Palembang is a city located in the province of South Sumatra, while I am in the province of North Sumatra. However, that does not mean that there are no special foods from Palembang that are sold in the city of Medan where I was born. There are so many special foods from other areas that are sold in the city of Medan. One of them is Pempek.
Pempek is a typical food made from the basic ingredients of mackerel fish with a mixture of tapioca flour and wheat flour and other ingredients which are mixed together and then doused with a thick black spice called Cuko or which means a mixture of vinegar with chili palm sugar and supporting spices other and there are additional slices of cucumber so that the resulting taste is perfect with spicy, sweet, salty and fresh mixed into one in the mouth.
This afternoon because my body condition is not fit due to changes in the weather which is always changing causing my body to have a fever, because of this fever I want to eat spicy food but not too spicy so it makes my stomach acid rise. And it wasn't hard for me to find this Pempek because not far from our house we found a Pempek seller whose name we often call "Bunda".
There are several types of pempek that are sold at this small shop, namely Pempek submarine, pempek small eggs, pempek lenjer guling, pempek adaan, pempek otak-fried, pempek otak-steamed, pempek split, and pempek Tekwan. Of all these types of pempek all have different flavors even though they are made from the same dough, namely mackerel fish and tapioca flour dough.
- Pempek submarine is a large pempek in the form of a ship which is filled with one whole egg, but unfortunately this afternoon we ran out of pempek for the submarine.
- Tekwan, this pempek is shaped like instant noodles which are piled up but have no contents.
- Pempek Lenjer. This pempek is long and small and the taste is not much different from tekwan
- Pempek ada, this pempek is round in shape but tastes the same as pempek lenjer and tekwan
- Mackerel skin pempek, this pempek is specially made from mackerel fish skin and the color of this pempek is a little black, but has a distinctive and delicious taste.
And there are several more types that I bought this afternoon. And we can buy several types of pempek and make one serving because the price is almost the same. one portion will be priced at IDR 6000 and from that cheap price we can already get 1 portion of pempek with 2 to 3 types of pempek.
Initially, this pempek was only steamed, but when someone buys it, it will be fried and wrapped, because there are no benches in this shop.
Pempek that has been fried and browned in color, will be very delicious when doused with cuko sauce, this cuko sauce is made from a mixture of palm sugar, vinegar, salt, and a little chili, so the taste of this cuko is sour, sweet and slightly sour at the same time and there is also the fresh taste that blends from this gravy. This is very delicious especially if it is added with the cucumber slices that have been provided.
How have you guys ever tried it?
Greetings from us, Tomi and Maya from Binjai City, Indonesia, continue to support us and don't miss our next post. thank you
