Gado gado is one of the well known dishes from Indonesia. Although it looks like a salad dish, gado gado is also eaten as a one dish meal in Indonesia. Loaded with a variety of vegetable, the carbohydrate in the dish comes from lontong (compressed rice cake) and potatoes. Tofu, egg and tempeh are the protein sources.
Whenever I see gado gado served at a hotel buffet here, my plate will be piled high with veggies drenched in the sauce. The creamy, sweet, sour and spicy peanut sauce is what makes this a great salad. It may look intimidating with the amount of ingredients, but the recipe is pretty flexible with the options of salad ingredients that you like. In mine are potato, beansprout, firm tofu, tempeh, long beans and egg.Gado gado sauce is not to be confused with satay sauce, which is also a peanut sauce. The traditional method of making the sauce is to use the pestle and mortar. The dry ingredients are ground first, then water is added to achieve the desired consistency. Pounding the dry ingredients with the pestle and mortar method will give a more fragrant sauce, however I prefer the faster method of using the food processor.