page_title: Indonesian cuisine
section_title: Cooking method
hierarchical_section_title: Indonesian cuisine / Cooking method
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Negatief. Een vrouw blaast een vuur aan met een stuk bamboe
context_page_description: Indonesian cuisine is a collection of various regional culinary traditions that formed the archipelagic nation of Indonesia. There are a wide variety of recipes and cuisines in part because Indonesia is composed of approximately 6,000 populated islands of the total 17,508 in the world's largest archipelago, with more than 300 ethnic groups calling Indonesia home. Many regional cuisines exist, often based upon indigenous culture with some foreign influences. Indonesia has around 5,350 traditional recipes, with 30 of them considered the most important. Indonesia's cuisine may include rice, noodle and soup dishes in modest local eateries to street-side snacks and top-dollar plates.
  Indonesian cuisine varies greatly by region and has many different influences. Sumatran cuisine, for example, often has Middle Eastern and Indian influences, featuring curried meat and vegetables such as gulai and curry, while Javanese cuisine is mostly indigenous, with some hint of Chinese influence. The cuisines of Eastern Indonesia are similar to Polynesian and Melanesian cuisine.
context_section_description: Most of the common Indonesian dishes are named according to their main ingredients and cooking method. For example, ayam goreng is ayam (chicken) and goreng (frying), which denotes fried chicken. Mie goreng is fried noodle, ikan bakar is grilled fish, udang rebus is boiled shrimp, babi panggang is roasted pork and tumis kangkung is stir fried water spinach. Cooking methods in Indonesian kitchen are goreng (frying) either in a small amount of oil or deep frying with a lot of cooking oil, tumis (stir frying), sangrai (sautéing). Roasting methods are bakar (grilling) usually employing charcoal, firewood, or coconut shell, panggang (baked) usually refer to baking employing oven. Other methods are rebus (boiling) and kukus (steaming).
  The fire used in cooking can be either strong fire or small fire for slow cooking. Cooking nasi goreng usually employs strong fire, while authentic rendang for example requires small fire for slow cooking of beef, spices, and coconut milk until the meat is caramelised and all the coconut milk's liquid has evaporated. Traditional Indonesian dapur (kitchen) usually employs firewood-fuelled kitchen stove, while the contemporary household today uses liquefied petroleum gas-fuelled stove or an electric stove. The ingredients could be cut in pieces, sliced thinly, or ground into a paste. Cooking utensils are wajan (wok), penggorengan (frying pan), panci (cauldron), knives, several types of spoon and fork, parutan (shredder), cobek and ulekan (stone mortar and pestle). Traditionally Indonesians use a stone mortar and a pestle to grind the spices and ingredients into coarse or fine pastes. Today most households use blender or food processor for the task. Traditional Indonesian cookingwares are usually made from stone, earthenware pottery, wood, and woven bamboo or a rattan container or filter, while contemporary cookingwares, plates and containers use metals – iron, tin, stainless steel, aluminium, ceramics, plastics, and also glass.
caption: A traditional humble kitchen in Indonesia using firewood for cooking.
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