It is been long time, I am not cooked this Indonesian curry, I think the last time I had it was when I still in Jakarta. The traditional name of this curry is famously called “Lodeh” it is more light than Thai curry, even though the ingredient of the curry paste almost the same to red curry (so if you have difficulties to make the curry paste from scratch you can always used Thai red curry).

This curry is really versatile, you can add almost any vegetable in it, I think you can also enjoy it with noodle, even though traditionally in Indonesia we serve it with rice and fried shallot. If you are not vegan you can also add some lean beef, beef fat or chicken in it, the taste will be more elevating from the broth and even more intense if you enjoy it in the next day (my mom used to make an extra every time she cooked this dishes, so we can enjoy it in the next day, with the broth that already reduce, a lot of vegetable with intense flavour, my favourite is young jack fruit Lodeh, I know jack fruit is become a trend nowadays to veganism, and it taste superb for this recipe, give it a try if you got young jack fruit in hand, and make an extra to enjoyed in the next day, it is delish with warm rice hmmm). I make the vegan version for this dishes, my mom version is she always add this dried shrimp to the paste, so there is a bit ocean taste to the broth, you can always omit this dried shrimp if you don’t want to have it.

What I notice is, the Thai version of red curry is usually serve in thick spicy coconut milk. Well the Indonesian version is also serve spicy but the broth are more light and runny compare to the Thai version, also using coconut milk, yummy.

I have the corn fritter to complement this dishes, my kids really love this corn fritter *they love anything from corn, corny kids haha. They usually enjoy this corn fritter with warm rice, thats all, and they would be happy as fool. The odd thing is, back in Jakarta, I often cooked western dishes or anything but Indonesian dishes. And since arrive here, what happen is all opposite, so strange, and my kids also have super excitement every time they know that I cooked Indonesian dishes, and I cooked base on my audience, it is such satisfaction to me every time they asking for another plate of certain dishes, you know how it feel right?

 

Okay lets go to the Recipe

*I have this bamboo shoots sitting in my fridge for almost forever, so I used this bamboo shoots for this recipe. You can always change it with green bean, egg plant, Chinese cabbage or any hard vegetable you have in hand.

Also I give my twist to my recipe by adding smoke paprika, I run out red chilli so that idea just come up to me, and the final taste is awesome, it bring such a mild smokiness taste to the dishes. I just add a small amount of the smoke paprika because I don’t want it over power the mild taste of the Lodeh.

LODEH BAMBOO SHOOTS

serve 2

INGREDIENT

• 250 gram bamboo shoots (I slice it thinly, but you can slice it as your preference)
• 100ml thick coconut milk
• 750ml vegetable stock
• 1 tsp sea salt (you can adjust it as your preference, my vegetable stock was quite savoury, so I just add a little amount of salt)
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• 2 tbs olive oil to sautéed the curry paste

CURRY PASTE

• 1 medium size French shallot
• 2 clove of garlic
• 1 bird eye chilli (you can always replace it big red chilli which less spicy)
• 1/2 tsp smoke paprika
• 3 candlenut (you can replace it with 3-4 roasted cashew or 4-5 macadamia nut)
• 1 table spoon dried shrimp — Omit this if you are vegan
• 1 salam leaf (this is what make the curry have a different taste to Thai curry, there is no leaf as far I know that have similar taste to this ingredient, but you can replace it with bay leaf, or you can tried to find it in Asian grocery store, usually it dried just same as bay leaf)
• 1 thumb size galangal, crush it (if you used ready made red Thai curry paste, you can just omit this ingredient)
• 2 kefir lime leaf

HOW TO

1. Put the ingredient of curry paste in a blender (except the Galangal, Kefir lime leaf and salam leaf/Bay Leaf) blend them until it become smooth paste.
2. Under medium heat, put medium size pan which quite deep in dimension to accommodate the soup. Put in the olive oil, curry paste, galangal, kefir lime leaf and salam leaf, sautéed until it fragrance.
3. After the curry paste smelling so nice, put inside the vegetable stock and bamboo shoots, continue with sea salt and brown sugar, cooked them until shimmer then putting in the coconut milk.
4. Stirring the broth constantly to prevent the coconut milk being separate (actually there is nothing wrong when the fat from coconut milk becoming separate, but just not appealing on the appearance of the dishes, but from the taste nothing is impacted)
5. Cooked until the broth is boiled and take out from the heat
6. Serve them with sprinkle of fried onion or shallot

 

CORN FRITTER

INGREDIENT

• 3 knob fresh corn
• 1 medium size French shallot
• 2 garlic clove
•  1 red chilli seed out (you can omit this if you prefer)
• 2/3 cup all purpose flour
• 2 spring onion finely chop
• Handful of parsley finely chop
• 50ml water/1 egg (omit the egg if you want to make vegan version)
• Sun flower oil to fried the fritter

HOW TO

1. Shred the corn from their knob
2. Put 1/3 of shredded corn into food processor together with french shallot, garlic and chilli, blitz them finely
3. In the big bowl, Added the rest of the corn into the corn mixture, then add the water/egg, flour, chop parsley and chop spring onion. Mix them until well combine
4. In the medium heat, put the medium size pan and the sun flower oil. After the oil are hot enough, put 1 full table spoon of the mixture. Fried them until golden brown and take it out of the heat, the texture would be crispy outside and soft inside.
5. Enjoyy yum yum, you can just enjoy it as snack or with warm rice