Julia and Pat’s Guide to Cooking Indonesian Food

Appears in
Mortar and Pestle: Classic Indonesian Recipes for the Modern Kitchen
Mortar and Pestle

By Patricia Tanumihardja

Published 2024

  • About
Indonesian cuisine is a home-cooked cuisine. And the first rule of home cooking is that there aren’t any hard and fast rules to follow. Consider the recipes and tips in this book as guidelines to help you discover your very own culinary journey.

Like many Indonesians, Julia cooks instinctually. Remember, for centuries there were no recipes written down and followed. Before the first Indonesian cookbook was published in the 1960s, recipes were passed down by word of mouth, from one generation to the next. Quantities for spice pastes, sambals, and complete dishes were committed to memory. Ingredients were selected and measured by sight, smell, feel, and especially taste.