Dinner Idea: Kampoeng Style Dinner

 

Dinner idea: Kampoeng style; spinach&carrot soup, tempura tempeh&tofu, Japanese rice with furikake & salmon paste, a glass of berry tea, and an apple - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Hi, how you doing? Well, today I am going to talk about "kampoeng" style dinner. What is "kampoeng"? If you had read my article before then it is easy for you to know this word. "Kampoeng" means village guys...😊 Yes! it reminds me of how we ate a long time ago in the village. I miss that day...

Tempeh was a common food in my hometown. Every household cooked this menu and it was identic with poor people. We cooked tempeh in many styles of dishes such as tempura tempeh, curry tempeh, fried tempeh, patties, etc. That's right that we challenged our limit and it was where creativity came from.  One of them was how to cook tempeh into many kinds of delectable foods. I wrote a tempura tempeh recipe in my book as a bonus that gives you 2 ways how to make it.

Eating rice is a part of the culture. But you know, at the time rice sounds luxury because of many villagers in my hometown substitute rice with cassava. They created some or many unique and tasty foods from cassava and not only fried cassava, boiled cassava, and grill cassava, but using their skill to make another for example: "tiwul", "gatot", snack called "lemet", "onde-onde singkong", cassava chips, and the ultimate was cake! Yes, the villager made a cake from cassava flour. I made one when I was at a secondary school for my school project, and I was proud of it. I remember that my teacher liked my work. Unfortunately, the young generation in my hometown forgets about all of this knowledge and even they do not want to eat cassava. They would rather eat something that calls it "modern foods". As far as I know "modern foods" that they eat are unhealthy foods. How about me, I don't have all of those skills but I wish I can buy cassava and fried or boil them, but it is virtually impossible to find it in the place where I live. And I always admire villager's skills and knowledge until today.

Tempura tempeh and tofu, Japanese rice with furikake&salmon paste, cherry tomato - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

I started cooking at 11 by making soup, fried tempeh, tempura tempeh, omelet. At the same age, I also started working at home industries around my father's house. For a villager kid, it was a common duty to take care house and did house chores. Mostly their parent worked on the field that left for work in the early morning at 5 AM and came back home at 5 PM. And their parent worked for 7 days. All my friends even before reach 10-year-old did all adults work at home such as did laundry, washing dishes, cleaning the house, cooking, babysitting their youngest brother/ sister. Moreover, while babysitting all my friends also worked to earn money after school. I could tell that cooking soup was a piece of cake for villager's kids. Villager kids are amazing, right? They hadn't complained instead of their life filled with happiness and a lot of laughs. They were my best friends and my life teacher too! I wonder where are they now and how they doing now. Because all of them were disappears one by one after elementary school, move to another place, worked, then married at a very young age. 

Spinach, carrot, and tomato soup - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Now we are talking about the soup recipe in this picture above. It is simple and easy cooking with 800 ml of water; to the season you can use 1 chicken stock cube, or give it 3 g of onion powder, 3 g garlic powder, and salt for about 3-5 g. If you like more salty you can add more salt as you wish. I like the combination of spinach, carrot, and tomato. But if you want to add young corn that's fine too. And I am proud to say that it is "kampoeng" style food. 

That's my story about one of "kampoeng" styles of dinner. Every recipe has its own story that I would like to tell you. I believe that not enough to tell you all of the details about it because I come from a long story and so are my recipes. It could be like a novel if I write all of my journeys.

Thank you for reading my article, stay safe, and have a great day! 🙂🤞

Note:

• Written by Acik Mardhiyanti
• Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti
• Do not copy this article without permission
• Do not reuse these photographs anywhere else without permission