Gulai Kapau — Bukittinggi, Indonesia

Gulai Kapau is a spiced coconut curry built around young jackfruit and beef offal, most often lung or tripe, cooked down in a red-yellow sauce until the jackfruit turns soft and the meat tender, then finished with a touch of tamarind for a light sourness. It is reported from Kapau, a village near Bukittinggi in West Sumatra, and is closely tied to nasi Kapau stalls, where it is served ladled over rice from tall stacks of shallow clay bowls alongside a wide range of other side dishes. It sits within the broad gulai family of Minangkabau coconut curries, distinguished within that family mainly by its sourness and its base of jackfruit and offal. To prepare it, a paste of shallots, garlic, chilies, turmeric, and galangal is fried with lemongrass and lime leaves until fragrant, then beef and prepared offal are browned in it before coconut milk and water are added. Young jackfruit is added once the sauce is simmering, and the pot is left to cook slowly until the jackfruit turns soft enough to break apart under a spoon and the sauce has reduced and darkened. Tamarind is stirred in toward the end for its characteristic light sourness. Compared with other Minangkabau gulai, which more often center on a single meat cooked in a rich but neutral coconut sauce, this version stands out for combining offal with jackfruit in one pot and for the tamarind note that sets its sauce apart from the milder, sweeter gulai served in many Padang restaurants outside Kapau itself.