Our East Timor Meal
Our meal from East Timor was Ikan Pepes, Batar Da’an, rice, and Bibinka. Ikan Pepes is fish cooked in banana leaves with a curry paste of tamarind pulp, chili peppers, lemongrass, basil leaves, nuts, tomato, sugar, saffron powder, and shrimp paste. We steamed all of this in a metal pot instead of our bamboo rice steamer as the recipe suggested. We didn’t want our rice steamer to smell like fish. After steaming, the banana leaf-wrapped fish was grilled. It was good!
Batar Da’an is a side dish of mung beans, squash, and corn. The first step in making the Batar Da’an was to soak mung beans for at least 10 hours. We got busy and they soaked for about three days. We threw them out and started over. The second time around the beans were soaked and then added to sautéed onion and garlic, along with squash and corn. It was an all-in-one side dish. Pretty good but not sure we would make it again.
Bibinka is a cake, also cooked in banana leaves, with salted egg on top. We lined a springform pan with butter and then banana leaves. The batter was made of glutenous rice flour, (yet another flour to add to our collection accumulated while cooking international meals), sugar, milk, and several other ingredients, such as salt. The recipe called for slices of salted egg to be set on top of the batter. We were not able to find salted egg so we used pickled egg instead – maybe not the best substitution. This was all covered with buttered banana leaves. When the cake was served, it was topped with grated cheese and coconut. It was a different combination, but we really liked it!
About East Timor
East Timor is the eastern half of the island of Timor in Southeast Asia. The western half of the island is Indonesia. The capital city is Dili, with about 150,000 residents. East Timor was under Portuguese influence from the sixteenth century until 1975. In 1999, Indonesia relinquished control of the territory and on May 20, 2002, Timor-Leste became a sovereign state. Timor-Leste has an extremely young population with a median age of 20.
East Timor cuisine has Chinese, Portuguese, and Indonesian influences. Rice is a side dish for most meals but other side dishes are cassava, potato, yam, and corn. Other popular dishes besides the ones we made, are tukir and saboko. Tukir is lamb cooked inside bamboo with spices. Saboko is traditional in villages along the coast outside Dili. It is made from sardines, tamarind sauce, and spices, wrapped in palm leaves, and cooked on a fire.
Some interesting facts: East Timor has some local fruits that don’t have English names; palm wine and palm alcohol are popular in local bars and villages; while eating, it is considered improper to eat or hand things to others with the left hand.
Even though it has beautiful coral reefs, beaches, and mountains, it’s one of the world’s least-visited countries, making airfare and hotels more expensive than many other countries in Asia.
What about you?
Please post your comments below. We love hearing other’s experiences and thoughts!
Do you have a favorite meal, recipe or drink from East Timor?
Do you have a favorite place that serves food from East Timor?
Are you from East Timor or have you ever visited?
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Photos
- Tasi Tolu – Nuno_Alex_GM, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Dili and Atauro Island – Nick Hobgood, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Graham Crumb, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
- Shutterstock – Rock Mt.Matebian Baukau Timor Leste
- Aileu Bridge – Nuno_Alex_GM, CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
References
Britannica, Country Reports, Geography Now, Global Table Adventures, The Travel Book, shutterstock and Wikipedia.
