Green Papaya Salad, Laos Version/ Salad Pepaya Muda khas Laos

I looove this salade, as much as i love Indonesian asinan (veggies/fruit condiment) or rujak (fruit salad). I prefer the laos version over its neighbours, as i feel it has more 'body'. This is my own version with the ingredients that i could find in my pantry.

Ingredients:

Crab Paste

• 3 cups of frozen green papaya (store bought, you can of course find it fresh, you will just have to slice it yourself using julienne peeler)
• 2 carrots julienne sliced
• 1 tomato, cut in wedges
• Juice of 1 green lemon

Sauce

• 1 tsp Crab Paste (you can use shrimp paste just to replace it)
• 3 tbs tamarind juice 
• 1 tbs palm sugar
• Chilies
• 1 garlic
• Fish Sauce (i only use 1 tsp to add more taste)

Method:

1. Mix the green papaya, carrots, tomatoes and lemon juice
2. Mix and grind the sauce ingredients,
3. Pour the sauce over salad. Mix well.
4. Serve

Bahasa Indonesia
Bahan 1:

• 3 cup pepaya muda diiris julien
• 2 wortel diiris julien
• 1 buah tomat, dibelah 4
• Jus dari 1 buah jeruk nipis

Bahan 2:

• 1 sdt pasta kepiting, atau bisa diganti terasi.
• 3 sdm air asam jawa
• 1 sdm gula palem
• Cabai 
• 1 bawang putih
• Saos ikan (saya hanya menggunakan seperlunya saja untuk rasa)

Cara:

1. Campur bahan 1
2. Campur bahan 2 dan ulek.
3. Campur bahan 2 ke dalam bahan 1 dengan baik.
4. Hidangkan.

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Rujak Bali

Rujak is generally an Indonesian word for fruits salad, with spicy palm sugar sauce. In most parts of Indonesia, we use crushed peanuts as part of the sauce's ingredients. But in this recipe, there is no peanut at all and it has shrimp paste (terasi) inside , and I was really wondering if it is very typical of Bali's rujak that the sauce is without sauce. It is too late to call home now, to ask my mom (she is balinese) about it, well anyway, I still enjoy the taste, although I prefer the sauce with peanuts, of course!

I added dry shrimp and dried chili inside, and for fruits, i used pamelo (jeruk bali), pineapple, but i was so wrong to use green papaya because you really have to use ripe papaya for this kind of sauce (however green papaya for the peanut rujak, tastes very good).

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Rujak Serut

Rujak Serut is one of the best Indonesian traditional salad (rujak) dessert made of grated (serut) fruits. Originally it uses red sweet potato as one of the elements, but since i did not have it, i replaced it with carrot. You can actually use any young acid fruits as the basic ingredients. I tried to make it as simple as it can be, because i am a lazy bum.

RUJAK SERUT
Fruit:

• 1 or 2 medium Carrot, julienned.
• a bunch of young papaya, julienned.
• 50 gr of pineapple, cut in bits

sauce:

• 3 ground chillies
• 3 tbs of nuts
• 2 cups of water
• 1 palm sugar
• 1 tps shrimp paste

Directions:

1. Boil the water, shrimp paste, palm sugar, chillies and nuts until the sugar dissolved, switched off the gaz.
2. Add the fruit, covered, set aside.
3. Cool in the fridge.

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Indonesian Pickled Fruits (Asinan Buah-buahan)

Lately, I have been obsessed with Indonesian Pickled Fruits, with the spicy juice (asinan buah). I have been torturing my tongue with the burning taste, and I often still desire for more, searching for the best recipe and method (yeah like I ever really follow them anyway!).
Most of the recipes exist on the net, are using shrimp paste or dried small shrimp as one of their ingredients, while others are using garlic. There is one recipe that is quite unique, because it uses a fresh orange juice which makes me curious. And then I saw this picture in my friend's blog, and found my self drooling heavily, hehe...so I thought that I had got to try her recipe. But then I remember that more than 2 weeks ago, Mr. Gorilla bought a lot of fresh oranges to be pressed..and they seemed already half decay in the fridge, had to finish it right away before we lose more dying oranges. Thus, I chose the first recipe for the useful ingredients.

There are many type of young (raw-acid) fruits that we can use to make pickled fruits but I usually use young Mango altough the best one is young papaya and red cassavas, as they are always firm. But today I have leftover apples, and the orange juice used as the basic ingredients should preserve the colour of the slashed apple, thus it should stay white not broken white, hehe.

Ingredients for the hot spicy sauce:

• 350 ml fresh orange juice
• white sugar (i used more than 2 tbs)
  
• 700 ml water
• 6 bird eye chillies
• 1 tbs chopped red chillies
• a pinch of salt
  

Method:

1. Boil sugar and salt in water until it is dissolved, let it cool.
2. Pour it in your blender together with your chillies. Blend till smooth.
3. Using a sieve, filter the juice, put the cut fruits inside a Tupperware box and add the juice and sweet salty water.
4. Cool it inside the fridge.

By the way, i used bunch of DVD as my pictures' background. Has anyone seen "Mereka Bilang Saya Monyet"? (They say i am monkey?!) It is an indonesian movie, one of the best movies i'd say. All the symbolic scenes, the pretty faces of the actresses, the well built story...have to see it!

I think 2007 was the best year for our movie, there were this one, "Kala", "Claudia/Jasmine", "Radit&Jani". Well my mark is: several gorgeous faces can act! No kidding!! And that special musician called Titi Sjuman who plays in Mereka Bilang Saya Monyet, oh i adore her for her musical skill as well as her acting. Glory!!

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