Emping or Belinjo Crackers (苦饼) is a type of Indonesian chip, a bite-size snack kripik cracker, made of melinjo or belinjo (Gnetum gnemon) nuts (which are seeds). Emping crackers have a slightly bitter taste. Emping snacks are available in markets either plain (original), salty, spicy, or sweet, depending on whether salt or caramelized sugar is added. Recently, my colleague bought a bag of Tom Yum Belinjo Crackers (东炎苦饼) with kaffir lime leaves and she brought some to the office to share. Love that sweet, tangy and lightly spicy flavours clinging to the crunchy crackers with a slight bitter aftertaste so I asked her to buy one bag for me.
Emping production is a home industry, with emping traditionally handmade in a labor-intensive process. The melinjo seeds are sauteed in a medium fire without oil or sometimes using sand as a media. Some people boil the melinjo seeds to ease the peeling process. Both the softer outer skin and the harder inner skin of the seeds are peeled off by hand. Each of the gnetum seeds is whacked with a wooden hammer-like instrument or pressed with a stone cylinder to create flat and round emping and later arranged in a tray made of weaved bamboo and sun-dried for a whole day. Each emping chip is commonly created from a single gnetum nut, although there are variants that combine several seeds to create larger emping with sizes similar to krupuk. These large emping, however, are often mixed with other types of starch, such as corn or tuber starch. There are two types of emping thickness available in markets, thin and thick. Thin emping are usually plain or salty, while thick emping are usually sweet, coated with caramelized sugar, or spiced with chilli pepper.
Information from Wikipedia.
