Cooking like a local in Indonesia

My wife cooks the Indonesian food or we order delivery. I sometimes cook western dishes.

Indonesian basic foods are very cheap, and very easy to cook.
Many dishes use tempe or tofu, both cost almost nothing and are full of non meaty goodness.
My favourite is thing sliced deep friend tempe, cooked in a simple sauce and served on boiled rice.
In case you were wondering, tempe is a fermented soy bean product.

I like both tofu and tempe. We make our own tempe using my wife's family secret as often in the supermarkets the tempe is already rotten. Please do not ask me for the formula as it is a secret.

The locals in my area in West Java, mainly prepare boiled rice (nasi) and then keep it on the ready in a Magicom (which is similar to a rice cooker) in their houses for the whole day.
Leftover rice is usually left in the Magicom overnight with added water, and ate as rice porridge (bubur) the next morning, with added thin chicken flakes (bubur ayam).
A favoured way to eat rice here, is by frying it (nasi goreng) and is another alternative for next-day-rice.
It is cheaper & faster for most people here to buy additions to the rice at a nearby stall (warung), than making those additions themselves.

The people here say that:
- "If rice was not part of the meal, you haven't eaten yet", and
- "A meal without rice, is like a sky without stars".

Additions to rice that are favoured here, are:
- Tahu (called Tofu in other areas, as mentioned above by Fred).
- Tempe (also mentioned above by Fred, with a beautiful picture).
- Lalab (vegetable salad).
- Chicken or Fish (fried, steamed, or boiled).
- Bala-bala (also called "Sundanese Pizza", though it is nothing like "Pizza" per sé, but rather some chopped up vegetables (like carrot, cabbage, and sometimes corn), fried with a coating made of flour.
- Saté (long thin sticks, with small pieces of vegetables & chicken-, goat-, or rabbit meat on, grilled over a fire).
- Pisang goreng (fried banana).

Two popular meals that locals also buy at warungs here, are:
- Gehu (abbreviated from: tauge tahu), which is tahu stuffed with spicy bean sprouts (and sometimes also with cabbage, carrots and vermicelli), fried with a coating made of flour.
- Batagor (abbreviated from: bakso tahu goreng), which is minced fish meat, filled into wonton skin as a batagor dumpling, fried in oil, and usually served with a peanut sauce.

Ingredients are most often bought in the market (pasar), though there are a few "foreigner malls" in Bandung where you can also buy the ingredients (and pay MUCH more for it than in the market, unless the seller in the market overcharges you based on the fact that you are a foreigner coming from a country with a much stronger financial currency, but in which case the food should still be very cheap for you).

Locals in most countries don't have a "tongue" for foreign food as much as for their own food, though there are certainly exceptions (and more so amoung people who have travelled).
I have found that a simple thing like "French Toast" is loved incredibly much by the locals here, and they all make it now from time to time. Bread, is not consumed very often here though, and therefore seldom bought. They jokingly say things like:
"If you [an Indonesian] want to learn to speak English faster, you should eat more bread!" (because "English speaking people" are spoken of here, as people who LOVE bread and eat LOTS of it).

Wife cooks local food occasionally, I always cook Western mostly, and she enjoys learning to cook different Western dishes since we got the new kitchen from bread to scones and soups to Sunday lunch, I'm not a lover of local dishes, I do enjoy the odd one every now and then though rangdang (spelling) and nasigorang Ayam (spelling again)

I'm eating almost exclusively local food and I like it spicy with lots of chilies and sambals. Eating say nasi uduk in the evening time, ordered and delivered by Go-jek from our favourite street food place is just so amazing.

I just don't see the point in spending ridiculous amounts of money for crappy western food when it often isn't as nice because unless you're eating in a high end place then you're paying through the nose for a meal that costs the equivalent to 10 local meals, and where the cooks add plenty of sugar into every sauce to sweeten it up.

Tend to cook ourselves so cheap as including Australian / New Zealand meats from local distributors, costs nothing like 10 times the price unless it's a restaurant, most importantly I'm not going to eat food I hardly enjoy
I don't think 5kg of Australian Ribeye for 290,000IDR is excessive

Yes, I was talking about restaurants and you are totally right Gwneath to mention about ordering 5kg of imported meats from local distributors which for IDR290k is a bargain. We should all do that so that western food is not 10 times more expensive than local street food.

Sorry but I probably have no idea what I'm talking about as I know little about Indonesia compared to most people here (I am the type of expat who is oblivious to everything around me and and mostly sits in bars at night eating chips with a Bintang beer or out with my western colleagues daring each other to order a nasi goreng.

Mostly I eat chicken and fish dishes as red meat sit heavy for too long in the body and I read that it contributes to cancer so try to limit my red meats. I do eat a lot of chili and spicy sambals which I heard kills the bad bugs in the gut. I love tofu and tempe and the local veggie dishes which cost next to nothing.

Totally agree agree with you, that steak would last an age and 1kg would probs last 3 of us a month or longer, I to eat and prefer chicken I would love to eat more fish but once I find a bone it's over for me, love veggies and we eat lots my biggest vice (apart from a beer) is coffee cheese and bread (not at the same time
Believe me you probably know more about Indonesia than me and more than you think

That's a pity. One of our favourites is Gurame Goreng. Deep fried gurame fish. We eat the fin and tail bones which are crunchy. Even my kids love it with excesses of kecap manis. I guess you'll never get around to try that one