The ultimate gado gado recipe plus a killer peanut sauce

Wasting time

Did you know I am the master of doing useless stuff? Well, now you do. I have just spend most of the afternoon checking out new website templates for my site. Simone’s Kitchen is a custom design and while I do like it, the problem with anything ‘custom’ is that it is hard to change something yourself. That usually ends up going badly wrong. And so everyone once in a while I get the irresistable urge to check out new templates. One that I can configure myself and mess up myself. And the end conclusion is always that it is just not exactly what I am looking for and it doesn’t do exactly what I want it to do. Or I lack the right amount of programming knowledge required to make the changes. End of story.

And so half a day goes by – or a whole day for that matter  – and I have done nothing. Put five templates on my testsite (thank god I have a test site!) and took them away again. As in waste of time!

Well, I learned another thing today. But enough about blogs and templates and all that boring stuff. Time to talk about this ridiculously delicious gado gado. With thanks to Esmée as I was looking for the ultimate peanut sauce recipe for a while now. You maybe think that it can’t be that hard, but I am definitely not talking about anything from a jar or can. And a homemade peanut sauce requires some love and attention. It’s a little bit work but trust you, you will never look back!

Gado gado itself is a really simple dish; it is essentially cooked vegetables that you serve cold with a boiled egg and obviously a really good peanut sauce. Because that is what makes the dish. Or breaks it if it is a lousy one.

For years I have been under the assumption that gado gado and atjar tjampoer were the same thing… Don’t ask me why…. 🙂 So imagine my surprise when I was served my very first gado gado. I wasn’t immediately sold as the first one, was definitely not the best one. But once I got a real delicious version served in indonesia I was hooked. And of course had to try it for myself!

So here it is; the ultimate gado gado with a killer peanut sauce!

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5 from 1 vote

The ultimate gado gado recipe plus a killer peanut sauce

Ingredients

• Vegetables
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Cucumber
• Green beans
• Carrot
• bean sprouts
• bamboo shoots
• eggs
• For the peanutsauce
• 3 asian red sjalots or regular red onion will do
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/2 tsp of shrimp paste
• small bit of sereh lemongrass - cut into small rings
• 2 large red peppers including the seeds.
• sunflower oil for baking
• 1/2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 400 ml water roughly
• 5 large tbsp peanutbutter
• 1/2 tbsp of palm sugar gula djawa
• 1 tbsp ketjap manis
• 2 tbsp of dried chili flakes
• 2 tsp sambal badjak
• bit of limejuice

Instructions

• Cook all vegetables separately and don't overcook them. They should have some bite. Grate the carrot and pour boiling water over it. Leave to drain. Blanche the sprouts very shortly and cook the green beans just a bit longer. Leave to cool.
• Dice the onion and the garlic and put into a pestle and mortar together with the sereh, trassi and the red chilies. Grind until you have a rough paste. Heat the sunflower oil in a large saucepan. Fry until it start to smell but make sure it does not burn.
• Add the cumin and the coriander and bake shortly.
• Pour the water to it and puree with a stickblender to a smooth puree. Add the peanutbutter, palmsugar, ketjap, dried chili flakes, sambal and de lime and stir until it has the right consistency. If it is too thin add a bit more peanutsauce.
• Your sauce is ready if the oil starts to separate. You can see that has happened on the photos.
• Serve the gado gado by arranging all the vegetables on a large plate. Put the sauce in the middle and put the boiled eggs on top
• Notes
• Gula djawa or palm sugar has a unique taste so replacing it with regular sugar is possible but will give another flavor. It is available in blocks or grated at the asian stores. Grated is a lot easier as the blocks are rockhard.
• We used sambal badjak because that is what we had but another sambal is fine too.

Disclaimer

The nutritional values above are calculated per portion. The details are based on standard nutritional tables and do not constitute a professional nutritional advice.

Did you make this recipe?Mention @simoneskitchen or tag #simoneskitchen!

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