Indonesian Rice - Nasi Pulen

[caption id="attachment_102753" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Rice varieties"][/caption] Rice is a staple food in Indonesia, just like in the rest of the Asia. But more than others, in Indonesia nasi (cooked rice) is THE obligatory food, especially since Indonesians don't fond too much on noodles like Japanese, Thai, or Vietnamese do. Hey, we even eat fried noodles with rice! Here, the food universe revolves around this main ingredients, hence beside of nasi , everything else is merely a companion or condiment! Meat dishes, veggie dishes, soups, no matter how fancy or luxurious they are, all are considered incomplete or even weird without nasi presents. This de-facto standard influences the changes and adjustment made by the international franchise such as Mc D and KFC; Here they serves nasi as standard, not french fries or mashed potato. Beside of cooked into nasi, rice is also cooked to form another almost staple food of lontong, and ketupat. Lontong is cooked rice compressed inside a banana leaf wrap, and ketupat is a diamond shaped compressed rice inside young coconut leaf wrap. Both are often in favor to nasi upon eating kare (curry), or in certain dishes as lontong sayur and kupat tahu, Both are also good in accompanying varieties of soup and soto. Ketupat usually enters the lime light two times in a year around the two moslem holiday of Idul Fitri and Idul Adha, while lontong almost never.

Pulen