Pempek

Pempek is fish and tapioca starch pounded together into a dense dough, shaped, boiled, then fried and served with a sharp, dark vinegar-and-palm-sugar sauce. It's Palembang's answer to a fish cake, and the sauce it's served with — called cuko — is thin and intensely sour-sweet-spicy, built to be dunked into repeatedly rather than lightly drizzled on top.

What it really is

Ground white fish mixes with tapioca starch, egg and a little water until the mixture forms a dense, elastic dough, then shapes into various forms — a long torpedo shape (lenjer) and a version wrapped around a whole hard-boiled egg (kapal selam, meaning "submarine") are the two most common. The shaped dough boils until it floats and sets firm, then fries just before serving so the outside crisps while the tapioca-heavy interior stays dense and chewy. It cuts into pieces and serves with cuko, a thin, dark sauce built from palm sugar, vinegar, garlic and chilli that's genuinely sharp rather than mild.

The cuko sauce is thin and sour by design, not a mistake in the recipe. Guests expecting a thick, sweet dipping sauce like those common with other fried snacks are often surprised by cuko's sharp, vinegary intensity — that sourness is exactly what cuts through the dense, starchy pempek and is central to why the dish is ordered.

How it's served

• Cut into pieces, doused generously in cuko sauce rather than lightly dipped.
• With julienned cucumber and sometimes yellow noodles on the side.
• As a street food snack or light meal, common throughout the day.

How to write it on the menu

• Flag the fish and egg.
• Say which shape is served, since the egg-filled kapal selam and the plain lenjer are genuinely different orders.
• Note the sauce's sourness, since it's sharper than many guests expect from a fried snack's dip.

The ingredients, allergens and dietary notes listed here describe a typical recipe. They are not a binding declaration for any particular restaurant: recipes, portion sizes and the products used can differ.