Indonesian culinary

Tongseng is goat meat or beef stew dishes in curry-like soup with vegetables and kecap manis (sweet soy sauce). Originally from Surakarta in Indonesian province of Central Java.

The soup is made of ground mix­ture of garlic, shallot, black pepper, ginger, coriander, galangal, salam (bay leaves), and lemongrass sauteed with oil until it gets aromatic. The diced meat then poured into the sauteed mixture until cooked. Add water until it boiled and add sweet soy sauce with tamarind juice. After the boiled boiled reduces, add shredded cabbages and sliced tomato.

Tongseng is usually served with hot steamed rice. The soup of tongseng is similar to gulai soup, however gulai is without sweet soy sauce while tongseng always brownish gold because the addition of sweet soy sauce. Gulai is usually using cows offals while tongseng usually only uses meat (goat, mutton or beef).

Nasi goreng, literally meaning "fried rice" in Indonesian, can refer simply to fried pre-cooked rice, a meal including stir fried rice in small amount of cooking oil or margarine, typically spiced with kecap manis (sweet soy sauce), shallot, garlic, tamarind and chilli and accompanied with other ingredients, particularly egg, chicken and prawns. There is also another kind of nasi goreng which is made with ikan asin (salted dried fish) which is also popular across Indonesia.

Nasi goreng has been called the national dish of Indonesia, though there are many other contenders. There are many Indonesian cuisines but few national dishes. Indonesia's national dish knows no social barriers. It can be enjoyed in its simplest manifestation from a tin plate at a roadside warung, travelling night hawker's cart; eaten on porcelain in restaurants, or constructed at the buffet tables of Jakarta dinner parties.

In 2011 an online poll by 35,000 people held by CNN International chose Nasi Goreng as the number two of their 'World’s 50 Most Delicious Foods' list after rendang.

Gado-gado (in Indonesian or Betawi language), also known as Lotek (in Sundanese and Javanese) is an Betawi dish or Indonesian salad consisting of boiled vegetables served with a peanut sauce dressing. It is different from lotek atah or karedok for its fresh and raw version of the vegetable covered with peanut sauce. Another similar but not the same dish is Javanese pecel. It is thought to have originally been a Sundanesedish. It is widely served from hawkers carts, stalls (warung) as well as in restaurants and hotels both in Indonesia and worldwide.

Gado-gado is part of a wide range of Indonesian dressing and salad combinations, along with lotek, pecel and karedok. In many places, to retain authenticity in both the production and flavor, the peanut sauce is made in individual batches per order, in front of the customers to suit customers' personal preference on the degree of spiciness (the amount of chili pepper). However, since the dish has gained popularity (because of the increase of Asian-themed restaurants) Gado-gado sauce is now mostly made ahead of time and cooked in bulk, although this is probably more common in Western restaurants rather than in Indonesia. Compared to Western and Indonesian salads, Gado-gado has much more sauce in it. Instead of being used as a light dressing, the vegetables should be well coated in the sauce. Gado-gado sauce is not to be confused with satay sauce.

Many stores now offer Gado-Gado dressing in dried blocks to which simply require to add hot water, making it easier and cheaper to cook at home.