Sayur Lodeh with Mixed Vegetables

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 #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.

Sayur Lodeh Ingredients: From left to right in the little bowls: Kemiri-paste, sambal terasi, gula jawa, asem (tamarinde), laos (gangalan root)

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.