How To Make | Malaysian Rojak (Spicy Fruit Salad)

Now let me show you a fruit salad like you've never had before. It's a Malaysian Rojak, a spicy fruit salad that will blow your mind. Imagine crunchy fresh fruit and vegetables, roasted peanuts and fried dough sticks, all tossed with a sweet spicy tangy sauce. Now this is a street food tour through Asia where I'll be cooking up some of the best street eats from my new cookbook This is a Book About Street Food. Our next stop is Malaysia for Rojak. Rojak reminds me of the salty sweet spicy Mauritian fruit salad I grew up eating. There's lots of variations but this is the one I'm going to make today. I'm going to take it to the next level with the addition of crunchy fried dough sticks, fried tofu puffs, roasted peanuts and a really thick and rich tangy spicy sweet sauce. Okay let's get started and before I get working on the crunchy fruit veggies, all of those ingredients, I want to start on the sauce, the spicy element. And I have here with me some dried chilies, some dried whole chilies. Usually I know a lot of people have dried chili flakes in their kitchen, but I'm using the whole chili instead. And because they're dried, we need to rehydrate them so they soften, so we can add them to our sauce. So I have a pot of boiling water on the go here. I mean you could use a kettle, even easier. And I'm just going to pour this hot water onto my chilies. We're going to let that sit for about 20 to 30 minutes. Okay, so we're going to set that aside, let the chili soften, and whilst that's doing its thing, I'm going to prep the fruit and veggies. So today I have... Oh, that's prickly. Exactly. Okay, so today I have a nice fresh pineapple. I have guava, but if you can't get your hands on guava, I would opt for something crunchy. So like a green apple would do really well, or a red apple. Radish, which I really like. It's not too sweet, not too salty. It's just going to suck up all of that flavor from the sauce, but it's nice and crunchy, Which is what I'm looking for. And I also have in very common in Southeast Asian and Mauritian fruit salads is cucumber. So all crunchy ingredients. So we're going to cut these up into very similar shapes and sizes. There's no rules here. Let's start with the cucumber. And these are quite small so I'm just going to kind of slice them into little segments but if you have a bigger one you can half it. As I said no rules. These also don't have many seeds in them so if you're using a bigger cucumber you could take the seeds out. And this is kind of what I'm looking for so So something that's about bite-sized. And you can kind of see I'm like, I'm slicing very random angles, but I kind of like it to be, I kind of like random shapes basically. It's not uniform which is quite nice, so you're going to have different crunches and textures in there. Okay, so I have chopped that, I have a big mixing bowl here because everything's going to go straight into this. Let's add that in. Okay, cucumbers in. Guava or apple. Crunchy, sweet. Let's slice it again into a similar shape and size. Doesn't have to be perfect but as long as when you're going to eat the salad later on you kind of want those similar shapes and sizes when you're going to crunch on it. I'm going to remove the core because I want to remove these seeds because texture is also quite important so I kind of just want it to be quite a uniform crunch not having to bite onto little gritty kind of seeds that's Okay, so Mauritian fruit salad is very simple. There's only a few ingredients in there, but basically leans onto seasonal crunchy fruit. So often we'll have pineapple, cucumbers, apple. And to season, it's just a little bit of salt, sometimes a bit of vinegar, and chili as well. And then that marinades, takes on all those flavors, and it's just something I grew up eating, it's really tasty. And what I love about Rojak is that you can kind of use any fruit or vegetables on hand, as long as there's an element of sweetness, crunch, you can add it in. Okay, as you can see, again, bite-sized, so that goes straight in with the cucumber. All right, next is our radish, and I have daikon radish, or you could use little red baby radishes. I'm just going to peel that. Where is my peeler? I don't know where I put it. Oh, down here. I know. Here we go. I'm just going to peel that. This is probably a bit of a strange one, I think, for what you would think a fruit salad needs. I know radish is not something you'd think you'd put in there. But for me, it kind of balances out all the very rich flavors that we're adding in. So the saltiness, the tanginess, the sweetness. Radish for me is crunchy, slightly sweet, but a little bit bitter. So it kind of adds a nice contrast to all of that as well. Okay. Again, slicing