Gado-Gado: hot & cold salad with a spicy peanut sauce

My version of Gado-Gado is one of only a handful of recipes in my cookbook that isn't accompanied by a photograph. This was not for lack of trying: we prepared a gorgeous platter for the shoot, but the pictures were so disappointing that they were booted out of the book.

An intriguing combinaton of warm & cold ingredients and a  
a spicy peanut sauce make this dish a winner for big gatherings.

This was no fault of the photographer, I hasten to add. The problem was that the dish looked curiously garish, and rather dated in the sense that it was reminiscent of those eager trays of crudités so popular at 1980s parties.

(The idea of fresh veggies accompanied by chilled dips was a good one, for its time, but the truth is that there are only so many raw celery and carrot batons you can eat before you have to plant your face in a beckoning bowl of brandied chicken liver paté.)

Choose beautiful shining fresh ingredients for this dish, cook them to 
perfection, and your guests will flatten every platter. 

The pictures on this page are ones I snapped when I was testing this recipe. I admit they look as gaudy as a carnival, but I hope that won't put you off trying this delicious and intriguing dish.

Gado-Gado was suggested to me by my friend, clever cook and brilliant thrower-of-parties Judy Levy, as my manuscript raced towards its deadline. Judy didn't give me a recipe, but she described the dish to me in detail over coffee, and I raced home - with a visit to the supermarket on the way - to make it.

I couldn't settle on any of the Gado-Gados I googled, because each one was so different from the next, so in the end I slammed my laptop shut and raced downstairs to suck a recipe out of my thumb.

Because some of the veggies in my Gado-Gado need to be boiled, this recipe requires some planning and careful timing (see my Cook's Notes, below). However, I think you'll find this is worth the effort: it's an interesting and abundant dish to serve for a large gathering, and it makes the very best of fresh seasonal vegetables. There's no need slavishly to follow my list of ingredients: choose what ever looks most bright and snappy on the day.

Gado-Gado is often served with a topping of crisp prawn crackers, but every time I make it this way I find an apologetic pile of these tucked into the shadows by guests too polite to say they don't like these dry fishy clouds.

Gado-Gado 

(Recipe courtesy of Random House Struik)

This delicious and unusual dish of cooked vegetables, crisp salad ingredients and boiled eggs smothered with a piping-hot, spicy peanut sauce is my take on Gado-Gado, a dish popular all over Indonesia. There are many variations of this recipe, so feel free to make it your own by adding any other seasonal vegetables you fancy: mung bean sprouts, radishes, baby mielies, shredded Chinese cabbage, and so on. 

24 new potatoes
6 large carrots, peeled and cut into batons
1 small head of cauliflower, broken into florets
500 g slim green beans, topped and tailed
6 extra-large free-range eggs
2 cos lettuces
1 large English cucumber
500 g ripe cherry tomatoes
a packet of shrimp crackers (optional)

For the sauce: 
 2 cups (500 ml) roasted, salted peanuts
about 1½ cups (375 ml) hot water (see recipe)
4 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
3 Tbsp (45 ml) grated fresh ginger
5 spring onions, white parts only, sliced
1 stalk lemongrass, finely sliced
2 small dried chillies, chopped (or more, to taste)
3 Tbsp (45 ml) sunflower or olive oil
1 x 400 ml tin coconut milk
½ tsp (2.5 ml) turmeric
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
2 tsp (10 ml) fish sauce (optional)
2 Tbsp (30 ml) grated palm sugar (or 1 Tbsp brown sugar)
2 Tbsp (30 ml) Kikkoman soy sauce
2 Tbsp (30 ml) lime juice, fresh or bottled

First make the sauce. Rinse the peanuts under cold running water for 30 seconds to remove excess salt. Using a blender or mini food processor, grind the peanuts to a wet, slightly chunky paste, adding just enough hot water (about 1½  cups) to help the blades turn freely. Tip the peanut paste into a bowl, leaving 3 Tbsp (45 ml) behind in the blender. Put the garlic, ginger, spring onions, lemongrass and chillies into the blender and process to a fairly fine paste, adding a little oil if necessary.

Fry the spice paste in oil over a medium heat for 2 minutes. Stir in the reserved peanut paste and all the remaining sauce ingredients, turn down the heat and simmer gently for 10 minutes. If the sauce bubbles volcanically, whisk in a little hot water to thin it. Season to taste and add a little more lime juice if you think it needs it.

