Crispy vegetables in a coconut broth; Sayur lodeh. You can eat it any time of year. I love it in the summer for lunch with loads of homemade sambal or during winter with a spicy rendang next to it.

This sayur lodeh can be your main course. With or without white rice. We eat it today without the rice but with a poached egg on top. Super enak sekali.

Sayur Lodeh

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Sayur Lodeh mixed vegetables #112
Translated from Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, Beb Vuyk, page 121.

Ingredients

• 200 grams cauliflower
• 1/2 liter of broth made from 1 meat stock cube
• 200 grams green beans
• 200 grams of carrots
• asem water made from asem (tamarind) the size of a walnut mixed with 3 tablespoons of water
• 1 large potato
• 1/4 block santen (coconut cream)
• 2 tablespoons oil

Herbs

• 5 tablespoons chopped onions
• 3 chopped cloves of garlic
• 2 teaspoons sambal terasi (chili salsa with shrimp paste)
• 3 roasted kemiries or candlenuts (pop them in the oven for about 10 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius)
• 2 teaspoons laos
• 2 teaspoons of Javanese sugar
• 1 stalk sereh (lemongrass)
• 1 salam leaf
• salt

• Roast the kemiries, rub them fine with the other spices except for the lemongrass and the salam.
• Cut the vegetables and the potato into chunks.
• Sauté the spices until the onions are yellow.
• Sauté the vegetables too.
• Add the broth, the block of santen, the lemongrass and the salam.
• Let the sayur simmer until the vegetables are almost done.
• Add the asem water.
• Let the sayur simmer some more and remove the lemongrass and salam before serving.

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I’ve replaced the green beans with other common beans because they were on sale at the market. I use 1 big carrot. It is a great substitute for regular carrots. This time I use kemiri paste (candlenuts) from a jar. If you use fresh candle nuts always roast them before using, otherwise the nuts are lightly toxic.

The asem (tamarind) I buy in a jar (already filtered) too. Sambal terasi or trassi is a chili salsa with a little bit of the strong smelling trassi or shrimp paste. Shrimp paste is used a lot in south-east Asia, like in Thailand. Check my post about how to make sambal trassi yourself in 2 minutes.