Traditional Indonesian Cooking Techniques We Are Losing
Stone-pit cooking, se'i smoking, leaf-wrapped cooking and tempoyak fermentation: ancestral Indonesian techniques and how to try them in a home kitchen.
Long before gas stoves, ovens and fridges, our ancestors had clever ways to cook and preserve food. Many of these techniques are now rarely used in cities, yet they give flavours that modern methods cannot match.
Stone-pit cooking from Papua
In the Baliem Valley and the Papuan highlands, stones are heated in a fire, then layered in an earth pit with sweet potatoes, greens and meat, and covered with leaves and grass. The heat of the stones cooks everything slowly. Bakar batu is more than a cooking method: it is a communal meal for the whole village. A family-sized version is in our bakar batu (barapen) chicken recipe.
Smoking: se'i and ikan asar
In East Nusa Tenggara, meat is cut into long strips and smoked slowly over kosambi wood embers until cooked and fragrant. The result is se'i. On the coasts of Maluku and Papua, skipjack or mackerel tuna is smoked into ikan asar. Smoke adds a distinctive aroma and keeps food longer without a fridge.
Wrapping in leaves
Banana leaves are a natural wrapper used across the archipelago: pepes, botok, tum and lontong. The leaf keeps the spices on the food, holds in steam and adds a gentle aroma. Bali has tum ayam, spiced minced chicken wrapped in banana leaf and steamed. Besides banana leaves, young coconut leaves are woven for ketupat and bamboo is used for lemang.
Fermentation
Fermentation was how our ancestors kept a big harvest from going to waste. In Sumatra, durian flesh is fermented into tempoyak and cooked with fish to make tempoyak ikan patin, sour, spicy and fragrant. Shrimp paste, tape and tempeh are fermented foods we use every day.
Wood stoves and a low flame
Dishes like rendang and gudeg were once cooked on wood stoves over a low flame for hours. The gentle heat lets the spices soak in and turns coconut milk into fragrant oil. On a gas stove, use the lowest flame and a heavy pan to get close to the same result.
Trying them at home
- For simple smoking, use a lidded grill with fruitwood chips over charcoal.
- For leaf-wrapped dishes, soften banana leaves over a flame or in hot water so they do not tear.
- Small-scale stone-pit cooking can be approached by long steaming in a tightly covered pot, though the aroma will of course be different.
These ancestral techniques deserve to be practised and recorded. Get to know the Indonesian base spice pastes that often go with them.
