pempek palembang

Pem­pek Palem­bang is known as pub­lic food. We can find it when it was offered in a restau­rant nicely, ped­dled on a push­cart, or car­ried around a slum. Cer­tainly, there is a pem­pek seller in a school’s can­teen as weell, . As, It’s not only easy to make but also it can be enjoyed in every sit­u­a­tion as sweet. It con­sists of sev­eral vari­a­tions and appear­ances. They are pem­pek kapal selam, pem­pek lenjer, pem­pek ada’an, curly pem­pek, and pem­pek pistel.

No one knows where pem­pek from is exactly, because almost all regions of Suma­tra Sela­tan pop­u­lar­ize it as its spe­cial food. But, they say it has been in Palem­bang since 16th cen­tury. Title empek-empek or pem­pek is believed com­ing from title “apek”, a title for an old man Chi­nese gen­er­a­tion. The folk­tale which spread by mouth to mouth says that a 65 year-old “apek” who lived at the bank of Musi River was appre­hen­sive in wit­ness­ing plen­ti­ful cap­tur­ing of fish. The result of the cap­tur­ing was not processed well. The choice was only fried or pre­served with salt with­out dry­ing. The “apek” found an idea to try another alter­na­tive. He mixed grinded flesh of fish and tapi­oca until it results new kind of food. The apeks ped­dled the new food sur­round­ing town by bike. Because the seller was called “pek…apek”, so finally it was known as empek-empek or pempek.

As a culi­nary lover, you should be inter­ested in the recipe below:

Pem­pek Palem­bang Recipe

Ingre­di­ents:

• 300 g flesh of Span­ish mack­erels, grinded
• 100 cc warm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 200 g sago palm flour
• 100 g wheat flour
• 6 eggs, broke into a bowl

Soup:

• 750 cc water
• 5 cloves gar­lic, crushed
• 5 chilies, chopped
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 150 g sugar
• 150 g brown sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp vinegar
• 2 cucum­bers cut into cube sized pieces
• 100 g wet noodles
• 150 g dried shrimps, grinded

Direc­tions:

1. Mix flesh of fish, warm water and salt. Add sago palm flour and wheat flour lit­tle by lit­tle while mix­ing until it is mixed.
2. Form it oval (about 75 g); make a hole in the mid­dle by point fin­ger. Then turn it around while pressed until it becomes a pocket and put some broke raw egg in. Shut and close the hole tightly.
3. Boil some water and put pem­pek one by one. Wait pem­pek until it floats at the sur­face. Take them out and drained.
4. Soup: Boil some water. Put in gar­lic, chilies, soy sauce, sugar, brown sugar, and salt. Boil them and sugar was sol­u­ble. Fil­ter the dregs. Add vine­gar and mix it.
5. Fry pem­pek in much oil enough. Take them out and drain when they are brownish.
6. Serv­ing: Cut fried pem­pek into bite sized pieces and put in a plate. Add noo­dles and cucum­bers above them and pour the soup. Pem­pek kapal selam is ready to be offered.