P
Indonesian
Rujak: The Spiced Fruit Salad Family
Rujak (rojak in Malay) is the Indonesian fruit salad tradition — but calling it "fruit salad" is like calling rendang "beef stew." Rujak is fruit dressed in a SAVOURY, spiced dressing that transforms sweet fruit into a complex, multi-flavour preparation. The sweet-savoury-hot-sour interplay is the point — rujak is the Indonesian krob rot (four-flavour balance, Thai TD-01) applied to fruit.
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I
The Market List
The benchmark for each ingredient, and who stocks it near you. Tap a stockist to go straight to the product.
1 (medium)
green mango
peeled, cut into bite-sized pieces
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
1 (medium)
unripe pineapple
peeled, cored, cut into bite-sized pieces
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
200 g
jicama (bengkuang)
peeled, cut into batons
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
150 g
cucumber
cut into bite-sized pieces
Your own market
100 g
starfruit (belimbing)
sliced
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
For the spiced dressing
100 g
3
red bird's eye chillies
finely pounded
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
1 tsp
shrimp paste (terasi)
toasted
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
2 tbsp
tamarind water
made from tamarind pulp
Your own market
1 tsp
salt
Your own market
50 g
roasted peanuts
roughly crushed
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
Each tap is counted, so the stockist sees the demand Provenance sends them.
II
The Method
1
Toast the terasi directly over a low flame or in a dry pan until it darkens slightly and its sharp, raw ammonia edge gives way to a deep, rounded savouriness. Set aside.
2
In a mortar, pound the chillies and salt to a coarse paste. Add the toasted terasi and continue pounding until fully incorporated. Work in the palm sugar until the paste is cohesive and the sugar has dissolved into the other elements. This is where the dish lives or dies: the dressing must hold all four registers — sweet from the palm sugar, hot from the chilli, sour from the tamarind, savoury from the terasi — in perceptible balance; taste the paste at this stage and adjust before any fruit touches it.
From the canon — Gula Jawa dan Gula Aren — The Palm Sugar Monograph Palm Sugar: The Sweetener That Defines Indonesian Cooking →
3
Stir in the tamarind water. The dressing should loosen to a thick, pourable consistency that coats the back of a spoon; it should not pool freely.
4
Combine all prepared fruit in a wide bowl. Pour the dressing over and turn the fruit gently until every piece is coated. The fruit should glisten uniformly with no dry patches remaining.
5
Scatter the crushed roasted peanuts over the dressed fruit immediately before serving. The peanuts should still carry a dry crunch against the yielding, dressed fruit.
III
Quality Hierarchy
01
Reserve — Gula jawa from a single artisan producer, hand-pressed with a pronounced caramel depth; terasi that has been aged and block-pressed by a traditional coastal producer; freshly harvested green mango and starfruit from a specialist South-East Asian supplier.
02
Estate — Good-quality block palm sugar (not granulated palm sugar syrup); reputable packaged terasi; fruit sourced from an Asian grocer at correct unripe stage.
03
Market — Supermarket palm sugar; commercially packaged shrimp paste; standard Asian-grocer fruit selection — still fully acceptable when the dressing balance is correctly achieved.
04
House — Brown sugar substituted for palm sugar; fish sauce in place of terasi; whatever firm, slightly underripe tropical fruit is available — the four-flavour principle still holds but the dressing will lack the characteristic round depth of gula jawa and the funk of terasi.
IV
Sensory Tests
◇Smell. Toasted terasi loses its raw, sharp edge and smells rounded and deeply savoury — it is ready to enter the dressing.
◇Taste. The finished dressing paste registers sweet, hot, sour, and savoury simultaneously on the palate with no single note dominant.
◇Sight. The loosened dressing coats the back of a spoon in a thick, even layer without running freely.
◇Sight. All fruit pieces are uniformly glossed with dressing; no bare surfaces remain.
◇Touch. Peanuts yield a dry, crisp resistance against the dressed fruit when pressed lightly between the fingers — they have not yet softened.
◇Where it lives or dies. The dressing must hold all four flavour registers — sweet, hot, sour, savoury — in perceptible balance before the fruit is added; a dressing that collapses into any single note cannot be recovered once the fruit is dressed.
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VI
What to Pour
The pairing
Buffalo Trace Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey
Buffalo Trace Distillery · Kentucky Bourbon Country
Not yet stocked in British Columbia
Whisky
From British Columbia
Nothing from British Columbia holds against this yet.
Without alcohol
No pour without alcohol holds against this yet.
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The whole pairingPillar VII
Origin and lineage are part of membership.
Where the dish comes from and how it came to be — on every recipe.
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