Pecel Semanggi, a Typical Salad with Peanut Sauce of Surabaya

TIMESINDONESIA, SURABAYA – Semanggi is some kind of plant with latin name Marselia crenata. This plant looks like 4 leaves clover. This plant could easily be found in Southeast Asia. It floats in deep water or erect in shallow water or on land. Uniquely, in Surabaya, East Java this plant used as one particular material in salad which commonly known as Pecel Semanggi or Semanggi salad with peanut sauce.

You could find lots of food shop of those street vendors selling this food in Benowo, one of sub district in Surabaya. Pecel Semanggi beside the semanggi itself is made of several boiled veggies such as bean sprout, cassava leaves, agati flower, long beans, poured with local delicious peanut sauce on top of it.  

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Semanggi it self taste a little bitter, yet with the sauce and all the veggies in it, Pecel Semanggi blends perfectly in your mouth. Semanggi known to have certain benefits when its consumed. The young leaves believe to be able to prevent osteoporosis attack your body.

When any other pecel will be served with rice or lontong (rice cake) as the staple food, Pecel semanggi will be served alone without it. The sauce also a little bit different to the regular peanut. If the regular peanut sauce will taste just savoury and sweet sauce since the local community of Benowo, Surabaya will add some sweet potato and shrimp paste into the sauce.

They also still served it in a very traditional way. instead of using modern plate, they will put Pecel Semanggi on a shaped banana leaves as the plate. They will also add some crackers on top of it which make the pecel richer in taste. Moreover, they didn’t provide the cutomers with spoon, because the local community of Benowo, Surabaya, East Java will use the crackers as the spoon. So exotic isn’t it?(*)

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