Gado-gado the traditional salad from Indonesia

I like very much this kind of  food,until recent time i usually eat this cause as variation of food whenever you getting bored with all meat stuff.Gado-gado is quite similar with karedok but little bit different,here is the recipe as follow:

Ingredients

(for 2 servings)

1 thinly sliced medium sized fresh cucumber, 2 fried tempeh (soybean patties), 2 pieces of fried tofu, and a hard boiled egg cut into 4 pieces.

tempeh and fried tofu

For blanched vegetables:
1 cup of string beans cut into 4 cm long pieces, 1 cup of shredded cabbage, 1 cup of mung bean sprouts, 2 small chayotes cut into wedges (2 cups’ worth), 1 cup of water spinach (“ong choy”), 1 cup of Chinese spinach

Chinese spinach

water spinach (ong choy)

For the sauce:
ground roasted peanuts, bird’s eye chilis, dried shrimp paste (terasi), palm sugar, salt, tamarind, and water

For garnish:
fried shallots, shrimp crackers, emping (gnetum gnemon chips called “Melinjo” in Indonesian)

Optional:
1 medium sized steamed potato cut into bite size pieces

Directions

  1. Blanch and strain Chinese spinach, water spinach, string beans, mung bean sprouts, cabbage and slice 1 cucumber.
  2. Make sauce using a mortar and pestle
    cooking time: 20-30 minutes

      1. Grind these ingredients with a mortar and pestle until they’re smooth: 1 ts salt, 2 ts dried shrimp paste, 3 red bird’s eye chilis, and ¼ cup’s worth of palm sugar.
    1. Add 1 cup of finely ground roasted peanuts (or 1 cup of peanut butter) and grind it all some more until it’s mixed well. If you use peanut butter instead of ground roasted peanuts, add less salt because there’s salt in the peanut butter.
    2. Mix 1 tbs (about 20 grams) of tamarind with ¼ cup of hot water in a small bowl. Add the juice to the sauce.
    3. Add ½ cup of water and mix it well.
    4. Transfer the vegetables to a serving plate and pour the sauce on top of it or mix all the vegetables with the sauce in the mortar before serving.
    5. Add a sliced hard-boiled egg on top and garnish with fried shallots, shrimp crackers and emping.
    6. ENJOYED