WEDANG SECANG (SECANG DRINK)

Wedang Secang is a traditional beverage from Indonesia, specifically from Central Java. In the past, it was the drink of the Javanese Royal Family, but nowadays Secang is available in many places for everybody. In several traditional market, like Pasar Beringharjo Yogyakarta, we can find it in the herbal corner as a dry herbal. In several supermarket, it even comes in a instant sachet package, likr in a tea bag. The easinest to find the different form of Wedang Secang have made it's the popularity rise again, after it was almost forgotten. Secang ? Secang is actually a herbal tree which grow in a tropical country espescially in an open space up to 1000m above the sea. It's latin name is Caesalpia sappan L. and belong to the Caesalpiniaceae familia. To make the beverages, we need the wood of the tree. First the wood need to peel from its skin, then copped into small pieces and then dried. The copped wood is then combine with other herbal to make the beverage. Secang drink is good for health, Besides improving stamina, the drink is also believed to be able to overcome flatulence, colds and to make the body warm.In the village, spice plants, as the material basis of making the drink secang easily found. Crops that had become the reason for Europeans

PEPES IKAN

'Pepes' refers to the way the food is done. .So it can be chicken, even beef or soybean cakes or tofu; but the original material to get 'pepes'ed is fish. Pepes is one of healthy food because it's cooked without oil by traditonal methode.

The oldest sort of pepes is made of gold fishes ('iwak mas' in Javanese, 'ikan emas' in Indonesian, alias 'carp').

'Pepes' necessitates nearly all of the Javanese seasoning agents (see them at the third page of this section), plus tomatoes and red chili. Sere, or 'serai' in Indonesian, plays an important part here, while it is rarely used except for 'heavy' dishes such as curry and in some food influenced by the Balinese.

The seasoning materials are pounded and made to wrap the fish or whatever it is that you 'pepes'; then all of them are wrapped inside a piece of banana leaf whose edges are fastened with tiny bamboo sticks or palm leaf's ribs. This sealed package is then roasted on hot charcoals (or put into an oven) until no water is visible anymore, at which point the 'pepes' is considered well-done.

Pepes is always sold and served the way it is, i.e. still wrapped securely inside the banana leaf. This dish can get re-heated several times and it stays edible for a few days.

SAYUR LODEH

Sayur lodeh is a popular Indonesian vegetable stew in coconut curry. This dish is also very popular in Malaysia and Singapore and essentially served in Malay homes and restaurants. Honestly, I have never been a fan of this dish as I prefer chicken or meat curry vs vegetable curry

NASI UDUK (UDUK RICE)

Nasi uduk is one of the many varieties of spice infused rices, very common in Indonesia. The basic is rice, coconut milk, lemongrass, salam leaves, and a little salt. On top of the rice I put bawang goreng (deep-fried shallots) and slivered fried eggs. And then, I wrapped the rice with banana leaves. This is made of rice boiled in coconut milk spiced with corriander, salt and daun salam (similar to bay leave) and then steamed. Usually nasi uduk is served with fried chicken, empal or bacem and garnished with sliced cucumber and daun kemangi (a kind of parsley with certain aromatic smell).

NASI GANDUL (GANDUL RICE)

Nasi means Rice, the taste of nasi gandul similar to semur, it's sweet but rich because of coconut milk. Nasi Gandul originally from Pati, Central Java, and its a "must" to put the banana leave on the base of this dish . Its looks like soup, with "choose it yourself" ingredients, such as beef, egg, inner part of cow (well, Indonesian eat this parts).It's taste sweet (i mean a lot of sugar) and of course spicy. 

WEDANG JAHE

Wedang is Javanese language to call these hot drink. It can be tea, coffee or ginger tea or any drink that is hot enough to sweep these cold out from our body in raining season in Java so is very healthy for our body. 

Actually ginger tea (Wedang Jahe) is not a kind of tea, nor it is made from tea leaves. It is made from ginger and it is a cheap spice in Indonesia eventhough it is called exotic by western people.

Wedang Jahe can be found anywhere from hawker stall to restaurant. These hawkers will push a removable stall and selling these from house blocks to another area all days. The sound of spoon hitting porcelain bowl will immediately signal these students living in boarding house or office workers to go out to buy these Wedang or fried food or even vegetables sold by hawkers.

GADO GADO

Gado-gado is a traditional dish in Indonesian cuisine, and comprises a vegetable salad served with a peanut sauce dressing. It is widely served from hawkers carts, stalls (warung), and small restaurants up to star hotels restaurants in Indonesia, and in Indonesian restaurants in other countries.

Gado-gado is part of a wider family of Indonesian peanut sauce - salad; with lotek, pecel and karedok. Some of salad's peanut sauce is made in individual batches, fresh in front of the customers (like the picture on the right - which should say the way lotek is prepared), however gado-gado sauce is made a head of time and cooked in bulk). Compare to Western salads, gado-gado has much more sauce in it (the vegetable should be well coated in the sauce)

For the convenience of modern world, both gado-gado and pecel sauce is available in block of dried sauce that can easily be made liquid by adding warm water.

