Tekwan is a fish soup popular in Indonesia, made with fish balls boiled in shrimp broth and flavored with garlic, vegetables, and exotic ingredients like lily buds and yam bean. It is a regional seafood dish that offers insight into various flavor profiles for fish as the primary protein.
Tekwan is a kind of fish soup popular in some regions of Indonesia, for example in the local area of Palembang in South Sumatra. In Indonesian islands, many cooks prepare this dish from ancient recipes using locally available foods. The main ingredient is fish, cut and crushed into large lumps.
Most recipes for tekwan involve boiling “fish balls” in shrimp broth. Fish balls are first made by mashing the fish, mixing it with tapioca flour or a similar substance, and kneading the resulting mixture until it has a smooth consistency. Egg whites are also added in many cases. Cooks add a range of other ingredients to the shrimp broth as it boils.
In many cases, the broth for tekwan is made by boiling the non-essential parts of the shrimp or prawns. This allows the cook to use the other edible parts of this sea creature in another dish. Flavor elements such as garlic are added to the broth to produce a rich taste that complements the subtle flavors of the fish commonly used to create this dish, including varieties of mackerel or snapper.
Along with the garlic, other vegetables are also added to make the meal more substantial. These include celery, shallots and shallots. The shallots and garlic can be chopped and roasted or simply boiled into the mixture.
A range of other ingredients also go to Tekwan in many authentic recipes. These include some rather exotic food items like lily buds and a food called yam bean. All of these add flavor, texture and color to the soup.
Some of the above ingredients still don’t deliver the bold, aggressive tastes that some people are used to in this dish. Some recipes also call for hot peppers. Cooks can also use salt and black pepper as a flavoring for tekwan.
When it comes to representing regional seafood presentations, Tekwan stands out as a local variant of a wide range of culinary dishes. For example, in many South Indian food cultures, cooks use a specific fish paste or fish curry to make the fish palatable. Any of these fish dishes can make their way into the cookbooks of Western societies, where cooking fish most commonly involves simple preparations such as pan-frying it with a light flour or cornmeal. By looking at traditional world dishes like this, today’s cooks can glean insight into various flavor profiles and other aspects of the best presentation for fish as the primary protein.
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