Padang food

Padang food or Minang food is a type of cuisine from the Minangkabau people of West Sumatra, Indonesia. It is among the most popular food in Maritime Southeast Asia. It is known across Indonesia as Masakan Padang (Padang cuisine, in English).

Overview

Padang food is famous for its rich taste of succulent coconut milk and spicy chili. Among the cooking traditions in Indonesian cuisine, Minangkabau cuisine and most of Sumatran cuisine, demonstrate Indian and Middle Eastern influences, with dishes cooked in curry sauce with coconut milk and the heavy use of spices mixture.

Dishes

Some of the notable dishes from Padang include:

• Rendang: Slow cooked beef simmered in coconut milk and spices. It has been voted as the number one of the World's 50 Most Delicious Foods by CNN readers.
• Sate Padang: A variant of satay made from beef, served with a thick yellow sauce.
• Gulai: A type of food containing rich, spicy and succulent curry-like sauce. The main ingredients might be poultry, goat meat, beef, mutton, various kinds of offal, fish and seafood, and also vegetables such as cassava leaves and unripe jackfruit.
• Nasi Padang: Steamed rice served with various choices of pre-cooked dishes.

Serving Method

Padang food is usually served in small plates, but in a wide array of choices. This serving method is called hidang. In a Padang restaurant, the table will be set with dozens of small dishes filled with various dishes. A customer will pay for what they have consumed from this array of dishes.

See Also

• Indonesian cuisine
• List of Indonesian dishes