Pempek Palembang (Delicious Indonesian Fish Cake)
If you ever visited Indonesia, you must be familiar with this delicious meal. And if is not sounds familliar, let me tell you about this famous Pempek Palembang. Orginally from South Sumatera, this Pempek Palembang is basicly a crispy fish cake served with sweet, savory, spicy and tangy broth called “cuko”.
It feels like party in your mouth with all of those tasty flavour. Personally, I could eat it as a snack, or lunch or even dinner. Thats way, I like to make more than one serving and freeze it. So whenever I want, I know I already have it.
Honestly, will tell you that it takes time to make this delicious and famous dish, but believe me you will get the “wow” when you cook and serve it to your family and friends. There are so many kind of Pempek Palembang according to the shape but this one called Lenjer is the easiest one to made.
So, lets put the apron on and cooking it.
Pempek Palembang ( Crispy Indonesian Fish Cake)
Ingredients
INGREDIENT FOR PEMPEK PALEMBANG (FISH CAKE)
- 250 gr White fish (fillet) Mackerel or Tilapia is a good choice
- 200 ml Water Room temperature
- 1 Egg white small
- 1 tsp Garlic powder
- 1 tsp MSG or Chicken Powder
- 150 gr Tapioca starch
- salt
- sugar
- oil For frying
INGREDIENT FOR THE BROTH (CUKO)
- 250 ml Water
- 250 gr Palm Sugar or brown sugar
- 50 ml Tamarind juice
- 1 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp Garlic powder
- 3 pieces Small red chili chopped
- 1 tbsp Lime Juice
Instructions
- Using a food processor, blend the fish until it become like a puree. In the other bowl mix the tapioca starch with sugar, salt and garlic powder. Mix the fish puree with egg white until well combine together. After that you need to knead the fish puree with the tapioca mix and water together until it become like a playdough texture. Using one by one method, so put your fish puree into a large mixing bowl and start add half a cup of tapioca mix following by half a cup of water and continue until all of the wet and dry ingredient finished.
- Once your dough is no longer sticky in your palm and easy to shaped, Divide the dough into 4 or 5 pieces and shape it like a cylinder.
- Bring a pot of water to boil and put your fish dough in. Boil it about 10-15 minutes. The fish dough will automatically float when it's cooked. Strain the extra water and let it dry on the plate.
- When your boiled fish cake is in the room temperature and not wet anymore, heat the pan with lots of oil in it because we need to fry this fish cake. You need to make sure that your fish cake is no longer wet, otherwise it could splatter the oil. When it's done, put your Pempek Palembang on the kitchen roll to drain the excess oil.
- Now, let's make the Cuko broth. In the pot, put all the water, palm sugar, tamarind juice, salt, garlic powder and chopped chili and bring it to simmer. Last drizzle with lime juice and turn off the heat. Now, you have delicious sweet and tangy broth for your Pempek Palembang.This is how you serve it. Cut the crispy Pempek Palembang and put it into a bowl. Pour the Cuko broth and eat it while its hot.Now, you can make it by yourself 🙂
