Name: Gado gado
Yield: Serves 2
Cuisine: Indonesian
Ingredients: ½ teaspoon salt; ¼ Chinese cabbage, cut into 2 cm (¾ inch) slices; large handful water spinach; large handful spinach leaves; 2 bok choy, sliced; juice of a kaffir lime or ½ lime; ½ teaspoon dark palm sugar (gula jawa), shaved; 1 tablespoon kecap manis; 2 teaspoons crisp-fried shallots; oil, for frying; prawn crackers, rice crackers or emping kecap manis; 75 g (½ cup) raw peanuts, skin-on, or unsweetened peanut butter; 1 tablespoon oil (if using raw peanuts); 2 eggs; 100 g (3½ oz) snake beans or green beans, cut into 3 cm (1¼ inch) lengths; 150 g (5½ oz) silken tofu, cut into small cubes; 2 handfuls beansprouts; 1 garlic clove, crushed

Preparation info

Serves
2

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Fire Islands

By Eleanor Ford

Published 2019

About

It is the peanut dressing that makes this salad. So compelling is the mix of umami with the zing of kaffir lime that folk songs have been penned to its name in Jakarta. I promise it is worth the effort of frying and grinding your own peanuts - it lifts the dressing to a new level - but no one will judge if you use peanut butter. Gado gado translates as a ‘jumbled mix’ so choose any vegetables you have. Bulk it out with tofu, boiled potatoes, ribbons of fried tempeh and prawn crackers if you