Category: Recipes

This is a kind of salad-ish dish most commonly identitied with Jakarta-style cooking.  Here’s a picture.  You notice in this recipe the fact that fresh vegetables are not eaten raw, even if they are served cold.  In many ways, it resembles gado-gado, but contains different ingredients.  Of course, as with any recipe that we’ve found, there are probably 50 different ways that you could make it, but this is the one that we tried, and it was excellent.

You’ll also note the peanut sauce recipe here.  This is what peanut sauce is supposed to taste like.

Salad Ingredients
1 package dried cellophane noodles
1 cup bean sprouts
1 cup chopped green beans, chopped in half
4 hard boiled eggs, sliced
1 block firm tofu, cut into 1 cm cubes
10 shallots, thinly sliced
oil for frying

Peanut Sauce
3 tablespoons raw peanuts (no shells or skins; you can find these at natural food stores)
3 cloves garlic, whole
3 red chilies, chopped
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon palm sugar
1 tablespoon kecap manis, or to taste
salt
water

First, heat the oil in a deep skillet or wok until hot.  Add the tofu and deep fry until golden, then remove and drain.  Place the raw peanuts in the oil and deep fry until golden or golden brown (depending on your tastes), then remove and drain.  Then, fry the shallots until golden and crispy, and remove and drain.

Heat a pot of water to boiling.  Add the peeled whole garlic and boil for one minute.  Remove and chop the garlic and combine with  the chilies, peanuts, and sugar in a mortar and pestle or food processor.  Process/mash until almost totally smooth, but not quite (you want a bit of texture).  Add kecap manis and vinegar, and then add water to form a thick but pourable sauce.  Add salt to taste.

Return the water to boiling, then add green beans and boil for one minute.  Remove and drain.  Repeat with the bean sprouts, only boiling for five seconds or so.  Add the noodles to the water and cook until done.  Remove and drain.

Arrange the noodles, sliced eggs, beans, tofu, and sprouts on a plate, and sprinkle with the fried shallots.  Serve with the peanut sauce on the side.

This is the dish that we originally set out to make when we accidentally made sambal goreng kering tempe.  This recipe is even easier than the other one.  We understand that many of you dedicated meat eaters must be blanching at all of the tempe we’re talking about.  It’s true that most tempe served in the US tastes like cardboard, with a slightly chewier texture, but the stuff here is so much better.  It’s not that the tempe itself is different–from what we can tell, it’s always just soybeans and yeast–but rather that Indonesians are not afraid to just deep fry the crap out of their food.  And that’s what you have to do.

For some reason, the name of this dish means “sauteed tempe,” which is weird, because it’s definitely not sauteed.

Ingredients
1 block tempe, cut into 1/2 cm by 1/2 cm by 2 cm pieces
4 shallots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3 chilies, chopped
1 tomato, cored and sliced into thin rounds
1 tablespoon kecap manis
salt
oil for frying

Heat the oil in a deep skillet or wok over high heat.  Just as it almost begins to smoke, add the tempe, frying (in batches if necessary) until golden and crisp, about 3 minutes.  Remove tempe and drain.
Combine shallots, garlic, chilies, and a pinch of salt in a food processor or mortar and pestle and process/mash into a smooth paste.  Add a bit of oil if necessary to keep things moving.
Heat one tablespoon of oil in a wok over medium heat.  Add the spice paste and fry until fragrant.  Add the kecap manis and tomato, increase the heat to medium-high, and continue to fry until the tomato starts to break down, about 30 seconds.  Add the reserved tempe, stir to combine over the heat, and then serve, either as a small side dish or as a meal with white rice.