It’s been very quiet on the baking front for the last 10 weeks or so. I was away in Indonesia working on my primate conservation project for much of that (you can read all about it here) which is why I couldn’t really do much baking! I got home a couple of weeks ago but still couldn’t bake as the kitchen is being re-done (very very exciting! 🙂 ) and now I’m in Denver for a week presenting my research at a conference. So it’s been a bit of a whirlwind summer and I’m missing my cooking and baking enormously, but it’s all good and there are exciting times ahead with the new kitchen 🙂

So for now I thought I would share a little recipe I picked up in Indonesia. It’s called rujak and it’s divine! It’s basically a fruit salad with a peanut chilli sauce 🙂

You can use any fruit you like but you really want nice tart fruits, it tends to be fruits like:
Pineapple
Mango (not too ripe)
Stone fruit
Cucumber
Apple (granny smiths work well)

You can also add things like plums, pear, water apple, guava (not too ripe), papaya etc.

Slice up your fruit and place in a bowl.

For the sauce you need:
Approx 50g peanuts (raw)
200g coconut palm sugar
Large red chilies (2 or more depending how hot you like it!)
Tamarind – a small ball of tamarind (2cm or so) or a good tbsp of tamarind paste.
Pinch of Himalayan rock salt

Fry the peanuts in coconut oil lightly for a few minutes. Place the chilli and salt in a pestle and mortar and grind in to a paste. Add the peanuts and grind again. Finally add the sugar and the tamarind and continue to grind. You will need to add a little water – just enough so you end up with a sticky paste.

Mix well then serve on top of the fruit!

Enjoy 🙂