Now get the veggies ready. Cook them, one type at a time, in plenty of briskly boiling salted water until just tender, but nowhere near mushy. New potatoes take about 20 minutes, carrot batons 7 minutes, cauliflower florets 5 minutes and green beans 4 minutes. Refresh the carrots, cauliflower and beans under cold running water as they come out of the pot. Pat the vegetables dry, arrange in groups on a tray and cover with clingfilm until needed. Hard boil the eggs in simmering water for 9–10 minutes and cool completely under a running tap.

Arrange the cos lettuce leaves on a large platter. Halve the cucumber lengthways, scrape out the seeds and cut into crescents. Cut the tomatoes in half crossways. Peel the eggs and cut lengthways into six wedges. Arrange the cooked and raw vegetables, in groups, on top of the lettuce, and tuck in the egg wedges. Heat the peanut sauce and drizzle it, piping-hot, over the vegetables (or pass it round in a jug). Top with a scattering of shrimp crackers.

Serves 8-10.

Cook’s Notes 
This is particularly delicious when the vegetables are warm. Prepare them all in advance as described above, then quickly reheat them in a very hot oven, on a baking tray covered with foil, for 5–6 minutes before arranging them on top of the salad ingredients. If you don’t have a fairly powerful blender, use 1 cup (250 ml) of chunky peanut butter instead of whole salted peanuts.

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Warm New-Potato Salad with Bacon and Mustard Greens

Warm potatoes release the punchy flavours of
mustard greens.

Are you familiar with mustard greens? My vegetable patch is bursting with the ones my daughter planted six weeks ago, and I am so enjoying their peppery, mustardy bite, and the mild nasal tingle they deliver.

They are too strong to use raw on their own once they grow past the tender little seedling stage, but are delicious chopped and scattered over salads, and in stir-fries.

Combined with warm boiled baby potaoes, salty bacon, chives and a light dressing, they are are such a treat.

Scatter a handful of mustard-green seeds in your
garden at the end of winter, and you'll be
rewarded with a bountiful crop. 

The mustard greens should be added to the salad after you've dressed it, and immediately before serving, so they are just ever so slightly wilted. If you want to make the salad in advance and serve it cold or at room temperature, add the greens at the very last minute.

You can make this salad with rocket, sorrel or even baby spinach leaves, but do try to to grow mustard seeds in your own garden, even if you have only a few pots on a balcony. You'll be amazed at how fast they grown, and how interestingly zippy they taste.

Warm New-Potato Salad with Bacon and Mustard Greens

24 new potatoes, boiled with salt until just tender
10 rashers streaky bacon, diced
a small onion, very finely chopped
1 clove garlic, peeled and crushed
the juice of a lemon
100 ml olive oil
2 Tbsp (30 ml) white wine vinegar
3 Tbsp (45 ml) chopped fresh chives
a small bunch of fresh young mustard greens, rocket, sorrel or spinach
salt and milled black pepper

Drain the hot baby potatoes and keep warm. Heat a frying pan, add a little olive oil and fry the bacon over a brisk heat until crisp and browned. In the meantime, put the chopped onion, crushed garlic, lemon juice and a pinch of salt in a big mixing bowl and stir well (this will help remove the sting from the onions). Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Pour the vinegar into the hot pan, swirl and scrape to loosen the bacon residue, and immediately remove from the heat. Whisk in the olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Cut the baby potatoes in half, skins and all, and add them, together with the cooked bacon and chopped chives, to the bowl containing the onions. Pour over the warm dressing and toss together gently. Finely slice the mustard greens into ribbons (if you're using rocket, leave it whole) and add them to the salad. Toss again. Tip into a clean salad bowl and take it straight to the table.

Serve 6-8 as a side salad


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Salad of Griddled Baby Butternut with Lemon, Garlic, Feta and Mint: plus a Cooksister!

Salad of Griddled Baby Butternut with Lemon,
 Garlic, Feta and Mint

There are two things I want to write about in this post: one is a delicious, garlicky, lemony dish of chargrilled baby-butternut-squash slices, and the other is Jeanne Horak, arguably the Net's best-known South African food blogger. I've been scratching my head for 20 minutes trying to find a way to knit these two topics into a coherent opening paragraph, and I think I have cracked it.

