Tamarind and vegetables in
a clear soup are best combination for a hot dry season like this. Whenever I lose
my appetite due to the high temperature, mom always makes this soup for our
lunch.
Indonesian Vegetables
Tamarind Soup or Sayur Asem or Jangan Asem is one of popular soup dish in
Indonesia. Although there are plenty recipes of Sayur Asem or Jangan Asem, I
find all of them uses the same tamarind and galangal for the soup. While some
of them do the stir-frying, the others don’t. The vegetables used is depending on
the location. In other city, we will find chicken or beef stock is used for the
soup, while another city uses ginger and red chili for spicy tamarind soup.
Since I
live in East Java, the dish is called Jangan Asem. The East Java versions are
usually using shrimp paste (terasi) for the taste, but it’s grandma’s recipe
which removes shrimp paste (terasi) and makes the soup clearer.
This
time, I’ll share my all time favorite Jangan Asem recipe made by mom. It’s the
simplest and the easiest one, with less ingredients and less vegetables, but refreshing and
delicious to eat in a hot dry season.
Serving
: 4-5 persons
Prep
time : 10 minutes
Cooking
time : 15 minutes
Total
time : 25 minutes
Ingredients
:
150 grams kacang
panjang (long beans)
A
handful of taoge (bean sprouts)
1
teaspoon of asam jawa (tamarind)
1-2 slices
of 1 inch lengkuas (galangal)
½ - 1
teaspoon of salt
2-3 teaspoons of sugar
5
shallots
3
cloves garlic
8 small
tomatoes
800 ml
water
Direction
:
1. Boil
water in a medium pot. Cut long beans into 1 inch long, and the small tomatoes
into half. If you use the bigger tomatoes, cut into 4. Chop the garlic and
onion into pieces.
2. Put
the chopped onion and garlic into the boiling water, then add tamarind and
galangal. Let it boil for about 5-7 minutes.
3. Add
long beans and bean sprout. Cook for about 2 minutes.
4. Do
seasoning with salt and sugar. Adjust the taste, so it balances between the
sweet and sour.
5. Add
tomatoes into the soup. Turn the heat off.
Additional
notes :
1.
Sayur Asem or Jangan Asem is usually served with rice, kerupuk, fried fish, and
sambal terasi. But you can eat it without those above. I eat Jangan Asem first,
then having my rice and fried fish later.
2. You
can add more vegetables like unrippen jackfruit, corn, carrot, or melinjo leaves for
the soup. Basically Jangan Asem or Sayur Asem is a soup with tamarind, shallots, garlic and
galangal boiled together with other ingredients to create a sweet-sour-fresh
taste.
3. If
you prefer your vegetables are softer, cook the vegetables longer to remove the
crunchiness.
1 comments
Thanks, I pick this one to try !
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