Young Jackfruit Stew Recipe (Gudeg Jogjakarta)

Talking about Jogjakarta (also known as Yogyakarta), the capital city of Central Java, Sultan Palace comes to mind. But not only living museum of Javanese culture and tradition that Jogja is known for. For foodies and food lover, Jogjakarta means Gudeg. Yes, Jogjakarta is also known as "Kota Gudeg" or Gudeg city.

What is gudeg exactly ?. It's a dish consist of unripe jackfruit, chicken, egg, tempeh, tofu cooked in coconut milk and seasoned with various spices such as bay leaves, galangal, coriander, cumin and teak leaves as coloring agent. It's cooked in a clay pot for hours, resulting reddish brown in color stew. This stew is quite sweet since generous amount of palm sugar is added during cooking.

If you are visiting Jogjakarta, this ubiquitous dish is available at any restaurants and street vendors. Malioboro is the best area to enjoy street foods including gudeg.

Here is the easiest recipe of gudeg. Since teak leaf is not available in Western countries, I love to use tea bag as coloring agent. I use crock pot instead of clay pot to simplify cooking. But do not wrong, this gudeg taste just as authentic as Javanese gudeg.

Serves 5 - 8

Ingredients:

1 chicken leg quarter

10 hard boiled eggs, peeled

2 cans unripe jackfruit (@17 oz)

1 tea bag (black tea)

2 cans coconut milk (@400 ml)

1 pack fried tofu (6 oz)

4 daun salam (Indonesian bay leaves)

1 piece galangal (1-inch), sliced

5 tbsp palm sugar or brown sugar

2 tsp salt

Spice paste:

1/2 tsp tamarind pulp

5 kemiri (candlenut)

8 Asian shallots

4 cloves garlic

1/4 tsp cumin

2 tsp coriander seeds

• Use a food processor to grind tamarind, candlenut, shallots, garlic, cumin and coriander seeds. Process the spices into a smooth paste.
• In a mixing bowl, combine coconut milk, tea bag, salt, palm sugar, and spice paste. Stir to mix.
• In a crock pot, put jackfruit then add hard boiled eggs, fried tofu, chicken, galangal and bay leaves. Pour the coconut milk mixture over the top of bay leaves.
• Set the crock pot on low heat and cook for 10 hours. Serve with warm rice.