Sayur lodeh: Indonesian vegetable sidedish – Vegan and Medical Medium

Sayur lodeh is one of the tastiest and most characteristic Indonesian side dishes. A sayur is made with vegetables, coconut milk and turmeric. The authentic recipe is already gluten, egg, dairy, soyfree and vegan. And I made some small alterations to make it even more Medical Medium friendly.

For a nightshade and nutfree version you can use this sayur lodeh recipe, with AIP Paleo options.

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 in it.

What is in a sayur lodeh?

Sayur lodeh can contain different vegetables. In this case I used cauliflower, white cabbage, carrot and leek. But you can use anything you like. A sayur always needs to have fresh and tasty spices such as turmeric, ginger and lemongrass. For depth in the sauce, often a combination of fish sauce and trassie (fermented shrimp paste) is used. Since it’s better to avoid those on MM, I used a bit of coconut amino’s, tamarind, kemiri nuts and mushroom powder to compensate. I just need my umami!

Wet sauce from coconut milk

The characteristic wet sauce of a sayur goes well with a bountiful Indonesian rice table. The sauce is delicious over your plain cooked rice or nasi goreng (Indonesian fried rice), or even cauliflower rice.

Unfortunately coconut milk contains a lot of fat. You can have some on the Medical Medium protocol, but not if you eat fatfree. To keep the amount of fat as low as possible, you can decide to not fry the bumbu in coconut oil. Instead bake it with some water and then cook it with the rest of the veggies.

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. And that 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 can even be replaced by cauliflower rice.

Dairy is rarely used: everything is either cooked in coconut milk or in tomato sauce. Neither are condiments like vetsin or cornstarch used.

Can Indonesian food be egg and soy free?

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

Eggs

For eggs unfortunately, no real replacement is available (besides tofu, meat or fish). You just have to leave them out. There are no eggs in a sayur. So fortunately for this recipe no problems there.

Soy

Soy sauce is used frequently. It is the base of a condiment often used: kecap manis. Kecap is a thick sauce made from cooked soy sauce, sugar or melasse and spices. You can replace soy sauce and kecap manis with coconut aminos, coconut sugar and spices. Normally kecap isn’t part of a sayur. But here I do use a little bit of coconut aminos. Since you have to skip other ‘umami ingredients’. And I like to have at least some umami in this dish.

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 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.

Or as the grandmother of a friend if 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.

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 poeroet. 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 though.

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.

Indonesian bay leaves

Other leaves that are frequently used are Indonesian bay leaves: daun salaam. Probably not everyone would agree with me, but if you can’t find the reel stuff you can use regular bay leaves.

Kemiri nuts

I also use a typical kind of Indonesian nuts: kemiri. At least, that is what we call them. In English I found they are mostly referred to as candle nuts or kukui. Kemiri look a bit like hazelnuts or macademia, but the taste is much darker. You always roast kemiri’s before anything else. Raw they are not edible. Originally the roasting was done in an open fire. I just roast them in the pan. In Holland I buy them in Asian stores or in specialized Indonesian stores. They are also available online. If you can’t find them in your country, just leave them out.

Bumbu

In Indonesian dishes you commonly start with a bumbu. That sounds difficult, but it just means that you mortar, 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. For MM you can do this with just a little bit of water. Before adding a bumbu you always roast whole nuts and seeds first. After the bumbu you add dry ground herbs and spices and then you deglaze with the liquids.

Topping

Usually you don’t serve a topping with sayur. But since I like cilantro a lot and MM encourages eating it, I served mine with an nice handful.