Vegetarian Gado Gado Salad with Spicy Peanut Sauce comes from the cuisine of Indonesia, specially Java. A distant aunt of mine now no more, was born and brought up in Java and she introduced this recipe which fits even the strict Jain diet! Gado Gado literally means “Mix Mix” so the dish involves mixing of a lot of vegetables and coating this with spicy peanut sauce! As I did some more research about this dish, I came to know that original version had many more vegetables such as spinach, green beans, cucumber, carrots, onions etc.. This recipe seems to be in the highlight, as even Bon Appetit, a prestigious cooking magazine talked about it recently, as I pleasantly so discovered. Read more about it at Bon Appetit Gado Gado.
Traditionally this dish contains tofu, tempeh, shrimp, but the version listed below is purely vegetarian which I have grown up eating and relishing and I just made this for a lunch event at my place, and everybody was super impressed with the color, texture, taste and health benefits of this dish,as well as the crunch from the fried rice papads, and not to mention something totally different from the usual menu!
The spicy peanut sauce is the key ingredient for this recipe to be so famous! The best peanut sauce is made from fresh red hot chillies, which at least in USA is not easily possible through the year! My mother in India often makes this in the winter months as the chillies are fresh then and stock it for year long consumption and the base recipe of the spicy peanut sauce comes from her! I have used dried red chillies, which also turned out pretty close to the original flavour and well worth the time! Eat it just as a salad, with brown rice or with bread and butter, or use it as a quick mix recipe!!
Enjoy this version of Vegetarian Gado Gado Salad – a gem from the land of Indonesia and lose weight without losing taste and color in 2016!
Recipe makes for 10 people
Prep Time 1 1/2 hour
TIme to cook 1 hour
Ingredients
For the Gado Gado Salad
- 2 kg cabbage chopped
- 2 1/2 cups long bean diced long (approx. 400 gems of long beans)
- 4-5 raw bananas boiled and skinned and diced
For the Spicy Peanut Sauce
- 200 gms Kashmiri Red Chillies dried or 500 gms fresh
- 1 1/2 cups peanuts fried with skin
- 1 cup plus 2 tbsp jaggery thinly diced or powdered
- 5 big lemons
- salt to taste
For the toppings
- 12 Rice Papads ( Khichiya) Fried and crushed
- Oil for frying
For accompaniments
- Dinner Rolls and butter
Method
For the Salad
- Put 7 cups of water to boil in a deep vessel and add salt.
- Once the water starts to boil,add four fistful of vegetables of cabbage at a time and cook for about 8 min covered with lid. Strain the cooked cabbage with slotted spoon. Repeat till all cabbage is cooked.
- After boiling all the cabbage, add the long beans with a pinch of sodium carbonate and salt. Open cook for 10 min.
- Cut the raw bananas to half and pressure cook them with salt and 1 tsp turmeric powder for 5-6 whistles.
- Cool the bananas.
- Long slice the bananas into halves and then the halves into further three parts. Remove the center black part of the banana and then dice them.
- Once all the vegetables have cooled, mix them.
For the Spicy Peanut Sauce
- If using the dried chillies, soak them for couple of hours in lots of water so they become soft.
- Remove the stems from the chillies and the seeds.
- Fry the peanuts in hot oil with skin to brown color and drain will.
- Once the peanuts have cooled, first blend the peanuts with skin red chillies.
- Then add one and half cup of water and chillies and blend for 6-7 min.
- Then, add jaggery, salt and lemon juice and blend some more till the texture is smooth.
- If the texture is uneven or if you have missed out on removing the seeds, like I did, sieve the mixture through a strainer and retrieve the smooth textured chutney, throwing away the dried seeds and extra fibre.
- Extra chutney/sauce can be preserved for long in the refrigerator for future use. The spicier version of this chutney is shown in the below pic in the bigger bowl to the right.
For the sweeter version of this peanut sauce
- Take about a 1 cup of the above mixed chutney and add 3 tbsp of jaggery powder, 2 tbsp sugar and 1/2 cup of water, juice of 1 lemon and mix well. The sweeter version is what I am used to having it since childhood, is shown on the left side in the above picture.
Frying Rice Papads
- Heat oil to smoking level.
- Fry the papads by pressing them with a slotted spoon on a medium high flame.
- Drain and cool for 10-15 min.
- Using the pressure of flat palms, crush the papads gently.
- Then crumble and gently and make smaller pieces.
- Store in air tight container till serving.
How to Serve
- In a bowl put some mixed boiled vegetables, pour some spicy peanut sauce chutney and top it with crushed papads. Alternatively you can make put a little of both the versions of peanut sauce, which also tastes good.
- Serve this with buttered dinner rolls or atop cooked brown rice
Tips
While chopping cabbage, remove the thick inner white portions and buy a cabbage that is more green than white.
Remember to add salt while boiling all vegetables and turmeric while pressure cooking raw bananas.
One can also serve this with rice and the peanut sauce needs to be thick but pourable consistency and all the vegetables need to be coated with it to get the perfect taste,
Instinct Factor
Try any mix of vegetables instead of the above mix, to suit your taste. The peanut chutney makes more quantity then needed, and this can be frozen for future use. Just add a tiny bit of water when re using it.
There are lots of other vegetables that one can add as also listed in the original non-vegetarian version in Indonesia. These include bitter melon, spinach , tofu, french beans.
Feel Factor
A warm salad, a warm vegetable bhel, or a truly innovative crunchy colorful healthy appetizer /entree, are some of the names that came to my mind while cooking and relishing this. My most favorite ingredient in this recipe is the spicy peanut sauce. for its color, taste and texture. The whole recipe gets a whole new spice kick because of this sauce and the dish has an extreme healthy look and feel. One can eat this alone or one can eat this with buttered bread or even rice, and I prefer the second option as it goes well and gives it a touch of a complete meal. The true taste of this delicious Vegetarian Gado Gado Salad from Indonesia lies in the steamed vegetables coated with the spicy peanut sauce, so for anyone having a taste of Thai food, will find this appealing too and the fried rice papads giving an extra depth and taste to the salad! Musical name with a spicy kick is what makes Vegetarian Gado Gado Salad a truly delicious meal!
