Gado-Gado

Ingredients

• 200g green beans, topped and tailed
• 200g beansprouts
• 200g cabbage, cut into wide ribbons
• 150g spinach leaves
• 2 medium potatoes
• 200g firm tofu
• 150g tempeh
• 4 eggs
• 1 cucumber
• 200g raw skinless peanuts
• 4 dried red chillies
• 3 garlic cloves
• 2 tbsp tamarind paste
• 3 tbsp palm sugar
• 1 tsp shrimp paste (or 1 tbsp light soy sauce to keep it vegetarian)
• 1 tsp salt
• 350ml water
• vegetable oil for frying
• 2 tbsp crispy fried shallots
• handful of prawn crackers, to serve

Before you cook

• Soak the dried chillies in hot water for 15 minutes, then drain.
• Cut the tofu and tempeh into 1cm thick slabs and pat them dry.
• Peel the potatoes and cut them into 2cm chunks.
• Cut the green beans into 5cm lengths and slice the cucumber into half-moons.
• Pound the drained chillies with the garlic and shrimp paste to a rough paste.

Steps

1. Toast the peanuts in a dry frying pan over medium heat for 8 minutes until browned, then let them cool and grind them coarsely.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a saucepan and fry the chilli and garlic paste for 5 minutes until fragrant.
3. Add the ground peanuts, tamarind paste, palm sugar, salt and water, then simmer for 10 minutes until the sauce coats a spoon thickly.
4. Taste the sauce and adjust it until it is clearly sweet, sour, salty and nutty, then set it aside to cool a little.
5. Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and lower in the eggs.
6. Boil the eggs for 9 minutes, then lift them into cold water and peel them once cool.
7. Boil the potato chunks in the same water for 12 minutes until a knife slides in easily, then scoop them out.
8. Blanch the green beans for 3 minutes and lift them into cold water.
9. Blanch the cabbage for 2 minutes and the spinach and beansprouts for 30 seconds each, cooling each batch under cold water.
10. Heat 1cm of oil in a frying pan and fry the tofu slabs for 3 minutes a side until golden, then drain them on paper.
11. Fry the tempeh in the same oil for 2 minutes a side until deep brown and crisp at the edges.
12. Cut the tofu, tempeh and eggs into bite-sized pieces.
13. Arrange the vegetables, potatoes, tofu, tempeh, cucumber and eggs in loose piles on a large platter.
14. Spoon the warm peanut sauce generously over the top.
15. Scatter with fried shallots and tuck prawn crackers around the edge to serve.