Traditional Indonesian Food
Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world with 17508 islands of which 6000 are populated. It also has 1300 ethnic groups, so it is not surprising that there is an immense variety of traditional Indonesian food with a huge diversity of dishes. For those who are not familiar with Indonesian cuisine I wanted to provide an overview of what it generally consists of and highlight a couple of famous dishes that I want to try!
What is Traditional Indonesian Food?
Indonesia is a vast archipelago with large ethnic/cultural diversity, as I mentioned previously. This means that as with Indian or Pakistani food for example it is difficult to clearly define Indonesian food. One common feature of Indonesian food though is its use of fresh herbs and spices. Bumbu is a paste made out of such fresh herbs and spices and is the base for a bunch of Indonesian dishes. It is made using ingredients like shallots, chilies, garlic, turmeric, galangal, ginger, candlenuts, etc., with variations in the exact ingredients and portions being made between different recipes.
For this reason, a mortar and pestle are essential for crushing the spices/herbs necessary for making Indonesian food. There has also been a great deal of introduction of ingredients and influence of Indonesian cuisine from other areas of the world. For example, Europeans introduced chili peppers and peanuts to Indonesia perhaps around the 1500s and now these are big staples.
On the topic of chilis, Indonesian food is also widely regarded as quite spicy, with most dishes containing one of a variety of chili peppers that are common in Indonesia. Two of the most common chili peppers are the bird’s eye chili pepper (50,000 – 100,000 SHU) and cayenne peppers (30,000 – 50,000 SHU) but there are other chili peppers used that are even spicier! For reference, a jalapeno is 2500-8000 SHU so if you find jalapenos spicy then you may need to ask for your Indonesian food to be mild!
Overall, Indonesian cuisine is all about diversity, fresh ingredients, and balanced flavours which you will find as you read through the following dishes. There is truly something for everyone when it comes to Indonesian cuisine!
Famous Indonesian Dishes
Due to the vast diversity of Indonesian cuisine that I mentioned previously, it has proven difficult for the government to choose a national dish. In 2018, the government decided on 5 national dishes to represent Indonesia though which I will describe below!
Soto
Soto is the name for classic Indonesian soup. There are many different forms of this soup, for example soto betawi (beef soup) or soto ayam (chicken soup), with the latter seemingly being the most popular version. The essential components of this dish are meat, spices, vegetables and noodles. A common spice used is turmeric which is why the broth is often yellow in colour and vermicelli noodles are commonly used.
There is significant variation between the different types of soto though which makes it difficult to clearly define what ingredients are typically used. This makes sense considering that this essentially just means soup hahah.
I personally had the opportunity to prepare a version of chicken soto in an Indonesian cooking class in Bali and it was really tasty! For anyone visiting Bali I highly recommend doing a cooking class because it is such a great experience to learn more about Balinese cuisine!
Rendang
If you haven’t had rendang then I feel bad for you because it is so unbelievably good. Rendang is a beef dish that consists of braising beef in coconut milk with a bunch of herbs and spices. While cooking, the beef eventually becomes super tender and the liquid reduces into a dark sauce. This is then typically served with steamed or sticky rice and some vegetable side dishes.
There are also two other similar dishes, gulai and kalio, that consists of the same or similar ingredients to rendang but are cooked for shorter periods of time, making the dish more like a stew (gulai) or curry (kalio) as opposed to a thick sauce (rendang). While rendang is typically made with beef it can also vary in what protein is used, with water buffalo, chicken, duck, mutton, and even pork in Christian communities within Indonesia. If you want a dish that is packed with immense amounts of flavour then rendang is definitely the dish for you!
Rendang did not seem to be very popular while I was in Bali but I managed to find some on a food delivery app and gladly got to try it. It was pretty good but I have honestly had better ones in Canada which is probably due to the fact that this dish isn’t as common in Balinese cuisine. It was still delicious though and an absolute must try even if you are only visiting Bali when you go to Indonesia!
Sate
Probably the most famous dish on this list in Western countries, sate, or satay as it is generally written in English, is skewers of meat that are grilled. These skewers can consist of pretty much any type of meat, fish, or even tofu and are accompanied by sauces. The most famous of such sauces is a peanut sauce that is generally referred to as satay sauce. This makes for bite sized pieces of meat that are savoury, have a distinct flavour from the charcoal used for grilling and are often spicy accompanied by unique tasting sauces, what an amazing combination!
