Sayur lodeh is a popular Indonesian

vegetable soup Vegetable soup is a common soup prepared using vegetables (including leaf vegetables, and sometimes loosely mushrooms) as primary ingredients. It dates to ancient history, and in modern times is also a mass-produced food product. Overview Vege ...

prepared from

vegetable Vegetables are edible parts of plants that are consumed by humans or other animals as food. This original meaning is still commonly used, and is applied to plants collectively to refer to all edible plant matter, including edible flower, flo ...

s cooked in

coconut milk Coconut milk is a plant milk extracted from the grated pulp of mature coconuts. The opacity and rich taste of the milky-white liquid are due to its high oil content, most of which is saturated fat. Coconut milk is a traditional food ingred ...

, and is most often associated with

Javanese cuisine Javanese cuisine () is the cuisine of Javanese people, a major Native Indonesian, ethnic group in Indonesia in the provinces of Central Java, Yogyakarta, and East Java. Definition Javanese cuisine refers exclusively to the cuisine of Javan ...

Ingredients

Common ingredients are young unripe

jackfruit The jackfruit or ''nangka'' (''Artocarpus heterophyllus'') is a species of tree in the Common fig, fig, mulberry, and breadfruit family (Moraceae). The jackfruit is the largest tree fruit, reaching as much as in weight, in length, and in d ...

eggplant Eggplant (American English, US, Canadian English, CA, Australian English, AU, Philippine English, PH), aubergine (British English, UK, Hiberno English, IE, New Zealand English, NZ), brinjal (Indian English, IN, Singapore English, SG, Malays ...

chayote Chayote (; previously placed in the obsolete genus ''Sechium''), also known as christophine, mirliton, güisquil, and choko, is an edible plant belonging to the gourd family, Cucurbitaceae. This fruit was first cultivated in Mesoamerica between ...

, '' melinjo'' beans and leaves, long beans, green

chili pepper Chili peppers, also spelled chile or chilli ( ), are varieties of fruit#Berries, berry-fruit plants from the genus ''Capsicum'', which are members of the nightshade family Solanaceae, cultivated for their pungency. They are used as a spice to ...

tofu or bean curd is a food prepared by Coagulation (milk), coagulating soy milk and then pressing the resulting curds into solid white blocks of varying softness: ''silken'', ''soft'', ''firm'', and ''extra (or super) firm''. It originated in Chin ...

and

tempeh Tempe or tempeh (; , ) is a traditional Indonesian food made from fermented soybeans. It is made by a natural culturing and controlled fermentation process that binds soybeans into a cake form. A fungus, '' Rhizopus oligosporus'' or '' Rhizopu ...

, cooked in coconut milk and sometimes enriched with

chicken The chicken (''Gallus gallus domesticus'') is a domesticated subspecies of the red junglefowl (''Gallus gallus''), originally native to Southeast Asia. It was first domesticated around 8,000 years ago and is now one of the most common and w ...

beef stock Stock, sometimes called bone broth, is a savory cooking liquid that forms the basis of many dishes particularly soups, stews, and sauces. Making stock involves simmering animal bones, meat, seafood, or vegetables in water or wine, often for an ...

. The ''

bumbu Bumbu is a commune situated in the Funa District of Kinshasa. Spanning an area of 5.30 square kilometers, it is located in the hilled southern section of the city and had an estimated population of 905,943 as of 2015. Bumbu is bordered by Kwilu ...

'' spice mixture includes ground chili pepper (optional, depending on the desired degree of spiciness),

shallot The shallot is a cultivar group of the onion. Until 2010, the (French red) shallot was classified as a separate species, ''Allium ascalonicum''. The taxon was synonymized with '' Allium cepa'' (the common onion) in 2010, as the difference was t ...

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

candlenut ''Aleurites moluccanus'', commonly known as candlenut, is a tree in the spurge family Euphorbiaceae. It grows to about tall and produces drupe fruit. First described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, the species' origin is unclear due to its spread b ...

coriander Coriander (), whose leaves are known as cilantro () in the U.S. and parts of Canada, and dhania in parts of South Asia and Africa, is an annual plant, annual herb (''Coriandrum sativum'') in the family Apiaceae. Most people perceive the ...

, '' kencur'' powder,

turmeric Turmeric (), or ''Curcuma longa'' (), is a flowering plant in the ginger family Zingiberaceae. It is a perennial, rhizomatous, herbaceous plant native to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia that requires temperatures between and high ...

powder (optional), dried

shrimp paste Shrimp paste or prawn sauce is a Fermentation, fermented condiment commonly used in Southeast Asian cuisine, Southeast Asian and Coastal Chinese cuisines. It is primarily made from finely crushed Shrimp and prawn as food, shrimp or krill mixed ...

