Urapan with green beans, spinach and cabbage

Earlier, I’ve made Beb’s Urapan #I and I loved this delicious Indonesian salad. This is her Urapan #II and this is maybe even better than #1. This Indonesian salad is covered in a warm dressing of coconut cream and grated coconut. The sambal trassi, the kencur powder and the lemon leaves (jeruk purut or kaffir lime leaves) give this dressing its special intense umami and fresh flavor.

The large amount of different vegetables in this dish makes this urapan packed with fibers and minerals.

A few things are unclear in Beb’s recipe though. In every other recipe she uses the old Dutch word ‘princess beans’ to indicate green beans. This recipe says to use ‘beans’. I do not think she means white or brown beans, because they are not cooked fast like the rest. I assume that it must be green beans.

Also, there is a strange ingredient in the ingredients herbs list. It says: ‘200 grams of cabbage (green, white, savoy or cauliflower)’. I do not think that this is meant to be there. In the next recipe on the same page, this ingredient is listed for Pecel. I think it accidentally ended up in this recipe.

Urapan II # 449 from Beb Vuyk Groot Indonesisch Kookboek, page 361.

Ingredients

• 100 grams of beans
• 100 grams of grated coconut
• 100 grams of endive
• 2 tablespoons of shredded santen (coconut cream)
• 200 grams of spinach
• 100 bean sprouts
• 100 grams of cabbage
• 1/2 dl water

Herbs

• 2 tablespoons of chopped onions
• 1 chopped clove of garlic
• 1 teaspoon of sambal terasi
• 1/2 teaspoon kencur
• 200 grams of cabbage (green, white, savoy or cauliflower)
• 1 kaffir lime leave
• salt

1. Rub onions, garlic, sambal, kencur and salt into a paste.
2. Bring the water to the boil, add the coconut cream and the spices.
3. Let it cook until it starts to thicken and then stir in the coconut flour.
4. In the meantime, cook the vegetables half-done with salt, except for the bean sprouts, which are only rinsed with boiling water.
5. Mix the drained vegetables with the sauce.

I did not feel like eating endive today, that’s why I add extra pointed cabbage. Pointed cabbage is so tender and sweet in taste, that fits well with this urapan.

Bean sprouts

I also use home-grown bean sprouts. It’s great to let mung beans grow into this tasty vegetable. You have to grow them in the dark and they are done in three days. A hand full of dried mung beans are enough for several portions of bean sprouts.

Sambal trassi

My sambal trassi was finished, so I add a chili pepper to the dressing with 1/2 teaspoon of trassi. Leave the trassi out when you want this urapan to be vegetarian or vegan.

You can of course, as Beb Vuyk proposes, rub everything by hand, but my emersion blender comes in handy here. It will produce a beautifully smooth salad dressing.

I warm up water and I add the spice mix and I let the coconut cream dissolves in this mix.

My coconut cream is completely dissolved now and the sauce has thickened a bit. Now I add my grated coconut and the sauce has a beautiful consistency now.

In the meantime, I have cooked the vegetables for a short time. First I add the green beans to the pan, because they need the longest cooking time.Then I add the pointed cabbage cut in strips and after a minute or two the spinach. Then after 30 seconds I add the bean sprouts and let this gently simmer for another 30 seconds.

With very young bean sprouts rinsing them with hot water is enough, but my sprouts are ‘older’ and I placed them into the light for half a day, so they have small green leaves. That makes them a bit coarse, so a 30 seconds simmer works perfectly. I rinse all vegetables with cold water to give them a fresh green color.

The vegetables are ready and drained and the sauce is still warm. Let’s mix! We can mix. I mix it gently to get this delicious, healthy result.