This salad is inspired by the street food in Indonesia and this is my take on it. It’s a brilliant combo of crunchy and soft and sweet and sour, in fact I think it tastes pretty mind blowing. But, so it doesn’t end up looking like the contents of the bottom of a dustbin when you plate it up, it’s best to layer it with the sauce at the bottom. You can use other vegetables like cucumber or blanched carrot sticks or blanched cabbage, and fried tofu or tempeh too.
All work well, it’s up to you, it’s really great for using up vegetables in the fridge.

Recipe

Serves 2-3.

Ingredients:
About 6 radishes cut in half lengthwise
6 small new potatoes
4 eggs
200g of fine beans (topped and tailed)
100g bean sprouts
4 big tablespoons of crispy fried onions (from supermarket)
A big handful of prawn crackers (optional)

The sauce
1 clove of chopped garlic
3 tablespoons maple syrup
5 tablespoons of peanut butter
Juice of 2 limes
chilli sauce to taste (optional)
2 teaspoons fish sauce
1 tablespoon of soya sauce
1 tablespoon of tamarind paste

How:
Put all the sauce ingredients in a blender and whizz till smooth and set aside.
Place the potatoes in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil. Boil for 12 minutes adding the eggs for the last 4 minutes, they are supposed to be soft boiled, but, if you prefer them to be hard boiled, boil them for 10 minutes. Place in cold water to cool.
Meanwhile, bring another pan of water to the boil and add the beans, cook for 3 minutes then drain in a colander and rinse with cold water and put aside.
Drain and rinse the potatoes under cold water.
Cut the potatoes into quarters, peel the eggs and cut in half carefully.
Place all the ingredients on a big plate and layered on top of the sauce, starting with the beans, bean sprouts and potatoes, and finishing with the eggs, radishes and lastly sprinkle on the crispy onions.
Serve with a side order of prawn crackers.

I shop at
Waitrose
Sainsbury’s
Tesco
Lidl