The confusion between gado-gado, karedok, pecel, and lotek is the most common error in Indonesian food writing outside Indonesia. These are four distinct preparations with different regional origins, different vegetable treatments, and critically different peanut sauce constructions. They share only the broad structural category of "vegetables with peanut dressing" — a category so broad as to be almost meaningless. Understanding the distinctions is understanding the difference between Javanese, Sundanese, and Malay flavour philosophy.
The Four Peanut Salads — Complete Differentiation
Indonesian Deep Extraction — Batch 13