Rawon

Surabaya and East Java, Indonesia

Rawon is East Java's striking black beef soup — one of the few savoury dishes in world cuisine where the signature colour comes entirely from a spice: the keluak nut (Pangium edule), a seed from a Malay rainforest tree that requires extended processing to remove its toxic prussic acid. The keluak's black, sticky interior is scraped and used in the spice paste, turning the soup an extraordinary dark brown-black and contributing a complex, earthy, slightly astringent flavour without parallel in any other cuisine. The base is a beef short rib or brisket slow-cooked in the keluak paste with galangal, lemongrass, turmeric, and shrimp paste until the meat is tender and the broth deeply flavoured. Rawon is served with white rice, bean sprouts (added raw to the bowl), salted egg, sambal, and fried shallots.

White rice provides the neutral backdrop for the intense dark broth; raw bean sprouts add freshness and crunch; salted egg and fried shallots add salt and sweet-savoury layers; the combination is a masterwork of contrast within darkness.