Karedok – Vegan Salad with Peanut Dressing

This karedok salad is packed with fibers and anti-oxidants. Besides the health benefits, it is extremely delicious. This salad includes raw green beans, eggplant, and cabbage. The dressing is made with peanuts and Indonesian spices.

At first, I thought that the eggplant would not be nice raw and cold, but that is totally untrue. The eggplant absorbs the spicy peanut sauce and the other veggies keep this salad deliciously crunchy.

Sundanese

Internet teaches me that this dish must be of Sundanese (West Java) origin. Beb writes in the title of the recipe ‘Preanger’. She refers to the mountains on West Java. Today it is called Parahyangan. This word comes from Sundanese and means: ‘where the gods (Hyangs) live’. They remain on the mountain tops.

Karedok means ‘village’ in Sundanese. So this salad is a ‘village salad’ from the mountains of Java.

This 100% vegan karedok recipe is enough for 4 people and is ready in 30 minutes.

Karedok (Preanger) # 445 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 359.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cucumber (small)
• 100 grams of bean sprouts
• 100 grams of green beans
• 100 grams of cabbage
• 1 small eggplant

herbs

• 5 tablespoons of peanut butter
• 2 tablespoons of chopped onions
• 2 chopped cloves of garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon of kencur
• 2 teaspoons sambal ulek
• 4 tablespoons kitchen tamarind (sweet tamarind)
• 3 to 4 tablespoons of water

1. Peel the cucumber and eggplant
2. Cut cabbage, beans, eggplant, and cucumber very thinly.
3. Rinse the bean sprouts with cold water.
4. Rub onions, garlic, sambal, kencur, peanut butter, tamarind and salt into a paste.
5. Mix this sauce with the vegetables.

For my cabbage, I use pointed cabbage because I like the tenderness and sweetness of it. But white cabbage is fine too.

I use string beans instead of green beans because I still have some left. I love string beans raw too. They are very crispy and sweet.

I peel everything with a skin peeler. I rinse the string beans.

Now everything can be finely chopped and mixed in a bowl.

I mix the herbs for the dressing with my emersion blender (or food processor). This makes everything nicely smooth and perfect for a salad dressing.

I use filtered tamarind from a jar. Kitchen tamarind is a bit sweeter, so I add a piece of Javanese sugar. My sambal ulek is finished, so a chili pepper with a pinch of salt works fine too.

Kencur

Kencur is my favorite herb. That gives everything a typical Indonesian smell and flavor. Delicious. Make sure you never use too much, because otherwise, it will definitely dominate the whole dish.

I use peanut butter that is made 100% of peanuts and has no additives. I mix in my finely ground spice mix.

Look how beautiful it is. The red pepper colors everything! Now I mix this dressing gently with the chopped veggies and serve immediately. Selamat Makan!

• Would you like to see more Indonesian salads on this blog? Follow this link!
• For more vegetarian recipes, check this link.