Gado Gado

A family favorite. A delicious vegetable salad topped with peanut sauce. this dish can be served on its own as a complete meal or as a side dish. Start with the peanut sauce and while that is simmering you can prepare the vegetables and garnish. For the sauce we have taken the ‘short version’ for convenience. Meaning we are using peanut butter with nuts out of a jar instead, rather than using fried grounded peanuts in a ‘tjobek’ or ‘grinder’  (in the cookbook you will find a recipe for home made ‘sauce Katjang’). Please select your peanut butter with care. Not too much sugar or other ingredients or additives. Look for organic peanut butter with nuts.
For the sauce; fry the shallots, garlic and shrimp paste (trassi) in oil in the pan. Add the sambal, sweet soy sauce, brown sugar and water. Let it  cook. Then add the peanut butter. Let it simmer on low for about 45 minuten. Stir continuously (to prevent it from burning) until the sauce thickens. Add the lemon juice or tamarind water. Cook the vegetables separately  in light salted water for about 3 minuten – ‘al dente’.  Keep the vegetables separate. Let the water boil before adding the new vegetable in the pan.

Serving: Put some vegetables on the middle of a dish. Then use some of the garnish to finish it. Then poor over the peanut sauce, crumbled Krupuk (shrimp crackers) and some fried shallots.

Done. Enjoy your meal!

Tip: Serve with white rice or compressed rice cakes). Let the ‘lontong’ cool before serving and cut in 1.5 inches slices. Vegetarian: leave out the eggs and the ‘trassi’ en replace the Krupuk with Emping (made of the melindjo nut).

INGREDIENTS:

Vegetables

100 gr groene of witte kool fijn gesneden.
200 gr sperciebonen, gesneden ca 2 cm.
200 gr taug?
100 gr spinazie

Garnish

2 hard boiled eggs
4 square slices of fried tofu, then diced up.
1 medium potatoe, cooked in skin and sliced
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced

4 tsp fried shallots (oriental store)Krupuk Udang (shrimp crackers)

Sauce

1/2 jar of peanutbutter with nuts
1/3 tsp sambal oelek
2 cloves of garlic
4 shallot, finely chopped
1 thin slice of trassi (shrimp paste)
1/2 tsp brown or palm sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce – dark
1 tbsp lemon juice or tamarind water
2 tbsp oil
470 ml water
salte to taste