Discover easy healthy recipes, nutrition facts, and health tips by registered dietitian and nutritionist Anne Assassi. Learn to live a healthier lifestyle and love food.
When I look at my garden for recipe ideas, my thoughts often gravitate toward Southeast Asian food.We grow so many different aromatics, herbs, chilies, and even spices (Yup! We collect our own coriander seeds), that it makes it so easy to make our favorite stir-fry recipes almost on the spot. To make these dishes even easier to make, we always keep Southeast Asian ingredients in our pantry as well - like candlenuts, tamarind paste, and coconut milk.
Thankfully, even though it's the end of October, we still have a handful of birdseye chilis growing on our 4-year-old chili tree, habaneros and jalapeños growing like weeds, and basil plants that continue to thrive. With this abundance, great weather, and cloudless skies, I couldn't love October more in Coastal California. My only regret is not growing pumpkins this year.Then we could have made some pumpkin curry on the spot!
Indonesian Stir Fry
Whether or not you grow these aromatics in your garden or your local market carries them, know that they can all easily be ordered online, and you have no excuse not to make it! This is especially true because this Indonesian stir-fry recipe is ready in 20 minutes or less, and is insanely delicious. The spicy pork melts in your mouth with the sweetness of the tamarind and the creaminess of the coconut milk, and the romaine lettuce cups provide a wonderful crunch! Are you drooling yet? I am and I just had some.
Heat canola oil in a large skillet or wok over medium-high heat. Add pork mixture, breaking up with a spoon, and sauté until browned, about 5 minutes. Stir in tamarind juice, coconut milk, and Indonesian bay leaf. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer. Cook until the coconut milk is mostly absorbed into the pork, about 5 more minutes. Add in the basil leaves and do a few quick stirs until the basil leaves are wilted. Adjust seasonings if desired and remove from heat.
If you enjoyed this recipe, you will also enjoy my recipes for Thai Basil Pork, Pork Belly Stir-Fry with Snow Peas and Mixed Mushrooms, and Szechuan Beef Lettuce Wraps
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I love shrimp curry! It’s funny because whenever I sit down to eat shrimp curry, it’s usually at my dinner table. Whenever I eat out, I tend to go for chicken, pork, or vegetarian curries as a default. But whenever I decide to mix my proteins up, it’s at home, and I’m always so pleased with myself. I really should order seafood curries at restaurants more because they are just oh-so-good!
So what makes this curry Indonesian-style? A lot of curries around the world share similarities between the spices used, coconut milk, and chilies. But in Indonesia, curries often use ground candlenut, shrimp paste, and sambal.
If you’re not sure what candlenuts are, you can easily order them online at Indo Food Store if you’re curious to try them out. You can also use macadamia nuts instead, but the texture and flavor won’t make for a perfect match. Even so, at least sambal and shrimp paste are easy to find at Asian grocery stores! I used sambal bajak for this recipe, but sambal ulek would work perfectly as well. I just food-nerded out when I ordered sambal online recently and opted for bajak to try it for the first time. It’s delicious!
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Not surprisingly, this curry was so good, it didn’t last long in our kitchen. I only had three pieces of shrimp left and a few tablespoons of curry by the time I took my picture of the food. It was so difficult to leave even that little amount of leftovers, but I succeeded so I could share this shrimp curry recipe with you!
In a large skillet or Dutch oven, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic, and lemongrass. Season to taste with salt and pepper and sauté, stirring until onions are translucent, about 5-6 minutes. Stir in turmeric, coriander, grated candlenuts, and cumin, and stir until the spices are fragrant, about 30 seconds. Then add shrimp paste, sambal, and shrimp and sauté for a minute to combine. Stir in coconut milk, birdseye chilies, lime juice, kaffir lime leaves, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes or until the curry has thickened to a desirable consistency.Gado Gado – fun to say, delicious to eat, this traditional Indonesian salad is probably the only recipe where you can put the words “blanched vegetables” and “tasty” in the same sentence and really mean it. That Gado Gado peanut sauce is a miracle worker!
