Gado-Gado with Toasted Peanut Dressing

⏱ 45 min · Serves 4

Indonesia's greatest salad: a big platter of just-tender vegetables, potatoes, eggs and crisp fried tofu, all drenched in a warm, salty-sweet peanut sauce with lime and chilli. Colourful, filling and secretly very easy.

Per serving: 620 kcal · 31.0g protein · 39.0g carbs · 39.0g fat

Ingredients

• 300g new potatoes, halved
• 200g green beans, trimmed
• 200g white cabbage, shredded
• 150g beansprouts
• 1 cucumber, halved and sliced thickly
• 4 large eggs
• 250g firm tofu, cut into slabs
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil, for frying
• 2 tbsp fried shallots, to serve
• 1 handful prawn crackers or kerupuk (optional)
• 150g roasted unsalted peanuts (or 150g crunchy peanut butter)
• 2 garlic cloves
• 1 red chilli, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp kecap manis (sweet soy)
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 2 tbsp palm sugar or soft brown sugar
• 1 tsp tamarind paste
• Juice of 1 lime
• 180ml hot water

Method

1. Boil the potatoes in salted water for 12-15 minutes until tender; scoop out and drain.
2. In the same water, blanch the green beans for 3 minutes, the cabbage for 2 minutes and the beansprouts for 30 seconds, lifting each out into cold water. Drain everything well.
3. Boil the eggs for 8 minutes, cool under cold water, peel and halve.
4. Pat the tofu very dry. Fry in the oil over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes each side until golden and crisp. Drain and slice.
5. For the dressing, blitz the peanuts to a coarse paste in a food processor, then add garlic, chilli, kecap manis, soy, sugar and tamarind and blend again.
6. Loosen with the hot water, a splash at a time, until pourable-thick. Warm in a small pan for 2 minutes, then stir in the lime juice. Taste: it should be salty, sweet, nutty and sharp.
7. Arrange potatoes, beans, cabbage, beansprouts, cucumber, tofu and eggs in sections on a big platter.
8. Spoon over plenty of warm peanut dressing, scatter with fried shallots and serve the rest of the sauce and the crackers alongside.