It is thought that this dish may have originated from the concept of kebabs, brought over to Indonesia in the 1800s from the Middle East or Indian subcontinent but others refute this claim and say it originated in Indonesia much earlier, quite the history. I generally don’t get sate in Canada because it is usually very overpriced so I made sure to get plenty in Bali!
Interestingly, Balinese sate was quite different from the sate that we get in Canada, which comes from other parts of Indonesia. In Bali, the sate is made with finely ground meat and shredded coconut along with fresh herbs and spices. This is then placed on a thick skewer and grilled. I personally absolutely loved this version of sate because I don’t really like peanut sauce that much and the sate in Bali was super flavourful and delicious on its own!
Nasi Goreng
Fried rice dishes are found across East Asia and in Indonesia their version is called nasi goreng. This dish at its simplest consists of fried rice (preferably made with leftover rice) with vegetables and meat but apparently there is significant variation in how it is prepared. It is then served with accompaniments like eggs, sambal (chili sauce), acar (pickles), or any number of other accompaniments.
Kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) is also usually added which creates the dark colour often seen in the rice. Nasi goreng is typically a breakfast dish and I actually hadn’t ever tried it prior to visiting Indonesia! This dish was hugely popular in Bali and I got to try it a number of times and really enjoyed it. It is a great breakfast with a bunch of different components and one of my favourite restaurants I visited in Asia was serving up this dish in the most delicious and fresh was possible!
Gado-gado
Gado-gado, meaning “mix-mix” in Indonesian, is a salad consisting of a plethora of ingredients. When we think of salad in Canada we usually think of a light side dish but gado-gado is a whole vegetarian dish. It consists of a variety of vegetables, often including potatoes, cabbage, bitter gourd, long beans, corn, and many others along with protein sources like eggs and tempeh. This is then finished with the addition of peanut sauce and potentially other toppings like fried shallots.
I love this because it is a perfect example of a well-rounded vegetarian dish of which there are so many throughout Asia. For all of my vegetarian/vegan friends I highly recommend looking to Asian cuisine for inspiration because there are so many authentic vegetarian dishes that are incredibly delicious in Asia! This was pretty common in Bali and also a dish I got to make in my Balinese cooking class and it was so delicious! Truly a perfect example of a delicious, filling, super healthy meal!
Tumpeng
If we backtrack to 2014 the Indonesian Ministry of Tourism and Creative Economy had actually crowned a single dish as Indonesia’s national dish, that being a dish called tumpeng. I am not sure why they changed this decision, perhaps it was too controversial, but I was surprised that it was absent from the new five national dishes. In any case, I thought it was important to include here and clearly it is of great significance considering at one point it was the national dish of Indonesia.
Tumpeng is a rice dish that consists of a central cone of rice surrounded by various dishes atop a banana leaf. This dish is often served at ceremonies or on special occasions. There is also often a specific composition of side dishes for balance of the types of side dishes and for spiritual reasons. For example, there may be a balance of vegetarian, meat, egg and seafood-based side dishes. Furthermore, the individual ingredients themselves and how they are served can have spiritual meaning as well. For example, water spinach may symbolize the ability for a person to live through a variety of conditions as water spinach can grow on both land and water, and milkfish symbolizes good fortune as the degree of good fortune can be found by how many bones there are in the milkfish.
According to one source there is also traditionally a single grain of rice atop the mountain of rice, which is also an important spiritual symbol, to symbolize God above everything else, so it should be eaten from the bottom as opposed to the top. I think that with such deep philosophical and spiritual context, the fact that this dish is served at important events/ceremonies, and the number and variety of side dishes that are present make this dish the perfect option for a national dish.
Of course, I am not Indonesian so my opinion on the topic doesn’t matter and clearly there is a reason why the preceding five dishes were chosen. Perhaps it is simply because people enjoy them more and they are more commonplace, but I really enjoyed reading about tumpeng and would love to try it! I sadly did not get the opportunity to try it while I was in Bali but perhaps when I visit Indonesia again someday I will be able to.
Hopefully this provided a useful overview to Indonesian food and the six most famous Indonesian dishes. If you’ve never tried Indonesian food before I hope that you are searching for the nearest Indonesian restaurant right after you finish reading this! Make sure to checkout my TikTok and other social media to see all the delicious food I am eating, including food from my trip to Bali! Also, checkout my other blog posts to learn a little more about other cuisines, see my favourite restaurants and my recipes.
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