Buffet Review Minangkabau Cuisine Olive Tree Hotel Penang

Olive Tree Hotel pays homage to the Minangkabau community from Negeri Sembilan in this year’s themed Ramadan buffet.

Minangkabau Cuisine

The Minangkabau people originate from West Sumatra, Indonesia. Their food is known as Padang cuisine, or in English, Padang food. It is the most popular food in Maritime South East Asia.

The term “Padang food” is often used to designate the culinary traditions of Minangkabau people a culinary hotspot in West Sumatra.

Minang cuisine emphasizes three elements: gulai (curry), lado (chili pepper), and bareh (rice). The taste is rich with succulent fresh coconut milk and predominantly chili spicy.

Use of Spices in Minangkabau Cuisine

The heavy use of a mixture of spices is the residual influence of Indian and Middle Eastern cultures.

As most Minangkabau people are Muslims, a strict halal dietary law is observed rigorously.

Protein sources are mainly beef, water buffalo, goat, lamb meat, poultry, and fish.

Minangkabau people’s fondness for cattle meat includes offal, ribs, tongue, tail, liver, tripe, brain, bone marrow, spleen, intestine, cartilage, tendon, and skin.

These are considered to be Minangkabau delicacies.

Minangkabau Cuisine Uses Fresh Seafood

Grilled seafood is popular with fish, shrimp, and cuttlefish, fried with spicy chili sauce, or served in curry gravy called Gulai.

Most of Minangkabau’s food is eaten with hot steamed rice.

Sometimes, “Ketupat” parcelled compressed rice is served. Vegetables served are boiled cassava leaves.

Sometimes, it’s simmered in thin curry as a side dish. Young Jackfruit or Cabbage is cooked in delicious Gulai with a generous amount of coconut milk and that infamous chili padi.

How to best dine on Minangkabau Cuisine?

Hand-to-mouth eating is done every day in Malay and Indian restaurants. Eating with one’s hands is not as easy as it looks.

First things first, remember to wash your hands thoroughly.

Does eating your hands make the food taste better?

My answer is a resounding YES! I get to mix the food and curries to a consistency you like.

The personal connection with my food makes eating intuitive. It feeds my mind, not just my stomach, every time I eat with my hands.

As a child, I learned to eat with my hands.

This is the proper way to enjoy authentic Malay or Indian food. I remember sitting on the floor and sharing a meal on a huge metal platter with other people.

Community eating like this is inclusive and binding. We would chat as we ate. Sometimes, we would tear from the same piece of chicken with our fingers.

Minangkabau Gulai Ikan

This is an adaptation of Indian curry. The Indonesian type of curry has a thick broth with a yellowish color, made with the addition of turmeric.

Gulai ikan is derived from the word gulai, coconut curry, and ikan, fish in Bahasa Indonesia.

Gulai broth contains a dozen rich spices. The aromatics include coriander, black pepper, galangal, fennel seed, lemongrass, cinnamon, and caraway seeds.

This is ground into a paste with fresh turmeric, ginger, garlic, shallot, and chili pepper. The fragrant paste is called “tumis” and is cooked with thick coconut milk.

In South Sumatra, favorite curries are

• Gulai Tempoyak (Fish Curry with Fermented Durian Paste)
• Gulai Kambing (Lamb or Goat Curry)Beef Gulai
• Kalio (Dry Beef Gulai)
• Malbi Ayam (Sweet Chicken Curry/Gulai).

Minangkabau Cuisine – Kambing Masak Kerutuk

This rich, festive, spicy meat dish with thick gravy is a wonderful accompaniment to Nasi Minyak or other specialty rice dishes.
Kerutuk is a mixture of ground spices made from Coriander Powder, Dry Fennel Seed, Cinnamon, Clove, and Star Anise.

The spices and fresh kerisik paste deepen the flavor of this robust dish, which is cooked slowly for up to six hours.

The tender lamb breaks apart beautifully. This dish is best enjoyed with rice or even steamed man tao.

Minangkabau Cuisine – Daging Rendan Minang

Rendang Minang is lighter and brighter in taste. This Rendang (Dry Curry) is often made from beef.

In the rendang recipe, some chefs use beef liver, chicken, goat, water buffalo, duck, clam, or vegetables like green jackfruit or cassava.

The recipe’s complexity requires patience. It takes hours to achieve the perfect rendang in taste and appearance. Authentic rendang is enriched by turmeric leaves and Asam Kandis.

Sometimes, tamarind is used as a substitute for Javanese Asam Kandis.

Initially, this recipe uses fresh coconut milk. The extract of grated coconut flesh is mixed with coconut water and squeezed to get an exceptional taste of coconut milk.

Kerisik is made from freshly grated coconut.

The grated coconut is toasted in a pan or wok. I’ve tried making kerisik, but it is a long, tedious process of grinding the dried toasted coconut.

Leaf spices are turmeric leaves, kaffir lime leaves, and lemongrasses.

The other spices are Javanese Asam Kandis, star anises, bird eyes chilies, shallots, garlic, galangal, and ginger.

Dried spices include toasted coriander seed, cumin, and white peppercorn.

Minangkabau Vegetable Dishes – Pucuk Paku Masak Chili Padi

Young fern shoots, curly, crunchy, and sweet, make up this unusual vegetable dish cooked in thick coconut milk and chili padi.

Writing the Review of Minangkabau Cuisine 

I remember an event at the hotel where I first met Chef Fauzi. I wanted something simple to start my meal, and he suggested I try the nasi lemak.

Chef’s santan-coated pandan-infused rice is rich and fragrant.

I’ve always associated rich coconut milk with his cooking.

Chef Fauzi’s preference for fresh santan takes his food to the next level.

The two desserts I tried are divine. I drained the milky creamy santan completely, tempered with a touch of salt.

Olive Tree Hotel
76, Jalan Mahsuri,
Bandar Sunway Tunas,
Bayan Lepas,
11950 Penang, Malaysia.

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