Nasi Goreng and the Indonesian Staples

Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, with 17,000 islands and dozens of distinct regional cuisines. There is, strictly speaking, no single "Indonesian food". But over the past century a handful of dishes have travelled from their origins to become genuinely national — eaten everywhere, prepared in broadly the same way, and now treated even by Indonesians as the country's culinary baseline. Knowing these five or six dishes is enough to function in any Indonesian restaurant, anywhere.

Nasi goreng

The closest thing Indonesia has to a national dish. Nasi goreng means simply "fried rice", and that's what it is: day-old cooked rice fried in a wok with garlic, shallots, chillies, sweet soy sauce (kecap manis), and whatever protein is available — usually chicken, prawns, beef, or egg.

A standard plate is topped with a fried egg, a few prawn crackers (kerupuk), and slices of cucumber and tomato. It's served everywhere — at warungs (small food stalls) for under a dollar, in mid-range restaurants for a few dollars, and on the breakfast buffet of every hotel from one to five stars.

The defining ingredient is kecap manis, a thick sweet soy sauce that gives Indonesian nasi goreng its distinctively dark colour and lightly molasses-tinged sweetness. Without kecap manis it would be Chinese-style fried rice. With it, it's unmistakably Indonesian.

Regional variations are abundant. Nasi goreng kambing uses goat meat. Nasi goreng petai adds the famous stinky bean. Nasi goreng Aceh is spicier and uses local curry-style spice blends. The Solo version uses a green chilli sambal. But the basic dish is the same wherever you eat it.

Mie goreng

The noodle equivalent: mie (noodle) + goreng (fried). Same approach as nasi goreng but with yellow egg noodles instead of rice. The sweet soy sauce, the fried egg on top, the kerupuk — all present.

Indomie, the world-famous instant noodle brand, is Indonesian. The Mie Goreng Original packet is the country's most-eaten home meal: roughly 12 billion packets sold annually worldwide, with Indonesia consuming most of them. Foreign visitors who treat instant noodles as a downgrade should know that Indomie is regarded by many Indonesians as legitimately good food, served at warungs and dressed up with eggs, sambal, and vegetables.

Gado-gado

A salad of blanched and raw vegetables — usually long beans, bean sprouts, cabbage, potato, hard-boiled egg, tofu, tempeh — dressed in a peanut sauce. The sauce is the dish: peanuts ground with garlic, chillies, palm sugar, lime juice, tamarind, and sometimes shrimp paste.

Gado-gado literally means "mix-mix", reflecting the loose composition. A Javanese specialty originally, it has become national and is sold in versions everywhere. The Surabaya version is heavier on peanut sauce; Jakarta versions often add lontong (compressed rice cake). The Sundanese cousin lotek is similar; the raw-vegetable cousin karedok is also similar.

For vegetarians and vegans, gado-gado is one of the safer Indonesian dishes — usually entirely plant-based (occasionally with shrimp paste in the sauce; ask).

Sate (satay)

Skewered grilled meat with peanut sauce. Sounds simple; isn't.

Major regional varieties:

• Sate ayam Madura — chicken satay in the Madurese style, with sweet kecap-based marinade and peanut sauce. The default chicken sate across most of Indonesia.
• Sate kambing — goat satay, often served sate Solo style with sweet soy and slaked rice.
• Sate padang — Minangkabau satay (beef tongue, tendon, or other offal), served with a yellow-orange thick spice sauce rather than peanut sauce.
• Sate lilit — Balinese minced fish or chicken pressed onto lemongrass skewers, grilled, and served without sauce.
• Sate maranggi — Sundanese beef satay with sweet-savoury marinade.
• Sate buntel — minced lamb wrapped in caul fat, then skewered and grilled.

The skewers are typically bamboo, and a portion is usually ten skewers served with rice or lontong, peanut sauce in a separate bowl, and sliced shallots and chillies.

Soto

A category of broth-based soups that exists in dozens of regional variations. The common features: turmeric-yellow broth, shredded meat (usually chicken, sometimes beef or offal), rice or rice noodles, and a topping of fried shallots and crackers.

• Soto ayam — chicken soto, the most common, with a clear yellow turmeric broth.
• Soto Betawi — Jakartan soto, with coconut milk in the broth and beef.
• Soto Madura — Madurese, similar to standard but with distinct spicing.
• Soto Padang — Minang style, with crispy fried beef and a darker broth.
• Coto Makassar — Bugis style, very rich beef soto with toasted spices.

Soto is the standard cheap lunch dish across most of Java and is served at thousands of dedicated warung soto stalls.

The other essentials

A few more dishes that count as national and that you'll see everywhere:

• Rendang — slow-cooked beef in coconut milk and spice paste; Minangkabau origin; voted the world's most delicious food by CNN polls. Standard at Padang restaurants nationwide.
• Gulai — a category of Indonesian curries, usually coconut-based and yellow-orange from turmeric. Many regional variants.
• Bakso — meatball noodle soup, with Chinese-Indonesian origins. Beloved as a working-class staple; sold from carts and small shops in every city.
• Martabak — two distinct dishes that share a name. Martabak telur is a savoury stuffed pancake of egg, onion, and minced meat. Martabak manis is a sweet, thick pancake folded with chocolate, condensed milk, peanuts, and cheese — Indonesia's beloved street dessert.
• Pempek — Palembang fish cake, eaten with a dark sweet-sour-spicy sauce called cuko.
• Tahu and tempeh — fried tofu and the famous fermented soybean cake, ubiquitous as side dishes and as components of larger meals.

How to order

A typical Indonesian meal centres on rice, with one or two main protein dishes, a couple of vegetable side dishes, sambal (always sambal), and a drink (often sweetened iced tea, es teh manis). Cutlery is fork and spoon — the fork pushes food onto the spoon, which goes in your mouth. Knives are rare; food is precut. Eating with the right hand is also common and acceptable, especially with rice and curry dishes.

If you're unfamiliar with a place, nasi campur (mixed rice) is a useful order: rice with a selection of whatever the kitchen has prepared. It's the easiest way to sample several dishes without commitment.

A small Bintang beer or fresh fruit juice rounds out a meal. Coffee is the usual after-meal drink; sweetened to about half-syrup unless you specify kopi pahit (bitter coffee) or tanpa gula (no sugar).