Sangre to a Fried Chicken

Traveling around Jakarta’s outskirts looking for interesting culinary experiences from the overflowing capital, my friend came along to Condet, a region near Kramat Jati in East Jakarta. She really was a bit disappointed because nothing of the old salak (snakeskin fruit) growing region remained as it was when she lived there some 15 years ago.

No charming Betawi-style houses, though there is a Betawi cultural park. But all along the main street were houses built in “any” style. The original inhabitants, the ethnic Betawi, had moved out, selling their houses as gastronome and epicurean el supremo Suryatini N. Ganie explains.

We then had a nostalgic discussion on the foods of Condet and other areas surrounding Jakarta some 15 years ago, when many people would travel to buy salak or asinan salak (salak in a sweet-sour brine), sayur asem spiced with kluwak, a blacknut pulp giving the dish a mysterious black color.

Asking another friend who now lives in Condet whether people still made sangra, or sangre in Betawi dialect, she did not know either, but said it was not only the younger people who now went for fast-food fried chicken or Japanese.

The former Betawi inhabitants of Condet were simple people with simple eating habits. They had only two mealtimes, one for breakfast around 11 a.m. and one around seven in the evening.
For breakfast it was mostly sangra, a stir-fried rice dish like fried rice, but without oil or margarine. Sangra or sangre means to stir-fry in Betawi dialect, and sangrai in Bahasa Indonesia.

Though the people of Condet only had two meals a day, they were not against some snacks between meals. One of those snacks was tondangan, which was always served when two people got engaged and the parents of the bride-to-be threw a party.

A kekeba, a kind of spicy fruit salad, was also served to guests. The kekeba is prepared from seven kinds of fruit and the main fruit is delima (pomegranate).

A sweet snack is kue pepek, which is a steamed sweet made of cornflour. Kue pepek actually does not come from Condet but it was there that the snack became popular, and kue pepek can be found at almost any cake counter.

Though relatively far from the sea, the people of Condet also like saltwater fish.

One dish is called pindang serani Marunda, with serani derived from the word nasrani, or Christian.

The dish is made from bandeng, or milkfish, which lives in brackish waters. The bandeng has delectable meat, but a lot of fine bones are a big obstacle for those not accustomed to eating them.

Today there are many ready-to-eat steamed or preserved bandeng whose bones have been softened by the preparation process.

It must have been the Portuguese serani who first made the soupy dish, because Marunda was situated in the Portuguese section of the region.

For grilling, Condet people prefer bawal, a flat fish with soft meat.

But the most renowned dish from the region is the tangkar, made of beef.

Another dish worth tasting is the Condet semur terung, a dish using eggplants, which are abundant in the region, being also used in sayur asam.

Suryatini N. Ganie