Sundanese cuisine (Indonesian: Hidangan Sunda; Sundanese: ᮃᮞᮊᮔ᮪ ᮞᮥᮔ᮪ᮓ, romanized: Asakan Sunda) is the cuisine of the Sundanese people of Western Java, and Banten, Indonesia. It is one of the most popular foods in Indonesia. Sundanese food is characterised by its freshness; the famous lalab eaten with sambal and also karedok demonstrate the Sundanese fondness for fresh raw vegetables. Unlike the rich and spicy taste, infused with coconut milk and curry of Minangkabau cuisine, the Sundanese cuisine displays the simple and clear taste; ranged from savoury salty, fresh sourness, mild sweetness, to hot and spicy.
Sambalterasi is the most important and the most common condiment in Sundanese cuisine, and eaten together with lalab or fried tofu and tempeh. Sayur Asem vegetable tamarind soup is probably the most popular vegetable soup dish in Sundanese cuisine. Another popular soup is Soto Bandung, a soup of beef and daikon radish, and mie kocok noodle soup with beef meat and kikil.
Ingredients
Oncom, a popular fermented ingredient in Sundanese cuisine
Fresh water fishes such as carp, gourami, tilapia and catfish are usually either being bakar (grilled) or goreng (deep fried) and usually served with sambal or sweet soy sauce. Sundanese people has developed fondness for salted seafoods. Various fried salted fishes, anchovy, and salted cuttlefish is popular in Sundanese daily diet. The pais or pepes cooking method that employs banana leaf as the wrapper of food is also common in Sundanese cuisine. Among other, pais lauk emas or carp fish pepes is among the favourite pepes dishes.
Chicken are usually either fried or grilled, also served with sambal or sweet soy sauce. Bakakak hayam is Sundanese style ayam bakar (grilled chicken). Sometimes chicken also can be made as pepes or soup. Meats such as beef, water buffalo, lamb, mutton, or goat can be marinated with the mixture of spices and coconut sugar and fried to make the empal gepuk sweet fried meat, sprinkled with fried shallots. Beef and potato sometimes are stewed in sweet soy sauce and spices as semur daging. Cow liver and jengkol stinky bean also can be made as semur as well. Goat, mutton, and lamb meat also can be made as satay in Sundanese style, such as sate maranggi. Gulai kambing (lamb curry), and empal gentong goat meat and offalcurry is also popular soup.
If Javanese has developed their fondness for tempeh, Sundanese has developed the fondness for oncom instead, both are fermented products but with different kind of fungi and beans; tempeh is from soy beans while oncom is from peanuts. Sundanese has developed the fermentation method to create distinct foodstuffs. Fermentation was employed either for making fermented food such as oncom, making sauce such as tauco (adopted from Chinese Indonesian cuisine), or sweet snack foods such as peuyeum which are tapai made from rice or cassava.
Sundanese restaurant
A Sundanese warung foodstall, displaying foods on table
In Sundanese cuisine establishments, it is common to eat with one's hands. They usually serve kobokan, a bowl of tap water with a slice of lime in it to give a fresh scent. This bowl of water with lime in it should not to be consumed, however; it is used to wash one's hands before and after eating.
Sundanese traditional restaurants may feature a traditional dining style called lesehan; where one eats on the floor, sitting on a straw or bamboo mat. The dishes may be served on a short legged table or served on the mat. This dining style is quite similar with the Japanese traditional tatami style. The Sundanese traditional restaurants in rural villages may also feature a saung style restaurant. Which features several small eating pavilions that might be built near or over fresh water fish ponds. The fish ponds typically contain live fresh water fish such as carp and gourami, that can be selected and ordered by customers to be freshly cooked.
Sundanese saung bamboo pavilion restaurant.An example of Sundanese dishes in lesehan (seated on mat) style, which includes sate kambing (mutton satay), gurame bakar, karedok, steamed rice, lalab and sambal.
In popular Indonesian culture, Sundanese restaurants can often be easily distinguished by containing the name "Kuring", thus led to the terms "Kuring"-food or "Kuring"-restaurant. However this name is rather misleading, since in the Sundanese language the word Kuring is a common and colloquial, yet rather coarse form which refers to the first-person singular personal pronoun ("I" or "me"), and as the possessive adjective ("my"). This naming trend was led by restaurants that tried to imitate the famous Sundanese restaurant Lembur Kuring (Sundanese: "My Home Village"). Some examples of famous Sundanese restaurants are Ampera, Boboko, Bumbu Desa, Ciganea, Dapur Sunda, Laksana, Lembur Kuring, Mang Engking, Mang Kabayan, Ma' Uneh, Ponyo, Sari Kuring, Saung Kuring, Sindang Reret and Talaga Sampireun.
Nasi timbel, refers to the style of cooking where one wraps cooked hot steamed rice in a banana leaf. The heat of the hot-cooked rice contacts the banana leaf and produces a unique aroma. It is made in ways similar to that of making lontong; compressed, rolled, and wrapped in banana leaves; it then evolves into a complete dish served with various side-dishes like fried chicken, duck, pigeon, empal gepuk, jambal roti, tahu, tempeh, sayur asem, or with lalab and sambal. Nasi timbel later evolved to nasi bakar.
Nasi liwet Sunda, a “one pot” dish consisting of rice, and seasoned with spices like galangal, lemon grass, and Indonesian bay leaves. To further enhance the flavour, usually parts of a salted fish added as well.[1]
Nasi tutug oncom, or hot steamed rice is usually mixed with roasted oncom, shallots, and kencur, and is typically served with krupuk, sambal terasi, and anchovy.
Lalab, raw vegetables with sambal
Lalab: raw vegetable salad usually eaten with sambal
Oncom: a type of fermented food similar to tempeh. Oncom can be fried, made into “pepes” or stir fried with vegetables such as Ulukutek Leunca (Solanum nigrum) or Oncom Peuteuy (green stink bean).
Tumis Tauco: vegetables stir fried with fermented soybean paste sauce. Tauco is similar to Japanese miso paste.
Various Pepes: pepes refers to a cooking method which employs a banana leaf wrapper. Various ingredients could be made into pepes, such as carp, anchovy, tofu, oncom, leunca, mushroom, salted egg, etc. The most famous recipe is Pais Lauk Emas (carp fish pepes).
Various Ikan bakar: literally means "grilled fish", served with a sweet soy sauce and chilli dipping sauce. The fish could be carp, gourami, tilapia, or catfish.
Gurame goreng kipas
Various Ikan goreng: literally means "fried fish". It is served with sweet soy sauce and chilli dipping sauce. The fish could be carp, gourami, tilapia, or catfish. The famous recipe is Gurame goreng kipas, which is deep fried gourami with flesh spread like a fan.
Various Ikan Asin, or salted fishes, which are mostly seafood dishes such as peda, jambal, pari (rays), ikan asin bulu ayam, teri (anchovy), and cumi asin (cuttlefish); also fresh water gabus (snakehead).
Ladu: sweets made from part of fine sticky rice powder and part coarse roasted sticky rice grains, mixed with palm sugar then compacted; usually it has triangular cut.
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