My version of gado gado: the Indonesion sidedish made from crunchy vegetables that are blanched or steamed briefly. With some subtle adjustments to make it Paleo and Medical Medium friendly: no gluten, peanuts, soy or dairy!

What is Gado Gado?

Gado gado is a kind of salad, covered in gado gado sauce: a creamy peanut sauce with kecap manis (spicy sweet soy sauce) and sambal (hot pepper paste). Very similar to saté sauce, wich is also made from peanuts. Since I don’t eat peanuts or soy sauce, I use my own homemade saté sauce.

Replacing ingredients

In Holland (I’m Dutch), Indonesian food is widely available and highly valued. Much like Indian food in England. My family loves Indonesian food and we eat it a lot. I am very happy I know my way around most of the ingredients that are frequently used. So I know how to replace most of them.

Is Indonesian food always gluten and dairyfree?

It doesn’t take much effort to make Indonesian food gluten and dairy free. They don’t use wheat or other grains very often. Besides rice of course, which is glutenfreebut can even be replaced by cauliflower rice.

Dairy is rarely used: everything is either cooked in coconut milk or in tomato sauce. Also Indonesian cooking doesn’t really require condiments like vetsin or cornstarch.

Can Indonesian food be egg and soy free?

Eggs and soy are used frequently. But with some adjustments you can cook egg and soyfree Indonesian food.

Eggs

For eggs is no replacement available (besides tofu, meat or fish). So you just have to leave them out. In Holland eggs are often served with gado gado, but they are actually not part of the original recipe, so fortunately no problems there.

Soy

Soy sauce is the base of a condiment that is often used: kecap manis. Kecap is a thick sauce made from cooked soy sauce, sugar and spices. You can replace soy sauce and kecap manis with coconut aminos, coconut sugar and spices. You will find those in my recipe for saté sauce. Or you can make your own kecap manis.

Building layers of flavour

Cooking Indonesian is not hard. It’s just building layers of flavour. The rhythm of adding stuff will come to you rather quickly when you start preparing more dishes. Because the basics are always quite the same.

Not just one kind of ‘Asian’

There is not just one Indonesian kitchen, every island, village and family has their specialties and variations. But what makes Indonesian stand out from other Asian cooking like Kantonese or Szechuan is that most of the dishes take some simmer time. Stir fry is not a commonly used cooking method.

Or as the grandmother of a friend of mine said: “We don’t rush. If you are in a hurry you eat Chinese. But good food needs time.” So funny. I do like both Indonesian and Chinese though, but don’t tell her that.

Where to find ingredients

The list of ingredients may seem a bit overwhelming, especially where to find them. The best chance to find everything is in an Asian market, otherwise online. With most ingredients your dish won’t immediately fall apart if you leave them out. So just buy a few ‘new’ stuff and start experimenting from there. Your collection of condiments will grow as you go along.