Gado-gado

For my birthday this year I received a wonderful cookbook from a very dear friend. It was from Ten Thousand Villages, one of my favorite stores! And it is called "The World in your Kitchen" by Troth Wells and it is a collection of vegetarian recipes from around the world along with facts about the countries and beautiful pictures. Last night I made Gado-gado - a Malaysian dish that was simple to make but DELICIOUS!

In the forward to the book, Glenda Jackson writes: "Of course, the majority of the world's mothers worry not about balanced diets for their daughters and sons but whether they can provide them simply wit enough food. And not because their children are picky eaters or voraciously greedy, but because poverty, individual and nationl, is the only life they have ever known. And unless the rich world begins to take less of the world's resoruces and give more to the developing world in aid and practical know-how, without strings, poverty is all the majority of our fellow human beings will ever know... one thrid of the world is using 80 percent of the resources while two thirds of the world is trying desperately to survive on the remaining 20 percent..."

Part of the reasoning behind the book being vegetarian is that although people in developing countries eat meat (and thoroughly enjoy it whenever they can get it!), it is generally reserved for feats or special occasions. In fact, the book goes on to explain that "if 35% of [the world's] calories came from animal products - as in North America now - then the world would only be able to sustain 2.5 billion people. But if everyone became vegetarian and the food was equally distributed, the world could support at least six billion people." Now, its not as simple as all that - we know that there are places where the land is so poor, it can only sustain cattle and we know that vegetables rot and cannot always be transported to where they are needed most. But, when you think that "worldwide, a third of the world's grain is grown for livestock and in the US some 90% of the corn, oats and barley goes down animal gullets" (p13) while millions starve for want of those same simple grains, you have to ask yourself whether we have our priorities right.

As we discovered last night, we can still eat a delicious, nutritious and protein rich meal without any meat whatsoever and if more of us first-worlders did this on a consistent basis, maybe we could begin to redistribute the wealth of the world's produce. Vegetarian food is often much cheaper than meat, freeing up room in our budgets to give financially to organizations that are trying to make a positive difference in the developing world.

OK, lecture over, here's the recipe in the hope that you will try it yourself and then buy the book! Incidentally, I did not have to stray to far from my local-sourcing commitment wit this recipe. I had the majority of the ingredients available locally, or I made simple substitutions!

Gado-gado
Serves 6

1 cup tofu, sliced
1 cup bean sprouts (I used garlic sprouts... skinnier, but local!)
1 cup mangetout/snowpeas or other green beans, sliced into 1" lengths
1 potato sliced and cooked (I put the slices on a baking sheet and baked at 375 degrees while the rest of it was cooking)
6" cucumber, grated or cut into fine sticks
1 cup cabbage, shredded
1 cup lettuce, cut finely (lettuce isn't ready here yet, s I omitted this but used two potatoes instead)
3 eggs, hardboiled and sliced
oil

For the Sauce
2 cups peanuts, roasted and ground (or 1/2 cup peanut butter) [we can't have peanuts because of the boy's allergies, so I used 1/2 cups of tahini (sesame seed paste) instead]
1 stalk lemmon grass or 1tsp lemon juice
2 chillies, sliced finely (OK, we're wimps and omitted the chillis... the kids aren't too keen on spicy food yet)
1 clove garlic, crushed
5 shallots, chopped
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon or lime juice
1 cup coconut milk
salt

1. Heat oil and fry tofu until golden. Drain on paper towel and set aside.
2. Steam sprouts, mangetout/snowpeas/beans and cabbage until just done.
3. Arrange veggies together with potato, cucumber, lettuce and hardboiled eggs decoratively on a serving dish, leaving room in the center for a bowl containing the peanut sauce.
4. Pound or blend lemon grass/juice with the chillies, garlic and shallots.
5. Heat some oil in a wok or frying pan and gently saute these ingredients for 2 mins. Add the sugar, salt, lemon/lime juice and coconut milk. Simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes.
6. When this is ready, spoon in the ground peanuts or peanut butter to make a thick sauce. Adjust to taste by adding more lemon juice, salt, sugar or coconut milk as liked. To serve, take a mixture of vegetables and spoon hot sauce over.

Ha ha ha... so looking at all the substitutions I made, our meal last night probably tasted nothing like the original, but it was still delicious!

Enjoy!