Rujak

Rujak is a traditional fruit and vegetable salad dish commonly found in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. In Indonesia, among the javanese, rujak is an essential part of the traditional prenatal ceremony called tujuh bulanan (seventh month). Special fruit rujak is made for this occasion and later served to the mother-to-be and her guests. It is widely known that the sweet, spicy and sour tastes of rujak are adored by pregnant women. The recipe of rujak for this ceremony is similar to typical Indonesian fruit rujak, with the exceptions that the fruits are roughly shredded instead of thinly sliced and that pink grapefuit is an essential ingredient. It is believed that if the rujak overall tastes sweet, the unborn would be a girl and if it is spicy, the unborn baby is a boy.

The typical Indonesian fruit rujak consists of slices of assorted tropical fruit such as water apple, pineapple, raw mangos, jicama, cucumber, kedondong and raw red sweet potato. The sweet and spicy-hot  of the dressing is made of water, palm sugar, tamarind, salt bird's eye chilli and red chilli pepper. All of the fruits are sliced to bite-size and put in the dish. The dressing is poured on the fruit slices. An addition of simple mixture of salt and ground red chilli is put on side as the alternative for those who love a salty taste of their rujak.