The ultimate gado gado

Gado gado, which means ‘mixed’, originally comes from West Java. The peanut sauce is slightly thicker because of the coconut milk, lightly sweet from the gula djawa and ketjap manis, and mildly spicy and refreshingly sour from the tamarind and kaffir lime leaves. Traditionally, it contains blanched green beans, raw pointed cabbage, bean sprouts and cucumber, tahoe (tofu), boiled potato and boiled egg. Gado gado is served with emping melindjo, crackers made from the peeled seeds of the melindjo tree.

1. Cut the tahoe in half crosswise, then into 1-centimetre-thick slices, and then diagonally in half again, so that you are left with triangles. Fill a bowl with water and add a tablespoon of salt. Place the sliced tahoe in the salted water and leave to soak for an hour.

2. If the nuts are not roasted, roast them first for approximately 15 minutes in an oven preheated to 175 °C. Meanwhile, soak the tamarind in 50 ml warm water, checking with a spoon that there are no seeds in it. Remove the outer leaf from the lemongrass and finely chop it. Remove the vein from the kaffir lime leaves and slice them very finely. Slice the garlic thinly and cut the rawit into thin rings.

3. Now fry the garlic in a saucepan with a little oil. Grind the garlic, peanuts, lime leaves, rawit and gula djawa finely in a mortar. You can also use a food processor if preferred.

4. Add the tamarind with its soaking water, the coconut milk and the ketjap manis, and grind until you have a sauce. Season with salt. Note: do not make the sauce too thin, because it will become thinner when mixed with the vegetables, which still contain water.

5. Mix the sauce with the vegetables just before eating. Divide the fried tahoe, boiled potatoes and boiled egg over the gado gado. Sprinkle with the parsley and serve with the crackers.

Are you now curious about other Indonesian vegetable salads too? In this article, I’ll tell you all about pecel, lotek, karedok and ketoprak.