Fruit with Sweet Spicy Dressing (Rujak)

Rujak is a fruit and vegetable salad dish commonly found in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. The term "Rojak" is Malay for mixture, is also used as a colloquial expression for an eclectic mix, and in particular is often used to describe the multi-ethnic character of Malaysian and Singaporean society.

In Indonesia, rujak is a very popular dessert. It contains some fruits, usually papaya, bengkoang (jicama), mango, watermelon, pineapple, cucumber, jambu air (water apple), star fruit, raw red sweet potato, green apple and jeruk Bali (grapefruit). The fruits are eaten with special dressing made of grinded sautéed peanuts with palm sugar, chili and tamarind essence. All of the fruits are sliced to bite-size, and put in the dish. The bumbu rujak or thick sweet spicy rujak dressing is poured on the fruit slices. Or you can just stick in the dressing into your bite-sized fruits.

Basically, there are four kind of rujaks in Indonesia: Rujak Ulek or Rujak Bèbèk (fruits and dressing are mashed together (tumbuk or bèbèk in Indonesian) in a wooden mortar), Rujak Serut (the fruits is not sliced in biteable size, but shredded into rough almost paste), Rujak Cingur (literary "cingur" means mouth in Javanese, and indeed beside the noodle and vegetable as the main ingredients, rujak cingur also contains slices of cooked buffalo's or cow's lips. This special rujak fromEast Java has "meaty" taste) and Rujak Juhi (juhi means salted cuttlefish for Indonesian, this rujak contains fried bean curd, cuttlefish, cucumber, noodle, lettuce, cabbages, peanut sauce, vinegar, chilies, and fried garlic).

If you want to try to make the ordinary rujak by yourself, you can put the only fruits that you like, then make the simple dressing. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients (put all the fruits you like):

Mango

Papaya

Pineapple

Bengkoang (jicama)

Green apple

Watermelon

Dressing (Sambal Rujak), grind:

250 fried peanut or

8 tablespoon peanut butter

4 red pepper

3 chili

1 tablespoon tamarind essence

2 teaspoon prawn paste, fried

70 gr palm sugar

1 teaspoon salt

50 ml water

How to make it:

1. Sliced into bite-size all of the fruits

2. For dressing, mix all the grind ingredients with water until it becomes thick dough.

3. Served the dressing separately or pour it on top of the fruits.

Some parts of this article are taken from wikipedia. Photos by moderator and Dwi Firmansyah.

The Exotic Snacks From Java

These traditional snacks are commonly sold in wet market in Java, so people named it Jajan Pasar. But you can also meet these snacks by traveling vendor that walk around kampongs in Central Java. If you’re lucky enough, although only visit Jakarta you still could meet the traveling vendor in kampong Depsos Bintaro Pesanggrahan, South Jakarta.

Tiwul

Ingredients:
300 gr dried cassava flour (tepung gaplek)
70 ml water
2 pandanus leaves (daun pandan)
100 gr palm sugar
100 gr young scrapped coconut, steamed with pandanus leaves and salt for 15 minutes
¼ teaspoon salt
Banana leaves

How to make it:

1. Put dried cassava flour in winnowing tray, spattered with water and beat it until the dough is granulated.
2. Put banana leaves in hot steamer, add the dough on top of it.
3. Add palm sugar, steamed for about 60 minutes.
4. Served with scrapped coconut.

Sawut

Ingredients:
500 gr cassava
150 gr sugar
½ tablespoon salt
2 pandanus leaves

Complement:
250 gr young scrapped coconut
¼ teaspoon salt
1 pandanus leaf
50 gr sugar

How to make it:

1. Take cassava, peel and wash it. Scrapped, add sugar and salt.
2. Put in hot steamer, add pandanus leaves and steamed until cooked.
3. Mixed the complement ingredient and steamed for 15 minutes
4. Served Sawut with young scrapped coconut.

Recipes source: Tabloid Nova No. 964 – 15 Aug 2006 (Tiwul) / www.tabloid-nova.com (sawut) Photos by moderator

Javanese Pancake from Solo (Srabi Solo)

This is one of the most popular snacks in Solo or Surakarta, Central Java. Srabi Solo is made from rice flour mixed with coconut oil and cooked with small clay wok on top of charcoal. The taste is so delicious because the used of coconut oil. Usually Srabi Solo has some toppings on it, and you can choose the toppings whether sliced of banana, jackfruit, chocolate or even cheese. And if you visit Solo, the legend of srabi vendor is in kampong Notosuman. No wonder that its srabi popular with a calling name ‘Srabi Notosuman’. But if you only visit Jakarta, you can still have the delicious one in Menteng. Or, you want to try to make it by yourself? Here the recipe:

Ingredients:
500 gr rice flour
50 gr wheat flour
225 gr sugar
¼ teaspoon vanilla powder
¼ teaspoon yeast
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1 egg
400 ml water
450 ml thin coconut milk for dough
100 ml thick coconut milk
Toppings: sliced of banana, jackfruit, chocolate or cheese

How to make it:

1. Mixed rice flour with wheat flour, add vanilla powder, yeast, baking soda and egg, stir.
2. Stir water and sugar until it soluble, pour to the mixed of flour.
3. Add coconut milk and egg, stir until it becomes a thick dough.
4. Prepare wok (usually using small wok from clay), heat it. Pour the dough, put topping on it and leave for a while.
5. Add thick coconut oil on it and cooked well.
6. Served warm.