Chili, a HOT commodity

The title of this post is not pun intended. In-deed, recently chili has become a HOT commodity in my country both literally and figuratively. Since the end of 2010, the price of chili has gone through the roof. Reaching an impressive IDR 100,000 (US $ 11.1) per kilogram, or five times its normal price and more than the price of chicken meat, it has truly become a hot commodity on dining table and in kitchens of most people in my country.



In less than one week, I already noticed more than 3 articles about this ‘hot commodity’ on headlines of Jakarta Post, one of the local newspapers. Both newspapers and social networking sites have been flooded with ironic messages and posts about chilies. Let me quote some interesting statements:


‘Asnidar is willing to sacrifice her family’s meat consumption in order to keep chili on the table. Chili is our staple food, not rice or meat, she said.’


‘Housewife Desi Octaviani said her family had replaced the hot flavor of chili with pepper’


‘The chili shortage hit lovers of fried snacks particularly hard. On a good day, fried snack vendors are generous in handing out fresh chilies as a complement. Now for 10 pieces of fried-snacks, the vendors only give 3 pieces of chili, tiny ones, told by office worker Rachmadin.’


‘Adisya said that the food at her favorite restaurants had dulled although it still contained chili. The taste is less spicy because they put more tomotoes in it.’


‘Rising chili prices have given us a chance to explore other Indonesian flavors, wrote Bondan Winarno, culinary expert.’


‘In Banyumas, Central Java, food traders tried their best to provide the usual menu at the same price. “We feel sorry for our customers because we cannot provide sambal (chili paste) for them,” Sumini said’.


People in Indonesia hardly go without eating fiery dishes during mealtimes. The hottest condiment known as ‘sambal’ or chili paste is a must-have accompaniment for every meal.

Life without sambal would be so plain for me and I think also for millions of other Indonesians. Imagine life for Koreans without kimchi, Americans without hamburger or Mexicans without tortillas. That is how it has felt for a large number of people in my country over the past few weeks.


Now let’s take a closer look at Indonesia’s treasure chest of Sambals:


Sambal is served as a condiment and as an ingredient for a variety of dishes. It is sometimes a substitute for fresh chilies. It can be extremely spicy for the uninitiated. It is common to find bowls of different sambals on the dining table in Indonesian homes.


Some popular Indonesian sambals include sambal terasi (shrimp paste sambal), sambal bajak, sambal mangga (green mango sambal), sambal ijo (green sambal), sambal balado, sambal kecap (sweet soy sauce sambal), sambal setan, sambal Taliwang, sambal matah and many more.


Sambal Terasi

A common Indonesian style of sambal. Terasi (shrimp paste) is similar to the Malaysian Belacan, but with a stronger flavor since terasi is a more condensed shrimp paste than belacan.


Sambal Bajak

Chili (or another kind of red pepper) fried with oil, garlic, terasi, candlenuts and other condiments


Sambal mangga

Freshly ground Sambal Terasi with shredded young mango; this is a good accompaniment to seafood.


Sambal ijo

A specialty of the Padang area from Indonesia, the sambal is green, made of green tomatoes, green chilli, and spices. The sambal is stir fried.


Sambal Balado

This is the Padang style of Sambal. Red chili pepper is blended together with garlic, shallot, tomato, salt and lemon or lime juice, then sauteed with oil.


Sambal Kecap Manis

Indonesian sweet soy sauce, chili, shallots and lime it has a chiefly sweet taste, as said by the Indonesian word ‘manis’ which means ‘sweet’.


Sambal Setan

A very hot sambal with Madame Jeanette peppers (red brownish, very sharp). The name literally means “Devil’s Sauce”.


Sambal Taliwang

This variant is native to Taliwang, a village near Mataram, Lombok Island, and is made from naga jolokia pepper grown specially in Lombok mixed with garlic and Lombok shrimp paste. It is served as condiments to ayam bakar Taliwang (Taliwang grilled chikcen)


Sambal matah

Raw Shallot & Lemongrass Sambal of Bali origin. It contains a lot of finely chopped shallots, chopped bird’s eye chilli, shrimp paste (terasi), with a dash of lemon.