CINCAU ICE

Black Cincau or Grass Jelly is a jelly-like that can be found in South-East Asia and normally used in some Indonesian as traditional drinks. Cincau hitam can also be used to reduce temperature, fever, and to prevent indigestion and to lower high blood pressure. It also has low calories so it is good for those who want to loose weight. 

Grass jelly is made by boiling the aged and slightly fermented stalks and leaves of Mesona chinensis[1] (member of the mint family) with potassium carbonate for several hours with a little starch and then cooling the liquid to a jelly-like consistency[2]. This jelly can be cut into cubes or other forms, and then mixed with syrup to produce a drink or dessert thought to have cooling (yin) properties, which makes it typically consumed during hot weather. The jelly itself has a slight bitter taste, a light iodine lavender flavor, and is a translucent black. It can also be mixed with soy milk to produce a milky white liquid with black strands in it.

GEMPOL PLERED DRINK

This Solonese drink can be served hot or with ice cubes, and as dubious as kolak is in attempts at classification (whether it should be categorized as food or as something to drink, despite the Javanese people's insistence that it is unquestionably the latter). 

Gempol plered is made of a little ginger juice, palm-sugared water, cinnamon, and tapioca. Then some thick coconut milk is poured on it. The name comes from its site of origin: the mountain area of Plered, Central Java.

SOTO

Soto, sroto, tauto or coto is a common dish to be found in various regional variations of Indonesian cuisine. It is a soup mainly composed of broth, meat and vegetables. The meats that are most commonly used are chicken and beef, but there are also variations with offal, mutton, water buffalo meat and pork. The soup is usually accompanied by rice or compressed rice cakes (ketupat or buras). Sotos are commonly differentiated by the meat ingredient in them, e.g. soto ayam (chicken soto) and soto daging (beef soto). Offal is a very common ingredient in soto, and is considered as a delicacy: the rumen (blanket/flat/smooth tripe), reticulum (honeycomb and pocket tripe), omasum (book/bible/leaf tripe) and the intestines are all eaten.

Other ingredients of soto include soon alternatively spelled as sohun (rice vermicelli), mung bean sprouts and scallion.

Soto spices include the following: shallot, garlic, turmeric root, galangal, ginger, coriander, salt and pepper.

Soto can have a clear broth, a yellow transparent broth (coloured with turmeric) or a milky coconut-milk broth.

Another way to classify sotos is by their regional style. Many metropolitan areas have their own regional soto versions:

1. Betawi soto, made of beef or beef offal, cooked in a whitish coconut-milk broth, with fried potato and tomato.
2. Bandung soto, a clear beef soto with daikon pieces.
3. Medan soto, a milky chicken soto, with the chicken pieces fried before being mixed with the other ingredients.
4. Banjar soto, spiced with lemongrass and sour hot sambal, accompanied with potato cakes.
   Makassar soto or coto Makassar, a beef and offal soto boiled in water used to wash rice, with fried peanut.
5. Madura soto or soto Sulung/soto Ambengan, made with either chicken, beef or offal, in a yellowish transparent broth.
6. Semarang soto, a chicken soto spiced with candlenut and often eaten with sate kerang (cockles on a stick)
7. Kudus soto, made with water buffalo meat due to local taboos of the consumption of beef.
8. Lamongan soto, a popular street food in various Indonesian metropolitan areas, a variation of the Madura soto.
9. Pekalongan soto or tauto Pekalongan, spiced with tauco (a fermented miso-like bean paste).
10. Banyumas soto or sroto Banyumas, made special by its peanut sambal.

The following accompaniments are often eaten alongside soto.
Stewed quail eggs or chicken eggs

• Cockles on a stick (sate kerang)
• Fried chicken giblets
• Prawn crackers, sometimes crushed and mixed with crushed fried garlic as koya in Madura soto
• Gnetum seed crackers (emping)
• Fried tofu or tempeh
• Potato cakes (perkedel)
  
  Condiments common to soto dishes include hot chili sauce (sambal), sweet soy sauce, fried shallot and lime.
  
  

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TAHU PONG (EMPTY TOFU)

Pong or kopong or kosong means empty.The tahu (tofu) is cut into dice shapes and then deep fried. A bite into the crispy tofu reveals the pong (empty center), and it has become one of Semarang’s local specialties

TAHU GIMBAL (GIMBAL TOFU)

Tahu Gimbal is a popular traditional food from semarang central java made from tofu and peanut sauce which is very spicy.

AYAM TALIWANG (TALIWANG CHICKEN)

Ayam Taliwang originated from Nusa Tenggara (east of Bali), chicken cooked in various spicy herbs and seasoning.

