Indonesian recipe
How to make Gado-gado
West Java and Jakarta (Sundanese and Betawi cooking), now all over Indonesia
A warm salad of lightly boiled vegetables such as long beans, cabbage, bean sprouts and spinach, with potato, hard-boiled egg, fried tofu, tempeh and rice cake, all covered with a rich peanut sauce and topped with crispy crackers.
Ingredients
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
- 4 eggs
- 200 g long beans or green beans, cut into 4 cm lengths
- A quarter of a small white cabbage, shredded
- 150 g bean sprouts and 150 g spinach
- 200 g firm tofu and 200 g tempeh, cut into slices
- Oil for frying and 1 cucumber, sliced
- For the sauce: 200 g roasted unsalted peanuts, 2 cloves garlic, 1 or 2 red chillies, 2 tablespoons palm or brown sugar, 1 tablespoon kecap manis, juice of 1 lime, a pinch of salt and about 300 ml warm water
- To serve: prawn crackers and crispy fried shallots
Method
- Boil the potatoes for 12 to 15 minutes until tender. Boil the eggs for 10 minutes, cool them in cold water, peel and cut into quarters.
- Blanch the beans for 3 minutes, the cabbage for 2 minutes, and the bean sprouts and spinach for 1 minute. Drain well. For older people, pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weak immune system, cook the bean sprouts until steaming hot or leave them out.
- Fry the tofu and tempeh slices in hot oil for 3 to 4 minutes, until golden. Drain on kitchen paper.
- For the sauce, blend the peanuts, garlic, chillies, sugar, kecap manis and salt with the warm water until thick and fairly smooth. Stir in the lime juice. Peanuts cause serious allergies, so warn your guests.
- Arrange the vegetables, potatoes, tofu, tempeh, egg and cucumber on plates, pour the sauce over them and top with crackers and fried shallots.
Made it at home? Tick it off and it goes into your kitchen passport.
The name is often linked to 'digado', to eat something without plain rice, which is why gado-gado comes with rice cake instead.
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