into very similar shapes and sizes. So I might slice it lengthways. Yeah, and one of the best things about Rojak is that it doesn't require much cooking. It's just chopping up some fruit and veggies, a very simple sauce, which we'll get to very shortly, and then just tossing it all together. My favorite fruit and vegetable is, if I can, I love guava. It's like one of my favorite fruits to eat. Okay. Cucumber, I kind of really like cucumber in salads just because one, it's crunchy, but it just takes on so much flavor as well. Okay, I'm gonna add that to the bowl. And finally, we have, A pineapple. So top and tail at first. Next step is to slice the rough outside, trying not to waste too much. And for those of you that are scared of working with a full pineapple, let me show you how to slice it up quite easily. So once you get to this point, as you can see, there's still the eyes that we need to remove. These little guys right here, which run in diagonal lines. And to remove those, basically gonna carve them out, just slicing in on an angle with my knife, very carefully. And then going in on the other angle and as you can see just pull the eyes out like that. Okay there you go. Once I've taken out the eyes I'm going to slice it down the middle. And the next step you can leave this in but I also like to remove the core that's quite stringy. So again just slicing in on an angle just to remove that inside part. Take that out. Let's slice up this pineapple. I think I'll slice into quarters just like that and then into chunks. And I think if you generally don't like pineapple in savoury cooking, I would say to definitely give this a try. Get some fresh pineapple, because it adds a bit of juice and moisture to this salad as well. I think a lot of people tend to use tinned pineapple, which is not the best texture to use. Also, it's very syrupy and soft. Okay, we're going to add that pineapple to the salad. So next I'm adding in the fried dough sticks or youtiao. You can find these at most Asian supermarkets, Asian takeouts, breakfast places, but if you can't find this you can chop up some sourdough, some other bread that's nice and crunchy. So I'm just going to slice those into quite chunky pieces. And I've actually bought this from the chilled section, so I need to reheat this. I'm going to use my airfryer to do that because you can roast, you can fry them again, but I find the airfryer gets it nice and crunchy and exactly what I want for this salad. Yeah, it's just like making croutons except they're nice and airy and fluffy as you can see in there. So they capture all that sauce which is what we're looking for. Okay, we're going to add those to our air fryer and it doesn't take long at all. I'm just going to put them in for about five minutes because they're already quite crunchy. Just put that in. Kind of like just put them in and let them go until they're nice and crunchy. So whilst those are in there, I'm just going to slice up my fried tofu. I know this is a bit of a strange one. So it says fried, but you buy it in the packet and it's quite soft. So we need to fry these as well or air fry them. And why I love adding fried tofu to Rojak is that it's nice and spongy. So it's going to be crispy on the outside, but it's going to suck up that spicy tangy sauce, which is what we want as well for this salad. The other element of crunch is roasted peanuts. So I have some peanuts here that are pre-roasted. We're just gonna roughly chop them up. And if you're allergic to peanuts, this is absolutely fine to leave out. Maybe add in some extra dough sticks or croutons. I hate when they fly everywhere. Okay, I'm happy with that. So we're just gonna set that aside. So I'm just gonna check on the dough sticks. Oh yeah, they look perfect. Nice and crunchy. Oh, these look great. Oh, whoops, chopped on. Okay. Dough sticks ready, next we're going to add in the light fried tofu and I'm going to say about 10 to 15 minutes but again no rules put them in until they're nice and crisp on the outside. Well I think it's time to make our dressing or our sauce for the salad. All right so the chilies have softened you could leave them a bit longer if you want but I quite like the texture of them so I'm just going to take them out of the water and slice them up. In some variations the chilies are pulverized or add to a food processor but I can't be bothered taking my food processor out so I'm just going to chop them up. They're still a little bit crunchy, but that's okay. We're gonna actually cook them down in the sauce. So they'll soften a little bit further over time. Okay, we're gonna add them to our saucepan along with some other ingredients. So our dried chilies go in. So I'm also adding in some sweet chili for that sweetness. It's got a