Indonesian Vegetable salad with peanut sauce.

Recently, I invited some of my Indonesian friends to have dinner at my place. One couple is both Indonesian with two kids and the other is an Indonesian woman married to American.

They did asked us, what was there to celebrate? Well, there was nothing really special to celebrate. We were invited to the Christmas party with the Indonesian community in Rockville, MD. This is really my first time to be around a lot of Indonesian, the whole church is filled by the Indonesian, young, old, and middle aged. They sang Christmas songs, the kids dresses in white angels clothes and dance slowly. It reminded me of my early childhood, growing up in Medan, North Sumatera of Indonesia.

Back then, my neighbours were Christians, one is a mix couple, a Java man and Manadoan woman and on the left side was the Bataks Christian. During Christmas, we, the kids went with them to the church and sang Christmas song and when we were at my house, my Christian friends will pray and put on muslim white clothes and bowed with me when I prayed. So going to the church again on this special day really brought back come childhood memory.

After the Chrismas lunch, my Swedish husband told me, that he really had good time. It reminds him of Idul Fitri day in Indonesia, the biggest muslim holiday, with so much food and people just chatted, laughed and really had a good family time. Then we decided, why not making one at home. So actually that was the real reason for the dinner.

One of the menu that I prepared that day was the Indonesian Vegetable salad. In Bahasa Indonesia it called 'Pecel'. It is a set of boiled green vegetables and spicy sweet peanut salad. It is very delicious. It is good for all season.

Here is the recipe:

Veggies:

1 bunch of string beans
1/2 cabbage (a half size of whole cabbage medium size)
2 pieces of Chayote
1 pack of tempeh, fried and cut into dice.

Peanut sauce:
5 tbs olive oil
4 thai chilles
5 cloves garlic
2 cm of kencur (kaempfaria galanga, zedoary)
8 keffir lime leaves, take out the stem
2 tbs trassi (shrimp paste)
1/2 cup palm sugar
1 cup of water (add 1 tbs of tamarind) and warm it in the microwave
1 cup peanut, fried and grind.
1 tbs salt.

Directions:

1. Boiled the veggies for 5 minutes in boiling water and it took 15 minutes for chayote. Then cut the veggies into smaller pieces
2. Heat olive oil then add the chilles, garlic, kencur until fragrant and then add the keffir lime leaves and turn off the heat. Grind all of these spices or use food processor. Add shrimp paste, palm sugar and salt and then add the grinded peanut.

3. Add the warm water to the mix and stir until they dissolve well.
4. Taste it add more warm water, salt or palm sugar if necessary.
5. Served the veggies with the peanut sauces and shrimp crackers.


Now this salad is enough for up to 3-4 people. Enjoy!