It is widely served from hawkers carts, stalls (warung) as well as in restaurants both in Indonesia and worldwide.

Gado-gado is part of a wide range of Indonesian sauce & salad combinations; with lotek, pecel and karedok. In many places, to retain authenticity in both the production and flavor, the peanut sauce is made in individual batches, in front of the customers (see picture on right-hand side). However, since the dish has gained popularity (because of the increase of Asian-themed restaurants) Gado-gado sauce is now mostly made ahead of time and cooked in bulk, although this is probably more common in Western restaurants rather than in Indonesia. Compared to both standard Western salads and Indonesian versions of this dish, Gado-gado has much more sauce in it. Instead of being used as a light dressing, the vegetables should be well coated in the sauce.

Many stores now offer Gado-Gado dressing in dried blocks to which you simply add hot water, making it easier and cheaper to cook at home.

Ingredients

Vegetable salad

The exact composition of the vegetable salad varies, but usually compromises some form of mixture of

• blanched – shredded, chopped, or sliced green vegetables (such as cabbage, kang-kung), bean sprouts, young boiled jack fruit, string bean, bitter melon, and corn (outside of Indonesia, people improvize with whatever vegetables that are available). uncooked – sliced cucumber and lettuce.
• fried tofu and tempeh.
• sliced boiled potatoes.
• peeled and sliced boiled eggs.

The authentic gado-gado does not have carrot and tomatoes. Only the aforementioned vegetables are added to the dish.

Peanut sauce dressing

What distinguishes gado-gado from a plain vegetable salad is the peanut sauce dressing, which is poured on top of the vegetable salad before serving. The composition of this peanut sauce varies as well. One may use a commercial Indonesian peanut sauce or satay sauce, or make the sauce oneself. For making the sauce, the common primary ingredients are as follows:

• ground fried peanuts (can be substituted with kidney beans for a richer taste)
• coconut sugar/palm sugar (can substitute with brown sugar)
• chillies (according to taste)
• limo lime juice
• terasi (dried shrimp paste)
• tamarind water
• water to dilute

Note the above is for Jakarta style gado-gado. Gado-gado is always served with some kind of crackers, generally they are inexpensive tapioca crakcers, or also with Emping (Indonesian style fried crackers, the latter is made from melinjo)

In Indonesia, Gado-gado is usually served with rice, lontong (rice cake wrapped in banana leaf).

Source : Wikipedia.org

There is three types of gudeg; Dry, Wet and East-Javanese style. Dry gudeg is a gudeg which only have a bit of coconut milk and served dry. Wet gudeg is a gudeg which have a wetter look than the dry gudeg. It used a lot more coconut milk. Meanwhile, the East-Javanese style gudeg employ more spicier and hotter taste, compared to the Yogyakarta-style gudeg, which is sweeter.

Source : Wikipedia.org