What do this vegetable and Jeanne have in common? Well, they're both young, fresh and unusual, they're both South African, each one has added a particular deliciousness to my day. Jeanne, I apologise for comparing you to a vegetable (a word that doesn't have good connotations when applied to a human), but I know you won't mind at all. In fact, I think, given your love of fine, snappingly fresh ingredients, you'd be quite pleased to be compared to an infant butternut in the prime of its youth.

Jeanne Horak, who lives in London, is a talented cook, food writer and photographer, not to mention a great champion of South African food bloggers. Her blog, Cooksister, has won many awards, and in February 2009 was listed in The Times, UK, as one of the Top Ten Food Blogs for the Home Cook. What's more, she's drawn up a comprehensive directory of South African food blogs.

We met last year, when Jeanne contacted me to say that she and her husband were nipping into South Africa for a few weeks, and it was jolly good to meet her, and the other Johannesburg food bloggers she'd lined up for a Sunday breakfast. Anyway, the reason I mention this is because Jeanne has generously featured my Scrumptious blog on her South African food bloggers' page - click here to read more about me and my food philosophy.

Now, the very tiny baby butternut squashes. I came across these perky little beauties, each the length of a middle finger, at my local veggie shop today, and was intrigued by their lovely pale-cream and green variegated skin. Thinking they'd probably taste similar to baby marrows (courgettes) or pattypan squashes, and would be perfect for a stir-fry, I bought them.

But, after slicing off a piece and tasting it, I was intrigued to note that the flesh was a little denser and sweeter than that of a baby marrow, with a nutty note, and not at all watery or spongy. So I decided to char-grill them and dress them, still warm, with olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, feta cheese, fresh mint and parsley. And, oh my goodness, they were faintingly good: cooked in a very hot ridged grill pan, they developed a slight sweetness at the edges, but were still tender-crisp and full of flavour. The dressing contains a lot of crushed fresh garlic, but it is strained before it's poured over the cooked butternut.

If you can't find these, you can use courgettes or pattypan squashes instead, although the final result will be somewhat more watery. This just won't work with mature, yellow-fleshed, hard-skinned butternuts.

Salad of Grilled Baby Butternut with Lemon, Feta and Mint

10 baby (really tiny) butternut squashes
some olive oil for rubbing
the juice of a lemon

For the dressing:
4 cloves fresh garlic, peeled
the juice of a large lemon (about 3 T; 45 ml)
130 ml fruity olive oil
a pinch of salt
freshly milled black pepper

To top:
3 Tbsp (45 ml) fresh, finely chopped mint
3 Tbsp (45 ml) fresh, finely chopped parsley
crumbled feta cheese

salt and freshly milled black pepper

Heat a ridged griddle pan on a hot plate for 7-10 minutes, or until very, very hot. Wipe each little butternut squash to remove any furry bits. Cut the squashes, lengthways (that is, from top to bottom, stalks and all), into four 'leaves'.

Using your fingers, rub each slice, top and bottom, with a little olive oil. Place the slices on the griddle, in batches, and cook until dark-gold lines appear on the underside, and the edges of each slice begin to darken. Add more olive oil, if necessary. Flip the slices over. When they are nicely striped on both sides, remove them from the pan and put aside on a plate.

When all the slices have been browned, pile them back into the griddle pan, turn the heat down to medium-low, wait for a few minutes for the pan to cool slightly, and squeeze over the juice of one lemon, plus a tablespoon of water. Cover the griddle pan with a circle of greaseproof paper, or a saucepan lid of the right size. Leave the slices to steam gently until they are just cooked: that is, tender-crisp, but not raw, and certainly not mushy.

In the meantime, make the dressing. Finely chop the garlic, or smash it to pieces with a mortar and pestle. Add the olive oil, salt, pepper and lemon juice, and whisk well to combine. Let the mixture sit and infuse for ten minutes while you finish cooking the butternut slices.

Lift the cooked baby butternut slices from the pan, arrange on a big platter and allow to cool for five minutes. Strain the garlicky dressing, through a metal sieve, over warm slices, pressing down on the garlic mush with the back of a spoon. Scatter the chopped mint and parsley over the dish, and toss gently to combine. Crumble the feta cheese over the salad, and set aside, at room temperature, for an hour or two so the flavours can mingle. You can make this up to 8 hours in advance, but don't put it in the fridge.

Serves 6-8, as a side salad. Print Friendly