Nyonya Acar - Delicious local Malaysian vegetable pickles

 

Nyonya cuisine is a very important food culture in Malaysia, and comes from the Bana-Nyonya peranakan heritage, where first settlers from China intermarried with local Malays many hundreds of years ago.  Read more about Baba-nyonya culture here in Wikipedia. 

One of the most delicious local vegetable pickles is the Nyonya acar, and it's really easy to make. It's delicious with rice, eaten with meat, or just eaten alone as a healthy high fiber snack. 

Below: Watch a 1-minute short summary video

Ingredients
Vegetables
- 1 Cucumber (cut into sticks)
- ½ Carrot (cut into sticks)
- 1 cup Cabbage
- 3 Long Beans
- 1 cup Cauliflower
- 2 Chilies
For Sauce (Blended)
- 8 dried chilies, soaked
- Onion/Shallot
- 1 cm Galangal / Ginger
- 1 cm Turmeric
- ½  stick lemon grass
- 2 candlenuts
Others
- ½ cup chopped roasted peanuts
- Belacan / Shrimp paste (skip for vegetarian variety)
- Vinegar, Sugar, Salt to taste

Preparation
- Cut all vegetables in desired sizes
- Salt the cucumber to remove excess water for 30 minutes and then rinse and drain
- Blanch all remaining vegetables for 1-2 minutes, don’t overcook, remove to dry
- Blend all ingredients for sauce with some water into a paste
- Heat some vegetable oil and fry blended ingredients with Belacan until fragrant.
- Season with salt and sugar, and add enough vinegar to a level of just overly salty, sweet and sour.
- Turn off heat and add chopped peanuts into a nice thick sauce
- Add in all the vegetables and mix well
- Store in a clean container in fridge for at least 24 hours before consuming
- Enjoy with rice!

Below: Watch the full instructional cooking video

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