Gado Gado

Locale: Indonesia

Source: James Oseland, Cradle of Flavor [p. 136]

Serves: 4

Ingredients

  • 1.5 c Javanese peanut sauce
  • 10-15 fried shrimp chips
  • 4 medium-sized waxy potatoes, peeled and sliced 1/3-inch thick
  • peanut oil
  • 2 c mung bean sprouts
  • 1 large carrot, cut into diagonal slices
  • 40 green beans or 20 long beans, stemmed and cut into 2-inch pieces
  • 1/2 head leafy green lettuce
  • 1 kirby cucumber, unpeeled, cut into diagonal sices
  • kosher salt

Steps

  1. Prepare the peanut sauce and fried shrimp chips. Set aside.

  2. Fry the potatoes.

  3. Bring a saucepan with water to a boil. Add bean sprouts and blanch, about 10 seconds. Lift out and run cold water to stop cooking.

  4. Add carrot slices to same water and boil until they're fork-tender, about 2.5 minutes. Lift out and run cold water to stop cooking.

  5. Add green beans and boil until they're just crunchy tender, about 1.5 minutes.

  6. Assemble the salad with fried potatoes, boiled vegetables, raw cucumber and lettuce. Add peanut sauce to coat. Garnish with shrimp chips.

Notes

  1. I consulted several recipes, then ran short of time and just winged it. I boiled potatoes, green beans, and cauliflower. I peeled and quartered the boiled potatoes. I also boiled 4 eggs, then peeled and quartered them. I used a regular cucumber, seeded and peeled, and I added tomato slices, but didn't have any lettuce, and inadvertently skipped the carrot. Other recipes had other combinations, and the range seems very flexible. I added some chopped peanuts. I didn't get the shrimp chips done (totally forgot about them).

  2. For peanut sauce, I made Saus Kacang, which was an old favorite, but with creamy peanut butter, then I thinned it down with coconut cream (about 1 c coconut cream to 1.25 c peanut sauce). Most other peanut sauce recipes started with whole peanuts, but I was hard-pressed for time.

Log

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