Rujak Cingur, Is it Really Slice of Beef Mouth or Nose?

Basically, rujak is a meal made from fruits such as pineapple, mango, rose-apple, star fruit, juicy tuber, papaya, and so on. Sometimes we add some sweet potato too. Then the slices of those fruits are poured by the sauce made from brown sugar, tamarind, fried peanut, water, chili, and salt. The sauce also can be served in the different place, then we pick it with the fruits as you eat French fries with chili sauce.
However, rujak cingur is tottally different from that. First, the composition isn’t only about fruits, but also some boiled vegetables such as cucumber:
- krai (a kind of cucumber from East Java)
- water spinach, chickpea, sprouts
- bengkowang (a kind of yam).
Second, about the sauce. It’s made from fried peanut, water, chili, salt, brown sugar, fried garlic, petis udang (condiment of fermented fish or shrimp), and terasi (condiment made from pounded and fermented shrimp). Pulverize them all.
There are two ways to serve rujak cingur: usual or matengan. In usual way, we can find this food with complete composition as I mentioned above. While in matengan (literary: cooked) way, we just can find the ripe stuffs, like boiled vegetables, lontong, fried tofu and tempeh.
In Surabaya, we can find this culinary everywhere. The price is started from 7,000 IDR until 40,000 IDR. There are popular, expensive rujak cingur in Surabaya: Rujak Cingur Akhmad Jais a.k.a. Rujak Cingur Plampitan a.k.a. Rujak Cingur Hong Kong.
The names come from the location, which is located at Plampitan street. And Surabaya citizen who lives in Hong Kong always bring this culinary when coming home.
However, Bondan Winarno, a culinary expert in Indonesia, said that it’s hard to determine the best rujak cingur in Surabaya, because there are many good quality sellers. Besides, each person has different opinion and taste. How about you?
Kalau kupang aku memang nggak suka, tapi kalau rujak cingur, okelah!
BalasHapusSungguh menarik saya sangat menyukainya
BalasHapus@Aa: Aku juga masih bisa makan kalo rujak cingur, walaupun sebetulnya nggak gitu suka.
BalasHapusRujak Manis (or rujak buah in other parts of the country) is a fruit salad which is served with spicy peanut sauce. This time I picked the Surabaya style rujak manis. This rujak manis is one of many rujaks that I grew up with. For Malaysian and Singaporean, rujak is pronounced as rojak. There are several versions of rujak in Indonesia. As a person who grew up in East Java, I know rujak manis, rujak Madura, rujak cingur which have differences in sauce. Beside using many different tropical fruit, the Surabaya style rujak manis is added with slices of fried tofu.
BalasHapusI haven't try rujak manis from Surabaya. I thought it's like rujak in Bandung, with many fruits and peanut sauce.
BalasHapus