bit of like a garlic aromatic flavor to it as well. And a little bit of extra spice. We have some sweet soy sauce, so this has the nice kind of rich earthy undertone, the nice molasses flavor, so we're not just adding sugar straight in, we're giving it a bit of a richness to the sauce. Tomato sauce or ketchup goes in next for that acidity and natural sweetness. Brown sugar and just like I said we're going to add in a bit more of a molasses like rich flavor, so I'm using brown sugar here instead of white sugar. So that goes straight in and then a little A little bit of salt for seasoning. So that's gonna go on the heat. And we're gonna cook that for about five minutes until it's nice and sticky and thickened. And I'm cooking this because I want the flavors to kind of richen and become a bit stronger. I could if I want to just mix that and toss that through the salad, but I really wanna kind of thicken the sauce there and bring out a lot of those flavors. Do you know what I'm gonna use? Everyone always tells me often I put metal in metal. All you trolls out there. So my version in my cookbook is vegetarian, but you could add in other ingredients in here to bring in some extra flavor or fishiness, which is quite common in Malaysia, so things like belacan or dried shrimp. I just got a whiff of that. A whiff. Okay, so you can see the sauce has thickened, it's all come together quite nicely, I've I've tasted it and it's perfect, sweet, spicy, tangy. I'm gonna take that off the heat, all right. So let's check on the fried tofu, let's see how that's going. Oh yeah, see that there, nice and crispy. All right, so now it's time to bring this dish together. I have all of my fresh fruit and vegetables that are chopped up in my bowl. I have all of the additional elements of the fried dough sticks, the fried tofu, which I've air fried, the crunchy roasted peanuts, which we've just chopped very roughly. I have my sauce ready to go. And I also have with me here some bean sprouts. So you could blanch these if you want to keep them crispy, but I don't have time for that. I'm just going to add them straight in. I want this to be super crunchy. So let's go in with the bean sprouts. We're going to add in our fried tofu. The fried dough sticks go in next. I'm going to put in half the roasted peanuts because I want to keep some for garnish later on. Same with the toasted sesame seeds. We'll go half in. And the best part, the sauce has cooled down. So I'm just going to pour that. Looks good. Okay I'm very generous I'm going to pour all of it in. I think this salad deserves all the dressing. We'll see you all soon. All right let's toss that. So I'm just making sure whilst I'm tossing that all of the fried dough sticks, the fruit, the vegetables, the peanuts, it's all really well coated. But being very gentle at the same time ensuring not to crush too many of the ingredients in there and making sure everything is nice and crunchy. I think that is looking really good, it's very glossy, you can see the sauce there because we've cooked it down is really sticky so it's sticking to all of the ingredients which is what we want and everything is nicely coated, I just want to eat it Okay, so let's plate up and it doesn't really require much. The great thing about Rojak is that you could put this whole bowl on the table in front of your whole family, just go straight into it. But my version is elevated so we're going to plate it up onto this really nice plate and then add a bit more of that crunchy stuff on top for garnish. A bit of height is always quite nice, just stacking it up just to show how amazing it looks and how big and bold this dish is. All right, and then to finish. We're just going to top it with some more of those crunchy stuff, so I've got some leftover fried dough sticks here. I'm just going to crunch them on top. Some peanuts, and lastly some sesame seeds. There you go, all done. My Malaysian spicy fruit salad, otherwise known as Rojak. Alright, shall we give this a try? Let's do it. Oh, I love that crunch, it's so good. Those dough sticks. I mean, I could eat these just by themselves, but it wouldn't be a fruit salad. Let's try the grubber. That is really good. I think I've got sauce on my face, wait. So what I love about Malaysian Rojak is that it's more than just a fruit salad. It's a blend of crunchy, seasonal fruit, fresh veggies. We've got peanuts in there. And that sauce that's punchy, sweet, sour, salty, and spicy just makes it so delicious. And there you go, it's super easy. You can find this recipe in my new street food cookbook that's out now. Check out the link in the description to grab your own copy. And subscribe to my channel to find out What iconic street food I'll be cooking up next. That's it. That's it. That's it.