28 epicureasia.com

Some like it hot

A key building block of Indonesian cuisine, sambal is the unifying condiment

found in the country’s cuisine. Eve Tedja delves further into the history

of sambal and tastes its varieties at Jakarta’s best Indonesian restaurants.

W

ith more than 300 ethnic groups, Indonesia is blessed
with an abundance of regional cuisines that makes
defining the country’s cuisine an insurmountable
task. From the Arab-influenced cuisine of Aceh in Sumatra’s
northernmost province, a vast repertoire of spices in Javanese
and Balinese cooking, to the seafood laden fare of Minahasa in
North Sulawesi, it’s no surprise that Indonesia owns more than
5,000 traditional food recipes. Sambal, however, is the common
component of every meal in Indonesia. A recent study conducted
by Gajah Mada University in Yogyakarta found that there are 322
varieties of sambal: each sambal enhances the flavour of the main
ingredients. For example, a typical Manadonese meal consists of a
freshly grilled seabass served with a diced tomato, raw shallots and
fiery bird’s eye chilli known as sambal dabu-dabu. This specialty
sambal is from North Sulawesi and demonstrates the function of
sambal as a relish, a sauce and a salsa.
To say that Indonesians love their sambal is an understatement.
There’s not a day that goes by without them eating at least one
kind of sambal. Even if there is no sambal in a dish they will require
some heat in their pizza or ciabatta sandwich. Chefs probably
would cringe at the constant requests from their guests to include
hot sauce, chopped chillies, chilli oils, chilli flakes on to every
imaginable dish. The oft saying is that spiciness is one of the
preferred tastes in Indonesian palate, right after umami, saltiness
and sweetness.
Restaurants reap profits from creating over-the-top, Scoville
scale record-breaking fried noodles or the nation’s latest street food
craze, ayam geprek. It is a pummelled crispy fried chicken tossed
with one of the most basic sambals: bird’s eye chillies, garlic, shallot,
salt, and pepper. Often, a decision to visit a restaurant is made
because it does a particularly good sambal. During the lean months,
Indonesians are known to colloquially say, ‘just give me rice and
sambal and I’ll make do’. Failure in chilli crop harvests or a hike in
chilli prices tend to make headlines and vex Indonesians because PHOTOS

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this means their favourite sambal terasi or belacan becomes less

spicy. If ever there’s a revolution in this country due to a shortage of

a certain food ingredient, it will probably be attributed to chilli.

Different spices for different folks

Growing up in Bali, there has to be at least one kind of sambal to

accompany my family meal. A Balinese meal is not complete without

sambal embe, a mixture of fried shallots, fried bird’s eye chilli, terasi,

salt, and lime. We would mix a pinch of the entire mixture together

with a handful of cooked rice, adding fried brined fish or whatever

meat or vegetable dishes my mother would cook that day.

A Medanese friend from North Sumatra admits that home

makes her long for sambal andaliman, while another friend from

Bandung, West Java dreams of her mother’s sambal petai (stink

beans) that seems to go well with any dish. This is the best part

about travelling around Indonesia. There is a serious sambal

adventure and culinary discoveries to be had in each city.

Interestingly, up until the 16th century, there was no inkling

that chilli even existed. According to food historian, Fadly Rahman,

prior to discovering chilli, heat was added to the dishes by using

long pepper (Piper retrofractum vahl) or locally known as cabya.

Chilli came to Indonesia through the Columbian Exchange. It

was named after Christopher Columbus. Due to his clandestine

voyage in 1493, a widespread transfer of plants, animals, culture,

technology and ideas altered what Indonesians consume even until

today. The warmth of long pepper was replaced by fiery chilli, a

variety of genus Capsicum. “Despite the diminishing popularity of

cabya, our people still collectively guard its ancient food culture

through names. We refer to chilli as cabai in Indonesian language,”

explains Rahman.

A sambal affair in Jakarta

A trip to Indonesia isn’t complete without trying at least a few

types of sambals. Indonesian fine dining institutions in Jakarta,