NASI TUMPENG- AN ANCIENT JAVANESE RICE RECIPE. OR NASI TUMPENG FROM THE ANCIENT SUNDA NUSANTARA

"The blessing of the rice seeds” ceremonies and harvest festival
NUSANTARA FOOD RECIPE AND FOOD CULTURE

RICE WAS THE STAPLE FOOD FOR THE ANCIENT KINGDOMS OF THE NUSANTARA 

A KINGDOM WAS BORN.....The word NUSANTARA was taken from an oath by Gajah Mada, a powerful military leader and Prime Minister of the Majapahit Empire who was credited with bringing the empire to its  PEAK OF GLORY

Javanese cuisine is the cuisine of Javanese people. In a wider sense, Javanese cuisine might also refer to the cuisine of the whole people of Java Island, Indonesia; which also include Sundanese in West Java, Betawi people in Jakarta and Madurese on Madura Island of East Java. These ethnic groups have their own distinctive cuisines

Javanese cuisine is largely divided into three major groups:

1.Central Javanese cuisine (masakan Jawa Tengah)

2. East Javanese cuisine (masakan Jawa Timur)

3. Common Javanese dishes 

Image from cooking-varieties nusantara gallery- A Kingdom was born

 The word NUSANTARA was taken from an oath by Gajah Mada, as written in an old Javanese manuscript by Negarakertagama. Gajah Mada was a powerful military leader and Prime Minister of the Majapahit Empire who was credited with bringing the empire to its  PEAK OF GLORY.

THE SUNDA KINGDOM

The Sunda Kingdom was a Hindu kingdom located on the western part of Java from 669 to around 1579, covering areas of present-day Banten, Jakarta, West Java, and the western part of Central Java

Knowledge about the kingdom amongst Sundanese people has been kept alive through Sundanese Pantun oral tradition, the chanting of poetic verses mostly tells the story of the golden era of Sunda Pajajaran and the legend of King Siliwangi, the popular king of Sunda.

Sunda kingdom was heavily centered in agricultural activity, especially rice cultivation. The annual Seren Taun rice harvest festival can still be found today in traditional Sundanese communities, who worship the deity of rice during “The blessing of the rice seeds” ceremonies and harvest festival.

Oriental (1513–1515)” Tomé Pires wrote: (excerpts)

The Sunda kingdom was very rich with as much as four thousand horses bought from Priaman (Sumatera) and other islands. It had up to forty elephants; these were for the king’s array. An inferior gold, of six carats, were also found.There was abundant tamarind which served the natives as vinegar. Pepper was also abundant here.

The city where the king was most of the year, is the great city of Dayo. The city had well-built houses from palm leaves and wood. The king’s house had three hundred and thirty wooden pillars. The city is two days journey from the chief port, Kalapa. The people of the sea coast got along well with the merchants from the land. They were accustomed to trade and very often traded with Malacca using junks as a mode of transportation.

Ancient rice cooking called “Tumpeng” - see recipe below

Tumpeng is rice shaped like a mountain with  side dishes added (vegetables and meat). Traditionally featured in the Slamatan ceremony, the cone shape rice was made by using a cone-shaped weaved bamboo container. The rice itself could be plain steam rice, uduk rice (cooked with coconut milk), or yellow rice (uduk rice colored with kunyit (turmeric).

The tumpeng is placed on tampah (rounded woven bamboo container/ tray) covered with banana leaves and surrounded by assorted dishes/ Tumpeng is a very popular ancient Javanese cuisine, as such its also popular amongst the Sundanese, located on the west side of Java.. Excerpts from Wikipedia

JAVANESE NASI TUMPENG, SURROUNDED WITH ANCIENT  DISHES

Recipes on the surrounding dishes will be published in the coming few posts

NASI TUMPENG RECIPEIngredients:  6 to 8 servings

2½ cups long-grain rice
2½ teaspoons ground turmeric
1 cup warm water
1 teaspoon salt
Mix the above turmeric and salt with water (turmeric solution)
Wash rice and soak in turmeric solution for 8 hours. Drain water and set aside

