My mum used to cook sayur rebus for as far as I can remember and yes, I enjoyed eating it. This kampung-style cooking was probably handed down to her by my Melanau maternal grandma and I do recall how she would cook some of those traditional ethnic dishes in smaller servings as my dad, who was more into Chinese cuisine, was not into those and would not touch them.
It is actually very easy to cook – you only need to rebus (boil) the soup base and what you throw in is entirely up to you. This was one of the first things I blogged about in March, 2008 – there were no photographs in that post as I did not know how to add them at the time. I had a photograph in my post in June that year but I was using my cheap handphone camera at the time so the images were small and blurry and it wasn’t much better in August, 2009, a year later when I cooked buah tupang/puloh this way and in November, 2011, when I cooked rebus durian mantak (unripened durian). There was this paku (wild jungle fern) and baby corn combination with ikan buris/sai seng (a river fish) thrown in as well and of course, that added to the sweetness of the soup and brought the taste to a whole new level.
We had some sweet potatoes in the house that day and I decided to cook the soup with those but the few stalks of cangkok manis I had in my garden were barely surviving – no, they would not die and no, they would not grow either. There would just be a sprinkling of leaves and I manage to salvage this much…
…and because some were quite old and kind of hard, I had to tear the leaves a lot more than usual…
…so they would not be a chore to chew.
These were the ingredients that I prepared…
Other than the sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks/cubes, you will need a handful of ikan bilis (dried anchovies) chilies and belacan (dried prawn paste) – you can add a bit more of the latter. I was skimping on it because our stock was running critically low and I was not keen on going out to buy. The udang galah (freshwater prawn) was an added bonus.
I boiled the basic ingredients in water and simmered for some time to bring out the taste before throwing in the prawn. Once it was cooked, the sweet potatoes went in. These had to be boiled till cooked/soft before the cangkuk manis was added and that would not take too long to cook. When it was done, I served everything in a bowl…
…and yes, it was very nice and we sure enjoyed it to the max.
Not only is it easy to cook, no oil is needed, no frying and no salt – there would be enough in the ikan bilis and belacan but you can add more if you are thus inclined. That sure is healthy, don’t you think?
...STILL CRAZY AFTER ALL THESE YEARS! 