The atlas · A cuisine · West Sumatra, Indonesia
Minangkabau
The cooking of the Minang highlands: chilli, coconut and time, and the source of the Padang restaurants found across Indonesia and Malaysia.
Where it comes from
The Minangkabau are matrilineal, and have a long tradition of merantau — young men leaving home to make their way elsewhere. Food that kept on the road mattered, and the cooking came to prize dishes that improve and last: rendang above all, cooked until it's nearly dry.
Those who left opened restaurants. Nasi Padang — rice with a spread of dishes laid out at once, paying for what you take — carried the cuisine across the archipelago, which is why it's often simply called Padang food.
Where in it
- PadangThe coastal capital that gave the food its name abroad: restaurants stacking dozens of dishes in the window, soto for breakfast, sate at night and sambal ijo on every table.Sambal ijoSoto PadangSate Padang
- PariamanA fishing town up the coast from Padang, known for sala lauak, crisp balls of rice flour and fish, and for a red sate that rivals Padang's.Sala lauak
- BukittinggiThe cool highland market town of the Minang heartland: nasi kapau in the market, itiak lado mudo from the canyon's villages, and Payakumbuh, a rendang town, just to the east.Nasi kapauItiak lado mudo
- SawahluntoA coal town built under Dutch rule, worked by convict and contract labour; the Goedang Ransoem, the vast kitchen that fed the miners, is now a museum.
How it cooks
- Lado
- Chilli, pounded coarse — the base of the sambals and of half the dishes.
- Bumbu
- A spice paste of shallot, garlic, chilli and rhizomes, ground fine and fried until it smells cooked.
- Reducing in coconut milk
- Gulai, then kalio, then rendang: the same pot, cooked further, is a different dish.
- Kerisik
- Coconut toasted and pounded to an oily paste, for body and a nutty depth.
Always in the kitchen
Cook from it
Tonight, with what's good in October
Its classics
MinangkabauRendangBeef simmered in coconut milk and spice paste for hours, until the liquid is gone and the meat fries in what's left.2 versions here
MinangkabauSambal ijoGreen chillies, shallots and green tomato, steamed, pounded coarse and fried in oil.1 version here
MinangkabauGulaiA turmeric-yellow coconut curry — fish, goat, jackfruit or offal — and the first stage on the road to rendang.No one here has made it yet
MinangkabauSate PadangSkewers of boiled then grilled beef and offal, under a thick, spiced sauce thickened with rice flour.No one here has made it yet
MinangkabauDendeng baladoBeef sliced thin, dried or boiled, fried until crisp, then tossed through a coarse, oily sambal of red chilli and shallot.No one here has made it yet
MinangkabauSoto PadangA clear, spiced beef broth poured over crisp-fried beef, rice vermicelli and potato fritters, with crackers and rice alongside.No one here has made it yetMinangkabauLamangGlutinous rice and coconut milk, packed into bamboo lined with banana leaf and cooked for hours at the edge of a fire.No one here has made it yetMinangkabauItiak lado mudoDuck simmered with spice until tender, then cooked down in a great heap of pounded green chilli and shallot until coated and oily.No one here has made it yetMinangkabauSala lauakCrisp little balls of rice flour dough, yellow with turmeric and full of small salted fish and chilli, deep-fried.No one here has made it yetMinangkabauNasi kapauRice from the highland village of Kapau, with its own spread of gulai: tambunsu, stuffed intestine; long-cooked jackfruit, cabbage and bamboo shoot; and more.No one here has made it yet
