Indonesia Cuisine

Indonesia is a diverse country.  It has over 300 ethnic groups and each province has its individual language, history, and religions.  Indonesians’ mix of Chinese, European, Indian, and Malay has been a major contribution to the diversity of religions.  Even though Islam is the most popular religion, there are some other religions such as Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism that are recognized by the government.  Indonesia also has one of the largest percentages of Muslims in the world.

Similar to other surrounding Asian Countries, Indonesians have three standard meals a day.  An Indonesian meal usually consists of soup, rice, and couple of dishes with red meat, chicken, fish and vegetables.  Indonesia cuisine is a healthy cuisine that includes the use of grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and fish that are accompaniment served to rice.  Most dishes also incorporate spices, herbs and other seasoning to add special flavor combination to make the dishes worth to try.  Contrasting flavors such as sweet spicy or hot sauce over white rice is a popular meal throughout Indonesia.

            The main characteristics of Indonesia cuisine is spices.  Due to spices trade, many kinds of spices and flavorings were introduced from other countries like India and China.   Spices became an important ingredient in Indonesia cuisine.  For example, soy sauce has a major role in Indonesia cuisine.  Compared to Chinese soy sauce, Indonesian developed their own sweet soy sauce and used with barbecue meat or fish dishes.  Peanut sauce is another key ingredient used in many popular Indonesia cuisines.  Peanuts were used to variety of dishes and used as dipping sauce. Peanut sauce represents as a seasoning rather than a sweet sauce and it balances out with other sweet, sour and spicy flavors.

            Beside spices, there are many other herbs commonly used in Indonesian cuisine. For example, kaffir lime leave is a famous herb that was used in Southeast Asian cuisine such as Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Indonesia.  Kaffir lime leave can be used as fresh or fried.  In Indonesia, the leaves are used in Balinese cuisine and Javanese cuisine which is served with chicken and fish.  Also, the traditional medicine can be made from kaffir lime leave’s juice and rind.  Since the oil from the rind has strong insecticidal characteristics, the rind is used as cleanser for clothing.

            In Indonesia, people usually drink tea and coffee as their daily drinks.  Coffee and tea are usually served hot, and ice tea is favorite amount Indonesian too.  There are many types of fruits produced in Indonesian markets.  Jackfruit, durian, banana, and mango are the most indigenous fruits in Indonesia.  Fruits can be used into Indonesian diet or made into juice and desert.  One of the most popular fruit desserts is called Rujak Medan that is sweet and spicy.  Another kind of fruit dessert is Kolak which means fruit in coconut milk that usually served cold.  Fruit can be eaten as fresh, or mix into thick juices, shakes, salad, and ice cream. Fruits are usually enjoyed in dessert.