beans
Kacang Memet is a popular drink found in Palembang, in south Sumatra, Indonesia. This is another simple and inexpensive beverage that can be found on the street.
Combining something used to keep your drink cold (ice) with something that you normally use for soup (red beans) sounds weird, but it’s a refreshing combination. First of all, you have to shave the ice into a cooler box to later place into the drink.

You then have to add the red beans to the bottom of a large glass and scoop the shaved ice on top of the red beans. Once this is ready, pour coconut juice and sweetened condensed milk over the top and then you have Kacang Memet!

The beans taste quite sweet because they are boiled with sugar before use in the drink.

On a hot, humid day in Palembang, this drink went down in a few seconds!

Strange Indonesian Food – The Verdict?
This is just a small sample of the great and unusual food available in Indonesia. I know some of these recipes sound bizarre, but I was constantly impressed how great these dishes tasted.

You won’t know until you try them!