There are many kinds of specific diets that people are used to or trying to adopt. From the Mediterranean diet, Carnivore diet, Keto diet, Vegetarian diet, and Vegan diet. Each diet has its purpose. It depend on what people believe with what they consume in everyday meals. Just like veganism. The diet some people believe that it is more environmentally friendly.
Sometimes, being Vegan can be so boring when it comes to just eating the same menu in every day. But don't worry, in this post, I am gonna share menu inspiration for you to have more options to cook. These dishes are come from Indonesia.
Indonesia is heaven for Vegan people who are searching for dishes. Because some original dishes are made only with plant-based like peanuts. In this country, there are many recipes that people usually cook. From simple dishes and side dishes to extra efforts to cook dishes. Some of the recipes that people cook or eat as a dish or side dishes are vegan-friendly food that everyone who is looking another taste might tempted to. Without further ado, Let's dive in!
- Gado-gado
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| Gado-gado Source: Patricia cotten on Pinterest |
Gado-gado is an Indonesian traditional dish or salad that contains peanut sauce, steamed potato, tofu, tempeh, cabbage, long beans, and bean sprouts. It's also served with rice or lontong (another form of rice but it's more soft and wrapped with banana leaf or can be called rice cake). This dish is common daily Indonesian food either for lunch or for dinner.
There are 2 versions of Gado-gado. The first one is from Jakarta or Betawi Etnhic and the second one is from Surabaya. What makes it different is the ingredients to make peanut sauce. Surabaya's Gado-gado has to add coconut milk to the peanut sauce. Meanwhile, Jakarta or Betawi's Gado-gado don't use coconut milk.
One thing to remember when you want to try cook this dish is, never ever think about put soy sauce, fish sauce, and also olive oil. Because Indonesian dishes are originally didn't use any ingredients that came from other countries or specifically East Asian cuisine like soy sauce or fish sauce.
2. Pecel
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| Pecel with peanut sauce. Photo by Dipa Wijaya |
You might be wrong when looking the difference between Pecel and Gado-gado at the first time. But, It's served in another way even though the ingredients are almost the same. The first ones is (gado-gado), peanut sauce needs to get cooked before while the second ones is raw. The ingredients also make a difference. Gado-gado usually served with tempe or tempeh, tahu or tofu, and as I mentioned before, with rice or lontong. While Pecel is often served solely without carbohydrates. Just add some fried toppings like bakwan or fried tahu or tofu. But those are optional.
3. Ketoprak
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| tagar.id |
The third Indonesian food that is so vegan-friendly is Ketoprak. This food is also served with peanut sauce. But the main ingredients is different with Gado-gado and Pecel. Ketoprak ingredients are rice noodles, fried tofu, sprout beans, cucumber, and lontong for carbohydrate source. It's mixed together to make it more delicious.
4. Lotek
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| Lotek by Tabloid Bintang |
Lotek is still food from Sunda Land with peanut sauce that poured onto raw vegetables. The vegetables are usually cabbage, long beans, zucchini, chayote, and basil or spinach. Lotek is diffrent with Karedok. Because Lotek doesn't use grilled shrimp paste in the sauce and uses aromatic ginger so the taste and smell will be better. You can ask without the shrimp paste addition if you buy karedok in Indonesian restaurant or small business. Because Karedok is usually sold together with Gado-Gado Betawi, Ketoprak, and rujak (Indonesian salad fruit with brown sugar sambal) by many foodstall. From small foodstall to big restaurants. This dish is good and quick if you want to have healthier food to eat and an ongoing weight loss program.
5. Cah Kangkung or Sautèed Water Spinach
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| Sauteed Water Spinach or Cah Kangkung or Tumis kangkung. LestariWeb |
This one is the easiest of many Indonesian food recipes. All you need are just water spinach, salt, sugar, some water, MSG, and mushroom powder to make it more desirable. If you want to replace the MSG, you can add soy sauce. It takes only a few minutes to cook this food. Maybe you can try it when you have free time sometime. And don't forget to put chili to make it more spicy! Indonesians usually eat Sautèed water spinach with rice in their daily meal.
6. Lodeh soup or sayur Lodeh
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| Sayur Lodeh. From CinnamonSnail |
Sayur Lodeh is another good food Indonesian vegan friendly with coconut milk. This dish is cooked with raw jackfruit, long beans, sweet corn, melinjo, and tempe if you like tempe. Sayur lodeh is more delicious if you add sambal with it. If you are not vegan, you can add dried fish too if they like dried fish. These are triple combinations of deliciousness when served freshly.
7. Gudeg from Yogyakarta
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| Dry Gudeg. @Bunda_Didi |
Gudeg is a side dish that every Indonesian may know well about it. This food is cooked with raw jackfruit that still harder than just become fruit, and coconut milk that is cooked for couple of hours. There are many variants of Gudeg. It depends on how to serve it and its origin. The first one is Yogyakarta's Gudeg. This dish is typically more reddish, and drier because addition of teak leaves. The second one is Surakarta's Gudeg or Solo's Gudeg. Gudeg from Surakarta is often more white and watery than Yogyakarta's Gudeg because there are no teak leaves in addition.
8. Urap
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| @nikanasution on Instagram |
Urap is one of Indonesian salad that come with easy ingredients. The ingredients are just long beans, cabbage, bean sprouts, and grated coconut. There are other variants with other ingredients too like Gudeg. But, the most common urap that people may know is Javanese's Urap. You just need to steam all the vegetables and grate the coconut. After that, mix grated coconut with some of spices like onion, garlic, chili if you want it more spicy, aromatic ginger, and candlenut. I'll share the complete recipe about it later.
9. Tempe orek / Scrambler Tempeh
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| Tempe orek. Photo by Dipa Wijaya |
This is one of my favorite Indonesian Vegan-friendly food that I usually eat. Tempeh orek or Tempe orek is food Made with tempe that gets sauteed with sugar or sweet sauce in addition to make it more desirable and sweeter. It's quick and easy you should try to cook it. And if you love spicy food, you can some Chili on it when cooking. There are two variants in Tempeh orek. The first one is wet ones. It's because of sweet sauce addition. The second one is dry. It is dry because getting sauteed until the water is dried. In many small business food sellers, the price for Tempeh Orek is not so expensive. Just about 5K rupiah for 2 times meals or even just one meal.
10. Sautèed Tofu
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| Caramelised Sautèed tofu with chili. Photo by: Dipa Wijaya |
Tofu, sometimes gets sautèed too like Tempeh. There are many ways to cook it. From sweet ones like Tempeh orek to spicy ones. Basically, the ingredients and cooking steps are not so different with dish on above. But, there is something to be reminder as Indonesia have some different variants of tofu. The list are white tofu or also called Bandung's tofu, yellow tofu, and tofu with skin just like above. All of them have quicker time to get seeped.