Jakarta, Indonesia (Part 3 of 3)

Hello Everyone!

Today (26 Feb 2026) I took part in an Indonesian cooking class. The itinerary was interesting in that we first visited a traditional market to look over and buy some ingredients before heading to the school to make out lunch.

Traditional Market

The traditional market was a lot of fun. It was crowded, mostly indoors, and dimly lit, but it was abuzz with vendors and patrons. Without our guide to explain what we were seeing, it would in many cases have been impossible to know what was for sale or how to prepare it. But with her help, it all came into focus. Prices were exceptionally low by US standards.

The first stall we visited was selling eggs. The same family has been running the business since the 1980s, and they had all sorts of eggs available. 

Quail Eggs and Chicken Eggs

Duck Eggs

Egg Vendor in Traditional Market

The next vendor was sort of a one-stop-shop grocery store. She had all sorts of flours, mixes, seasonings, and chips available. Some of the items were for convenience, such as spice mixes, sauce bases, and drink mixes.

Variety Store

Rice and Shrimp Chips

Durian-Flavored Milk Shake Mix

You would think that with the myriad sauces and seasonings available here that ketchup would be disfavored. But here it is, right along with Bolognese spaghetti sauce! Note the packaging - it is very common here to sell liquids in pouches rather than jars or bottles. Even cooking oils are in plastic pouches.

Ketchup and Bolognese Sauce

Even Indonesian home chefs appreciate convenience. Here are several sauce and seasoning mixes that help speed up meal preparation.

Sauce Bases and Seasoning Packs

American fast food is popular here, especially KFC, which has been available locally since about 1965. Here our guide is showing us a coating for fried chicken which is "ala Kentucky", mimicking the Colonel's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices.

Knockoff KFC Coating

As an interesting aside, I learned that the American fast food restaurants here often have region-specific menus and don't always sell the same items as back home. Our guide told us about shrimp burgers available at McDonald's in Tokyo, and I saw ads here for McSpaghetti. It's spaghetti topped with a sweet/spicy Indonesian-inspired Bolognese sauce. Although I've studiously avoided eating in American fast food restaurants overseas (I'd rather try something local), maybe I need to try some of these regional variations to see what they're like!

We moved along to a shop selling tofu in various forms. Tofu is made from soybeans and is a good form of protein. It's used in many Indonesian recipes. The picture below is of bricks of tempe (or tempeh), made from fermented soybeans and tofu that have been compressed into a brick and dried. It is often sliced and served fried.

Tempe

Tofu

A woman at an adjacent stall was selling various spice pastes. These savory and spicy mixes form the base of most every sauce and coating in Indonesian cooking. They're often complex mixtures of root vegetables, beans, and peppers, and they're time consuming to make and grind by hand. Home cooks like to go to their favorite "spice lady" and buy them already prepared. This woman produces her at home and sells them here at the market.

Spice Sauce Vendor

This vendor sold dried fish and shrimp. These are often ground into pastes and sauces.

Dried Fish and Shrimp

Vegetables covered the spectrum. Some were recognizable, some were unusual or unknown to us westerners.

Vegetables

Vegetables

Vegetables

Banana leaves are used for a variety of foods. They're typically folded into pouches used to steam foods like rice, vegetables, tofu, fish, and chicken. Here they're for sale in bulk. The vendor was also pre-cutting them into various convenient sizes, making them ready to use at home.

Banana Leaves

Grated coconut, coconut water and coconut milk are used a lot in Indonesian cooking. The water makes a refreshing drink, and the milk is often used in sauces and as a braising liquid. This vendor sells grated coconut as well as milk, which he produces to order on site. The fresh milk has a very short shelf life - four hours unrefrigerated and 24 hours refrigerated - so people generally buy small quantities. Nonetheless, we were told that his vendor sells out every day (sometime by early afternoon) despite having what looked like a room full of husked coconuts available. Note the plastic bags holding the milk, visible in the lower left of this picture. 

Coconuts and Coconut Milk

Press for Making Coconut Milk

Visual appeal is important in any market, and they elevate that to an art here. Note the spiral-shaped pineapples.

Elegant Fruit Presentation

Cooking School

After finishing up at the market, we headed to the cooking school itself. It was located in the back of a small restaurant and was very nicely appointed and well-equipped.

Cooking School Teaching Kitchen

The cooks and the instructor were very knowledgeable but their heavy accents and limited English skills made it challenging to follow along. We were given printed recipes for everything we made, but there were some typos and omissions that added to the confusion. However, they were very willing to answer questions and give clarifications, so I think that with the notes that I took as we went along, I may be able to duplicate some of this at home.

I was pretty busy listening carefully, making notes and trying my hand at some of the prep, so I didn't get a lot of pictures as we went along. Here are a few.

One of the toppings we made was fried galangal. Galangal is a type of ginger used in many recipes. In this preparation, it is shredded, then mixed with ginger, turmeric, candlenut (like macadamia nuts), coriander, garlic, and shallots before being fried to a golden brown. It can garnish almost anything and has a satisfying crunch. We used it as a topping for fried chicken.

Sauteing Galangal Garnish

Galangal Garnish

We made some potato croquettes (perkedel kentang) that were very tasty. It's a mixture of cooked potatoes, shallots, garlic, nutmeg, white pepper, chicken bouillon, celery, spring onions, and salt. It's formed into small cakes or quenelles, then fried in oil.

Perkedel Kentang Ready to Fry

Completed Meal

One recipe I definitely want to reproduce at home is this complex chicken soup called soto ayam lamongan. The broth is incredibly good and is made from milkfish as well as chicken stock. The seasonings include garlic, turmeric, coriander, shallots, ginger, kefir lime and bay leaves, and lemongrass. 

Soto Ayam Lamongan (Chicken Soup)

We also made fried chicken topped with fried galangal, a green chili mixture, rice and a salad

Fruits of Our Labors

Back to the Boat

Fully sated, we boarded the bus and headed back to the harbor. On the way, I noticed this First Aid kit on the bus. Not exactly confidence inspiring! Maybe they use a company called "Air Supply" as their vendor...

On the Road Again

This evening we said goodbye to Jakarta, our final stop in Indonesia, and set sail for Singapore. Here are a couple shots as we left the busy port of Jakarta.

Bulk Freighter Unloading in Jakarta

Busy Port of Jakarta

We'll have a day at sea tomorrow, and I'm told we'll be treated to another "milestone buffet" at lunch, this time marking the end of our second month at sea. We're not quite halfway through the cruise and still have a little over two months to go!

Until Next Time,
Jim