1 cup coconut milk
3 pieces kaffir lime leaves (daun limau purut)
2 pieces bay leaves (daun salam)
1 stalk lemongrass- crushed
2 1/2 cups water
Garnishes:
1 red chili- thin slices1 small cucumber- cut into thin slices
6 pieces shallots-  paper thin slices / chiffanade and fry until golden brown
Put the already drained rice inside a rice cooker. Set aside

Use a cooking pot –add in water, coconut milk, bay leaves, lemongrass, and kaffir lime leaves over medium heat  and bring to a gentle boil. Put off fire and carefully pour contents  into the rice cooker. Mix well and cook. Whilst rice is cooking , stir occasionally like 2 or 3 times using a wooden spatula, to avoid rice from sticking at bottom of cooker.
Once rice is cooked, gently fluff the rice and remove bay leaves, lemongrass and  kaffir lime leaves
To do cones
Use thick paper that will not tear off easily when you put the rice
Shape into a cone according to desired size. Tape along the folded ends to hold the cone in shape. Line the inside with alluminium foil.
Use scissors and cut a few cm off the tip, so that the cone can stand upright. Fill in the rice and pressed it well, else it will crumble if loosely packed. Make it stand upright until ready to serve. Scissor the paper and put rice on a main serving plate or tray.

PICKLING CHILI. HOW TO PICKLE CHILI. ALSO KNOWN AS CHILI JERUK RECIPE

PICKLING CHILI

NAME OF COOKING-VARIETIES NUSANTARA RECIPE:

PICKLING  GREEN  BIRD CHILI  RECIPE
PICKLING PEPPER CHILI RECIPE

Ingredients:

1/2 cup pickling salt (not table salt)

1 1/2 cup mineral water

1 cup green bird chili– wash and clean

Bring to boil ½ cup pickling salt with mineral water.

 Put chili inside a clay pot and pour over the above brine solution. Leave overnight. Next day remove chili from brine and rinse over running water.

Storage jar

Use an airtight jar. Sterilize the jar with hot water and salt. Do not use jars with metal caps, the flavor will be spoilt because of the vinegar content.

 Put chili and shallots inside the jar. Leave aside

 BIRD CHILI  (RED)

Other pickling ingredients

10 pieces peeled small size shallots

1 cup water

1 cup malt vinegar

1 tablespoon pickling salt

½ teaspoon sugar

Boil up 1 cup water with vinegar, salt and sugar. Once boiled, put off fire and leave to cool. When cooled, pour onto chili and shallots jar

The chili must be completely submerged under water, with no bubbles.

Use a clay pot for serving.


PICKLING CHILI WITH SHALLOTS

 Chili is a natural antibiotic
The white stem-like inside the chili contains capsaicin and is vey beneficial for health
Capsaicin in chili produces the hot and sharp taste on the tongue “taste cells”. 
To overcome excessive capsaicin taste:

Chew foods containing casein. eg. powdered milk, rice, and bread. Casein dissolves capsaicin
Oil also dissolves capsaicin.
Cooking Varieties suggest you dab sugar on the hot/ burning hot spot, especially on the tongue. In just a few seconds the feeling will certainly go away..

  

CHICKEN RENDANG KERINCHII AND GLUTINOUS RICE-NUSANTARA RECIPE. ALSO KNOWN AS RENDANG AYAM KERINCHI RECIPE

CHICKEN RENDANG KERINCHI
THIS IS A CHICKEN NUSANTARA RECIPE OF THE KERINCHI COMMUNITY
ALSO KNOWN AS RENDANG AYAM KERINCHI

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken- clean and cut into 8 pieces
4 cups pure coconut milk
6 pieces shallots- slice
1 large onion- chop into smaller pieces
10 pieces dried chilies- cut into small pieces and wash
2 cm fresh turmeric- slice
2 cm young ginger root- slice
4 cm galangal- slice
3 stalks lemon grass- slice finely
2 pieces turmeric leaves- fine slices
1 teaspoon fennel powder
5 tablespoon curry powder
2 medium size potatoes- peel and cut each into 4 pieces and salt to taste

Mix fennel and curry powder with 1/2 cup water to form a thin paste.
Blend all the above ingredients except coconut milk, curry paste, turmeric leaves and kerisek

Fry chicken until half cooked

Use a large wok (frying pan). Heat up 2 tablespoon oil and add curry paste. Put in  half cooked chicken, blended ingredients, kerisek and coconut milk.

