Well, it’s summer all year long in our equatorial climate so we can get these anytime…
These are cangkuk manis or in Chinese, we call them mani chai or lakia chai (Dayak vegetable) while in Sabah, they have the miniature version that they call sayur manis (sweet vegetable). The Foochow/Chinese way of cooking it is very simple – just fry with garlic and add salt and msg according to taste, and egg…and even when cooked like that, it can be very nice as the vegetable has its special taste and sweetness and needless to say, it’s the favourite of many here.
However, to cook it, you would have to pluck the leaves off the stalks…
…and then tear them into tiny bits like this…
…to make chewing and digesting easier. Having done that, I washed and rinsed them thoroughly and then , drained away all the water.
The other day, I wanted to cook it in a different, somewhat kampung or ethnic, style – with sambal hay bee/udang kering (dried prawns) and these were the ingredients that I used…
I had some shallots and garlic, a bit of kunyit (tumeric) and lengkuas (galangal), a stalk of serai (lemon grass) and a chili plus one cili padi to give it that extra little bit of kick…a bit of belacan (dried fermented prawn paste) and a handful of dried prawns, soaked in warm water to soften.
I bruised the end of the serai and pounded the belacan and dried prawns together…and the rest of the ingredients separately…
I also peeled some sweet potatoes and cut them into bite-size chunks to add to the dish…
– I boiled them first so that I would not need to cook them for a long time later – in case the vegetable gets overcooked and would turn horribly black. You can just bring the water to boil and drain it away – there is no need to cook until the potatoes are soft or soggy as later on, you would be frying them with everything else and that would serve to cook them a bit further.
Once everything was ready, I heated some oil in the wok (you would need a bit more as the ingredients, the pounded dried prawns especially, will soak up all of it) and fried the pounded shallots, garlic and stuff first together with the serai…
…and then, I added the pounded dried prawns and belacan…
…until they were all nicely-browned…
After that, I added the cangkuk manis…
…and after stirring it altogether for a while, I added the sweet potatoes…
Put in a bit of salt (and msg, optional) according to taste and mix thoroughly. Add a bit of water occasionally to facilitate the cooking process but do not add too much if like me, you would want it dry – just a bit that would evaporate completely in the heat. Of course, you may want to add more so that you would have a little bit of sauce or gravy but that way, the sambal would be wet and that was not what I had in mind.
After frying for a while, I dished it all out…
…and served.
If you do not have cangkuk manis, a good alternative with be daun bandong/ubi kayu (tapioca leaves), pounded not torn…and you may replace the sweet potatoes with pumpkin – that would be very nice too.
As for the meat dish that day, I tried the Singapore recipe/made in the E.U. luncheon meat that my friend, Philip, gave me…
…and I would say that it was really very nice as far as both the taste and texture went – it was a bit salty though but that was perfectly all right as we had it with rice and it would be great too with bread, I’m sure. The ones that I grew up eating were not salty at all (or perhaps they were but my taste buds were not so sensitive then) and I loved them to bits, so much so that I would sneak into the kitchen all day to eat, slice after slice…and my mum would be fuming mad come dinnertime as there would not be enough left to go round. Hehehehehe!!!!!
Well, one meat and one vegetable to go with rice – that was a pretty balanced meal, don’t you think?
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 