PREPARATION

1. Start by finely chopping the lemon grass, chilli pepper, garlic, coriander stalks and ginger, or pulse everything in a food processor until fine.
2. Heat some sesame oil in a frying pan and sauté the above ingredients for about 5 minutes.
3. Add the sautéed ingredients to a food processor or a hand blender with the peanut butter, soy sauce and lime juice and blitz together and slowly add about ¼ to ½ a glass of water to make it thinner until you have a thick sauce consistency.
4. Preheat the oven to 220C.
5. Next step is the tempeh satay. Slice the tempeh in bitesize cubes and let them marinate -preferably for a couple of hours- in 2 tbsp of the peanut sauce, 1 tbsp of water and 1 tbsp of kecap manis. If you are using wooden skewers keep them in a water bath for about half an hour so they soak up water and won’t burn later.
6. Meanwhile make the gado gado salad. Slice the sweet potato in wedges, drizzle over some olive oil, add a pinch of salt and bake for about 25-30 minutes and leave to cool.
7. Boil the eggs for about 10 minutes, adding the green beans for the last 3 minutes. Finely slice the red cabbage and massage it with the juice of the lime and some salt until it gets a bit softer. Half the cucumber and slice into half-moons. Add everything to a large salad bowl, together with the bean sprouts and the sweet potatoes.
8. Back to the tempeh satay! Thread about 4 marinated tempeh cubes to a skewer. Heat some sesame oil in a frying pan on medium high heat and fry the satay about one minutes on each side until dark and crispy.
9. Serve the gado gado salad with a spoonful of the peanut sauce on top and some of the coriander leaves and the fried tempeh satay on the side (again with loads of the peanut sauce)!