Today, during the afternoon, we have a very hard pouring rain with stormy wind. Some places got hails (yeah, it is ice falling with the rainstorm), strong winds knocked down a big old tree and ruined the concrete and steel fences of the house near where I live. Scary....
Sorry, I digress a bit.

Anyway, I feel the cold weather and weeks old flu bug, coughing and runny nose, makes me cravy something hot and spicy.... pronto...
So, off I go to the supermarket. Picked up some fish trimmings (coz it's affordable and no fish scaling and cleaning involved, not even cutting) and purple long eggplants. Then I trimmed most the Japanese papaya leaves in my pot garden. PS. Sorry no pics of materials since I was in a hurry to cook them up.

Tonight, I ate what is in this bowl.

And I got so much leftovers...

So left container will lunch for share tomorrow and right container gets in the fridge for next rainy day.

Writing ingredients down here, but honestly I was just winging the recipe with anything I have in the pantry.

Main Ingredients

• 250gr fish trimmings, washed and checked the leftover fish bones.
• 3 medium purple long eggplants, chopped into big chunks, so it won't turn into mush if overcooked
• 2 handfuls of Japanese papaya leaves (or you prefer cassava leaves), parboiled and big chops

Spices and seasonings

• 2 tbsp Cooking oil
• 1/2 small bottle of lemongrass chili paste
• 3 big cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
• 3 big cloves of shallots, roughly sliced
• curry powder
• ginger powder
• turmeric powder
• cayenne pepper powder ( careful with this one if you are not accustomed to hot and spicy food)
  pepper and salt
• fish sauce (optional, for umami)
• half small tub of yogurt (or you can use about 250ml of coconut milk if you prefer).

How to:

1. Heat the wok (love wok, hold a lot in one go. Use medium size wok, more room to work) with high heat till smoking hot. Turn the fire down small, pour in the cooking oil.
2. Stirfry the lemongrass chili, chopped garlic and shallows till fragrance and DON'T BURN IT, or you will get bitter taste.
3. Pour in the chopped eggplants and papaya leaves next, keep stirring so all the vegetables are coated with spices and slightly fried and wilted.
4. Next, pour in the yogurt (or coconut milk) and stir all together. If you like gravy, pour in 150ml water, but since I am aiming for soup-like dish, I pour water to cover everything.
5. Seasoning time, all the powders spice (curry, ginger, tumeric and cayenne pepper) and give it a stir. Fish Sauce, salt and pepper to taste. If you overdo them about, don't worry.
6. After a boil, scatter in all the fish trimmings, so they won't stick together. Occasional stir to make sure all the fish cooked properly. Adjust seasonings if you want.
7. Another boil, take the wok off the heat and you can eat it with or without steamed rice.

Enjoy..... Bon Appetit....