, salt and sugar. There are two main variants of sayur lodeh soup based on its colour: the white and yellow lodeh. The greenish white sayur lodeh is made without turmeric, while the golden yellow one has turmeric in it. Sometimes, green stink beans are added. The ingredients of sayur lodeh are similar to sayur asem, with the main difference in its liquid portion; sayur lodeh is coconut-milk based while sayur asem is

tamarind Tamarind (''Tamarindus indica'') is a Legume, leguminous tree bearing edible fruit that is indigenous to tropical Africa and naturalized in Asia. The genus ''Tamarindus'' is monotypic taxon, monotypic, meaning that it contains only this spe ...

based. In order to add aroma and taste, an authentic Javanese sayur lodeh recipe might include ground old

. This old tempeh is known as "yesterday's tempeh" or "rotten tempeh" ().

Origin

The origin of the dish can be traced to the

Javanese people The Javanese ( , ; ) are an Austronesian peoples, Austronesian ethnic group native to the central and eastern part of the Indonesian island of Java. With more than 100 million people, Javanese people are the largest ethnic group in both Indo ...

's tradition of

Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...

. According to Javanese Kejawen beliefs, ''sayur lodeh'' is an essential part of the ''

slametan The slametan (or selametan, slamatan, and selamatan) is the communal Banquet, feast from Java, symbolizing the social unity of those participating in it. Clifford Geertz considered it the core ritual in Kebatinan, Javanese religion, in particular ...

'' ceremony, and it is believed as ''tolak bala'', to ward off possible danger and disaster. The people and the Keraton (court) of

Yogyakarta Yogyakarta is the capital city of the Special Region of Yogyakarta in Indonesia, in the south-central part of the island of Java. As the only Indonesian royal city still ruled by Hamengkubuwono, a monarchy, Yogyakarta is regarded as an importan ...

often communally cook ''sayur lodeh'' for the ''slametan'' ceremony. It is believed this can deter disasters such as wind

storm A storm is any disturbed state of the natural environment or the atmosphere of an astronomical body. It may be marked by significant disruptions to normal conditions such as strong wind, tornadoes, hail, thunder and lightning (a thunderstor ...

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

, volcanic eruption, drought and plague. It is well known in

and has spread throughout Indonesia and the region. Because of Javanese migration to neighboring countries, today ''sayur lodeh'' is also popular in

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

and

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

Serving

''Sayur lodeh'' can be served with

steamed rice Cooked rice refers to rice that has been cooked either by steaming or boiling. The terms steamed rice or boiled rice are also commonly used. Any variant of Asian rice (both indica and japonica varieties), African rice or wild rice, glutino ...

(separated or mixed in one plate), or with sliced rice cake, called ''

lontong ''Lontong'' () is an Indonesian cuisine, Indonesian dish made of compressed rice cake in the form of a Cylinder (geometry), cylinder wrapped inside a banana leaf, commonly found in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. Rice is rolled inside a bana ...

'' . This is typical for Singapore and Malaysia (''nasi himpit''). Dried

squid A squid (: squid) is a mollusc with an elongated soft body, large eyes, eight cephalopod limb, arms, and two tentacles in the orders Myopsida, Oegopsida, and Bathyteuthida (though many other molluscs within the broader Neocoleoidea are also ...

sambal, boiled egg and coconut ''serunding'' are often added to ''lontong''. Although ''sayur lodeh'' is basically a

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

dish, it is popularly consumed with ''ikan asin'' ( salted fish), '' opor ayam'', '' empal gepuk'' or beef ''

serundeng Serundeng () refers to a Javanese spiced grated coconut side dish or condiment originated in Indonesia that is used to accompany rice. Serundeng may taste sweet or hot and spicy, according to the recipe variants. Its best-known variant is an ...

''. '' Sambal terasi'' ("

shrimp A shrimp (: shrimp (American English, US) or shrimps (British English, UK)) is a crustacean with an elongated body and a primarily Aquatic locomotion, swimming mode of locomotion – typically Decapods belonging to the Caridea or Dendrobranchi ...

paste chili sauce") is usually served separately.

References

External links

{{Singaporean cuisine Javanese cuisine Indonesian soups Vegetarian dishes of Indonesia Foods containing coconut Vegetable dishes of Indonesia

Ingredients

Origin

Serving

See also

References

External links