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:
- 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.
- Stirfry the lemongrass chili, chopped garlic and shallows till fragrance and DON'T BURN IT, or you will get bitter taste.
- Pour in the chopped eggplants and papaya leaves next, keep stirring so all the vegetables are coated with spices and slightly fried and wilted.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Another boil, take the wok off the heat and you can eat it with or without steamed rice.
Enjoy..... Bon Appetit....