Sayur Lemak - Vegetables in coconut cream

Simple Malaysian vegetable stew in a creamy coconut sauce.
Source: Inspired by LinsFood

Difficulty: 1 (out of 5)
Taste: 5 (out of 5)

Ingredients:
For the paste:
- 1 onion
- 30 g ginger
- 20 g lemon grass
- 10 g galangal
- 3 Tbsp shrimp paste
- 1 tsp sambal oelek
- 1 tsp ground turmeric
The rest of the ingredients:
- 2 Tbsp coconut or vegetable oil
- 250 g cabbage
- 250 g Normandy mix
- 250 g okra
- 100 g carrots
- 150 g French beans
- 150 g eggplants
- 400 ml coconut drink or water
- 200 ml coconut cream
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp fish sauce
- 8 kafir lime leaves
Total: 6 servings, about 1600 g, 1090 cal, 182 cal / serving

Directions:
1. Blend all paste ingredients until uniform (Vitamix comes very handy here.)
2. Chop the vegetables, the finer the faster they will cook, but in this recipe the size does not really matter.
3. Preheat the oil in a large, preferably non-stick, pot on a medium high heat and saute the paste until fragrant, for 2-3 minutes.
4. Add the chopped vegetables, stir well, add the rest of the ingredients, stir again and bring to boil on high heat steering from time to time.Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium low and let simmer for another 15 minutes, stirring from time to time.
5. Serve with rice.

Afterthoughts:
- I tried several sayur kemak recipes and was not quite satisfied with any of them, but this one is clearly the winner. I think it's even tastier than my beloved sayur lemak from Banana Leaf, a great Malaysian restaurant in Vancouver.
- I usually eat very mild food, so if you want something spicy, you might want to add more sambal oelek. For me this turned out just right.
- You can use a variety of vegetables, and can also add tofu and shrimps to this recipe. It will be all good as long as you stick to the main paste ingredients, and add enough coconut cream ;-).
- It's almost vegetarian, except for the shrimp paste. I don't really know what would be the substitute.