Emping belinjo or emping melinjo is Indonesian chips, a bite-size snack kripik cracker made of melinjo or belinjo nut. The emping crackers have a slightly bitter taste. The emping snack available in the market can tasted plain (original), salty or sweet depends on the addition of salt or caramelized sugar.
The emping production is home industry, it is traditionally handmade in a labor intensive process. The melinjo seeds are sauteed in medium fire to ease the peeling process. Then both the softer outer skin and the harder inner skin of the seeds are peeled off with hand. Each of the gnetum seeds is whacked with wooden hammer-like instrument or pressed with stone cylinder to create flat and rounded emping, and later arranged in tray made of weaved bamboo and sun-dried for a whole day. Each emping chip commonly created from a single gnetum nut, however there is another variants that combine several seeds to create larger emping with size similar to krupuk. This large emping however often mixed with other type of starch, such as corn or tuber starch. There are two types of emping thickness available in the market, the thin and thick ones. The thin one usually tastes original or salty, while the thick one usually taste sweet coated with caramelized sugar or spiced with chili pepper.
The dried emping chips are collected, packed and sold to market. The raw emping brought from marketplace is better to be sun-dried first to reduce it humidity, and later fried with ample of hot vegetable oil until it expands, cripy and turn golden yellow. Emping is produced in many parts of Indonesia, from Pidie in Aceh to Sulawesi, however its main production area are in Java, such as Karangtawang village in Kuningan Regency West Java, Bantul Regency in Yogyakarta, Klaten Regency, Batang Regency, and Magetan Regency in Central Java.
