I

ndispensable for the seasoning of many traditional Indonesian dishes is the bawang merah or shallot. Thick, plump ones are available at traditional markets.

A trip along north coast of Central Java, from Cirebon to Semarang, takes you past the small town of Brebes. The town and its surrounding regions are the center of the country's shallot industry. About 20 years ago, shallots from Brebes were small, but today they are mostly plump and are widely exported to many Southeast Asian countries.

The vegetable is used in many cooking styles. It is largely cultivated in the Netherlands, where it is called syallot, and in the United States, Chile and Spain. French cuisine also uses shallots, as in the renowned sauce Bearnaise. But please don't say shallots if you need them in Australia, because there it's called a leek.

In Indonesian cuisine, shallots are just one of many different kinds of produce needed to enhance the taste of many traditional dishes such as nasi gurih (rice cooked in coconut milk) or semur ayam (a chicken dish with sweet soy sauce). Finely chopped deep-fried shallots, or bawang goreng, pretty much do for Indonesian dishes what parsley does for French dishes.

Local dishes often use shallots and garlic in a ratio of 2:1 - four shallot bulbs to two cloves of garlic, for instance. Shallots, unlike onions, have two parts that are considered one bulb. When cooking, then, one shallot bulb is taken to mean the whole shallot.

As with onions, peeling shallots will have you shedding tears, so use a sharp knife. A common practice is to not throw away the peel, but to bag it and use it later as a coloring agent in the pindang telur dish of spicy, colored eggs.

A culinary tour through the archipelago will yield a variety of names for the shallots, so here are some of the more common ones: bawang abang mirah in Aceh, pia (Tapanuli), bawang suluh/abang (Lampung), bawang beureum (West Java), brambang (East and Central Java), jasumbang (Bali), bawangi (Gorontalo), lassuna mararang (Toraja) bawa rohina (Ternate) and bawa kohori in Tidore.

The shallot is a very ancient bulb and was already known before Christ's time. Some sources say it came from Syria. It is very similar to the onion, or bawang bombai as it is called in Indonesia.

Shallots are not just used in daily cooking, but also in traditional cultural and religious ceremonies in most parts of the country. For a tumpeng, the festive yellow rice cone, shallots are spiked onto a wooden skewer and placed at the apex of the cone.

The vegetable has many health benefits. It is rich in antioxidants, and wards off colds during windy days if eaten, possibly with a bit of sweet soy sauce. Some mash the shallot and add coconut or cajuput oil, which they then rub on the chest.

Shallots have the following nutritional content per 100 grams: 39 calories, 1.5 g protein, 0.3 g fat, 9.2 g carbohydrates, 36 mg calcium, 40 mg phosphor, 0.8 mg iron, 0.03 mg vitamin B1, 2 mg vitamin C, 88 g water (when moist), with 90 percent edible parts.

Writing this article on shallots reminded me of a recipe from one of my aunts who was a real fan of the vegetable and who gave me some cooking lessons on it and praised the delectable and appetite-enhancing taste of sambal bawang merah (chili paste) from Pekalongan. She used 20 shallot bulbs, a half clove of garlic, 10 braised red chili peppers (the seeds discarded and cut vertically), a tablespoon of palm sugar, a teaspoon of salt, three tablespoons of tamarind juice, and a tablespoon of butter or cooking oil.

Her method was to mash the chili peppers and palm sugar, finely chop the shallots and stir fry them in the butter. Once the shallots are limp, add the chili peppers, tamarind juice and everything else. Simmer until the peppers are done and the oil is floating at the top.

My aunt always said eating sambal bawang merah two or three times a week would ward off a serious cold.