ES CENDOL (CENDOL ICE)

Cendol [pronounced 'chen-doll'] or es cendol is a traditional dessert originating from Java, Indonesia, but is also popular in Malaysia, Singapore, and Southern Thailand (where it is called lorkchorng singapore ลอดข่องสิงคโปร์). The dessert's basic ingredients consist of shaved ice, coconut milk, starch noodles with green food coloring (usually sourced from the pandan leaf), and palm sugar. Red beans, glutinous rice, grass jelly, and creamed corn are optional additions. Cendol has become a quintessential part of cuisine among the multi-racial population in Southeast Asia and is often sold by vendors at roadsides, hawker centres and food courts.

Cendol vendors are also a common sight in Indonesian cities. In the Javanese language, cendol refers to the jelly-like part of the beverage, while the combination of cendol, palm sugar and coconut milk is called dawet.

KOLAK PISANG

Kolak pisang or braised banana with palm sugar and coconut gravy is a local dessert that is already familiar throughout this vast archipelago. Some hotels put this sweet dessert on their menu list

MPEK-MPEK

Pempek, Mpek-mpek or Empek-empek is a delicacy from Palembang made of fish and sago. Pempek is served together with a dark, rich sauce called cuka (Baso Palembang: cuko, lit. vinegar). Cuka is produced by adding brown sugar, chili pepper, garlic, vinegar, and salt to boiling water.

There are many varieties of Pempek. The most famous[citation needed] Pempek is the Kapal Selam (Indonesian: "submarine"), which is made from a chicken egg wrapped within the Pempek dough and then deep-fried. Scientists[citation needed] says that the Kapal Selam, being high in vitamin, protein, mineral, and carbohydrate content, is the most nutritious variety. Other varieties include Pempek telur kecil (lit. small egg Pempek), Pempek keriting (lit. curly Pempek), Pempek pistel (lit. pistol Pempek), Pempek kulit ikan (lit. fish-skin Pempek), Pempek adaan, Pempek lenjer, and "Pempek tahu" (lit. tofu Pempek).

According to legend, at around 1617 there was an old Chinese Man who lived near Musi river. He noticed an abundance of fish caught by the local fishermen. The indigenous people, however did not know how to cook the fish properly. During that period, most of the indigenous people simply fried their fish instead of adding in other ingredients to make new dishes. The old Chinese Man mixed in some sago and other spices, which he then sold around the village on his bicycle. The people referred to this old man as 'pek-apek, where apek is a Chinese slang for an old man. The food is known today as Empek-empek or Pempek.

As a local staple, Pempek can be commonly found on every street in Palembang, although the most famous outlets[citation needed] can be found on Jalan Slamet Riyadi. Numerous Pempek sellers and producers in Palembang use a cheaper combination of fish, which has a strong scent. The best Pempek are made of Belido Ikan and are usually more expensive.[c

WEDANG RONDE (GINGER RONDE DRINK)

Wedang Ronde is a traditional Javanese drink served in a bowl, which is very helpful when the weather is cold. From the words, wedang is a Javanese language means a drink, ronde is the name for the main part of the drink. This kind of drink uses ginger as its ingredient. To get the merit, ginger is boiled in the water, along with other substances. As it has ginger, it will warm anybody who drinks it. The taste is sweet but rather hot.

PECEL

Pecel is a traditional meal from one town in East Java, Madiun. It made from different vegetables and serve with peanut sauce and warm plain rice (nasi putih). And usually accompany with some rice flour cracker (rempeyek). In reality Pecel has a lot of version such as pecel Blitar, Nganjuk, Kediri, Ponorogo, and Madiun. Although the substance has no difference with others, but each has its uniqueness.

Sambal Pecel (Peanut Condiment) represents of food flavour which made from peanut, chili, palm sugar, lime leaf ( or its fruit), sour fruit, and salt. Sambal Pecel is used for food flavour which served with vegetables and some traditional trifle like tempeh, tofu, peyek, and other trifle.

SATE PENTUL

Satay is one of famous dish in Indonesia. The famous satay of Indonesia is Sate Ayam Madura. It's translated as Madura Style Chicken Satay. It's served with peanut sauce and sprinkle with shallot slices over the sauce. Here, I made another Indonesia style satay.

LUMPIA SEMARANG

Lumpia Semarang is known as a street hawker food in Indonesia that you can get everywhere and cheap. It is served with brown sauce and cucumber shallot pickle. This recipe was modified from an Indonesian cookbook "Seri Menu dan Resep Menu Istimewa 2" by Yasaboga.

There are several version of Lumpia in Indonesia. Lumpia Semarang is one of the popular lumpia in the country. Semarang itself is a name after the capital city of Central Java province. In addition, lumpia's term derives from lunpia in the Hokien dialect of Chinese.

Bamboo shoots are always known as the filling of this lumpia, and my alteration version has been augmented by abalone sauce.