Pempek Palembang

Pempek, Simple Yummy Culinary from Palembang

Palembang Is Very Identical With Pempek

When we hear a word pempek, what another word that should appear in our minds? I think another word that most people must imagine in their brains is Palembang. Pempek is the traditional food from Palembang. It is a fairly well known food in Indonesia. Most people in Indonesia know pempek. Many of them also love it. Probably, some of you do not know what the pempek is. I want to share some of my knowledge about pempek, one of our traditional food.

 

     pempek telur kecil and pempek lenjer with cuko

Pempek or also written by empek-empek is one of Indonesian traditional famous food from Palembang. Actually, it is difficult to say that Palembang is the centre city of pempek because almost all cities in South Sumatera produce pempek. However, Palembang is the capital city from South Sumatera. Thus, although Palembang is not the centre city of pempek, pempek still becomes one of famous identities from Palembang. There are many traditional food from Palembang but pempek is the most famous food. It is very identical with Palembang. In otherwise, Palembang is also identical with pempek.

Pempek is a simple yummy dish. It is loved by many people. Both adults and children love it. Even, people who don’t come from Palembang also love it. Yulia Mitsalina Umar, a Universitas Padjadjaran’s student said “I like pempek because it is savory and the sause is spicy.” She likes the fish taste of pempek. Unlike other traditional food that need a lot of time to cook, we don’t need much time to cook pempek. We also don’t need to prepare many seasonings to cook it. Not only that, we don’t need to put many garnishes in the plate when we serve it. Pempek is already eye-catching in its simple look. Pempek is served with a dark, rich sweet and sour sauce called kuah cuko. Cuko means cuka in Bahasa and vinegar in English. It is the sauce that is served with pempek. This brown sauce is fresh and spicy. Cuko is made from water, vinegar or can be replaced by tamarind and lime, palm sugar, cayenne pepper, garlic, and dried shrimp powder. We also can add yellow noodles or rice vermicelli and fresh chopped cucumber as complement.

As I mentioned above, that pempek is the simple yummy culinary, so the making process of pempek is also not too difficult. I will give the general explanation about the materials and how to make pempek. It will be very interesting to add pempek recipes in your recipes book. It can become one of your best recipe collections. To make pempek, at first we need to prepare pempek dough. The main materials that are needed to make pempek dough are fish and tapioca. Palembang people used to use belida fish to make pempek. According to tradition, belida fish is the best fish to make pempek. It will make the best tasting pempek but due to its rarity and superior taste, pempek which is made from this fish is usually more expensive. Thus, people use others fish to replace belida. Tenggiri and gabus fish are also good fish to make pempek. They have lower price than belida but also can produce rarity and superior taste. We need to grind the fish before mix it into pempek dough. In Palembang, we can get the boneless grind fish easily because all of the sellers of fish provide grind service. So, we don’t need to grind it in the home. If we don’t have the grind tool, it will rather difficult to grind it. However we still can use blender to grind the fish.

Another important material to make pempek dough is water. You need it to knead the dough. Some people add eggs into dough to soften the texture of the dough. The texture of the pempek dough is also depended on the dose proportion of fish and tapioca. It will be better for you not to put more dose of tapioca than the fish in the pempek dough if you want to make more delicious pempek. Using too much tapioca will create the hard texture of your pempek dough. The main seasoning that is needed to make pempek dough is just salt. If you want, you can add flavor to the pempek dough. However, without any flavoring, pempek dough is still delicious and savory. You can put the dose of flavor in the pempek dough according to your taste. Besides that, pempek dough that isn’t added by flavor is healthier for our bodies.

After making the pempek dough the next step that you should do is boiling the water for cooking the pempek. Then, you can make the shape of pempek. There are many shapes of pempek, such as pempek lenjer which has oval shape, pempek kapal selam which the shape is like a submarine ship, and pempek kulit which is flat and round. Some people add a little oil into pempek dough. It can make us easier to make the shape of pempek. The advantage from putting a little oil into the pempek dough is not only the easiness in the making process of pempek shape but also the neatness of pempek shape. It makes the shape of pempek nicer and more beautiful.  After making the shape of pempek dough, put pempek in the boiled water. Pempek that rise can be taken from the pan. It means it has already cooked. We can make the sauce of pempek, cuko, while we are waiting the pempek cooked. To make cuko the first step that we should do is boiling the water. After that, put palm sugar into the pan. Blend the seasonings, cayenne pepper, dried shrimp, and garlic. After that, put it into the boiled palm sugar. Put vinegar or can be replaced by tamarind and lime, into the pan. Wait until all materials mixed and boiled.

