Javanese Kitchen

Javanese   Kitchen
Beautiful fresh herbs and spices, simple cooking and yet so delicious that’s my heritage; it is Javanese cooking.  With it I am home.

The traditional cooking of Javanese are braising, frying, steaming and open fire cooking as in grilling meat on skewers.  From breakfast to dinner, food is freshly cooked in every family in their own home. 

From fresh herbs to spices

The traditional Javanese kitchen

The essential herbs and spices are onion-shallot, chilli, garlic, galangal, salam leaf, ginger, turmeric, coriander, lemongrass, lime, kaffir lime leaves, palm sugar, candlenut, tamarind, prawn/fish paste.
Freshly grated coconut, coconut milk, coconut oil and sweet soy are other important ingredients in their cooking.  The dry spices are cinnamon, cloves, white pepper and nutmeg.

The herbs and spices for daily Javanese cooking are garlic, chilli, onion-shallot (hot dishes-sayur pedas), for the (mild dishes-sayur gurih) are, garlic, coriander, onion. Galangal/salam leaf have to be added to round up for extra flavour.  

I do like the simplicity of it, and yet it delivers delicate and lovely aromatic dishes.

I have a lovely memory, when I was eight years old, my parents allowed me to do the cooking, and this is what I cooked: Saute Green Beans.  My father and mother said that I could cook very well.

Freshly cooked Sauteed Green Beans Javanese Style

(oseng oseng buncis)

The Recipe:
Oseng Oseng Buncis-Sauteed Green Beans

Two cups fresh green beans, sliced finely

1 garlic, chilli and shallot-peeled and sliced finely

1 small slice of galangal

2 tablespoon oil

1 small piece of palm sugar

2 tablespoon water

Some lemon juice

Salt to taste

Method

Saute the chilli, garlic, and shallot with oil until soft

Add in the sliced bean, salt, sugar and the water

Cook in hot heat covered the wok for 3 minutes

Uncover, toss the seeds around,  add in the lemon juice
Serve hot as a side dish

Oseng Oseng Buncis-Sauteed Green Beans

beans are sliced finely

aromatic herbs are sliced finely

(shallot, garlic, chilli) and a slice galangal

sauteing the aromatic herbs

sauteed beans are cooked for a few minutes

The beans are cooked, and yet the colour is bright green, and it's crunchy.
I did it successfully when I was only eight. So I was well complemented by my parents.

My knives skill was already excellent as I was able to cut the beans and the herbs finely.

Variations: add in some sliced fish or prawns.

I will be posting a lot more interesting Javanese recipes in the future.

Stay Tuned
Susy