Tag Archives: Peanuts

Gado Gado

18 Saturday Jul 2020

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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This Indonesian salad dressed with the satay sauce from my pervious post, is perfect summer eating. Like many salads its an assembly rather than a recipe. Gado Gado means mix mix, so there are core ingredients that make it typical, and then the variable ingredients depending on the season and what you have in your vegetable garden or fridge. 

 

The core ingredients –

Boiled eggs

Tofu or tempeh – lightly fried in sesame oil with garlic and ginger

potatoes or sweet potatoes – cut into long pieces and steamed

prawn crackers

The rest of the ingredients can be either cooked or raw, choose a variety for both their flavours and colour. Today I had –

french beans – steamed

green asparagus – lightly steamed

sweet corn slices – lightly steamed

edename beans – I buy these frozen and ready blanched

red and green peppers – cut into strips

cucumber – cut into strips

carrots – peeled and cut into strips

tomatoes – cut into thin wedges

Other ingredients that would work well together are –

bean sprouts

broccoli florets – lightly steamed

Any of the green leaves – pak Choi, mizuna, radicchio would add a nice slight bitterness, spinach

radishes

Fresh coriander and basil

Have your satay sauce on the side to spoon onto the salad and to dip into as you eat.

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Satay Sauce, my version

17 Friday Jul 2020

Posted by in Sauces, Vegan

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I have been trying various recipes for Satay Sauce and am now at my definitive version I believe, my friends can’t stop eating it when I serve it, which is always a good sign that you have the recipe right!

2 cloves of garlic – roughly chopped

2 x 2 x 4 cm piece of ginger – roughly chopped

fresh green chillis – this sauce wants to be pretty picante, so you are going to have to use your judgement on this. I’ve got some fiercely hot Padrón peppers in the garden, so I used a whole one of these, probably the equivalent to 3-4 birds eye chillis

50 ml  coconut milk

50 ml ketjap manis – Indonesian sauce

50 ml water

juice of one medium or 2 small limes

150 ml unsweetened peanut butter – give it a good stir to blend in the dense paste at the bottom of the jar before measuring.

Put the garlic, ginger and chilli into a small food processor and blitz to cut up.

Add the coconut milk, ketjap manis, water and lime juice. Blitz again to obtain a smooth purée.

Add the peanut butter and blitz yet again until you have a smooth thick purée.

Serve with Gado Gado Salad, recipe to follow in next post, or anything else you fancy!

Pad Thai – today’s version

21 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by in Food for One, Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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There are many versions of Pad Thai, so it’s one of those dishes that can happily adapt to what you have in your fridge as long as you include the core ingredients, these being flat rice noodles, peanuts and bean sprouts. The flavourings are of course key. Galangal or ginger, red chillis, tamarind, soy sauce and Nam Pla, the Thai fish sauce.

Today I have spring garlics, green and red peppers, alfalfa sprouts, broccoli, edename beans and Swiss chard leaves, plus of course some peanuts.

Per person

  • 45 grams flat rice noodles
  • 35 grams raw peanuts
  • 35 grams edename beans – in Spain you can now buy these frozen in Mercadona
  • red and green peppers
  • broccoli
  • alfalfa sprouts
  • Thumbnail sized piece ginger
  • 1 clove garlic or 3 small spring garlics
  • red chilli
  • teaspoon sized piece tamarind paste or 1 dessert spoon tamarind sauce
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Nam Pla fish sauce – you vegans will have to leave this out, although for me Thai food just doesn’t taste the same without it.
  • 1 tablespoon lime juice
  • oil for cooking – either sunflower or olive oil

Firstly put the noodles to soak in cold water at least an hour before starting to cook.

Shell the peanuts and pod the edename

Cut the peppers into short strips

Wash the chard and cut into thin strips

Cut the broccoli into bite sized pieces

If you are using tamarind paste, which you buy in Asian stores in the uk, separate off a teaspoon sized chunk and put it into a small container with 2-3 teaspoons boiling water and mash the paste into the water to make a sauce. You can use tamarind ready made sauce if need be, but this tastes better.

Finely chop the ginger garlic and chilli

You are now ready to start cooking.

Boil the kettle, drain the noodles of the cold water, return to their container and cover with boiling water.

Heat a wok and add a couple of tablespoons of oil. Add the ginger, garlic and chills. Stir round and fry for a couple of minutes.

Add the peppers to the pan. Stir round and cook for a couple of minutes.

Do the same with the broccoli.

Now the chard.

Put in the peanuts, bean sprouts and beans.

Drain the noodles and add to the wok.

Add the tamarind, soy sauce, fish sauce and lime juice. Stir well to mix everything. Taste to see if you are happy with the balance of flavours and adjust accordingly if you are not.

Enjoy.


Two Cabbage Salads – My Coleslaw & Bavarian Cabbage Salad

04 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by in Vegetable Dishes

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I have always made Coleslaw for myself with the oil and vinegar dressing as in the recipe below. For me the mayonnaise masks the flavour of the vegetables, while the French dressing brings it out. Having recently converted a couple of friends to this style of Coleslaw, including my sister who I had assumed made it this way already, I thought you, reader or two, would like the recipe too.

The Bavarian Cabbage Salad may not be Bavarian at all, but the making of it was demonstrated to me by a friend from that region, so that is what it is called in my recipe book. I had eaten it at her house several times and loved it so had to have the recipe.

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MY COLESLAW

Quarter of a medium sized white cabbage

1 red apple

2 medium carrots – peeled

30 grams peanuts – dry roasted

50 grams small raisins

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

Remove the outer tough leaves from the cabbage and discard.

Cut the cabbage into very fine slices, and put into a largish salad bowl.

Finely grate the carrots and add to the cabbage.

Quarter the apple, remove the cores, cut each wedge in half lengthways, then into thin slices.

Add to the cabbage and carrots.

Add the nuts and raisins, then the oil and vinegar. Mix well.

Season to taste.

If eating the same day, leave for at least two hours at room temperature for the flavours to meld.

This salad will keep for two or three days in the fridge.

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BAVARIAN CABBAGE SALAD

Quarter of a medium sized white cabbage

100 ml stock

Quarter of a teaspoon of caraway seeds

50 grams finely cut bacon lardons – can be smoked or not

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

Finely slice the cabbage and put into a salad bowl.

Put the stock into a small saucepan with the caraway and heat until boiling.

Pour over the cabbage and mix with a spoon, then with your hands mix and squeeze the cabbage to break it a bit and help it absorb the stock a little.

Fry the lardons in the olive oil until nicely lightly browned.

Add to the cabbage and mix well.

Add the vinegar and seasoning. Mix well again.

Again if you are eating the salad the same day, leave covered at room temperature for at least two hours for the flavours to meld.

If you store the salad in the fridge for any length of time, let it come back to room temperature before eating.