Gado-gado, Indonesian salad consisting of boiled vegetables served with a peanut sauce dressing

Gado-gado

Gado-gado, also known as Lotek (in Sundanese and Javanese) is an Betawi dish or Indonesian salad consisting of boiled vegetables served with a peanut sauce dressing. It is different from lotek atah or karedok for its fresh and raw version of the vegetable covered with peanut sauce. Another similar but not the same dish is Javanese pecel. It is thought to have originally been a Sundanese dish. It is widely served from hawkers carts, stalls (warung) as well as in restaurants and hotels both in Indonesia and worldwide.
Gado-gado is part of a wide range of Indonesian dressing and salad combinations, along with lotek, pecel and karedok. In many places, to retain authenticity in both the production and flavor, the peanut sauce is made in individual batches per order, in front of the customers to suit customers' personal preference on the degree of spiciness. However, since the dish has gained popularity (because of the increase of Asian-themed restaurants) Gado-gado sauce is now mostly made ahead of time and cooked in bulk, although this is probably more common in Western restaurants rather than in Indonesia. Compared to Western and Indonesian salads, Gado-gado has much more sauce in it. Instead of being used as a light dressing, the vegetables should be well coated in the sauce. Gado-gado sauce isn't to be confused with satay sauce.
Many stores now offer Gado-Gado dressing in dried blocks to which simply require to add hot water, making it easier and cheaper to cook at home.
The traditional way to make gado-gado is using the cobek and ulekan or flat rounded stone mortar and pestle. The peanut sauce dressing is made first, mixed on the stone mortar and grinded with pestle, added with tamarind water to achieve perfect texture.

Outside of Indonesia, whatever vegetables that are

people improvise with available.

Then the blanched vegetables and other ingredients, are put and mixed well with peanut sauce in stone mortar. The peanut sauce should be generous enough to well-coated all the ingredients.
Gado-gado is always served with krupuk, some kind of crackers, usually tapioca crackers, or also with emping, Indonesian style fried crackers, which are made from melinjo. In Indonesia, Gado-gado is usually served with rice or lontong.

Related Sites for Gado-gado

• Gado Gado Knobs, Pulls | knobdeco.com read Gado-gado
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• Gado-Gado Recipe | Easy Asian Recipes at RasaMalaysia.com read Gado-gado
• Recipe: Gado-gado (Cooked mixed vegetables with peanut sauce) read Gado-gado