Sayur Lodeh (Vegetable Curry)

Sayur Lodeh is Indonesian version of vegetables curry. It has thin soup but very flavorful. Vegetables used in this dish usually are chayotte, eggplants, unripe jackfruit, and green bean. You can even add tofu and tempeh too. Back at my mom's place, she serves this dish with fried chicken, steamed rice, and shrimp chips (kerupuk udang), yummmm.. 

Ingredients:

2 chayottes, peeled and cut into sticks,

1 can of unripe jackfruit (about 400gr), cut small

500 ml of coconut milk (a can)

500 ml of water

1 tsp of chicken broth powder

3 green chilies (shown on the pic, it isn't green thai chilies)

2 cm of lesser galangal (lengkuas)

1 lemon grass

3 Indonesian bay leaves (Daun Salam)

Ingredients to paste:

5 shallots

2 garlic

2 cm of kaempferia galangal (kencur)

1 tsp shrimp paste

1 cm fresh tumeric (kunyit)

2 cm of fresh ginger

1/2 tsp white pepper powder

2 thai chilies (adjust to your taste)  

1 tbsp of dried small shrimp (ebi)

11/2 tbsp salt (adjust to your taste)

1 tbsp palm sugar (gula jawa, or normal sugar will do too)
3 tbsp of oil

Cooking steps:

1. Process all the ingredients to paste in a food processor until it forms a smooth paste, 
2. Sautée the paste on a pan on medium heat for 5 minutes or until its aromatic, 
3. Add lesser galangal, lemon grass and Indonesian bayleaves, cook for another 5 minutes till the lesser galangal softens, 
4. Add coconut milk, water, and green chilies, continue cooking until it boils, add chicken broth powder, stir,
5. Add chayottes stick and unripe jackfruits, continue cooking until the vegetables are softens to your liking. Stir occasionally,
6. Et voila, serve with a bowl of steam rice. 

Happy cooking!

PS: after you cut the chayottes into sticks, sprinkle 2 tsp of salt and stir, make sure the salt coats it perfectly, then rinse it under a running water. This is to wash out the sticky sap out of it.