Ingredients
Rice is important food crops in Java since ancient times. The Javanese are known to revere Dewi Sri as rice goddess. Steamed rice is the common staple food, and served with every meal. Tumpeng cone shaped rice mounds is essential in slametan Javanese traditional ceremonies. Rice can be processed as lontong or ketupat, or cooked in coconut milk as nasi liwet or colored with turmeric as nasi kuning (yellow rice). Other sources of carbohydrate such as gaplek, or dried cassava, is sometimes mixed into rice or replaces rice. Gaplek usually consumed by poor commoners during hard times when rice is scarce. Tubers such as yam, taro and sweet potato are consumed as snack. Bread and grains other than rice are uncommon, although noodles and potatoes are often served as accompaniment to rice. Potatoes are often fried and mashed to be rounded, spiced and fried again coated with battered eggs as perkedel. Noodles, bihun (rice vermicelli) and kwetiau are Chinese cuisine influence and Javanese took these ingredients as their own with their cooking method by applying sweet soy sauce and local spices to create bakmi Jawa or bakmi rebus also bihun goreng. Curiously Javanese might consumed noodles or rice vermicelli with rice although all are carbohydrate sources. Vegetables are important source of food for Javanese, notable Javanese vegetarian food such as pecel, lotek and urap.
Coconut milk, peanut sauce, gula jawa (palm sugar), asem jawa (tamarind), petis, terasi (shrimp paste), shallot, garlic, turmeric, galangal, ginger, and chili sambal are common ingredients and spices that can be found in Javanese cuisine. Freshwater fishes such as carp, tilapia, gourami and catfish are popular, while seafoods such as tuna, red snapper, wahoo, ray, anchovy, shrimp, squid and various salted fish are popular in coastal Javanese cities. Chicken, goat meat, mutton and beef are popular meats in Javanese cuisine. Next to common farm domesticated chicken, the ayam kampung, a native Javanese free-range village chicken, is popular and valued for its natural taste. Almost 90% of Javanese are Muslim, and consequently, much of Javanese cuisine omits pork. However in small enclave of Catholic Javanese population around Muntilan, Magelang, Yogyakarta and Klaten, pork might be consumed. Few ethnic groups in Indonesia use pork and other sources of protein considered haram under Muslim dietary laws in their cuisine, most prominently Balinese cuisine, Indonesian Chinese cuisine, and Manado cuisine.
Read more about this topic: Javanese Cuisine
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