Dinner idea: "Kampoeng" style; sour soup, and veggie fritter

Dinner idea: "kampoeng" style; sour soup, veggie fritter, Japanese rice with furikake, an apple - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Hi all of you, how you doing? I hope you are always doing fine and keep your high spirit every day to do a good thing in your life 😊 So, what we have today in my new article? It looks that we are still talking "kampoeng" syles meals, isn't it? That's correct! Let me introduce you to a special soup called sour soup.

Back then in my hometown, there were plenty of food sources that most of the villagers planted in their garden or yards, and also field. Selling vegetables, rice, corn, and cassava it's the only choice they have to earn money yet still wasn't enough to provide a decent house, sufficient food, and also education for their kids. Thus, eating cassava to substitute the rice becomes daily life. And rice is a luxury good at the time. 

If you are following my article it is easy to find the veggie fritter recipe that I wrote before. Yes, I often write this home recipe. But I didn't write it in my book because I have another plan for it to write another book. Though veggie fritter was a common snack in my hometown; we couldn't eat it every time because we didn't have enough money to buy the ingredients. Indeed, the villager grew their own foods but we couldn't grow cabbage, carrot, celery. Those vegetables weren't our native plant. Only special events or occasion the villager could enjoy it.  For instance, family reunions, and celebrating particular events. Of course, some food stalls in my hometown and at school sold veggie fritters, but still, we chose to keep our money. Me for example, I worked and earned money but I spent all my money on my education support such as buying a school bag, school shoes, textbooks, books, my clothes, etc. Basically, I hadn't ever bought snacks or meals at school for lunch. Eating veggie fritter was special for me and another villager kids.

Nowadays, I create a veggie fritter recipe more advance by using a Japanese tempura batter. One of the ingredients is flour and I substitute it with tempura batter. The taste is more crispy and more interesting when using a tempura batter. Moreover, purple cabbage, beansprout, and carrot (sometimes purple carrot), celery are the best combo!

Veggie fritter, Japanese rice with furikake - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

Now we are talking about sour soup. In my village it called "sayur asem"; "sayur" means veggie, "asem" means sour. As mention in its name, the taste is sour. This is one of my favorite foods. And it is great to eat with tempura tempeh and veggie fritter. They are good companions! 

In this recipe, I make a sour soup that adapts not only the ingredients but also the seasoning. Let's check it out!😉

Ingredient:

• 2 eggplants - cut in slice
• 4-6 long beans - cut them
• 900 ml of water
• 1-2 tbsp of tamarind
• 7 g of low sodium salt
• 7 g of onion powder
• 7 g of garlic powder
• optional: 5 g of crushed red chili
• 4 cloves of garlic - chop them
• 1 yellow onion - finely cut

Sour soup in my creation - Photographed by Acik Mardhiyanti

These are what you do:

• Pour water into a pot. Turn on the stove on medium-low flame
• Add yellow onion and garlic that you chopped or cut. Bring to boil
• Add low sodium salt, 1 tbsp tamarind, garlic powder, onion powder, and also add eggplant and long bean. Stir them together
• Take a spoon and scoop to taste, if you think the sour taste is fit for your family then give it 7-10 minutes boiling then turn off the stove
• But for me, I need 1 more tbsp tamarind and add crushed red chili. I like the sourness, and the mixture tastes between eggplant and long bean. This is the great taste ever! 😋😊 To be honest, I can't eat spicy food but sometimes I try hard just to eat this soup.

It looks easy cooking, right? Unfortunately, I can't find and get other ingredients that will sour soup more unquestionable soup. Those ingredients are Belinjo young leaves and Belinjo seeds. I also remember, sometimes my neighbor in the village put some young jackfruit. 

The bad news is that we can't substitute the ingredients with other sources. Until today, I am not able to find other vegetables to replace all vegetables that we use to make this particular soup. The only thing that I could do to create sour soup easier and adapt to the place where I live is use powder season. 

Adapting to the environment is important for me, including food especially when we move to another country. I like to learn about a new culture and new food sources. That's where my fusion foods come from. Well, I learn to adapt to a strange environment since I was 16 years old. By choosing to study at a university that far away from my hometown. And today it almost 10 years lives in another country. 

Thank you for reading my article. See you in another article; stay safe, keep courage, be careful, and take care of each other 🙏

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