Gado-Gado (Indonesian Salad in Peanut Sauce)

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and blanch the vegetables one type at a time, starting with the mildest: cabbage about 2 minutes, beans 3, water spinach 1, bean sprouts 30 seconds. Lift each batch straight into cold water.

💡 One pot, one type at a time, into cold water each time. Dumped in together, the sprouts turn to string while the beans are still squeaky — and cold water is what keeps the greens green instead of olive.

Drain everything really well and let it sit while you make the sauce. Wet vegetables water the sauce down on the plate.

Fry the tofu and tempeh in a shallow layer of hot oil until golden and firm-edged. Drain on kitchen paper.

For the sauce, fry the garlic and chilies in a spoonful of oil for a minute, then blend with the peanuts, palm sugar, tamarind water, kecap manis and 250 ml of water.

💡 Add the water in two goes and stop while the sauce still holds a ribbon when it falls off the spoon. You can always thin it; you cannot un-thin it without blending more peanuts.

Warm the sauce through in a pan for a few minutes, then season it hard with salt and lime juice until it tastes sharp on its own — it has a whole plate of plain vegetables to carry.

Arrange everything on a wide plate in separate piles: vegetables, potato, tofu, tempeh, halved eggs, cucumber and tomato.

Pour the warm sauce generously over the middle, crumble krupuk on top, and toss it all together at the table just before eating.