Acar from Timor (pickled vegetables)
My Christmas preparations are in full swing. I’m preparing for our Christmas lunch with grandma. I make a few dishes in advance. This acar from Timor is fantastic to have in stock. The bean sprouts and cabbage stay super fresh in the ginger-vinegar juice.
An acar is a pickled vegetable condiment. It is served a lot in Indonesia alongside serundeng and sambal.
This acar from Timor is easily preserved for weeks, even months. You fill a super clean jar when the ‘pickles’ are hot. The jar will turn vacuum and the content can be kept longer.
A freshly made spicy acar can be a great homemade gift as well, instead of homemade jam for example. 😉
Acar from Timor #417 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 339.
Ingredients
1/2 cucumber
100 grams bean sprouts
100 grams of cabbage (white or green or any other)
4 tablespoons vinegar
Herbs and spices
8 shallots (in half)
the juice of 3 cloves of garlic
2 chili peppers
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 tablespoon of sugar
salt
Bring the vinegar with the sugar, garlic juice, salt and ginger powder to the boil. Clean the vegetables and add the cucumber (unseeded and sliced into pieces) and the cabbage (cut into small bits). Let it simmer for 5 minutes in the vinegar broth. Remove seeds from the chilies and cut into long strips. Add it to the broth. Then stir in the bean sprouts and let the pickles simmer for a minute more.
In Beb’s preparations, the shallots are not mentioned but they are in her ingredients list. I add them to the mix in the pan before the bean sprouts because onions need longer.
The jar to preserve the acar in, must be spotless and extremely clean. A hefty cleanup in the dishwasher is often enough. Remove the rubber so the whole pot can be cleaned. You can also wash the pot by hand and leave it in boiling water for 2 minutes to kill any germs.
This acar from Timor has a fresh ginger flavor. The cucumbers look like pickles and the chilies give it a Christmas glow. This acar is quite spicy. Goes well with a creamy dish as rendang, or sayur lodeh.
Selamat Natal!
