Recipe for "Asinan Sayur" (Indonesian Salad from West Java)

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Dear Steemians...
today I would give you another Indonesian recipe. This is called "Asinan sayur", kind of salad. This salad tastes sweet sour and spicy, very fresh yet savoury.
"Asinan" is a speciality from West Java Region and very common to find in many street vendors during Ramadhan (moslem fasting month) like now, especially when this month comes at summer.
However one still can buy it too although it's not Ramadhan, as long as it's summer, because some "Asinan" would use fruits too, and most of fruit harvest would happen during summer.
The nice thing is that our summer in Indonesia is rather long, and the rainy season is not so cold either so that one can still enjoy this dish anytime if one likes it.
One can still always find the ingredients without a need to pay much for them.

The recipe is rather simple, these are all that you need for the dish:

• julienned carrot
• shredded white cabbage or crisphead lettuce, or perhaps both
• julienned apple (choose the sour and crispy one, for example: granny smith apple or braeburn)
• cucumber
• Ananas
  Or any kind of crispy salad that you like (for example: white or red radish, yam, raw soybean sprout etc)

To make the sauce you would need:

• red chilis (Indonesians would tend to use quite plenty of chilis, because the sharper it is, the tastier :-D ), grind it with a mortar. But you can decide it your self, how many chilis you want to use, or perhaps you prefer peperoni instead.
• 1 tbsp dried shrimp, grind it with a mortar (othewise you can use 1 tbsp fish sauce or 1/2 shrimp paste instead), but it's optional too.
  If you want to make it VEGAN/VEGETARIAN or probably you just dislike the smell of the shrimp/fish paste, then just skip this. It would still taste as delicious.
• 1 big glass of cold water
• 1 tsp salt
• 100 g of palm sugar (or a bit less, depends on your taste), you can also use brown sugar instead
• 1 tbsp rice vinegar (for you who live in Germany, you can also use "Surig" but it's acidity is a bit strong, so you might need to add a bit more water if it's too sour for you.
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp tamarind (optional)

I didn't plan to make one today that's why my dish is rather simple.


I was just drooling looking at a picture sent by my friend in Indonesia through WhatsApp, that's why my "Asinan" today was much more simple than the original recipe.
I only used any ingredients found in my fridge. :-D
So I didn't use dried shrimp either, but fish sauce instead.
Asinan Bogor (a particular city in West Java) would also use some steamed tofu and roasted peanuts.
All you need to do is just to mix all the ingredients together and let it sit in the fridge for a while, because it tastes better when it's cold.

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Thanks in advance for your vote! :)