Gado- gado Mbok Pasar ( Indonesian Steamed Vegetable salad with peanut sauce)
Hello kindness,
We’re back with the "#fareastfridayfeast series. This time we are featuring Gado-gado Mbok. The bounty of summer produce makes my heart jump for joy! How fitting I thought to celebrate our local harvest with this special Indonesian salad.
We, Indonesian love our rice so much that we eat it with everything, but we let go of our obsession on a few occasions. One of them is when eating Gado-gado, which literally translates to eat without rice.
Read more or Jump to Recipe here
The saus kacang ( peanut sauce), the veggies and protein-filled ingredients make it excellent for a pick-me-up “snack”.
Typical veggies included in the salads are blanched/steamed potato, cabbage, sprouts, kangkong ( water spinach), chayote, green and long beans.
Protein such as boiled egg, fried tofu and/or tempe are added to the mix.
So far it sounds just like a regular boring salad, people sometimes get scared of the word blanched/steamed in salads. But the saus kacang aka peanut sauce brings the life and soul to this dish!
Ok, I must give you a warning if you want to eat the best version of this dish: please do not use store-bought peanut butter to replace the sauce, as they added tons of sugar and other things in there that would ruin the flavours. all-natural
If you must, use at least all natural peanut butter where it says only peanut as the ingredient and nothing else, still you will be missing all the fun!
I am quite traditional in choosing vegetables for my gado-gado ( see the list above), but we should support and celebrate local vegetables when available, that is why when the two category are aligned, it makes me so happy.The yellow and green beans, cabbage and potatoes on my plate are both traditional ingredients and local!
Some other vegetables that work well in the salad and are in season right now : zuchinni made into noodles and squeezed, blanched spinach, crispy lettuce, kale, corn.
Now onto the sauce.
There are slight variations of Gado gado sauce ingredients for different regions in Indonesia. Today I’m sharing with you the saus kacang recipe that I got from watching Mbok Lotek ( our regular old lady who sells Lotek: a West Java version of Gado-gado)
Every time when we go to the market, Mom always craved for this nutritious dish. So once we finished our shopping we would order some to take home. She made it ala minute with her very humble cobek ( wide mortar and pestle).
Garlic, shallots, chillies and kencur ( kaempferia gallangal is optional) are added and made into a smooth paste, combined with salt, chopped coconut sugar and tamarind juice. Next roasted/fried peanut went in next, then Mbok ground it with a rolling motion with her wrist until the mixture turned pasty.
She added hot water and lastly add some boiled potatoes to smoothen and bind the sauce. Once the sauce is prepared, she would mixed in the blanched vegetables into the mortar to coat everything in the heavenly sauce.
Mbok’s version of peanut sauce is super quick to make and it’s vegan since she skipped the shrimp paste. The salad is completed with crunchy shrimp/ fish crackers! So finger-licking good!
Today I just finished a big bowl for lunch and it was very satisfying! Here is the recipe for you!
GADO GADO MBOK
Ingredients
- 200 g mini potatoes
- 200 g green beans
- 200 g yellow beans
- 3-4 sleeves of cabbage
- 100 g of bean sprouts
- Other leafy green vegetables such as kale, spinach, zucchini noodles can be added
- 2-3 boiled eggs
- 225 g firm tofu, sliced and fried
- 2 cups of oil for frying tofu
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 3 shallots
- 2 boiled mini potatoes/ 1/2 medium potatoes
- 11/2 Tbsp of coconut sugar
- 1tsp of salt
- 3/4 cup of roasted peanuts
- 2 tsp of tamarind paste
- 100 ml of hot water
- chillies ( optional)
- 2 keffir lime leaves sliced thinly,
- Fried shallots
- Shrimp crackers
Instructions
- First prepare the hard-boiled eggs and fried tofu.
- Once the boiled eggs are ready, shock them in ice water to stop the cooking process. Peel and put aside.
- Rinse the pot and fill halfway with water and put it on a medium heat.
- Put a steamer basket to steam the vegetables starting with the mini potatoes
- Cook the mini potatoes for 12-15 minutes until fork tender, set aside
- Steam greenbeans, yellowbeans, and beansprouts for 1 minutes, take it out and put it aside the residual heat will cook the vegetables gently
- Steam the chopped cabbage for 3-4 minutes, let it cool and prepare the sauce
- Using mortar and pestle, or a food processor grind the sliced garlic, shallots, chillies and salt together until smooth.
- Add the coconut sugar, and tamarind and blend again until smooth, put the mixture aside.
- Using the mortar and pestle, grind the peanut until it is powdery, add some hot water and 2 mini potatoes to make the sauce texture smooth.
- Once the peanut sauce is silky, add the spices mixture back into the sauce
- Taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.
- Sauce is ready to be mixed with the steamed vegetables
- Mix well and add proteins on top, garnish with fried shallots, and shrimp crackers to complete the dish.
When you go to visit your farmers market this weekend, think about Gado-gado and how good your meal will be. Thank me later❤️.
Enjoy,
Xx
M
