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Rujak Buah (Indonesian Fruit Salad with Spicy Palm Sugar and Tamarind Dressing) is sold by street food vendors in Indonesia. Some restaurants that serve local food now sell it, too but most of them are sold by street food vendors. The dish is basically fruit salad mixed with dressing made of chili pepper, palm sugar, and tamarind. There are some variations of the dressing used in Rujak Buah. Some people use ground peanut in the dressing. Most people use toasted terasi (cooked shrimp paste) in the dressing. However, I have seen the dressing without terasi although it is very seldom. For the recipe, I list terasi (shrimp paste) as optional since I noticed some people may not like the earthy flavor of terasi. If they didn't grow up eating shrimp paste, they may find the earthy taste of terasi is too strong for them. So, that's the reason why I list it as optional.

In Indonesia, there are several fruits that are normally used in rujak buah. They are unripe mango, pineapple, cucumber, jicama, water apple, and papaya. There are some vendors that sell it with watermelon, cantaloupe, melon, or star fruit. Regardless the fruits used, they are normally stored cold before serving them making this dish suitable for the hot weather in Indonesia. The fruit salad package you find in the grocery store will be suitable to use with the dressing. So, if you are pressed with time and entertaining a crowd, you can buy the fruit salad package from the grocery store and make the dressing only. It will elevate the regular fruit salad because the dressing adds flavor to the fruits. The dressing is also good as a dip for carrots. In my opinion, any crunchy fruit is good with this dressing. Any bland fruit is also good with the dressing.

In Indonesia, the dressing is normally mixed with the fruits. However, you can also serve it on the side so that you can dip the fruits in it. As mentioned before, the dressing normally uses terasi (shrimp paste). If you decide to use it, make sure it is cooked before you put it in the food processor with the other dressing ingredients. This is because terasi (shrimp paste) is made of raw shrimp and thus, we need to cook it before serving it. To cook terasi, wrap some of it in Aluminum foil. Bake it in the preheated 400 deg F oven for 20 min. During baking, make sure you turn on the vent because it has strong pungent aroma. This is the reason why in Indonesia people normally cook it in a large quantity and store it in a tight container ready for use in the future. That way, their house smells bad once rather than often since terasi is used a lot in Indonesian cooking. The dressing can be made ahead of time. If you make it ahead, you should make it less thick since it normally becomes thicker the next day. One of the ingredients for the dressing is palm sugar. Do not substitute it with regular sugar or brown sugar since palm sugar has distinct flavor and the dressing will taste different if you use other types of sugar.

The recipe serve 4 people.

Ingredients:

• For fruit salad: 1/2 pineapple, peeled and diced into cubes
• For fruit salad: 1 cucumber, sliced
• For fruit salad: 1 mango, peeled and diced into bite size. In Indonesia, unripe mango is used for rujak since the sourness of the mango complements the taste of the dressing. I normally use less ripe mango but you can also use ripe mango. You may need to add brown sugar depending on how sour the mango is. If you decide to use ripe mango, do not use the one that is very ripe since it is softer and harder to handle when eating it.
• For fruit salad: 1 small jicama, peeled and diced into cubes
• For fruit salad: 1/2 cantaloupe, peeled and diced into cubes
• For dressing: 35 g tamarind pulp, soaked in 10 tablespoons boiling water for 10-15 min to soften the pulp
• For dressing: 150 g palm sugar. The brand of palm sugar I use is sold in a package of several round pieces of palm sugar. Each round piece contain 2 smaller disks attached together. So, I use 4 small disks to get about 150g.
• For dressing: 3 teaspoon sambal oelek or to taste
• For dressing: 1 teaspoon salt or to taste
• For dressing: Optional: 1/2 teaspoon toasted terasi (cooked shrimp paste) or to taste. Make sure you use toasted or roasted terasi or cooked shrimp paste since it consists of raw shrimp. If you bought the one that is not toasted/roasted, wrap terasi in aluminum foil and bake it in the oven at 400 deg F for about 20 min. While baking it, turn on the vent since it has very strong aroma. Because of the strong pungent aroma, people normally bake them in a large quantity and store them in a tight container ready for use in the future. That way, your house only smell bad once.
• For dressing: Optional: 1/2 teaspoon brown sugar or to taste

Methods:

1. While making the dressing, keep the fruits in the fridge to keep it chilled.
2. Using box grater, grate palm sugar so that they are shredded finely. If you don't grate it, the food processor will have a hard time breaking down the sugar and you will be left with smaller chunks of sugar in your dressing. If you don't have box grater, you can also use knife to slice the sugar thinly. I used knife before and it worked fine but it took more time.
3. Once tamarind is softer, scoop the tamarind pulp from the water. Check the pulp to make sure it has no seed. Discard any seed. Put the pulp in the food processor. Scoop 2 tablespoons of the water used to immerse the tamarind pulp into the food processor. Do not discard the remaining water. You may need more of this water to get the consistency you want. Add grated palm sugar into food processor along with sambal oelek, salt, and terasi (if used). Pulse the food processor until everything is mixed well. Check the consistency. If it is too thick, add 1 tablespoon of water from the tamarind or regular water and process it again in the food processor. You can add more tamarind water or regular water if needed. Keep in mind that the dressing has the tendency to be thicker if you keep it for the next day. So, if you are not serving it on the same day, you may want to make the dressing less thick. Taste the dressing. Add brown sugar, salt, or sambal oelek if needed. If you use terasi, add more if needed.
4. Assemble the fruits on a plate. You can either spoon rujak dressing on top of the fruits and toss to mix the fruits with the dressing or you can serve the dressing on a small ramekin so that you can dip the fruits in the dressing. If you decide to spoon the dressing on top of the fruits and mix it with the fruits, make sure you do it just before serving. This is because fruits release liquid and will dilute the dressing if you don't serve it right away.

Notes:

• Terasi (shrimp paste) consists of raw shrimp. Make sure you cook it first before adding it with the other dressing ingredients. To cook it, wrap some of terasi in Aluminum foil and bake it in the oven at 400 deg F for 20 min. During baking, make sure the fan is turned on.
• You can use your choice of fruits rather than the ones in the recipe. Any fruits will be good with the dressing, especially fruits that are crunchy and bland. My favorite fruits for the dressing are unripe mango and jicama. The dressing seems to work well with those two. If you use green mango, you may need to add more sugar to compensate the sourness of the mango.
• The dressing can be made ahead. However, don't mix the dressing with the fruits ahead of time since the fruits release liquid and will dilute the dressing. Mix the dressing with the fruits just before serving. Alternatively, you can serve the dressing on the side and dip the fruits in it.
• Do not substitute palm sugar with regular sugar or brown sugar since palm sugar has distinct rich flavor and substituting it with other types of sugar will make the dressing taste different and not as good.

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