Mmmm, kroepoek.

It's a cool snack, and too many people don't know it at all.

Way back, when I was this tall, we lived in another country, and as my parents wanted to expand their language skills, we had friends from a lot of countries. Including Indonesia.

So I can cook a nice Nasi Goreng, or a cool (well, hot) Bami Goreng, and I can fry kroepoek. That's the Dutch spelling ... the Dutch pronounce that "oe" like 'mercans would pronounce "oo" (as in food).

Kroepoek are Indonesian dried shrimp-tapioca-whatnot crackers. You buy smallish disks (about 2-4 cm across), and deep-fry them just before serving.

When you fry up a bit of kroepoek, you end up with a much larger bit of fried-up kroepoek.

I've also had longish plates (about 3 cm x 15 cm) of kroepoek, but the small coin-like things are more normal - you'll either have to crack the longish ones into smaller bits, or you have to have an enormous deep-frying outfit.

It's yum. Mmmm. Here's the how-to:

1) get some unfried kroepoek. Try an Asian store, they're likely to carry it.
2) pour oil into a pan.
3) snap off 2-3 very small pieces of kroepoek (½ x 1 cm or so), and put them into the oil.
4) put the oil on full heat.
5) when the small pieces start to turn, bubble and grow, the oil is hot enough. My stove goes to 9, and I decrease the heat to 6 at this stage.
6) start feeding pieces of kroepoek into the oil. In a smallish pan 3 coin-sized pieces in one go is the absolute maximum.
7) use two forks to turn each kroepoek over and press it down, so that all of it is in the oil.
8) once it's all done, slip 2-3 new pieces into the oil and use those same forks to lift out the done bits, and let most of the oil drip off. Put fully-grown kroepoek pieces onto a plate which you've put right next to the oil pan ... at least some of the pieces will still drip some oil.

I just did a handful of them (that's a large plate, once they're all done), but sorry (burp), they're all gone - no pics.

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I've served it over here, and it's almost completely unknown among Finns. Dunno how well-known it'd be elsewhere - it's Indonesian.