Sayur Lodeh, Spicy Vegetable Curry

This is my version of a beautiful Southeast Asian vegetable curry. I'm calling it Sayor Lodeh, after the Malaysian Curry from which I have been inspired, but it is not an authentic recipe. It is also not strictly vegetarian, but if you want it to be, then the non veg ingredients can easily be substituted.

The most important part of this dish is the cabbage. You will be surprised how wonderfully sweet it becomes in the spicy curry, and the texture is just lovely, soft and springy. 

My version is very spicy, but that's important. A vegetable curry can easily become bland and boring in my opinion. So the fruity spiciness makes it really interesting and will leave you craving for more.

Ingredients:

These go together into a blender:

1 mug of coconut cream

1 mug of chicken stock

1 tbs Thai yellow curry paste

1 tsp chilli sambal

A few shakes of Thai fish sauce

1 whole scotch bonnet pepper

1 tbs palm sugar 

1 tsp shrimp paste

About 7 macadamia nuts

Whizz this lot into a smooth soup. Sometimes the macadamia nuts don't blend completely, but that makes it a nice surprise when you come across one in the finished dish.

Pour this into a large pot and add your choice of vegetables.

I sometimes add some fried tofu and sometimes prawns or even some chicken, but the main ingredients are the vegetables and more importantly the cabbage.

I'm going to give a few examples of vegetables that I would include. The more variety the merrier!

White Cabbage

Butternut squash

Green beans

Carrots

Cauliflower

Mange tout

Sugar snap peas

Aubergine

Pea aubergine 

Courgette

Pumpkin

Baby sweetcorn

Mushrooms 

Butter beans

And the list could go on, but that's my favourites.

Cut the vegetables into suitable chunks. Add the ones that need longer cooking first, then follow with the delicate ones towards the end of cooking. Simply bring the curry to a simmer and cook with a lid on for about 20 minutes.

The result should be a fairly soupy curry with hearty and spicy depth of flavour. It eats well with just steamed rice, but I also like to ladle it over noodles for a lovely curry noodle soup.

Eat, be happy and Bon Apetit!