If I take a look a lot more and more closely, Indonesian culinary have a broad range of salad recipe, that actually I am not aware before. But after moving here in Madrid, and I often miss home, I tried to digging more and more into my culinary heritage, which now I realise it is so rich. Since Indonesian always, yes always have a vegetable menu as side dishes or as a complement, the traditional way to serve a dishes will always consist of Carbohydrate based food (rice, sago, cassava, some part of island also consume steam banana), protein base (from plant based or animal based), and vegetable (usually it cook in coconut milk, sautéed, blanch or raw).

Like simply this recipe, I got this recipe from my friend mother, she is living in Medan (Sumatra Island). And this recipe completely making me oohh and ahhh *hahahha yeah, reaching kinda foodgasm *seal-mouth. It is blend of sour, sweet, salty, spicy in one, yeah that is typical Asian dishes element, stuff that so delicious that can open your sleepy eyes, for slap of spiciness and sourness (but you can always adjust the spiciness it will equally lovely, mine are extremely spicy).

This recipe are darn easy, all you need are just make the dressing and fried the tofu, ah maybe you need to wash the vegetable *hehe

Shall we?

FRIED TOFU SALAD (VEGAN FRIENDLY INDONESIAN SALAD)

Serve 2 portion

INGREDIENT

Dressing

• 1 cloves of garlic
• 1 bird eyes chilli (put more if you like super spicy, or you can replace it with half of red chilli seed out)
• Juice from half of lemon (freshly squeeze)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• 2 tbs sweet soy sauce (if you have difficulties to find this ingredient, you can replace it with 1 tbs soy sauce and 1 tbs brown sugar)
• 1 celery leaves (slice it very fine)
• 1 tbs fried onion
• 3-4 tbs water

Other Ingredient

• 200 gram tofu (cube and fried it half cook, to keep it soft)
• 1 head of romaine lettuce, slice it (originally it serve with curly leaves lettuce, but I love the taste of romaine lettuce, it is more crunchy, sweet with a hint of bitter taste)
• 1 handfull of bean sprout (blanc, or just soak it with hot water for few minute)
• 1 handful of cherry tomatoes, quarter it
• 1 cucumber, cube it
• Handful of roasted cashew nut or peanut, smashed it roughly ( it is just complimentary)

HOW TO

Dressing

1. with pestle and mortar, mashed the garlic and chilli into paste consistency. Then put in the rest ingredient, blend until well combine.

Serving

1. Pick up the vegetable as you prefer, top with tofu, a drizzle of the dressing and sprinkle the salad with the cashew nut