A People Who Are Nuts About Nuts
Peanuts are important to everyday cooking in most regions of Indonesia. Sometimes the small nuts are boiled in sufficient water to enrich the stock of a vegetable soup like the famous tamarind or sour-fruit flavoured soup called Sayur Asam. The still-crunchy texture and the nutty taste make an interesting combination with the vegetables.
Peanuts are also used to make various snacks. Plainly deep-fried with a seasoning of some salt, they are sold in sachets at every small roadside shop, catering to school children and adults alike. Kacang goreng, as the fried nuts are called, are a quick and filling snack.
To give those fried nuts a more specific flavour, thinly-sliced fresh garlic can be added while frying. The resulting kacang bawang is a special treat at important festivals such as Christmas.
Cooking peanuts can be a rather difficult procedure for the inexperienced cook because the frying must be done at exactly the right temperature. Too low, and the nuts become soggy when hot and hard as stone when cold. But too high a flame can cause a pan full of black, bitter peanuts, raw inside-if one likes to serve golden peanuts, frying them must be taken very seriously!
Peanut-frying techniques are different from place to place in Indonesia, resulting in a variety of tastes. In the eastern part of the Archipelago, especially in Manado, North Sulawesi, kacang goyang-literally, swinging nuts-are a real treat. The nuts are coated with sugar and, by swinging the pan, the coating will become like tiny drops giving the nuts an oddly-appealing shape. And, as the coating is in many colours, the nuts look very attractive.
Peanut sauces made from fried peanuts are common in Indonesia and often accompany vegetables or grilled meat. The most well-known dishes in this context are gado-gado and satay. Such a sauce, with the addition of a piece of banana as an extra ingredient, is used on vegetables in the coastal town of Cirebon.
Rujak Sedap
Tasty Rujak-serves 4
Ingredients
250g kangkung (water convolvulus);
150g long beans; 150g winged beans;
500m1 water, for boiling; 100g
mungbean sprouts; 100g melinjo leaves:
Sauce:
3 red chillies (30g); 100g fried peanuts;
optional 50g green banana (plantain);
‘/Z tsp salt (or to taste); 40g brown
sugar; 1/Z tsp fried trassi; 2 tbs tamarind
liquid (20m1); 1 tbs sweet soy sauce
(10m1).
Method
1. Pick kangkung, take leaves only. Break long beans in 2cm pieces and slice winged beans rather thinly. Blanch all vegetables, drain.
2. To make sauce: Make chillies, peanuts, plantain, salt, brown sugar and trassi into a paste. Mix with tamarind liquid and sweet soy sauce. Mix well.
3. Serve vegetables with sauce.
