Sayur Lodeh

When we first moved here I had a lot to learn about how to cook the local food.  I still do.  On Friday I made my first attempt to cook Sayur Lodeh without any help from a local friend. 

(OK, I did text her two times...)

First of all, I had to clean my vegetables in PK crystals.  This helps to make sure they won't make us sick.  I think PK stands for Potassium Chloride - whatever it is, it turns our water purple.  We let the veggies sit in the water for 5 minutes or so, and then let it drip dry.  These are called long beans - they're similar to "regular" green beans but are cheaper here, so I use them.

This lovely (sticky, see the threads on the right?) item below is a fruit called Jackfruit.  When it's ripe, it's used as a fruit, but before it's ripe, it's used as a vegetable.  Right now it's not yet ripe.  (When it's ripe I prefer that it be in someone else's house - it's stinky.)

 The jackfruit is so sticky that I oiled my hands with vegetable oil (and reapplied as needed) while I cut it up.  Crazy but true.  And worth doing, cause I LIKE the jackfruit in this soup.

 I only ordered half a jackfruit, and asked that it be peeled so there were less steps for me.  I still cut more off, so that the patterned layer was gone too, just a thin layer more.

 This is chopped jackfruit, ready for the pot.  Those eye-looking things are seeds.  They go in too.  I added it to the 5 chicken thighs already simmering in the pot. 

I then went on to pick all of the stems off of the melinjo leaves you see in the orange bowl below.  I have no idea what melinjo is in English.  

 Checking on the chicken and the jackfruit - cooking nicely as you can see!  Can you tell the difference between the chicken and the jackfruit?  Me neither...

Now that the stems are off, I massage the melinjo leaves with salt.  A bunch of salt.  Not sure why, one of my friends said that it makes them less bitter.  Not sure how that works, but I massaged them anyway.  Now that the leaves have had their massage, I turn my attention to chopping...

Long beans, potatoes...

Carrots, onions... and I added them all to the pot.

Then I started on the spices:

Clockwise starting with the heart: galangal, ginger, lemongrass and garlic (a whole head).  (Wish you could smell this!)

 I didn't chop the spices, I grated 3 of them with my micrograter 

and sliced the lemongrass, and then I placed them in my blender along with...

Coriander seeds! You can buy them by the bag at any corner market here - cheap.  Funny, I can't remember ever using coriander in any dishes at home...hmmm.

 I blended them up (this is the easy way to get them turned into a mush - without hauling out the mortar and pestle)... (follow the link for my last failed attempt at making a paste!)

 And as is the usual practice when you make a spice paste, I fried it until it was golden using a small amount of oil and a nonstick pan.  This is supposed to bring out the flavors.  I added the spice paste to the pot.

Back to chopping - I peeled and cut up half a pumpkin...

...opened a few boxes of coconut cream...

And dumped them in for a final 15 minutes of cooking time.  During that time, I fished out the chicken thighs, took the meat off the bone, chopped the meat and put it back in.

 Now, if I'd had fresh turmeric in the house, this soup would be a lovely golden color.  As it is, I debated whether I should add the turmeric powder I have in my spice cupboard just for looks, or run the three doors down to the corner store to GET the fresh turmeric so you could see what it really should look like, but I passed on it (more chopping and my hands were sore).

 Time to eat!  Yum!  It tasted right, so I must have done it right!