This is a dish for the veg hating child within all of us. Clever Indonesians figured out a way to make plain vegetables completely irresistible to everyone – by drizzling with a sweet savoury Indonesian peanut sauce!
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Because seriously – if you plonk a giant plate of boiled vegetables in front of me and call it dinner, I would look at you like you’d lost your mind.
But then if peanut sauce makes an appearance…. suddenly, dinner gets a whole lot more exciting. Gado Gado! We love saying the name, we love how colourful it is, we most definitely love eating it, and we REALLY love that how virtuous it makes us feel, scoffing down so many vegetables for dinner!
When made from scratch, it’s a bit of a pain, calling for pureeing roasted peanuts (and it’s tough to make it completely smooth), a handful of aromatics like lemongrass, galangal, garlic, South East Asian “umami” from shrimp paste, plus sauces.
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So I take a cheeky but highly effective shortcut using a bit ofThai red curry paste. It has the same ingredients, and saves a bunch of time, effort and money. Win, win, win!
The whole point of Gado Gado is to be versatile, so while Gado Gado in Indonesia will usually be served with one or two ingredients you mightn’t be familiar with (such asMorning Glory, bitter gourd, chayote), you will likely recognise most ingredients.
Spinach, beansprouts, egg and cucumber are typically included, so I’ve included it in mine. Potato is my starch of choice, though you could easily include some rice instead, or bulk out on more filling vegetables such as broccoli or cauliflower.
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It’s nice to include a variety of textures and colours, as well as a starch so it makes a satisfying meal. Any potato, or something like pumpkin, or vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower are great for filling out this salad to make it a meal that will keep you full.
The one ingredient you spy in the above that you mightn’t be familiar with is tempeh. Tempeh is an Indonesian fermented soy bean product that vegetarians are mad for!😂
It has a texture like firm tofu, but meatier, and it tastes nutty – kind of like sunflower seeds. Nowadays, it’s usually available in the tofu section of large supermarkets in Australia (Wooles, Coles, Harris Farms).
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Oh – I haven’t mentioned prawn crackers yet. They are traditionally served on the side of Gado Gado – terrific crunchy addition that doubles as an eating vessel.
I feel like Gado Gado has so many components to it as is, it’s kind of like the cherry on top. That is – I include it when I’m making for friends, leave it out when it’s a quick(ish) meal for myself.
Buy a bag ready made, fry them up yourself (you’ll find raw prawn crackers in the Asian aisle of most large supermarkets nowadays) or aquick no-fry microwave popping option –just place 8 to 10 on the edge of a microwave turntable and microwave for 20 to 30 seconds. (Yes really, it works 100%).
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Gado Gado is a mega salad that’s intended to be served as a main course salad. But it also works beautifully as part of a spread for sharing. The recipe as written below is for 2 people, but if you add a side of Nasi Goreng (Indonesian Fried Rice) or Mee Goreng (Indonesian Noodles) it would easily serve 4.
If you wanted to bulk out the meal with some rice, add a side of coconut rice (people go bonkers over coconut rice with peanut sauce!).
It travels well, being a dish that can be served at room temperature (tempeh aside), and reheats very quickly if you so choose (the vegetables warm quickly).
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But mostly, think of Gado Gado as a means to consume lots of vegetables in an extremely delicious form. I mean, you
Blitz up another green smoothie that tastes like grass (because you got too enthusiastic with the kale, thinkingwell if I’m gonna do this, I may aswell load it up), that you force yourself to drink all the while pinching your nose.
Recipe video above. Fun to say, delicious to eat, the Gado Gado peanut sauce will make any vegetables into a big, healthy, tasty meal! Use any veg you want - the ones I've used are in the spirit of traditional Indonesian Gado Gado. Using Thai Red Curry Paste is an effective
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