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How to make gado-gado – recipe | Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect …
A salty-sour riot of textures and flavours that’s so good, they named it twice
Gado is the Indonesian word for “mix”, so this much-loved salad’s name literally translates as “mix mix”, though, in truth, it’s so hearty, it feels a disservice to label it a mere “salad” – as Surabaya native Pepy Nasution writes: “It is a one-dish meal.”
In a guest post for Bee Yin Low’s site, Rasa Malaysia, Nasution explains the many regional variations, from the gado-gado siram of East Java where, as the word siram (to “pour”) suggests, the peanut sauce is poured on top of the other ingredients, in contrast to the West Javanese version in which they’re tossed together, or the cashew-based gado-gado boplo found in some parts of Jakarta. In the introduction to her recipe in the New York Times, the food writer Hetty McKinnon notes that, in the capital, gado-gado tends to be quite carb-heavy, with both potatoes and lontong (rice cakes), while in West Java, lotek atah or karedok tends to go big on the raw vegetables. Some areas use coconut milk, some people save time with ready-made peanut butter. In fact, there are as many opinions about the best way to make this dish as there are ingredients. Here is my two rupiah’s worth.
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