A healthy salad, ketoprak is similar to its better-known cousin, gado gado. It originated in Jakarta and Ketoprak Ciragil, on Jalan Cikatomas 1 in Kebayoran Baru, is the place I like to eat it. It’s a busy and famous outlet, which has been going since 1961, with pastel blue walls and lovely old wooden bench tops – it’s got oodles of character and locals line up outside in droves for this dish. Ketoprak is made from slices of lontong (compressed rice cake), fried tofu, vermicelli noodles, boiled egg and lots of bean sprouts. The tofu is always cooked to order, so it’s hot and fresh, and I am lucky enough to get into the kitchen and watch how they make the peanut sauce on a huge stone cobek, the traditional mortar, using a pestle. The sauce is similar to the dressing for gado gado but is thicker, sweet with palm sugar and spiked with plenty of garlic. The finished dish is a lively plateful, bursting with colour, flavour and texture.