“Indonesian Peasant Glop”

(Transcribed from circa 1981 notes in the margin of the New York Times Cook Book next to the recipe for ‘Satay Kambing Madura,’ which inspired my vegetarian recipe, with some ingredients/ quantities from the cited recipe. Bracket indicate amendments to the notes.)

Double quantities. [Obviously only if you want too, but the sauce keeps well in the freezer.]

½ cup soy sauce sweetened with 1 teaspoon of dark molasses. [If you know where to buy it, you can use Indonesian soy sauce, which is already sweet; a store on lower University Avenue in Berkeley, California, USA, carried it last I looked there.]

• Use Chinese red peppers instead of cayenne, 1 teaspoon
• ¾ cup hot water [hot enough to make the peanut butter a little easier to stir]
• Use chunky natural peanut butter (5/6 cup before doubling) but no peanuts [emphasis in the original; I think just because the original non-veg recipe had peanuts]
• 1 clove of garlic, minced [California sized garlics, not the wee ones sold in eastern US states]
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice = juice of 1 lemon
• Use ½ can (before doubling) of tom paste, not tomato sauce

[Boil a 6 quart pot of water.Add 2 cups of dry brown rice and a cup of dry lentils—or change these amounts for smaller numbers of servings. Boil them together until the rice is not gritty. This will turn the lentils into mush. More than a half hour; I’ve forgotten how much more. Drain in a colander.]

[Put it all in a big enough pot (like 10 quart if you’re using the double quantities) and stir it, which takes some effort. Heat it to a spatter boil that reminds one of Yellowstone mud pots.]

[Put as much as you’re going to eat all in a big enough bowl and stir the sauce into the grain/beans. Kathy’s option: serve them separately so people can just put the sauce on top.]