#13 My Favourite Local Foods

Hello everyone, welcome back to my blog. 

Food is one way to know other culture, and today, I am going to introduce you to my favourite local foods. Please note that I have not tried all of my country’s signature dishes because there are a lot of them. Now let us begin!

1. Bubur Ayam (Chicken Porridge)

Just as most European countries eat bread or cereals for breakfast, we have our main dish for breakfast, chicken porridge. It is rice congee with shredded chicken meat served with some condiments, such as chopped scallion, crispy fried shallot, celery, tongcay (preserved salted vegetables), fried soybean, Chinese crullers (youtiao, known as cakwe in Indonesia), and both salty and sweet soy sauce. Sometimes it is topped with yellow chicken broth and kerupuk (Indonesian-style crackers). 

Like I already mentioned before, most of the time, people have it for breakfast, especially office workers, since they do not have time to make breakfast. One can find this food in every part of Indonesia. Usually, this food sold from street vendors and, normally, it only costs 10.000 Rupiah (0.67 cents).

2. Soto Ayam 

Soto ayam is our special chicken soup. It is a spicy yellow chicken soup with turmeric as one of its ingredients, which adds the yellow colour. It is served with chicken and noodles, and can also be served with hard-boiled eggs, slices of fried potatoes, Chinese celery leaves, and fried shallots.

This is a traditional soup commonly found in Indonesian cuisine. Just like the chicken porridge, one may be able to find this soup at local street vendors. This is also a type of food that will be served at weddings or special occasions. I prefer to eat this during the rainy season because the soup can make me feel warm. 

3. Martabak

Martabak is a stuffed pancake or pan-fried bread which was commonly found in the Arabian Peninsula and Southeast Asia countries. In my country, there are many variants of this martabak; however, my favourite variant is martabak telur (martabak with eggs). Now, maybe one may think that it is kind of weird, but trust me, it tastes so good. It is made from a mixture of eggs and meat and will be eaten together with vinegar soup. People usually have this for a late-night snack, especially when there is a family gathering or just friends hanging out at home.

4. Ayam Rica-Rica

Rica is a type of Southeast Asian hot spice mixture found in Manado cuisine of North Sulawesi, Indonesia. It uses a lot of chopped or ground red and green chilli peppers, bird’s eye chilli, shallots, garlic, ginger, and a pinch of salt and sugar. In Indonesia, a lot of people love chilli, therefore they cook this rica together with chicken, seafood, and meat. For this food, they cook rica with chicken. It could be very spicy for some people who are not used to eating spicy food. Therefore, I recommend to eat this food with rice, thus it will be less spicy. 

5. Rendang

For the last one, I will be presenting the best food ever, rendang. If I have to choose between these five foods, I will definitely choose rendang. It is an Indonesian spicy meat dish originating from the Minangkabau region in West Sumatra, Indonesia. It also became popular in our neighbouring Southeast Asian countries. It is a piece of meat, most commonly beef, slow-cooked and braised in a coconut milk and spice mixture until the liquids evaporate and the meat turns dark brown, tender, caramelized, infused with rich spices. 

It is usually served on special occasions. However, nowadays, people can easily get this at a local restaurant. I usually eat this during Ramadan when I visit my Muslim family in another city. It is perfect when eaten with rice. Just like Ayam Rica, this is also spicy, therefore, never eat this alone if one is not used to eating spicy food. 

Now, that was my top five favourite local foods. Although there are more of them, sadly I cannot write all of it here. This could be your chance to try our other local foods, perhaps you can try my recommendations for a starter. 

Thank you for reading and see you in my next one!