Once gravy boils, add in potatoes and salt. Stir until gravy thickens and almost dried up. Add turmeric leaves. Turn off fire and serve with glutinous rice

YELLOW GLUTINOUS RICE RECIPE OR TRADITIONAL NUSANTARA YELLOW GLUTINOUS RICE RECIPE. ALSO KNOWN PULUT KUNING RECIPE

YELLOW GLUTINOUS RICE (ALSO KNOWN PULUT KUNING) EAT  WITH

CHICKEN RENDANG KERINCHI-  OR

SWEET COCONUT PASTE

cooking-varieties- nusantara recipe

The Chicken rendang and the Sweet coconut paste should be cooked first, before  you start cooking the glutinous rice.

HOW TO MAKE GLUTINOUS RICE:

Ingredients:

4 cups glutinous rice

2 tablespoon turmeric powder/ fresh turmeric juice is better.

1 1/2 cup pure coconut milk and add

1 tablespoon salt to coconut milk

Wash rice. Soak overnight in water with turmeric powder added to it, to make the rice turns bright yellow in color.

Next day, drain water and place glutinous rice on a steamer pan.

Fill up Steamer pot with water and put to boil. When water has already boiled, put Steamer pan onto the Steamer pot and close tightly with lid cover. Wait for 25 minutes. Open the lid and taste 1piece of rice grain, if it is cooked, put off fire.

Scoop out the glutinous rice and put in a large mixing bowl. Drizzle salted coconut milk all over rice and mix well.

The mixing has to be done bit by bit using a spatula- over and over. In this quantity, it may take about 10 minutes.

The rice will absorb the milk, will not be soggy and should turn shiny and with a slightly brighter shade of yellow

Then, shape the rice anyway you like because it is easy to shape stcky glutinous rice.

You may fill it in a serving bowl and compress it (see picture), then eat with chicken rendang or

 shape into cones and alternate fill up with sweet coconut paste (see picture)

This is traditionally served for breakfast or for tea.

See next page on recipe for Chicken Rendang and Sweet Coconut paste

Before I left for boarding school at age 13, i used to watch my beloved late grandma cook food the traditional way using traditional utensils.

Much later in life, I learnt how to cook some of these recipes from my beloved mother. Some of these traditional recipes are too complicated for me to learn- such as how to remove the entire flesh from a small fish and then fill up the fish again with stuffing.

Last year I tried to master the art again from my mom, but failed. The fish skin always got torn. Of late, even my neighbors in the city, are so keen to teach me how to cook traditional recipes such as this Pulut  Kuning or Glutinous Rice.

Traditionally, we use our hands to eat food. We only use spoons for the gravy or for eating soups, noodles and porridges.

For washing hands, we use a bowl of water added with whatever fragrant flowers are available from the garden and sometimes with lime added.

SWEET COCONUT GLUTINOUS RICE RECIPE OR SWEET GRATED COCONUT AND GLUTINOUS RICE RECIPE OR PULUT MANIS RECIPE

SWEET COCONUT GLUTINOUS RICE RECIPE OR PULUT MANIS RECIPE

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh grated coconut

½ cup melted natural palm sugar- this is done by boiling sugar with some water

Use a wok and heat coconut and sugar. Stir until mixture dries up and form a thick paste..

Shape the sticky glutinous rice and add sweet coconut to it.

 Above image of fresh grated coconut and natural palm sugar