Gado gado

Around two weeks ago i made myself nasi goreng with peanut sauce and tofu. Nasi goreng is a very common dish in the Netherlands. Indonesia used to be one of our colonies. We still have many Indonesian restaurants. Conimex is sold here in like forever, or as long as i can remember. Or, as you can read in the linked page (Dutch) Thuis in de Oosterse keuken, available since 1932.

Of course i didn’t use any Conimex in the recipe for my gado gado. I mean, it is so well known, it can’t be good.

Gado gado is a Indonesian salad. You can use all sort of different vegetables. I used broccoli and french beans. Cucumber and coriander for some freshness. One day i had boiled potatoes, the next i cooked some basmati rice. I had fried tofu, the second day marinated them in some ketjap manis.

First i made a peanut sauce. I used different recipes as a starting point. This one from Ottolenghi and one from Rasamalaysia.

I used the following ingredients for the peanut sauce. This gives a sauce for around four people.

4 garlic cloves
1 stalk lemongrass, chopped
2½ tbsp sambal manis
2 small pieces galangal
4 medium shallots
trassi
80ml vegetable oil
½ tbsp salt
90g palm sugar
½ tbsp paprika
2 tbsp thick tamarind water (tamarind paste whisked in water)
225g roasted peanuts, without skins
450ml water
200ml coconut milk

I followed the next steps, basically following Ottolenghi’s steps. I did add the trassi and used the palm sugar insted of normal sugar. In the chinese supermarket the Sambal Olek wasn’t available, i got the Sambal Manis in stead.

Whiz the garlic, lemongrass, sambal, galangal, shallots and trassi in a food processor. Heat up the oil in a saucepan and cook the paste over a low heat for around 40 minutes, stirring regularly.
Mix the salt, sugar and paprika with the tamarind and add this to the cooked paste. Cook for 10 more minutes.
Wiz the peanuts, not too fine, and add them to the cooked paste with the water. Let this simmer for a further 20-25 minutes.
Add the coconut milk and stir. Done!

For the gado gado cook any vegetable you can not eat raw. I had a simple version. I cooked some broccoli and french beans. I cooked some basmati rice and added coriander leaves. I sliced a fourth part of a cucumber. Tofu was fried and afterwards put in some ketjap manis to marinate a bit. The wrong order, i know. Still enjoyed the taste. I didn’t have any eggs. I had eaten two eggs for breakfast, that was enough for me.

I had some kroepoek with the meal. I had bought some of the dried paste you can fry your own kroepoek (krupuk?). Simply heat up some plain vegetable oil and wait till its hot enough for a kroepoek to fry quickly. Afterwards i put the finished kroepoek on some kitchen paper to get most of the oil out of it. Great with the gado gado. I used a vegetarian kroepoek one.

Lovely meal. Especially the peanut sauce!