Sayur Asem (Sour vegetable soup)

Last week we cooked 'sayur asem' as dish companion to 'ayam goreng kuning'. As usual we got the recipe from googling in internet. It was a bit difficult to find one of the ingredients needed, daun salam (some say bay leaves). In the end of searching, we found it at a small shop of Malay. Interestingly, the shop also sells other Indonesian products like 'mie sedap' (not Indomie guyz), kecap bango, tempe, sambal abc (yeah!).

Anyway, and the ingredients are....(opening the notes)

Serves 4-6

- 1 litre of water
- 1 cube of chicken stock
- 2 daun salam (bay leaves)
- 1 cm galangal, a bit crushed
- white chick peas, as much as you like
- long green bean, chopped about 3-4 cms long
- 0.5 chayote (labusiam) chopped in cube about 2cmx2cm
- 1 sweet corn, chopped about 2 cm each.

Seasoning (crushed together)
- 3 shallots
- 1 garlic clove
- 1 red Thai chilli (hot enough for me)
- 1 tsp shrimp paste/terasi/belacan
- 4 tsp salt
- 4 tsp sugar
- 4 tsp tamarind paste (add water a bit to mix)

Preparation:
1. Grind the seasoning together into a paste.
2. Using a sauce pan bring the water and chicken stock to boil
3. Add the paste into the pan and stir to dissolve.
4. Add daun salam, galangal, chick peas, corn into the pan and wait for another 10-15 minutes or until the peas tender enough
5. Add the chayote, long green bean into the pan and bring back to simmer for another 10 minutes
6. Taste it if you like a bit sweeter or saltier can add more sugar and salt