Rojak with Chickpea-Battered Spinach

Rojak with cucumbers, grilled tofu puffs, sweet pineapple pieces and crispy battered spinach leaves
tossed in a sweet prawn paste dressing with ground peanuts

I was thinking of what to do with the bottle of prawn paste ("hae kor") that was left over after using it for chee cheong fun last week, and rojak came to mind. Rojak is a Malaysian fruit salad that is a combination of local fruits, vegetables and a special prawn paste mixture that is black and sticky, but utterly delicious. It's a textural dish with lots of crunch, bite and juiciness. I love my rojak with chinese dough fritters ("youtiao") and water convolvulus ("kangkung"), but I didn't have any. So I made some deep-fried chickpea-battered spinach leaves and used that as a substitute. Yummo!

I came across CKC Sambal Rojak at the Asian grocery shop and decided to give it a try, and it actually tasted really good! I used up the whole bottle to make two servings of rojak (for dinner and lunch the next day). Here's what I did:

Rojak

Ingredients

(Roughly cut to bite-sized pieces):

1 cucumber

Some fresh pineapple (my fav!)

Jicama (I omitted this)

4-5 pieces of tofu puffs (I used the triangular shaped ones and popped them under a grill in the oven until crisp)

2 pieces  of chickpea-battered spinach

CKC Sambal Rojak

Some finely ground peanuts

Method

To make one serving, take 2 tbsp of CKC Sambal Rojak and mix with 1 tbsp of ground peanuts. You can add a few drops (like 1/2 tsp) of hot water if you wish so that it "mixes" better. Then toss in the cucumbers, pineapple, jicama and tofu puffs and mix it around until evenly coated. Toss in the spinach and lightly mix. Transfer to a clean serving plate and sprinkle all over with ground peanuts. And it's ready to eat!

Deep-fried spinach leaves in chickpea batter



Rojak