Betawi people is a group of jakarta dwelling community and its sorrounding. Betawi people is creative and imaginative in using materials found in their sorroundings such as durian flower, jengkol (dogfruit) and melinjo. Betawi dishes are usually stir fried to release the fragrance. Betawi cooking techniques are diverse with cultural acculturation of culture such as Chinese, India, Arabic and European.
The following are Famous Betawi Culinary :
1. Ketupat Sayur
Ketupat sayur is a delicious dish, we usually have it for breakfast. Everyone in our house love it. Ketupat sayur is a rice cake dish or lontong served with lodeh soup. Lodeh itself is a dish made from long bean, pumpkin or young papaya sliced thin with coconut oil cooked in seasoning of hazelnut,turmeric, onion, garlic and pieces of ebi (dried shrimp). All the ingredient is affordable and easy to find in the market.
You can find the ketupat sayur sold by street vendor in the morning or during lebaran festive (idul fitri and idul adha). In the house of betawi family, people usually eat ketupat sayur together with boiled egg and fried tofu covered by fried onion on top.
The ketupat sayur dish is light, hot and spicy. the smell indulge your sense and increase your appetite.
2. Kerak Telor
Kerak telor is one of betawi people’s favorite snack and it is widely popular. This snack is an authentic Batavian food made from omelet of chicken or duck egg with sticky rice and seasoned with shredded fried coconut, ebi and fried shallots.
The use of shredded fried coconut is a main signature of kerak telor. The kerak telor taste delicious and has distinguish burn smell and flavor of ebi (dried shrimp).
Today, less and less vendor sell kerak telor, they do sell it at Jakarta Fair event and certain spot around the tourist area like fatahillah museum and monas (nasional museum).
3. Bir Pletok
Bir pletok is traditional betawi people’s drink. It made from mixes of herbs like ginger, pandan leaves, and lemongrass.bir pletok is suit for drinking in rainy season where it’s cold. The drink help your body to stay warm. Furthermore, the drink has other advantage like it can smoothing your blood circulation.
4. Sayur Babanci
Sayur babanci is one of iconic betawi dish that started to disappear nowadays. This is due to the difficulty to gather the ingredients. The dish required 21 ingredients. The meat used in the dish comes from the cow’s head especially the cheek. To make the dish, special skill and extra patience is needed.
The name “Babanci” come from the difficulty to clearly identify this dish. The dish can not event classified as vegetable soup as there is no vegetable used in the dish.
Nowadays, betawi people serve the dish only at religious festivals as family menu such as breaking the fast, eid al-fitr and eid al-adha.
5. Gabus Pucung
Gabus pucung is a dish of snakehead fish, doused with thick dark soup from pucung fruit. Pucung is a betawi language for kluwek/keluak (football fruit), an ingredient commonly used as rawon seasoning. But despite the similarity of using kluwak, gabus pucung is thicker than rawon dish. Pucung presents a mixture of salty, sour, sweet and savory tastes.
6. Sate Lembut
For a moment, sate lembut look like sate lilit from bali. Actually sate lembut is a rare satay recipe of betawi people. The satay is made from ground beef mixed with grated coconut and spices, wrapped around flat shaped skewers. The satay taste sweet and savory, then mixed with peanut sauces makes it more delicious. This satay usually served with laksa betawi.
Source : Betawi Culture, Jakarta City – Government Tourism and Culture Office.
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