Monday 31 December 2012

Tempoyak Daun Kayu

This dish is typically a Negri Sembilan dish. It can only be done in the tropics since most of the leaves/vegetables needed can only be found here. Sorry guys from elsewhere! I had to add this so that my children will know how to cook this when I'm gone. Anyway, I'm at present cooking it since I found the most important ingredients i.e. the shoots of the pumpkin ( daun pucuk labu) This is so difficult to get, only once in a blue moon you'll find it in the market or the farmers' market ( pasar tani). Another ingredient that's equally important is the fermented durian or tempoyak. Obviously without this there's no tempoyak daun kayu. My grandmother used to tell me to include at least 7 types of leaves/ condiments. I'm giving you the leaves that are pretty common here. So here goes.....


Ingredients

3 bunches of the shoots of tapioca ( the real deal, not the old leaves that's normally sold)
3 bunches of the shoots of the pumpkin ( just the soft shoots plus the stems)
6 stalks of lemongrass ( just take the white part)
1/2 a cup of smelly broadbeans or petai ( take it out of the pods and peel the skin)
10 leaves of the shoots of the kadok ( pucuk kadok)
4 turmeric leaves
2 yam shoots ( optional)

To be blended
20 bird eye chillies
a thumb-size fresh turmeric

4 cupful of coconut milk made from 2 coconuts

Method

1. Wash all leaves and chop up finely. Separate the lemongrass, petai and the turmeric leaves since these are need a longer time to soften up.
2. Heat the wok and cook the lemongrass, petai and turmeric leaves first with the tempoyak and the chillies. Also put in a cupful of the coconut milk.
3. After 10 mins, put in the rest of the ingredients and season with salt.
4. Cook until the dish thickens. It depends on how 'wet' you want the dish to be. I prefer it to be thick and all the liquid gone.
5. You can serve it with rice straightaway or you can freeze it in small containers after it cooled down. I also like to serve it with bubur lambuk.


So guys and gals, try this and let me know!