James Peterson

Indonesia

Appears in
Splendid Soups
Splendid Soups

By James Peterson

Published 2000

  • About
Although Indonesian cooking shares much with the cuisines of Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia, it has a few interesting quirks of its own.

Whereas Southeast Asian cooks rely on fish sauce and Chinese and Japanese cooks on their own versions of soy sauce, the most distinctive component of Indonesian cuisine is a dark, rather sweet soy sauce called kecap manis and a lighter version, kecap asin. Indonesians are also fond of galangal, but unlike Thai cooks, who use it freshly sliced, Indonesians use it in its powdered form, laos.