Fish cooked in a yellow paste of turmeric, chilli and candlenut with a great handful of fresh leaves — lemon basil, lemongrass, pandan, lime leaf.
What makes it ikan woku
A turmeric-yellow paste with chilli and candlenut.
A bundle of fresh leaves — lemon basil above all.
Tomato and lime for freshness.
Where it comes from
Woku is a Minahasan paste and a way of cooking with it. The paste is turmeric, ginger, candlenut, shallot and chilli; what makes it woku is the green: lemon basil, lemongrass, spring onion, pandan, lime leaf and turmeric leaf, cooked with it by the bundle.
Woku belanga is cooked in a pot, with a little water, so there's a bright yellow sauce; woku daun is wrapped in leaves and steamed or grilled. Fish is most common — snapper, grouper, lake carp — but chicken is done this way too.