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!

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