Cah Kangkung (stir fried spinach): Being Indonesian means - part 1

Cah Kangkung (Stir fried spinach)

I was just thinking about this today and decided to write it down... Of course it's nothing serious, just a small reflection :) 

Being Indonesian means…

You need a hint of chilli in every single dish you eat, no matter where you are. This may lead to (erm, interesting) habits such as:

• Having packets of chilli sauce (the stock standard sambal ABC) in your handbag ready to whip out and pour on any meals from street food to Michelin star food. 
• Knowing the word for chilli sauce options in many cuisines. I can count the words sambal, togarashi, aji, tabasco, chipotle, la jiao you, piri piri, and harissa in my vocabulary. I thank my mum for teaching me most of these (she is completely obsessed with chili).

The revered mie goreng

You think instant Indofood mie goreng is the bomb and you cannot live without it

• You hoard packets of instant mie goreng in your kitchen. If you live overseas, when your parents come to visit you, you demand that they bring a suitcase full of instant mie goreng.
• You think it’s a perfectly acceptable mid afternoon snack, despite the 400 calorie tag. But who cares! (PS: to make your own healthier homemade version, or when you ran out of the instant ones try this recipe)

You eat rice multiple times a day in any shape or form.

• Your day might start with bubur ayam (chicken congee) for breakfast, lemper (savoury rice cake) for a snack, nasi goreng (fried rice) for lunch and nasi uduk (coconut rice) for dinner. Sounds familiar?
• Whenever you travel overseas you need to know the closest Chinese or Japanese restaurant. Despite wanting to be adventurous in trying out the local cuisine, you know you will crave rice by the second day.

Here is a recipe for cah kangkung, a stir fried water convolvulus dish listed as one of the Top 40 Indonesian food. But since it’s a vegetable available only in the tropics, I decided to substitute it with regular spinach. Regular spinach has a lot less 'structure' to water convolvulus because it doesn't have the more solid stem. But seriously, let's not be picky here...

Cah Kangkung (Spinach stir fry)

Serves 4 as a side dish, as part of a rijsttafel/rice table (for example serve with these other Indo recipes)

Ingredients

500g spinach (1 bag)

1 clove of garlic, minced

1 piece of ginger (about ½ cm thick, 1½ cm diameter), sliced thinly

3 shallots, sliced thinly

3 red chilli, deseeded and sliced thinly

½ teaspoon terasi / shrimp paste

1 tablespoon fish sauce

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon kecap manis /sweet soy sauce (or about 1-2 teaspoon brown sugar)

½ cup water

1-2 tablespoon oil, I prefer sunflower oil

Method

Heat oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Fry garlic, ginger, shallots, chilli and shrimp paste until fragrant. Add fish sauce, soy sauce, kecap manis and water into the pan. Stir in the spinach, cover in the sauce mix and cook until wilted (about 2 minutes). Serve immediately on a bed of steaming white rice. 


This post continues here...