Those are some steps to make pempek and its dark fresh spicy sauce, cuko. After they have already cooked, you can serve them in the plate or bowl. Before you serve the pempek you can fry it, until the color becomes light pale brown. If you prefer boiled pempek, it doesn’t matter to serve it without fry it. It is very easy. Isn’t it? You just need some exercises to make a delicious pempek with a good texture. Ms. Bisrah one of Palembang people said that making pempek is not difficult but it is also not easy. She said, “Different people will produce different pempek.”  It means the taste of pempek is commonly different. It depends on the pempek maker. “The secret is in the pempek dough,” said Ms. Bisrah. To make a yummy pempek we must create a good texture of pempek dough. It is needed a professional hand. Some new pempek maker, do not know how to produce a right texture of pempek dough. Sometimes, they use too much time to knead the pempek dough. It will make the texture of pempek dough becomes hard. However, we also cannot knead it in only a few second. Ms. Bisrah said that we need exercises to make good pempek dough. We need to try it in several times. Actually, the important thing to make the good pempek dough is technique. It can be obtained from many ways, besides the exercises. We can get the good technique to make pempek from reading a book, internet, and our friends. Learning to cook with friend is a fun activity. If making pempek is a new thing for you, you can try to make pempek with your friend that like cooking and study some new cooking techniques from your friend.

Actually, although you fail to make good pempek dough, you still can anticipate it with the savory taste of pempek. The trick that you can use to make savory taste of pempek is very simple, that is using fresh fish. If you use fish which is very fresh you can make savory pempek. So, although your pempek texture is not too perfect it still can be a delicious food. Cooking the pempek is a cheaper way to savor the tasty and healthy pempek. If you don’t have much time to cook it, you can just buy it. In Indonesia pempek seller can be found in many where. Besides in Palembang, Pempek is easier to find in other big cities in Indonesia such as Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan and Bandung. However we still can find pempek in other smaller cities in Indonesia. Of course, the number of pempek seller in smaller cities is not as many as in big cities. They have some different ways to sell pempek. Some people that have much money often open a restaurant to sell pempek, others sell it in the food-courts in malls and shopping centers. People also sell pempek in a small stall. However the original pempek from Palembang is different with pempek that are sold in other cities. Ryka Maedytia Rizki, a student in Universitas Padjadjaran, Jatinangor, West Java,  who is from Palembang, said that pempek in Jatinangor has different taste with pempek in Palembang. She said, “I don’t really like to buy pempek in here.” The main ingredients such as fish and flour are scarce and it is difficult to find in other regions. It causes the difference in taste.

In Palembang, as a local traditional food, pempek can be commonly found on every street with a concentration of outlets in downtown Palembang. There are also a number of traveling pempek vendors there. Perhaps in other cities we rarely see traveling pempek vendors. They carry the pempek on a cart or by using bicycle. Actually, pempek that is sold by travel pempek vendors is cheaper than pempek that is sold in restaurant and stall. Many of them use a cheap combination of fish, which has a strong scent. Others use less fish than tapioca to make pempek. However this kind of pempek is still delicious to be eaten but the nutrient content of this pempek is less than the pempek that use more fish and fresh fish. In Palembang, we not only can find traveling pempek vendors, we also can find pempek that is sold in small stall. Of course, in other cities we also can find the pempek which is sold in a small stall. So, what is the difference?  In Palembang, people who sell the pempek in the stall also sell other food as souvenir from Palembang. The food that they usually sell are kerupuk palembang, a snack from fish, it has curly shape, looks like pempek keriting and it also has flat round shape, kemplang, a snack from fish, it is also known as baked kerupuk, lempok or dodol duren, and preserved pempek, it is dried pempek. Pempek that is normally to be dried is pempek keriting.

There are other food that are sold in pempek stall, such as kerupuk and kemplang.

The vendors not only sell one kind of pempek. They usually sell more than one kinds of pempek. Even, some of them, that have big pempek store, provide all of pempek variants. There are many kinds of pempek, those are pempek kapal selam, pempek telur kecil, pempek lenjer, pempek keriting, pempek pistel, pempek kulit, pempek adaan, pempek tahu, and pempek model. Maybe some of you do not know how it is look. So I will describe the shape of those pempek. First, pempek kapal selam, it is a pempek that is filled by chicken egg. The shape of it is like submarine ship. Second, pempek telur kecil, it is similar to pempek kapal selam with smaller size. Third, pempek lenjer, it has similar shape with sausages. Fourth, Pempek keriting, which is curly pempek, the shape is like small noodle ball. Fifth, pempek pistel, which the shape and size is similar to pempek telur kecil, but filled with minced young papaya instead. Sixth, pempek kulit or skin pempek, it is made from the skin of fish and has darker color. Seventh, pempek adaan, it is ball shaped pempek. Eighth, pempek tahu, it is tofu sliced that is filled with pempek dough. The last, pempek model, it is pempek which is filled with tofu, the shape is similar with pempek telur kecil. From all of those pempek the most nutritious pempek is pempek kapal selam. It is rich in protein, fat, vitamin a, mineral, and carbohydrate content.

That’s all about pempek, traditional food from Palembang. This food can become main course or snack. Pempek can become the main course because the main materials of pempek are fish and tapioca. Those two materials are rich of carbohydrate and protein. So it is nutritious and appropriate for main course. However, people in Palembang usually eat it as a snack. They can eat it every time. This traditional food is one of Indonesia’s culinary diversity that must be maintained. It is a valuable identity for Indonesia. Actually, as a traditional food, pempek is very simple. Knowing about pempek not only gives you more knowledge about our traditional food it also gives you an inspiration to serve a simple yummy food for your family or your friends.