Bumbu is the foundational wet spice paste of Indonesian cooking — a pounded or blended mixture of aromatics, most often shallot, garlic, candlenut, galangal, turmeric and fresh chilli, fried in oil until fragrant to build the flavour base of a dish. Rather than a single recipe it is a whole technique and family of pastes, sautéed first so that curries, fried rice, satays, soups and stews across the Nusantara archipelago all begin from a cooked aromatic foundation.