INDO TASTES - MEMORY, FRAGRANCE, AND THINGS THAT BITE

A very good friend pointed me in the direction of an Anglo Indian recipe forum on social media, which has proven fascinating, not only because of the food posts, but also the flashes of personality, life style, and socio-cultural environment that glimmer through. I feel like I'm observing a remarkable culture, and it's evident that a number of other readers have similar perceptions.

Anglo Indians are people whose family make-up, history, and origins, sprung from India during the British period. Not necessarily the mixture of English and Indian. Some of them have surnames that point at Portuguese or Dutch ancestors, others are more strictly Indian, and some are English or English plus.
At present time, they live all around the globe.

I myself am not Anglo Indian. Actually of Dutch American ancestry (yes, some Anglo in the woodpile), we moved to Holland when I was an infant, and I came back to the States by myself when I was college age. My culinary data-sets at that point included beer, fried foods, Dutch Indies style cooking and condiments, and a smattering of other things, mostly rather French influenced, some English. No actual "Dutch American food", though I believe apple pie, donuts, and cookies, qualify as such.
No American food; my mother's meatloaf recipe (awful) and spaghetti (good) are in the final count, not really significant, except that I very rarely have meatloaf or spaghetti nowadays. That, plus 'chili beans', and Turkey, were the extent of my North American culinaria.

Pizza, fettuccine, hamburgers, Philly cheese steaks, cioppino, tuna salad.
The unmitigated horror of the chili cheese dog.
With onions and pickles.
Ketchup.


Sorry, not to sound snarky or anything, but if you put bacon, cheddar, and chopped pickled Jalapeños on top, almost anything tastes American.

Add a side of ranch dressing.



THE INDO LARDER

Netherlands Indies taste utilizes a number of things or concepts that aren't, strictly speaking, common in the American kitchen or restaurant. Many Dutch people have Indonesian connections in their family trees and family histories, both Prime Minster Mark Rutte and former Foreign Minister Koenders as examples have such links. But there isn't even a close overlap with family backgrounds and culinary tastes anymore, as many folks without a drop of Indies blood will have Indo Dutch ingredients and foods in their kitchen, while many people of Dutch Indo descent are somewhat unfamiliar with a number of these things entirely;  'yeah man, gotta ask my auntie 'bout all that stuff'.

As a rough set of basics, the larder often contains at least Atjar, Ketjap Manis, Sambal, Serundeng, Trassi or Blatjang, and a bag of shrimp chips (krupuk). Plus the makings of peanut sauce (sate saus, bumbu katjang), necessary curry spices, plus Chinese bottled sauces.

A nice red sambal goes with both fish and fried foods.
You should always have some on hand.


ALL THAT STUFF

ASAM
Sour. Asam djawa is tamarind, used as a cooking ingredient, sometimes mashed and cooked as a dip on the side. Asam gelugur is garcinia atroviridis, added as a souring agent, and often sold as dried slices (asam keping).

ATJAR
Pickles. Not dill chips or cornichons, but somewhat more like the Indian achaar, strong flavoured and meant to keep in a Tropic environment. Salt, vinegar, oil, spices. The most common version is atjar tjampur, mixed chopped vegetables jazzed up with salt, vinegar, oil.

BAWANG GORENG
Fried onion chips, used as a garnish on top of prepared dishes. Some people nowadays use crumbled potato chips instead.

BLATJANG
Fermented anchovies or shrimp, semi-liquid in form, and stinky-savoury. An ingredient in cooked dishes, also used with tomatoes or green mangoes as a table condiment.

DJERUK PURUT
Kaffir lime, most often used for the leaves -- daun djeruk purut -- the released oils of which add both fragrance and mouthfeel to dishes.
It is usually removed before serving.

DJINTAN
Usually Cumin seed (bidji djintan) or powder, although sometimes caraway and fennel are referred to as djintan also. Linguistic usages here are variable.

EBI
Dried shrimp, common to many South East Asian cuisines. You could soak them in garlic paste, lime juice, and hot sauce, then low-fry till crispy again.

GULA; GULA DJAWA, GULA AREN
Palm sugar, produced similarly to maple sugar. Crumbly, sometimes hard. Not essential, but often a beloved ingredient. Long resettled Indos will, in the absence of gula djawa ("Javanese sugar"), make do with golden sugar or coarse Chinese cake sugar (紅糖 and 冰片糖) instead.

