Semur

Meat dishes in an Indonesian restaurant in the Netherlands: Semur in the center. Rendang above, below - Balinese meat stew with zimbopogon

The practice of stewing food in soy sauce was adopted by the Indonesians from Chinese cuisine . However, if the original Chinese recipe provided for the use of predominantly ordinary, salty soy sauce for these purposes, then on Indonesian soil it was replaced by the more popular sweet soy sauce , which is prepared using palm sugar and differs from salty not only in taste, but also in a much thicker consistency. In addition, the variety of spices and spices used in the preparation of such dishes has become more diverse ^[1] .

At the same time, the name of this group of dishes already has a European influence: the word “ semur ” is a distortion of the Dutch verb “ stew ” - “ smoren ” ( Dutch smoren ), which in the form of a first person sounds like smoor ( Dutch smoor ). This is due to the fact that the dishes stewed in soy sauce with spices of moderate severity, fell in love with the Dutch colonialists during their dominance in Indonesia , and entered into the practice of the special cuisine that developed in their environment, combining both native and European elements, which was called " East Indian ." So, for example, in the collection of recipes of the East Indian cuisine, published in 1902 in Semarang , six types of semera were featured ^{[2] [3]} .

Due to the fact that the East Indian cuisine over time gained significant distribution in the Netherlands themselves and remained there even after Indonesia gained independence, Semur is still very popular in this country. There, this dish is cooked in numerous Indonesian restaurants , as well as in families with Indonesian roots, and often serves as one of the main components of the rystafel - a complex dinner of several dishes served simultaneously ^{[2] [3] [4]} . Moreover, Semur, as well as some other dishes of Indonesian cuisine, gained a certain distribution in other countries that were at different times possessions of the Netherlands, into the territory of which the colonialists imported labor from Indonesia - for example, in Suriname ^[5] .

In Indonesia itself, Semur is very popular in almost all regions - from the northwestern tip of Sumatra to the Moluccas ^{[1] [2]} .

Semur can be prepared from a wide range of products of animal origin: various types of meat , poultry , offal , fish , seafood , boiled eggs . Most often, the basis of these dishes is beef and chicken , while pork , given the majority of Indonesians belonging to the Muslim faith , is used extremely rarely. Seafood from fish and seafood is traditionally popular in coastal areas. Somewhat less often than animal products, plant foods are used for these dishes: some vegetables and fruits , tofu and tempeh ^{[2] [3]} .

Semur is often one-component, but many recipes involve mixing two or even three main products: for example, meat or poultry with potatoes and onions , potatoes with tofu. Large-sized meat, offal, poultry, and fish for semen are usually cut into medium-sized pieces, while seafood, small fish, and eggs are cooked whole. Products of animal origin are usually first boiled until half cooked, then fried in vegetable oil with a specific set of spices. The latter most often includes garlic , shallots , black pepper , nutmeg , cinnamon , coriander , lumbang , cloves , ginger , leaves of syzygium multiflorous and lime . In addition, at this stage of cooking, sweet soy sauce, palm sugar and shrimp paste are often added to the dish ^{[6] [7]} .

After that, in a pan or wok, the workpiece is poured with a mixture of sweet soy sauce with water and stewed over low heat until all or at least most of the liquid has boiled away. In the process of stewing, which lasts, as a rule, for at least an hour and a half, additional spices and spices, various greens , tomato paste or pieces of tomato can be added to the dish. In its finished form, semur is a kind of European stew , with the difference that the products in it are cut into much larger pieces than in stew ^{[2] [3] [6]} .

Semur is fundamentally different from other popular stews of Indonesian cuisine - rendang and ghoulai - in that for stewing the last two it is used not soy sauce, but coconut milk . In addition, the rendangs and ghouls, which are inventions of Padang cuisine , are abundantly seasoned with chili peppers , while in semera this spice is usually either not used at all or it is used very sparingly, as a result of which most of the dishes in this group are not so much spicy as sweet spicy taste ^{[2] [6]} .

In various regions of Indonesia, it is practiced to prepare dozens of types of semera, which differ from each other both in the initial product and in the set of seasonings. Java differs in a special variety of these dishes, where certain types of semur are specialties of certain cities or localities. So, Jakarta is considered the birthplace of the semur from the fruits of the tree Archidendron pauciflorum , Purvocerto - from kissing by gourami , Chianjur - from beef tongue , Wonosobo - from tofu, and in many areas of West Java eggplant semur is popular, in which soy sauce is diluted with beef broth ^[6] . On the island of Ternate , semen is prepared from beef, previously boiled with vinegar , the sauce of which is thickened with corn flour ^[8] . In Aceh - from beef with potatoes and tomatoes, seasoning the sauce with cardamom and cloves abundantly ^[9] . In Manado , where the vast majority of the population is Christians , it is made from pork, adding lime juice to the sauce ^[10] . In Samarind , it is customary to add funchose to chicken semur ^[11] .

Semur is a popular dish both in home cooking and in catering establishments - first of all, in traditional Indonesian taverns. It is served as a main course, usually hot. In various places there are special traditions of serving semur. So, in Samarind, this dish is especially often eaten for breakfast, with meat semen served with nasi-goreng , achar and krupuk , and chicken with boiled rice , dyed yellow with turmeric . In Palembang , sliced pineapple , watered with sambal usually served as a side dish for meat semen - paste of red pepper ^[11] .

In many regions of Indonesia, certain types of semur are usually served during a feast dedicated to the Muslim festival of Uraza Bairam , which in this country is called " Idul Fitri " ( indon. Idul Fitri ). So, in Jakarta, buffalo semur is most often used as such a festive dish, and beef in Palembang. For such meals, ketupata - briquettes of rice, cooked with a braid from a palm leaf, are traditionally served to the semur ^[12] .

• 1010 Resep Asli Masakan Indonesia. - Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2008 .-- 548 p. - ISBN 978-979-22-3752-8 .
• Badiatul Muclisin Asti, Laela Nurisysyafa'ah. Kumpulan Resep Masakan Tradisional dari Sabang sampai Merauke. - Yogyakarta: MedPress, 2009 .-- 344 p. - ISBN 979-788-072-9 .
• Lilly T. Erwin. Aroma Rasa Kuliner Indonesia - Aneka Olahan Semur. - Jakarta: Gramedia Pustaka Utama, 2013 .-- 56 p. - ISBN 978-979-2288-827 .