Malaysian · Condiment · Served at Daun Pisang (#4)
Acar awak
Nyonya pickled vegetables
Acar awak is the Nyonya pickle: vegetables blanched in vinegar and folded into a fried spice paste with peanuts and sesame. It cuts through anything rich and coconutty.
Cucumber holds a lot of water, so you seed, salt, squeeze, and oven-dry it. That's my New York substitute for the sun-drying you'd do in Malaysia.
Season the paste harder than feels right, because the vegetables bleed water into it.
- Yield
- Serves 4 as a condiment
- Time
- About 2 hours, then at least a night in the jar
Ingredients
Serves
Vegetables
- ½ small (~50g)cucumber, seeded
- ½ medium (~40g)carrot
- ~35gcabbage
- ~35gcauliflower florets
- 2–3long beans
- 3French or green beans
- 1fresh red cayenne or Fresno chili (not bird's eye)
- ½–1fresh green cayenne or Fresno chili
Rempah
- 3–4large dried red chilies, soaked, seeded
- 3–4shallots
- 1garlic clove
- 1 cmfresh turmeric (or ¼ tsp ground)
- 1 cmgalangal
- ½ stalklemongrass
- 1candlenut or macadamia
- ½ tspbottled shrimp paste in soya bean oil
- 15gdried shrimp, soaked (optional)
- 2 tbspneutral oil
Blanching liquid
- ½ cupwater
- 1/3 cupwhite vinegar
- 1½ tspsalt
- 1½ tspsugar
Sauce seasoning
- 1 tbspwhite vinegar
- 25g (2 tbsp)sugar
- ½ tspsalt
Garnish
- 50groasted peanuts, coarsely pounded
- 2 tspsesame seeds, dry-toasted
Method
- Seed the cucumber completely and cut it into thin 3 cm strips.
- Rub the strips with 1 tsp salt and leave them 1 hour.
- Wring them hard in a cloth.
- Spread on a tray and dry in a 200°F oven for 25 minutes.
- Boil the blanching liquid. Blanch one vegetable at a time and lift it out with a spider or slotted spoon: carrots 3 minutes, cauliflower 1 minute, long beans 1 minute, French beans 1 minute, cabbage 30 seconds, chilies 15 seconds. Skip the cucumbers.
- Drain, towel, and pat dry. Wet vegetables make soggy acar.
- Blend the rempah smooth with the oil.
- If using dried shrimp, sauté them first until fragrant.
- Fry the paste on medium, 10 to 15 minutes, until the oil separates.
- Add the vinegar, sugar, and salt. Taste it. It should be intensely salty, sweet, and sour.
- Bring to a brief boil, take it off the heat, and cool completely before it touches the vegetables.
- Fold the cooled paste through all the vegetables with half the peanuts and sesame.
- Pack into a jar, stir as it cools, and refrigerate at least overnight.
- Add the remaining peanuts and sesame just before serving.
Notes
- It needs at least a night in the jar for the vegetables to take the paste, and it's best after three days. It keeps 1 to 2 weeks in the fridge.
- Take it out of the fridge 30 minutes before you eat.
What I use
- Sheet pan with a rack: Nordic Ware half sheet (opens in a new tab) (for oven-drying the cucumber)
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