Wild Fern Shoots In Spicy Coconut Gravy

Wild fern shoots is one of the Malaysian favourite green other than sweet potato leaves, cassava leaves & green bean leaves. It's cheap or even free if you know where to get them. Most importantly they're chemical free. I normally buy this from the farmers' market. The only thing I don't like about it, is the cleaning job. See below....

HOW TO CLEAN & PICK FERN SHOOTS :

(1) try to start from the bottom, from breaking it step by step.

(2) only take the breakable top part, discard the rest.

(3) then halves or even quarter them till you get really thin stem.

(4) finally, wash and rinse with clean water.

*

And the following is my favourite fern shoot dish, 'pucuk paku masak lemak' !

'Pucuk Paku' ~ wild fern shoots

'masak lemak' ~ cooked in creamy coconut gravy

Ingredients :

600gm cleaned wild fern shoots

1-1/2 cups water

1/2 cup coconut milk

salt to taste

Pounded paste :

3 shallots

3 cloves garlic

a few slices fresh ginger

4 bird eyes chillies

1/2 tspn turmeric powder (or fresh turmeric)

handful of dried shrimps, soaked (optional)

Method :

(1) preheat frying pan with enough cooking oil.

(2) add in pounded ingredients and saute untill fragrant.

(3) add in water and salt, bring to boil.

(4) place in the clean fern shoots and cook for about 2 mins.

(5) finally, add in coconut milk and cook for another 2 mins.

(6) off the heat, once the fern shoots became tender.

Are you salivating? :o) Well.... I am !

Guess, hubby will be very happy if I made this every week ! He enjoyed this kind of village cuisine very much. Hubby also like having 'Nangka masak lemak dengan ikan masin', meaning young jackfruit cooked in spicy coconut gravy with salted fish. Sorry honey, I think you better eat that at the food stall! hehe....

I'm sending this to 3 Hungry Tummies @ Muhibbah Malaysian Monday.