You either love it or find it yukky!! Why? This dish is traditionally made from fish stomach preserved in salt for many months! But it is a 'family project' kind of dish.
My earliest recollection of this dish is the coming together of all the women folk (aunts & their daughters) at my grandma's large kitchen. The ingredients comprise a long list of vegetables and a mix of fresh spices.
But this dish starts long before the cutting & the cooking. Each time we clean a medium to large fish, mom saves the stomach after splitting it open & cleaning out its contents. She puts it in a glass bottle & adds salt to preserve it.
Once we have enough saved, we need to look for another important ingredient, the 'daun kaduk' (a fragrant, minty leaf that is often mistaken for betel leaf/daun sireh). The problem is that it is not usually sold in wet markets or supermarkets. It's usually a weed like creeper found on the roadside or grown as decorative foliage due to its shiny, deep green, heart-shaped leaf. Many people I spoke to do not know that it can be eaten. However, the Thais use it as a base for the 'Otak-otak' (spicy steamed fish & egg concoction) or in 'Mieng Kum' (appetiser). My Indian friend's mother says it can be mixed with beaten egg & fried as an omelette. One recipe shows it shredded & mixed in Nasi Ulam (rice & raw leaves salad) by the Kelantanese.
On the morning of the big 'cook', aunt's & their daughters will start the cutting the various vegetables. Long beans, eggplant (terung) & pineapple are cut into 1" long pieces.
The daun kaduk leaves are stacked with the large leaves at the bottom. Then rolled up and finely sliced. Sweet basil, daun cekuk & daun limau purut (all fragrant leaves) and bunga kantan (ginger flower) are often slotted in between the daun kaduk, just before it is rolled up & sliced.
The finely sliced leaves are rinsed in tap water a few times to remove the strong, bitter , minty taste. This is a kind of rite of passage as the initiation of daughters are based on her skill in slicing the leaves as fine as possible.
Tumeric (kunyit), lengkuas (galangal), red chillies, onion & garlic are pounded together into a paste using a stone mortar.
A large pot is filled half-way with water is brought to boil. Stir in the pounded paste. Add a slice (1"x 1") of belachan (prawn paste) & a bowl of assam jawa (tamarind seeds mixed in a little water & squeezed to extract out its juice) is added. Also add some tumeric powder for an appetising colour. Once it re-boils, add the 1" vegetables, squid or prawns, fish eggs & preserved fish stomach (rinse it a few times to remove the salt, first). Simmer a bit & lastly, add the daun kaduk. Adjust the taste - it should be quite sour, a bit fishy, slightly sweet, salty.
For us kids (at that time-lah) who don't really like vegetables, we were constantly stirring the pot trying to get at the limited fish stomach pieces. How does it taste? Tangy, rubbery with a distinct smell & taste. A bit like pig's stripe (Oh! that used to be my all time favourite - gross, huh?).
Sounds like a lot of hard work? There's the short-cut version! And it's vegan (no fish stomach !).
Cut vegetables as above. Add 1" carrots & sliced fried taukua (beancurd). Boil the water & cook the pounded paste but leave out the belachan & seafood. For flavour, I found this vegetable cube stock made from mushroom & seaweed. (Only Rm3)
Final product looks like this ! Serve with rice.
