![]() You don’t order, just grab a seat, wait for the plates to come to you, and then only pay for what you eat. I could name at least 50 different items without slowing down. Stews, soups, thick curries, thin curries, fried things, grilled things, fish, eggs, beef, beans, chicken, breads, rice. If you go to a Padang restaurant, prepare yourself for an onslaught of literally dozens of dishes. Generally speaking, think chillies, coconut milk, and more chillies. Cassava leaf how to#All I can say is the Minangkabau people, of West Sumatra, sure know how to cook. Though it’s hard to pick a favourite cuisine, and I enjoy just about anything from across the archipelago, Padang food (or Minang food as it’s locally known) has always stood out to me. And with all of that diversity comes a whole lot of food. The language itself, commonly referred to as Bahasa Indonesia, was only formalised in the 40s as a lingua franca to try and unite speakers of over 700 local languages. Indonesia is incredibly diverse, with over 1300 distinct ethnicities spread over more than 6000 inhabited islands. It should come as no surprise that a big part of the Indonesian experience for me is the food. I guess that it was my coming of age, and so from that point on Indonesia has been as closely tied to who I am as Italy is. I was 19 and straight out of home, with a very open mind and street slang respectable enough to grant me an instant band of local troublemakers and a complementary agenda of local mischief. Yogya is still a special place to me, even though my time at university there was short (I specialised in ancient Indonesian history, linguistics, and a little bit of gong playing in the uni’s traditional orchestra). It was therefore only natural that I continue on my language studies to university by which I mean the Indonesian lecturers cut me a deal to drop my visual arts degree in exchange for an express ticket to fourth year level Indonesian classes, and Yogyakarta. As a result, not only were our holidays fantastic, but the Indonesian community in Perth was large, and I spent about 10 of my school years learning Indonesian. For our international friends, these days it takes me almost twice as long to fly from Canberra back to Perth. I was lucky to grow up only a few hours’ from Indonesia, by plane. So I’m very excited to present our latest creation: fagottini made with cassava leaf dough and cooked as potstickers, filled with slow-cooked beef rendang, and served with green sambal, chilli eggplant, and toasted coconut. And is quite possibly one of the tastiest things that I’ve ever cooked! My roots might be in Italy, and my home in Australia, but Indonesia is where I really grew into myself. Selamat pagi para pemasak dan para pecinta makanan! This week we’ve crafted something extra special and delightfully different, a fusion of cuisines that is particularly close to my heart. ![]()
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