Sangsang — North Sumatra, Indonesia

Saksang, also written sa-sang or sangsang, is a spiced meat stew from the Batak communities of North Sumatra. The dish is built on small cubes of meat — most often pork, though water buffalo is also used — cooked slowly until the sauce turns dark and glossy from the blood stirred into it near the end of cooking. This version comes from the Batak highlands around Lake Toba, where saksang is closely tied to community life. It is described as a dish served at weddings and other large family gatherings, prepared in quantity for many guests rather than as an everyday meal. The base of the dish is a ground paste of shallot, garlic, ginger, galangal and turmeric, cooked with lemongrass, kaffir lime leaf and Indonesian bay leaf until fragrant. The meat is browned in this paste, then simmered in coconut milk until tender. Blood is stirred in gradually toward the end, off a hard boil, so the sauce thickens without curdling; andaliman, a citrusy Batak pepper, and Thai chili give the final sharpness. What sets this Batak version apart from other Indonesian meat curries is the blood itself, which darkens and thickens the sauce instead of relying on coconut milk alone, and the andaliman pepper, rarely found outside North Sumatra. Cooks who prefer a lighter sauce sometimes reduce or replace the blood with extra coconut milk, producing a related dish closer to the gulai family.