Indonesian -- not Malay, not Thai, not cambodian, not...

I have been invited to a party where there will be 50 Indonesian people and two or three chubby middle-aged suburban women like me.

Can anyone suggest an Indonesian dessert or dish that I could make to bring to this party? Is there anything like an Indonesian bakery or grocery anywhere? Can you name an Indonesian restaurant where I might get a peek at a menu?

I like / eat / cook Thai, vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese etc. But what is Indonesian food? It's not Malay, not Indian, not Cambodian. I can understand what it is not but what is it. What are some important dishes or desserts? Thanks in advance for any help.

[quote="Joy"]I have been invited to a party where there will be 50 Indonesian people and two or three chubby middle-aged suburban women like me.

Sorry I can't help you, but perhaps you could help us by asking this gathering of Indonesian people about any Indonesian restaurants in town that they frequent. I am eager to eat some good Indonesian food!
Thanks.

Google is your friend

http://www.recipesource.com/ethnic/asia ... books.html

http://www.belindo.com/Default.aspx?NavID=106

jygach wrote:

Joy wrote:I have been invited to a party where there will be 50 Indonesian people and two or three chubby middle-aged suburban women like me.

Sorry I can't help you, but perhaps you could help us by asking this gathering of Indonesian people about any Indonesian restaurants in town that they frequent. I am eager to eat some good Indonesian food!
Thanks.

Unfortunately, I don't think there's any Indonesian restaurants in this area. Strike that--googling shows me there's an Indonesian-Chinese place called August Moon on 225 W. 26th Street. You can even get rijstafel there if you arrange in advance. Hmmm...Has anyone any experience there?

HI,

Last year after the Tsunami, the very tiny Indonesian community had a fundraiser. To illustrate how tiny the Indonedian presence is, the consulate people advised in their 15 state territory there are approximately 35,000 Indonesians.

While there is the desire to open an Indonesian restaurant. They recognize they cannot expect the Indonesian community to be the base customers because there are so few. We learned there are caterers who service the community, but it doesn't go further than that at this time. When I started asking around about an Indonesian restaurant, then they turned the tables on me inquiring about financing.

I took my friend Helen who is from the Philippines to this Indonesian fundraising dinner. She was surprised how much the food was quite similar, if not exactly, from her culture.

Good luck on your effort and do let us know the outcome.

Regards,

I think August Moon has been gone a good five years. Centerstage tends to show a fair number of shuttered places (which is useful in its own way).

One indonesian cookbook that I've found large sections of online and whose recipes i've like quite a bit is sri owens - Indonesian regional cooking, however I don't have any desert recipes from that.

Another possible source is Charmaine Solomon's Encyclopedia of Asian Food. Though once again, I have not tried many of the desert recipes from it. Many of here recipes are online at www.asiafood.org including this one whch looks pretty laborious

Being Indonesian myself, I've been searching high and low for a decent Indon restaurant but I've settled on Penang (more Malaysian and Singaporean than anything). But, anyway, there's this awesome website for "Merry's Kitchen" that has many authentic Indonesian recipes.

http://www.melroseflowers.com/mkic/

It's pretty awesome and if you choose to make a desert, I suggest either the fried banana (pisang goreng) or bolu kukus (steamed cake). Have fun!

Thank you all for the excellent online resources. I did Google and did find a few nice recipe sites. When reading recipes, I did recognize a few ingredients including sambal olek and kecap manis (sp?) that I already have in my pantry. Satay with peanut sauce is familiar to everyone by now I think.

But reading the recipes led me to think that it might be better and certainly easier to try to find an Indonesian store or bakery. I was hoping to find some kind of simple cake or cookie-like thing that I could create or buy. I have to take a harder look at the steamed cake idea.

The sites that you all have posted are very interesting to explore. It is not that often that we find a completely new cuisine to investigate! And from what Cathy2 says, it seems like a significant percentage of the Indonesians in this area will be at this party!

Iman is on Martha Stewart right now and they are making tapenade crostinis while talking about Somalian and Ethiopian food. Iman says she cooks for David (Bowie, her hubby) and daughter every night. Thai, Chinese, Italian, she cooks it all. What an interesting combination.

If you were married to David Bowie, wouldn't you want to cook for him every night?

On a slight tangent, had Malaysian food for the first time last night (interestingly, being Filipino, aka "the pride of the Malay race," it was my first foray into the cuisine of my true, unbastardized ancestors), and I found it more Indian-influenced as opposed to the more Spanish & Chinese-influenced cuisine of the Philippines.

To me, Malaysian food seemed more flavorful in the sense that Filipino food is always cooked to death. We had a fried fish in a tamarind sauce, and a Malaysian curry with eggplant and okra. It was the texture of the vegetables and fish that stood up and out for me.