There are still many other types of sambals ….. but for today, let me close this post by quoting Bondan Winarno, a culinary expert who asked people to look at the brighter side: ‘Rising chili prices have given us a chance to explore other Indonesian flavors. There are other hot flavors such as pepper, andaliman (szechuan peppercorn) and ginger’.


So perhaps it isn’t the end of the world after all for all lovers of chili in Indonesia.

Go Tell It On The Mountain

Last December, the company conducted the year-end meeting at Mount Bromo.  As ‘queen of convenience’ who grew up and spend most of my life in a big city, the idea of going to the mountain was not appealing to me. If it were up to me, I would love to skip the trip but unfortunately as an employee, I had no choice but joined the trip.

Mount Bromo is the most popular of all East Java’s travel destinations. this active 2,392-metre- (7,85 foot-) high volcano lies 112 kilometres (70 miles), about three hours, southeast of Surabaya. Enclosed by perpendicular walls 350 metres (1,150 feet) high, Bromo’s awesome 2,200-metre- (7,220-foot-) high ’sand sea’ caldera has three mountains within it, craters within one huge crater, the Bromo Semeru Massif. There are also three small crater lakes inside the larger crater

On the appointed date, we left Jakarta for mount Bromo as a group of 140 people. We stayed at one of Bromo resort hotels which is located around 1700 meters above sea level. The temperature was quite cold. The next day, we had to wake up at 3 am to get ready to climb the mountain to be able to watch the sun which rises at around 5 am. I can't deny that the view of the sunrise was so beautiful......

During I was in Bromo, one thing that captured my attention was one of the famous dishes of East Java named Rawon (Dark Beef Soup). Rawon is a special dark beef soup cooked with keluak (fruits of kepayang). The special dark color of rawon comes from keluak as the main spice. Keluak is a dark brown nut from Indonesia about the size and shape of a flattened golf ball. Before cooking, the content of the nuts is white in color. Good nuts after cooking, should be richly dark and oily, with the contents variously described as “opium” or “soft tar”. The nuts come from the Pangium edule or “Kepayang” tree, which grows wild in Indonesia and parts of Malaysia.

My mom came from one of the cities in East Java so since I was a kid I have been exposed to this authentic dark beef soup. My mom cooked very delicious Rawon and she always served it warm to eat with steam rice, boiled salted egg, beansprout sambal and shrimp-crackers. It’s so yummy ……..

When I arrived back home, I tried to find my mom’s old recipe of Rawon and here is her version of Dark Beef Soup:

Ingredients:

500 g beef
1 liter water
6 shallots
Pinch of salt
1 roasted tamarind
2 teaspoons coriander seeds
2 keluaks (fruits of kepayang)
1 piece (around1 cm) of turmeric
1 piece (around1 cm) of galangal
1 stalk of lemongrass

Directions:
Clean the beef and boil it in the water in a saucepan until almost tender
Remove the beef from the saucepan and cut into small cubes.
Grind all spices except lemongrass and galan¬gal then sauté at medium temperature.
Put the spice into the boiling beef stock in the saucepan
Add lemongrass and galangal
Put back the beef cubes into the saucepan
Cook through until the beef is really tender

To make the Bean Sprouts Sambal

Ingredients: 3 red chillies, 5 g of roasted shrimp-paste, pinch of salt and a cup of short beansprout

Grind the red chillies, roasted shrimp-paste, and salt, then add the bean sprouts. Mix well

Complement
Rice
Sambal taoge (bean sprouts sambal)
Boiled salted eggs
Fried shrimp crackers

Serve Rawon warm with steam rice, salted egg, bean sprouts sambal, fried shrimp crackers and Go Tell It On the Mountain........