Kerak Telor, The Dellicious taste

by: Yovita Siswati

Kerak Telor is a famous delicacy of Jakarta city, formerly known as Batavia. The native of Jakarta, known as the Betawi, has made this food for hundreds of years.

Every region in Indonesia has its own traditional food. Kerak Telor is a famous delicacy of Jakarta city, formerly known as Batavia. The native of Jakarta known as the Betawi has made this food since hundreds of years ago.

What is Kerak Telor?


It looks like scrambled egg but the taste is very much different. Kerak Telor is a snack mainly made of glutinous rice and duck egg. It is served with dried shrimp topping and shredded coconut.

The ingredients are glutinous rice, duck egg, fried onion, dried shrimp, shredded coconut, salt, chili, pepper and sugar. The method of cooking is as follows: first, the glutinous rice is half cooked in a small pan. Please note that no cooking oil is used. The egg is then added. Other ingredients follow. If you like it hot, you can add extra chili and pepper. After a while, add the shredded coconut and dried shrimp and the omelet is ready to be served. The texture is crispy on its edge but soft in the middle. Kerak telor is best enjoyed with hot cup of black Java coffee.

One interesting fact, the traditional vendors still cook the omelet using charcoal. This method of cooking only made the taste richer and more delicious.
The story behind Kerak Telor

In the Colonial era, kerak telor was a privileged food. It was served in big parties held by colonial government as well as rich Betawi. The recipe as well as the profession as kerak telor vendor had been passed from generation to generation. The most skillful kerak telor vendors usually come from Mampang, a small area in South Jakarta, called Betawi Mampang.

It is a sad fact that the Betawi is gradually push out of the centre of the city, mainly due to economic reasons. Most of their land had been sold to property developer and on that land now stand many skyscrapers. Along with the diminishing Betawi community, the real original kerak telor is becoming harder to find. Many of the vendors now start taking over family business of selling kerak telor at a very young age, sometime right after finishing high school.

Where to find Kerak Telor?

Kerak Telor usually sold during Jakartaanniversary festival. The festival held in Kemayoran area, starts in mid June and ends in mid July. Beyond this festive season, it is rather difficult to find. However, part of a tourism campaign, the Governor of Jakarta has recently established a Betawi Conservation Village in South Jakarta. There are around ten vendors in this village who sell kerak telor near a lake in the village area. Mostly are native Betawi. The price is around US$ 1-2 per pax.

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INDONESIA Street Food

Living in a country that has endless variety of food and drinks, Indonesians do eat out, but the majority does not go to restaurants. The local food scene relies heavily on street food. Indonesians savour the delicious meals offered by ubiquitous street vendors day and night for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Living in a country that has endless variety of food and drinks, Indonesians do eat out, but the majority do not go to restaurants. The local food scene relies heavily on street food. Indonesians savour the delicious meals offered by ubiquitous street vendors day and night for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Street food is a quick meal sold by a vendor with a push cart, basket, at a stall, or possibly at a store where customers can see the preparation of food clearly. It provides a close connection between the customer and the street food, unlike having a plate of food in a restaurant.

The types of food offered vary from a simple fried tofu to a much more complicated dish like gudeg (raw jackfruit cooked in a Javanese traditional way that originated from Yogyakarta). In big cities like Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Semarang and Medan, the street vendors offer many a traditional food from various regions in the archipelago. But in smaller cities, they are usually of the local cuisine.

The most commonly found street food is bakso or meatballs that are usually served in a bowl, like soup, with noodles, bean curds (tofu), eggs, and/or fried meat.

Another popular soup-like street food is soto. It is mainly comprised of broth and vegetables. The meats most commonly used are beef and chicken, but there are also sotos with mutton and pork. It is usually accompanied by rice or compressed rice. Sotos are differentiated by the ingredients in them, such as soto ayam (chicken) and soto kambing (mutton).

There are many sotos in Indonesia, as different regions and ethnicities have their own ways of preparing the cuisine, such as soto Madura (from East Java), soto Betawi (from Jakarta), soto Padang (from West Sumatra), so to Bandung (from West Java), soto Banjar (from South Kalimantan), and coto Makassar (from South Sulawesi).

The other popular delicacy often sold by street vendors is satay. It is a dish consisting of chunks or slices of dice-sized meat (chicken, goat, lamb, beef, pork, or fish) on bamboo skewers, which are grilled over a wood or charcoal fire, then served with various spicy seasonings, mostly made of ground nuts. Satay may have originated in Java or Sumatra, but is very popular outside Indonesia too. Similar to soto bakso and soto, there are many types of satay from sate Madura to Padang, sate Iilit, sate susu, kulit, sate Ponorogo and many more.

Nasi goreng (steamed rice stir-fried with eggs, meatballs, chicken/beef/shrimp, assorted vegetables and often with sweet soy sauce seasoning) is also very popular along with nasi rawon (rice served with dark beef soup) originally from East Java. The dark colour comes from the meaty seeds of kluwak nuts. Usually served with uncooked mung bean sprouts and salty duck eggs, pecel (a mixture of vegetables and traditional crackers with spicy peanut paste). Madiun and Blitar in East Java are popular for their pecel and gado-gado (a mixture of vegetables, crackers and rice with peanut flavoured sauce). The taste is sweet in Eastern Java and salty in Western Java.

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