Stir Fried Vegetable Fern

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Stir Fried Vegetable Fern

One of my favorite vegetable is edible fern. Here we call it pucuk paku. I read that Philippines call it pako. This vegetable plant thrives in low and damp shaded area with high nutrient soil. It looks like fern, but with softer stem. The part that we use to cook is the shoots. And also some other soft stem with leaves. We must be careful to not to take the hard stem while preparing this vegetable or it might ruin the taste and texture of the dish. 
Raw vegetable fern

Raw vegetable fern.

Raw vegetable fern prepared for cooking.

The vegetable itself has a very unique taste, the type of taste when you eat some kind of mushroom. Hence, cooking it by itself alone already produce a distinct taste. Usually I cook it with dried shrimp to add more flavor. There are many ways to eat this fern, you can steam it, fry it or make a soup with it. Yesterday my father bought some pucuk paku and today I stir fried it for lunch. My family love it very much. I also served them sambal goreng or cooked chilli paste which may be a bit similar with nam prik pao. The fried fern goes very well with the sambal goreng and that is why my brother had three servings of rice today.

Ready in 20 minutes

Ingredients

  • 200 gm vegetable fern
  • 3 shallots
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 tablespoon dried shrimp soaked in water for 2 minutes. Can also use fresh shrimp.
  • 3 bird eye chili ( optional, can substitute with other chili )
  • 1/2 cup of water
  • 3 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • Salt and sugar to taste
Shallot, garlic, dried shrimp and chili paste crushed by using mortar and pestle.

Method

  • Prepare the fern, take only the soft part. To know the soft part, don't cut with knife or scissors. Instead, pinch the fern with hand starting from the shoot in 1 inch length until you find the stem harder and give a ' tik ' sound. It is where you should stop.
  • Pound the shallots, garlic, dried shrimp and chili in mortar and pestle. If you don't have mortar and pestle you can use food processor. If you also don't have it you can just slice them thinly.
  • Heat the pan and pour in the oil.
  • When the oil is heated and small bubbles appear, add in the shallot paste. If you use fresh shrimp, don't add it in yet.
  • When the paste released nice smell and turned a bit brown, add in water. Wait about 1 minutes or until the water about to boil and add in the fern.
  • Together, add in 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 tablespoon sugar. Stir for the ingredients to mix. Leave until the stems became tender.
  • If you use fresh shrimp, add it now and add more salt and sugar to taste. Then stir to mix and turn off the stove.

Good to be served with rice, or served alone. You can also substitute shrimp with small chopped beef. If you do that the beef must be added before the shallot paste is added.

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