Sekoteng is a warm Javanese ginger drink poured over a bowl of mix-ins — roasted peanuts, cooked green mung beans, slippery pink pacar cina sago jelly and cubes of bread. The clear, fiery-sweet ginger broth softens the bread and warms everything through, making it as much a light meal as a drink. Ladled out from night carts in the cool evenings, it is one of Java's classic after-dark warmers.
Sekoteng is a traditional ginger drink of Central Java, sold from street and night carts and now found across Indonesia; no single inventor or date of origin is recorded. It belongs to Java's broad family of wedang ginger drinks, distinguished by the assortment of peanuts, beans, sago jelly and bread served in the bowl beneath the broth. The pink pacar cina sago pearls that often appear in it are themselves an adaptation of a Chinese sago-pearl sweet, reflecting the layered influences in Java's street-food repertoire.
The broth is hot, sweet and forthright with ginger, clear rather than creamy. Roasted peanuts stay crunchy at first then soften, mung beans are tender and earthy, the pacar cina pearls are bouncy and slippery, and the bread soaks up the syrup into soft, sweet sponges. It is warming and filling, with texture in every spoonful.
Ginger is bruised and simmered long in water with palm sugar and pandan so its oils and heat steep into a clear, fragrant syrup — kept thin, never thickened. The components are cooked or prepared separately: mung beans simmered soft, pacar cina pearls boiled until they turn translucent, peanuts roasted for crunch. They are spooned into the bowl and the boiling-hot broth poured over at the moment of serving, which warms the mix and softens the bread just enough.
Variations
Some carts add cubed bread only at the table, others include kolang-kaling palm seeds, tapioca pearls, agar or a drizzle of sweetened milk. The ratio of mix-ins is the vendor's own, and a stronger hand with the ginger makes a more warming bowl. It sits close to wedang ronde and other Javanese ginger drinks, differing mainly in its mixture of peanuts, beans and bread.
On the Palate
Where Sekoteng sits in the Indonesian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 4
How it's made
8 steps · 25 min active + 25 min waiting
- 130 min
Rinse the mung beans, soak briefly, then simmer in water until soft; drain.
- 212 min
Boil the pacar cina sago pearls until translucent, then rinse in cold water.
- 38 min
Roast the peanuts until fragrant and crisp, and cut the bread into small cubes.
- 45 min
Bruise the ginger and bring it to a simmer in plenty of water.
- 515 min
Add palm sugar and a knotted pandan leaf and simmer until the broth is fragrant and fiery.
Watch outSimmer the ginger broth with palm sugar and pandan until it's fragrant and properly fiery, then strain it clear — this thin bright syrup is the whole soul of the bowl, so let the ginger heat build.
- 63 min
Strain the broth clear and keep it boiling hot.
- 73 min
Divide the mung beans, sago pearls, peanuts and bread among bowls.
- 82 min
Ladle the hot ginger broth over the top and serve at once.
Watch outPour the broth boiling-hot over the assembled bowl right at serving — the scalding liquid warms everything and softens the bread just enough; lukewarm broth leaves it flat.
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