Chilli

Such a defining feature of South-East Asian food, it is hard to believe that chillies were brought from the Americas by the Europeans only five hundred years ago and aren’t a native ingredient. You won’t find many meals without them, whether they are pounded into a bumbu spice paste at the base of a curry, enlivening a salad with ribbons of colour, or turned into a punchy chilli sambal to up the heat at the table. It is not simply fire they are there for - Indonesian food doesn’t have to be spicy and cooks make sure that chilli heat doesn’t overpower the food. Chillies are also chosen for their flavour.