Daun Pegaga Masak Lemak (Centella In Turmeric Coconut Gravy)

Daun Pegaga aka Centella, Gotu Kola or the Asiatic Pennywort is mostly eaten raw in Ulam, a Malaysian rice salad or cooked 'masak lemak' style, that is, in coconut milk gravy.

Centella In Turmeric Coconut Gravy

It's also delicious in Urap, an Indonesian salad consisting of steamed vegetables mixed with seasoned grated coconut. I will try it this way one day. For now, I'm having my Daun Pegaga in a yummy coconut gravy with pounded fresh turmeric, strips of dried squid and anchovies. The aroma was tantalising and I felt an urge to eat it fresh out of the pan even before it touched the dinner table. Tsk, tsk!

Below is a picture of Daun Pegaga. It is a little tougher than most greens I know and is mildly bitter-tasting but not unpleasant. I munched away quite happy with the flavour.

Daun Pegaga / Centella Asiatica / Gotu Kola

Daun Pegaga Masak Lemak (Centella In Turmeric Coconut Gravy)
Ingredients:
- 40g daun pegaga (snip roots away, cut in half)
- 1 lemongrass (smashed)
- 1 red chilli (pounded)
- ½ thumb fresh turmeric (pounded)
- 15 dried anchovies (rinsed)
- 1 tbsp dried squid strips (optional) (soaked for 10 mins and rinsed)
- ½ cup coconut milk
- 1 cup water
- ⅛ tsp salt (to taste)
- Half ⅛ tsp sugar (to taste)

Method:
1) Heat milk and water in pan. Bring to a simmer, just below boiling point.
2) Then, add lemongrass, turmeric, chilli, dried anchovies and dried squid strips. Cook for a couple of minutes for the flavour to come together. Stir constantly and keep it from boiling.
3) Season with salt and sugar.
4) Finally, add in daun pegaga. Cook until done like you would any green leafy vegetable.

From top-left : Ingredients, Simmer All The Ingredients, Serve!

Best eaten with rice.

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Prawns With Creamy Salted Egg Yolks Sauce

I'm late! I'm late! I'm late to the salted egg yolks party, but it's a trend that I believe will never go out of style because it is numero uno on the yumness scale! Therefore, any time is a good time to jump on the bandwagon.

'Sap Ham Dan Har' (Wet Salted Egg Prawns) is a dish hubs and I regularly order at a Chinese restaurant nearby for visiting friends and relatives to try because it puts the oohs and aahs around the dinner table.  It has always been on my mind to cook this. However, nothing materialised until I decided to make my own salted duck eggs a month back. When the eggs were ready, I started searching for recipes to use it up.

Prawns With Creamy Salted Egg Yolks Sauce

A little googling brought me to Lia's Food Journey blog. It looked closest to the dish I wanted to recreate. I made a couple of changes to suit my palate, of course.

The result is this dreamy salty-sweetish prawn dish that had us licking the plate clean!

Prawns With Creamy Salted Egg Yolks Sauce
Ingredients:
- 330g prawns (deveined)
- 5 salted duck egg yolks (steamed and mashed with a fork)
- 4 cloves garlic (pounded)
- 1 red chilli (sliced)
- 6 dried or fresh kaffir lime leaves (optional)
- 45g butter
- ½ cup evaporated milk
- 2½ tsp sugar (to taste)

For frying:
- 4 tbsp corn flour
- 1 beaten egg
- 4 tbsp cooking oil

Method:
1) Dip prawns in beaten egg, then coat with corn flour. Pan-fry in cooking oil until just done. Remove prawns from pan.
2) Leave about 1 tbsp of the cooking oil in the same pan (spoon out excess). Add butter and garlic. Saute until the butter is melted.
3) Add kaffir lime leaves and the mashed egg yolks. Stir to combine.
4) Then, add evaporated milk and sugar (to taste). Stir until creamy. The sauce is done. Lower the heat or switch it off.
5) Add the prawns back into the pan along with slices of red chilli. Stir until the prawns are all coated with the sauce.

1) The ingredients. 2) Dip prawns in egg and coat with corn flour.
3) Pan-fry the prawns. 4) Heat butter, saute garlic in pan for the sauce.
5) Add mashed salted eggs and kaffir lime leaves. 6) Stir quickly.
7) Add evaporated milk. 8) Finally, mix the prawns together.

There you go. Best eaten with rice!

Prawns With Creamy Salted Egg Yolks Sauce

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