Not quite gado gado

Not quite gado gado

Gado gado is the delicious Indonesian salad served with peanut sauce that is enjoyed across Asia.

At the weekend we needed a big salad to accompany a barbecue and we started remembering all the gado gado we had eaten during our many years Out East.

There was the usual problem, lack of ingredients. We didn´t have any sesame oil, papaya, prawn crackers and other items essential to authenticity. But, who cares, we decided to have a go anyway with what we could get hold of and the result was delicious. You will need a food processor, as the ingredients have to be efficiently shredded and grated.

One lettuce, sliced finely
A quarter of a cabbage, sliced finely
Small tin of bamboo shoots, drained
Peeled, seeded and chopped cucumber
One peach, peeled, stoned and chopped
One apple, cored, peeled and chopped
Three carrots, peeled and grated
250g tinned coconut milk
400g peanuts
Two or three dessertspoons of sweet chilli sauce
Juice of half a lemon
Three hard-boiled eggs

Take a big bowl and put in the lettuce, cabbage, bamboo shoots, cucumber, peach, apple and carrots. Squeeze in the lemon juice. Whizz the peanuts with the coconut milk and sweet Thai chilli sauce in the food mixer, with the steel chopping knife. Allow enough time for the peanuts to be finely chopped with the coconut milk and chilli sauce. Mix the sauce well into the salad. Quarter the boiled eggs lengthways and arrange them on top of the salad. Scatter crisps over the top, or prawn crackers if you can find them, and serve. Of course you can vary the ingredients to match what you actually have but the peanut sauce is vital.

No doubt, this version of gado gado would cause gourmets in Javanese kitchens to groan at its lack of authenticity. But it tasted great and went very well with the barbecued food and big baked potatoes.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009