Sayur lodeh: Indonesian vegetable sidedish with coconut milk – AIP and Paleo

Sayur lodeh is one of the tastiest and most characteristic Indonesian side dishes with vegetables. Sayur is a sauce made from coconut milk. With a sayur lodeh you can pretty much use any vegetable. A great way to clean out your fridge.

This recipe is gluten, egg, dairy and soyfree. And with some alterations you can make it AIP Paleo proof. For a Medical Medium friendly version you can use this sayur lodeh recipe.

Is Indonesian gluten and dairyfree?

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.

It doesn’t take much effort to make Indonesian food gluten and dairy free. They don’t use wheat often. Besides rice, which can be replaced by cauliflower rice, it’s also almost completely grainfree. Dairy is seldomly used: everything is either cooked in coconut milk or in tomato sauce.

Can Indonesian be egg and soy free?

With some adjustments you can cook egg and soyfree Indonesian food. For eggs is no replacement available (besides meat or fish). You can replace soy sauce and kecap manis with coconut aminos, coconut sugar and spices. So even on an AIP Paleo diet you can enjoy the Indonesian cuisine!

Can Indonesian be nightshade free?

Other typical condiments sambal oelek (mortared red cilipeppers) or sambal badjak (fried chili with onions and spices). They contain nightshade. But neither of those are used in the authentic recipe for sayur lodeh. So you don’t have to search for alternatives.

Not just one kind of ‘Asian’

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.

There is not just one Indonesian kitchen, every island has its specialties. 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. Neither are condiments like vetsin or cornstarch.

Where to find ingredients

The list of ingredients may seem a bit overwhelming, especially where to find them. The best change is to go to 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.

What is sayur lodeh?

Sayur lodeh looks a bit like a soup but it is mostly served as a side dish. It is a kind of vegetable stew or yellow curry. Sayur always has a ‘wet’ sauce. If you eat it as soup, it’s really delicious with some noodles.

What is in a sayur lodeh?

Sayur lodeh can contain different vegetables. In this case I used cauliflower, white cabbage, carrot, snow peas and red bell peppers. If you don’t eat green legumes or nightshade you can think also think of bamboo or bok choi. Sayur also contains tasty spices such as turmeric, ginger and lemongrass. For depth in the sauce, use a combination of fish sauce and trassie.

Wet sauce from coconut milk

A sayur always contains coconutmilk. In my opinion, the best recipe used not only coconut milk, but also santen (pressed coconut flesh or really thick coconut paste/cream) and stock.

The characteristic, wet sauce goes well with a bountiful Indonesian rice table. The sauce is delicious in your rice or nasi. If you eat gluten-free, it is best to eat with plain white rice or rice noodles. If you eat paleo, you can use sweet potatoes (noodles or whole potatoes) or cassave pasta. You can also use konjac or shirataki noodles. But then you will have fewer starches for the sauce to absorb. Then put mostly vegetables on your plate and leave the sauce in the bowl or pan.

Trassie and fish sauce

What is Indonesian food without umami? In this soup I use a combination of trassie (block of fermented shrimp paste) and fish sauce (fermented anchovy). Do you only have one of those at home? Then just use a little more of the one you have. Your dish won’t fall apart with some tweaks here and there.

Trassie

Trassie can add a typical Indonesian flavour to your sayur. Trassie is pressed fermented shrimp paste. It smells quite penetrating. It Holland it comes in a re-usuable, well-sealable bag. You need very little of it, just a few crumbs. Buy a block of real, pure trassie. You should be able to buy it in Asian sores. Otherwise online. In Holland it’s quite well known. But even in Holland not every supermarket has it in store.

In Holland, and maybe elsewhere as well, Indonesian trassie may be confused with trassie trafasi. That is Surinamese trassie in a jar, made from stock with salt, some other flavors, additives and sugar.

Sugarfree, pure fish sauce

If you want to eat pure and sugar-free, it is a good idea to invest in an authentic fish sauce. Real fish sauce contains nothing but anchovies and salt. The sauce must ferment for months to even years. This is not just for sale in the supermarket, at least not where I live. Cheap fish sauces have gone through an accelerated fermentation with enzymes or hydrochloric acid. To compensate for the lack of taste, flavor enhancers and sugar are often added. Too bad, because that really shouldn’t be part of a fish sauce. I think the tastiest fish sauce is Red Boat Fish sauce. You can buy it in larger Asian stores or order it online.

Kaffir lime leaves

South East Asian cuisine uses a different kind of lime than we have in Europe. It looks like an old wrinkled version. It’s called kaffir, makrut or djeroek peroet. For me it’s not easy to buy those. I don’t live near Asian stores or markets where I can buy fresh Asian fruits and vegetables. So, I always use ‘normal’ limes. You would have to be a real connaisseur to taste the difference.

But what will give your dish a real Asian flavour are the leaves of the kaffir. And those you can use dried and they are easy to order online.

Bumbu

In Indonesian dishes you commonly start with a bumbu. That sounds difficult, but it just means that you grate or grind herbs and spices before you start cooking. Most recipes start by frying the bumbu in coconut oil before you add the other ingredients. Before adding a bumbu you can roast whole nuts and seeds and you can fry onions. After the bumbu you add dry ground herbs and spices and then the liquids.