Gudeg in Yogyakarta

Gudeg is unripe jackfruit cooked down for many hours with palm sugar, coconut milk and garlic, coloured deep brown by teak leaves added to the pot. It comes with rice, a hard-boiled egg stained the same colour, a piece of chicken, crisp cattle-skin crackling called krecek in red chilli, and a coconut sauce. The result is sweet, which surprises people expecting heat, and the Yogyakarta version is sweeter than most. There is a wet form and a drier one that keeps longer and travels, sold in earthenware pots as a gift. Wijilan street near the palace walls is a run of places selling nothing else.

What you actually see

• Jackfruit gudeg - the brown stewed centre of the plate, sweet rather than hot.
• Krecek - cattle-skin crackling in chilli, the sharp counterweight to the sweetness.
• The brown egg - boiled in the same pot until stained all the way through.
• Wijilan street - a run of gudeg specialists along the old palace walls.

When to go

Gudeg is eaten at any hour, and some stalls open before dawn for people heading to work; those are the ones locals rate. Wijilan runs from mid-morning until late. The dry gudeg sold in pots keeps for a day or two unrefrigerated, which is why it travels as a gift. Weekends bring domestic visitors and queues.

Honest expectations

The sweetness divides people and there is no way to order it less sweet. Krecek is chewy and the texture puts some off entirely. The best-known places near the palace charge more than neighbourhood stalls for the same thing and attract touts. Hygiene at the cheapest stalls varies, and jackfruit stew that has stood all day is not always a good bet.

Nearby

The palace and the Kotagede silver quarter are both in the same city.