I hope it looked nice enough at a glance, as it doesn't look like a typical curry...
Well, that's true...
Because I didn't use all of the ingredients and substituted a few of my own along the way...
I found whatever I have in my pantry to make this work, but I also realised that I had a few missing ingredients, such as:
lemon grass, turmeric ginger and curry leaves.
So I added something else that was almost expiring on my shelf - sweet potatoes; and this will actually substitute the sugar that cannot be used in curries (to lessen the spiciness)
Ingredients need to be blended together to make the curry paste smoother with aroma, and the combination of onion (shallots), garlic and a bit of ginger will do the trick!
Okra (which is nicknamed as "ladies fingers" in Malaysia) is not only nice to have because of its cancer fighting specialty, but having them cooked properly without too much slime can be tricky.
To hack the "get rid of excess slimy" challenge for okras is to chop off a tiny bit of the head and tail of the okra, then boil for 5 minutes in a bit of salt. That way the excess slime can be blanched out at the same time the green is maintained.
Getting the blended ingredients cooked with fragrance
This is where the first step of making curry. The blended onion, garlic and ginger (with its excess water to aid the blending) has to be stir fried till fragrant (but not overly burnt), before adding in curry base of blended chili that my mom pre-made and stored frozen.
In between (that I forgot to take pictures) I added in some "Kurma" curry powder, usual curry powder, some vege stock seasoning and brew them together with 1/3 cup of water.
Then adding in chopped chunks of pumpkin, sweet potato and normal potato together and add extra water if it is too dried up.
After everything is simmering at medium heat for 15 minutes, add in another type of plant based milk like almond milk to make things creamy if there's no coconut milk available.
Once the curry is slowly forming into a thicker sauce, add in cabbage and the semi-cooked okra and let it simmer at medium low heat for another 3 minutes.
Keeping it covered until it is time for dinner.
The verdict?
It wasn't as good as my mom's usual curry but my parents still had their share of dinner with bread.
I decided to give it a try to cook the curry because this could be the last normal meal my dad can have before his prostate surgery and after that he would need to go into a strict diet of "tasteless" recovery with food that he is not used to - without rich flavours; as we do not know whether he needs to go for further therapy that will deprive him from eating the normal rich Malaysian food.
My take?
By the time the curry is ready the pumpkin has already all melted into the curry and it forms a less spicy feel for children and less-tolerant spice individuals.
The sweet potato was a delightful addition because it becomes the "natural sweetness" of the salty and spicy curry; which is again, child-friendlier and less spicy tolerant individuals.
It still needs a lot of tweaking and the full list of ingredients; but for unsupervised curry (without instant curry paste), this is pretty much any good start I can muster haha.
I hope you have enjoyed my experiment findings as much as I have enjoyed preparing it.
I originally wanted to make this recipe on Monday during the public holiday in conjunction with 
Until then
Thank You for Your Time
Thank You for Your Time
