Balinese Mixed Vegetables With Coconut (Jukut Meurab)

For Balinese, jukut meurab always means mixed vegetable with fresh or toasted grated coconut. The vegetable varies from what is in season at the time. Sometimes, they will use only one kind of vegetable, such as chinese long bean, sometimes mix of a few different kind. The most unique and exotic sounding jukut urab is the one made from star fruit leaves (jukut don blimbing). Yes, Balinese love to eat not just the star fruit, but the leaves as well. The taste and texture of the leaves are quite similar to kale, or collard green. My personal favorite and the most memorable jukut urab  was the fresh sea weed or bulung in Balinese language. Bulung, or fresh seaweed has oceananic - fresh, crunchy and juicy texture, when you bite to it, all of the juice is bursting in your mouth. We used to go the beach, and bought this urab bulung fresh. I mean really, really, fresh, uncooked sea weed, mix with toasted grated coconut, chili and galangga. This was the best treat for me. Sadly,  this urab bulung seems to disappeared, no one selling or even make it anymore?. So, if you happen to know where to buy urab bulung in Bali,  please let me know. Because I have been bragging to my husband how delicious, and really want to introduce the taste to him next time we go to visit. 

So, back home in California, I made this jukut meurab pretty often. I used different kind of mix vegetables including carrots, which they almost never used it in Bali. The level of spiciness is really up to you. The more sambal you mix in the spicier it becomes. You can also use steam kale or steam collard green for this salad. Sometimes, I omit the coconut completely, since my son prefer without it.  

For the recipe, I will only give you the sambal Bali recipe. You can literally use anykind of vegetable you like. Just steam them, not too overly soft though, then mix in the sambal, about 1 tablespoon per 1 cup of steam vegetables, add fresh or toasted grated coconut if desire. Any leftover sambal can be refrigerated up to 5 days. It also can be serve as condiment to any of your Asian dish. I like to eat it just like that with steaming hot jasmine rice, and it just delicious.

Sambel Bawang

1 cup sliced shallots
2 tbs sliced garlic
3 tablespoon Thai chilies, you can add more or less, it all depends how spicy you want it
1 tsp dried toasted shrimp paste, finely crumbled 
salt to taste
3 tbs vegetable oil or coconut oil

Place a large frying pan over medium heat. Add oil and shallots, fry until the shallots is soften. Add garlic, chilies, and the shrimp paste, fry until all ingredients are soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Season with salt. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed. 

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