Dendeng is thinly sliced dried meat

Meat

Meat is animal flesh that is used as food. Most often, this means the skeletal muscle and associated fat and other tissues, but it may also describe other edible tissues such as organs and offal...

 in Indonesian cuisine. It is preserved through mixture of sugar and spices and drying through frying process. It is similar to jerky

Jerky (food)

Jerky is lean meat that has been trimmed of fat, cut into strips, and then been dried to prevent spoilage. Normally, this drying includes the addition of salt, to prevent bacteria from developing on the meat before sufficient moisture has been removed. The word "jerky" is a bastardization of the...

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The Minangkabau version — probably the most popular dendeng dish in Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...

 — is called Dendeng Balado or Dendeng Batokok is a speciality from Padang, West Sumatra, made from beef

Beef

Beef is the culinary name for meat from bovines, especially domestic cattle. Beef can be harvested from cows, bulls, heifers or steers. It is one of the principal meats used in the cuisine of the Middle East , Australia, Argentina, Brazil, Europe and the United States, and is also important in...

 that thinly cut then dried and fried before added with chilli

Chili pepper

Chili pepper is the fruit of plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. The term in British English and in Australia, New Zealand, India, Malaysia and other Asian countries is just chilli without pepper.Chili peppers originated in the Americas...

es and other ingredients.

Variations

The most common dendeng in Indonesia is dendeng sapi (beef dendeng), and it is usually taste sweet through addition of coconut sugar caramelization. However exotic meat type is also available especially in Eastern Indonesia. Dendeng rusa (deer dendeng) can be found in Nusa Tenggara islands and Papua

Papua

Papua was the name, as provided to the Portuguese commander Jorge de Meneses while sheltering there in 1526, of the people living on Waigeo, one of the Raja Ampat Islands west of the Vogelkop Peninsula, now part of the West Papua province of Indonesia. The Spanish pilot Martin de Uriarte in the...

. Indonesian Chinese usually favour pork dendeng called bakkwa

Bakkwa

Bakkwa is a Chinese salty-sweet dried meat product similar to jerky, made in the form of flat thin sheets. It is normally made from pork. Bakkwa is believed to have originated from a meat preservation and preparation technique used in ancient China that is still practiced in places with Hokkien...

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