Making Pecel

Growing up, I always love Pecel - A traditional Indonesian dish made of various boiled vegetables poured with peanut sauce. To me, it's a healthy and delicious dish especially if served with hot steamed rice and crackers.

My Mom brought three packs of Bumbu Pecel from Malang as presents for my husband's family when she visited us last August. Only last weekend, I finally did something with one of them since my mother in law did not know how to make Pecel.

My husband and I bought kangkong, bean sprouts and cabbage on Saturday night and planned to have Pecel for lunch. Since we had a very late breakfast on Sunday, we cooked Pecel together as our Sunday's super late lunch.

I think eating Pecel without any crackers is quite sad. Something is just missing. Luckily, my Mom reminded me to deep fry some prawn crackers that she also brought to Malaysia last August. I tasked my husband to do all the frying thing - sunny side up eggs and prawn crackers. Before that, I told him to put some raw crackers under the sun before frying them up.

Easy-peasy steps for making Pecel at home.

Wash all the vegetables you like for the mix.

Boil the cleaned cut preferred choice of vegetables.

Boiled cabbage ready for Pecel mix.

Fry some sunny side up eggs for additional Pecel's companion.

Dilute one pack of the Bumbu Pecel with hot water, as needed. 

Pour the diluted Bumbu Pecel on top of the boiled veggies

Raw prawn crackers ready for deep frying

The cracker expands in boiling hot cooking oil in less than one second.

Prawn crackers ready for Pecel.

Serve Pecel with the prawn crackers.  

Best eaten with hot steamed rice.

It felt so damn GOOD to eat Pecel again after so long. Especially when you, an Indonesian, are not in Indonesia. Too bad there was no hot steamed rice at home.

Hey, apparently Pecel's taste appeals to Malaysian's palate too. Phew!