I have never been to Indonesia, thus I have not experienced Indonesian food in situ. However, I do have two friends, whose local knowledge have inspired me to cook foods originating from the world's largest island state in the comfort of my own kitchen.
My friend Endang is from the biggest Indonesian island called Jawa, and Fanny has lived in the state capital (Jakarta in Jawa) for years, so they are to blame for me publishing four blog posts on Indonesian dishes in The Enogastronomist!
I claim that one does not have to travel far to discover new food cultures. In fact, I have often learnt recipes from my friends, acquaintances, chefs, and from cookery books and programmes, but not often by flying there, where the pepper grows. Besides, flying around the world is SO five minutes ago.
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| Watch my gado gado video. |
A rough recipe:
Tonight I prepared Gado Gado, which is a salad of raw and blanched vegetables, and fried tempeh (fermented soybeans) served with a spicy and aromatic peanut dipping sauce. Some serve with it also chicken and rice, but I didn't.
For my gado gado salad, I chopped (bite size) and blanched the following veg separately by changing cooking water each time (you want to be able to taste each vegetable's unique taste and not boil them all in one pot!):
- 200 g of French beans
- 200 g of Bok choy
- 150 g of Kale
- 4 Carrots (a variety of different colours)
and chopped raw:
- 3 Celery stalks
- 8 Baby cucumbers
Here is how you can make the dipping sauce:
Cut approximately 2 cm³ piece off the Karangsari Sambal Pecel Pedas -spice block and mix it well with 2,5 dl of boiling water, until dissolved. Then add about 150g of peanut butter and a dash of sweet soy sauce, and mix. You can also into the sauce also finely chopped shallot and a green chilli.
I placed all the vegetables and tempeh on a serving plate with a bowl full of that wonderful peanut butter sauce in the middle. It was agreeably enjoyable social dish and an appetizing way to eat more than your 5 A Day.
Gado gado can be 100 percent vegan or vegetarian dish, but I cooked for our teenagers one hard-boiled egg each as they need lots of protein to sustain their on going growth spurt.
Now what are you waiting for?! Go ahead and make your own gato gato!!!