Joy, this has been an interesting thread to read, and I'm sure whatever you bring to the party will be wonderful and appreciated by all there. But let me throw out a suggestion -- what if you made an American dessert as your contribution? It seems to me that if there were a party with 50 Americans and one or two Indonesians invited, no one would expect an Indonesian guest to make some American specialty for the first time, something they'd never even tasted before. Instead, the American guests would probably love to have something from the guest's own culinary tradition.

Anyway, just a thought. And if you do want to check out bakeries from a nearby cuisine, there are a number of Filipino places in the area, and a number of Filipino posters here on LTH who can surely give some advice. (Though when my Filipina sister-in-law's dad visited us a few years ago he brought us a banana cream pie from Baker's Square... )

Please report back on the party!

Amata

Here's a filipino bakery that I'm pretty sure has steamed rice cake (puto).

The food we tried (lechon, pancit bihon, pork bbq) wasn't very good but the bakery part has a large selection. I picked up a mocha cake roll, which was my favorite filipino dessert when I was a kid. Just barely sweet, and lots of frosting that tasted mostly of coffee and butter. Again, not sugary. Their version was a little dry, and could have used a little more frosting, but it hit the spot.

Mom's Bake Shoppe & Restaurant
2415 W. Peterson Ave.
Chicago, IL 60659
773 784-1318

grace

There is a place online called Indomart that we have ordered Indonesian food & non-food products from. Many seasonings and sauces, packaged instant foods, frozen items, drinks and sweets. First time we ordered they had frozen "homemade" dishes that arrived sealed and frozen, I believe we had chicken goreng and frozen fried bananas. I didn't see frozen dishes listed recently though.

http://www.indomart.us/catalog/products_new.php

swine dining wrote:Here's a filipino bakery that I'm pretty sure has steamed rice cake (puto).

Mom's Bake Shoppe & Restaurant
2415 W. Peterson Ave.
Chicago, IL 60659
773 784-1318

If you're planning on taking the filipino food route for your indonesian party, you can also check out the following filipino stores which sells some good sweet and savory snacks and desserts. Here are some ideas of what you can bring:

Snacks, Desserts & Cakes -

Guinataang bilo bilo - rice balls with coconut milk

Kamoteng kahoy bibingka - large cassava pancake cake

Pitsi Pitsi - mini cassava pancake

Sapin Sapin - Layered rice cake flavors of Ube (purple yam), Macapuno (young coconut), Cutchinta (orange rice cake), and Langka (jackfruit).

Suman sa Ibos - a mixture of glutinous rice, coconut milk and salt, packed in palm leaves, specific to the Pangasinan Philippine region

Suman sa Lihiya - a mixture of glutinous rice, coconut milk and salt, packed in banana leaves, specific to the Nueva Ecija Philippine region

Suman sa Antala - a mixture of glutinous rice, coconut milk and salt, packed in banana leaves

Leche Flan - Egg Custard with Caramel Sauce

Phillipine Fruit Salad - Creamy fruit cocktail salad with coconut

Iraid - Grated cassava and sweet potato cake

Macapuno tart - young coconut tart

Brazo de Merced - soft vanilla sponge cake with custard filling

Mocha Chiffon Roll - soft mocha sponge cake with custard filling

Cashew Boat Tart - cashew tart in the shape of a boat

Egg Pie - egg custard pie

Buko Pie - coconut pie

Empanada or empanadita - Mini pie filled with meat and/or vegetables

Ensamada - sweet pastry topped with butter, sugar and shredded cheese

Siopao - steamed pork buns

Maja Blanca - coconut pudding

Hopia - flaky pastry filled with red or yellow mung bean

Uni-Mart
5845 N Clark St, Chicago, 60660 - (773) 271-8676
7315 W. Dempster Ave., Niles, IL. - (847) 755-1082
2457 W. 75th St., Woodridge, IL - (630) 910-6386
1038 W. Golf Rd., Hoffman Estates, IL - (847) 755-1082

Well I wound up not taking anything with me to the Indonesian party, which was lovely and filled with strange, wonderful delicious food.

But a few weeks later, the woman hostess who gave the party made steamed cakes using the recipe that was suggested by this forum. She already had small metal cups that have holes in the sides that are made especially for these steamed cakes. She told me that she got them in Chinatown, although now that I know what they look like, I think I might be able to find them in other large Asian markets. She lined the cups with parchment paper and filled them part way with the batter. She tried a number of different steamer configurations, settling on a bamboo steamer basket and lid in a wok with lid.


The cakes turned out quite nicely as you can see from these photos.



It is one of those things that seems very do-able once you have seen it done. --Joy

Wow! Those cakes look so awesome that I'm super tempted to make them now Great job!

Anything new on the Indonesian front? I have relatives from Indonesia coming here for Indonesian Independence day (Aug 17) and am at a loss as to how to celebrate. I'll definitely not be cooking since I have no bench marks. Thanks in advance.

-ramon