HALIA (DJAHE)
Used fresh and dried. Self-explanatory.

KATJANG TANAH
Peanuts. Roasted and salted or spiced, as a snack or strewn on top. Or roasted and ground, cooked with onions, chilies, tamarind or lime, and spices, etcetera. When it has become a sauce, it is poured over barbecued items and salads, or, in the Netherlands, French Fries. The native Dutch versions are not very good.

KELAPA PARUT
Grated coconut. Soaked and squooze, it yields coconut milk for cooking. Carefully pan-toasted, it can be added to many dishes for a textural effect.

KELUWAK
Pangium edule nuts, which after considerable processing are a safe ingredient in black stews, often containing beef, chicken, even pork.

KEMIRI
Candlenuts. Toasted and ground up as a flavour addition, but also because they help keep sauces emulsified.

KETUMBAR
Coriander seed (bidji ketumbar) and leaf (daun ketumbar), frequently used in the same dish. The term is derived from a Dravidian language, and related to 'kotumir' as well as 'kachumber'.

KETJAP ASIN
Salty soy sauce, used in cooking. Especially Javan and Chinese.

KETJAP MANIS
Sweet soy sauce, available in every Dutch supermarket. Likewise used in cooking, but also drizzled over grilled foods, and absolutely one of the top inclusions in your cupboard.

KUNYIT
Turmeric.

LENGKUWAS
Galangal. Dwarf ginger.

LIMAU, LIMAU HIJAU
Lime types. A squeeze of juice is often added to fried or grilled food. Philippine calamansi is known as 'limau kasturi' or in some areas 'kalamunting'. The common Indonesian term for limes and other citrus fruits is 'djeruk'.

PANDAN
Fragrant screwpine. Daun pandan is often used as an extract in sweets, pastries, pudding.

PETIS
Stroppy Javanese fermented krill. But also confusingly used for Thai and Vietnamese fish sauces used condimentally.

SAMBAL
Probably the defining ingredient; chili paste, "plus". Plus onions, oil, and kemiri, fried into sambal badjak. Plus stinky fish paste and perhaps lime juice; sambal trassi. Plus fried onions; sambal bawang goreng. Plus tomato and garlic, cooked but still wet; sambal tomat. Plus a main ingredient and fried and sauced together; sambal goreng, a spicy side, of which there are innumerable kinds.

SANTAN
Coconut milk used for cooking. Often with stock and water added.

SERAI
Lemon grass; a major flavouring  ingredient, which is often removed after simmering.

SERUNDENG
Toasted flavoured rasped coconut and peanuts, or almonds or other nuts, or seaweed  substituted for one of the ingredients. The most common version is approximately one third peanuts two thirds rasped coconut, with a little palm sugar, ground coriander, and fish paste, dash tamarind water, slowly pan-toasted till brown and dry. Added on top of curry and rice it's wonderful, and the perfect taste of home. Make extra. It keeps.

TEMU KUNTJI
Finger root, Chinese keys. A relative of ginger used a lot in Javanese cooking, but also medicinally, which means that when American hippies finally discover it the price will go up along with all kinds of attestations about a mystic mysterious magic super ingredient.

TJABAI
Chilies. Essential. Among other things, no sambal without these.

TRASSI
Stinky purple brown fish or shrimp paste, pressed into a brick. Great as an ingredient, but if you cook a lot with this, your kitchen may smell like a South East Asian slum. You could just wrap the entire brick in aluminum foil and grill it at low temperature in the oven, then let it cool and coarsely grind it. Trassi bakar.



PLEASE HAVE SOMETHING TO EAT

Now then, a few nice Indonesian Restaurants: Have some peanuts with that!

Plus a selection of Indonesian dishes, and some eateries in Amsterdam: Do you want rice with that?

As for recipes, oh heck, they're all over this blog. Not all of them by any means are Indo, but sambal, fish sauce, and lime juice go with almost anything here. Even boeuf Bourguignonne. And Frites.


That sambal goes well with Chinese food or Chinatown chachanteng dishes, is, naturally, vanzelfsprekend.



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