Trancam Salad with Radish and Kencur

The Indonesian salads in Beb’s book surprise me again and again. After the delicious urapan, karedok, kuluban this trancam is again a delicious, crispy and spicy salad.

Packed this time with radish, cucumber, bean sprouts and (Thai) basil. The sauce is, like in the other salads, made from coconut cream, coconut shavings and sambal (chili salsa).

Sweet potato

My husband is allergic to carrots, so I replace those with a sweet potato cut into strips. I cook the potato a little shorter than normal so that they stay a bit crunchy, but not raw. In this way, the sweet potato almost tastes like carrots but also brings its own tasty, creamy flavor.

Thai basil

Beb Vuyk uses ordinary basil, but I choose Thai basil. That makes the flavor even more interesting. Thai basil has a distinctive flavor, almost like peppermint.  Of course, regular (Italian) basil is delicious too, but I think that Beb uses it in her recipe because there was nothing else to buy in the seventies. To get fresh regular basil then was a big deal already. That’s why Beb states in her recipe that if it is impossible to buy fresh basil, use the dry herb.

Trancam I #454 translated from Beb Vuyk’s Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 366.

Ingredients

• 100 grams of bean sprouts
• 1/2 cucumber
• 100 grams of young carrots
• 1/2 bunch of radishes
• 100 grams of coconut flour
• 2 tablespoons of shredded santen

herbs

• 2 tablespoons of chopped onions
• 1 chopped clove of garlic
• 1 teaspoon sambal ulek
• pinch of kencur
• 2 tablespoons kitchen tamarind
• 1 tablespoon of fresh basil
• salt

1. Wash the vegetables, cut them and let them drain.
2. Buy bean sprouts with short roots, rinse them under the cold tap. All vegetables remain raw in this dish.
3. Rub onion, garlic, sambal and kencur into a paste.
4. Also grind the chopped santen and stir in the coconut flour and finally the tamarind and the salt.
5. Work this thick sauce through the raw vegetables.
6. Taste if it needs salt or sourness.
7. Add a few drops of lemon juice and the basil
8. ls fresh basil is not available, use dried and rub with the onions

Beb says: “wash the vegetables and cut them fine”. I do not know how fine, but for an easily edible salad I think pretty fine would be handy. That’s why I cut my radish and cucumber in thin slices. It makes everything a bit wet too. This way the dressing can stick to the veggies even better.

Kitchen tamarind

Kitchen tamarind is a bit sweeter than regular tamarind. That’s why I add a teaspoon of sugar to my already filtered regular tamarind (asem).

Sweet potato

Because I work with sweet potato, I take off the skin and cut it in strips (young carrot size) and cook them until done.

To make the dressing I start with the spice mix (bumbu). I rub onions, garlic, sambal (chili salsa) and kencur into a paste in my mortar.

My sambal ulek is finished, so I add half a chili pepper (finely chopped) with a 1/2 teaspoon of salt. That is the same as sambal ulek.

If the onions are finely rubbed, I add the santen (coconut cream), the grated coconut and the tamarind.

Salt

I add another 1/2 teaspoon of salt into the mix for my trancam. Now there is one teaspoon of salt in total in the mix. For me, that is enough for my salad, but maybe you like more, so always test in the end if your salad needs a bit more.

I add the bean sprouts to the salad raw. I’ve rinsed them off though. Now the dressing will stick well to them.

I mix my salad gently until everything is covered with the delicious sauce.

Every salad recipe from Beb Vuyk amazes me. I love the different combination of vegetables and the amount of vegetables and dressing ensures the perfect balance in wet and dry, crunchy and soft and creamy and spicy. Selamat makan!