Atjar Tjampoer
Atjar Tjampoer is a Indonesian/Dutch side dish of pickled vegetables.
This is a sweet and sour pickled side dish you would serve with any Indonesian rice table, but I have it with my own nasi goreng (another Dutch/Indonesian dish).
Preparation
Shred all the vegetables (apart from the bean sprouts) or cut them in really small strips.
Boil the vegetables in a big pan for about one minute, put them in a colander and rinse/cool under running cold water. Add the bean sprouts and mix well.
Put the vegetable mix into sterilised jars.
Using a pestle and mortar; mix the ginger, chilli pepper, peppercorns, sugar, turmeric and salt into a thick paste.
Heat the oil in a frying pan and quickly fry the spice paste for around 2 minutes until you can smell the spices. Add the cider vinegar and heat gently.
When the spice/vinegar mix has reached boiling point, add to the jars and fill completely. Press down the vegetables until the vinegar is higher than the vegetables.
Screw the lid on immediately and leave to cool. After a while you will hear ‘plop’. That means the jars are now vacuum and can be stored for up to half a year (although I keep them for over a year sometimes). You can also check by pressing down the ‘dome’ in the lid. If you can’t press it, it’s vacuum.
How to sterilise jars
wash in hot soapy water and rinse thoroughly. Put them upside down in a hot oven (120C) and leave until they are dry. The temperature in the oven kills all the bacteria.