Sayur Lodeh (Coconut Milk Curry)

There's nothing more frustrating than trialing a wonderful commercial spice blend and then no longer having access to it. Ya just have to experiment and try to duplicate. That's what I did on a wonderful blend I discovered last year: Bamboe "Bumba Lodeh". Mine isn't EXACTLY as I recall their blend, as I have no idea on the amounts of the listed ingredients, but my guessing and personal knowledge of the spices helped me come up with a blend that was fairly close.

This popular Indonesian soup or curry recipe is much like gumbo, in that there are hundreds of recipes out there for it. But all of them have certain things in common, like chicken or shrimp and coconut milk. The spice blend doesn’t vary too much from recipe to recipe, but the amounts of those spices DOES vary quite a bit from cook to cook. An Indonesian close family friend gave me a packet of ready-mix Lodeh spice paste last year to try and we were quite taken with it in combination with shrimp. That time I used less water and broth than called for, thickened it a bit and served it over rice for my husband and over zucchini noodles for myself. Delightful flavors!

Well, I don’t have access to the exotic grocery stores she has up in Dallas, so I saved the outer envelope from the commercial (Bamboe brand) spice mixture with its ingredient list, so I could at least know the particular spices contained therein. Checked out a few recipes for Lodeh on the net and came up with my own amounts of each spice to attempt a batch of this soup. Today I used a large turkey breast leftover from my last roasted turkey. After defrosting, I stripped all the meat off the bones and ended up with right around 16 oz. of white meat. This recipe is not suitable until you reach the nuts and seeds rung of the Atkins OWL ladder. My nutritional stats reflect turkey and any changes in the meats will require recalculating. Note this is a VERY nutritious meal! My husband (and I) just LOVED this soup and will definitely be making it again and again!


INGREDIENTS:

1 T. sesame seeds (I used white and black)
1 T. minced dehydrated onion
16 oz. cooked turkey breast, diced large (or chicken, or shrimp, peeled)
4 c. water + 4 c. low sodium chicken broth
2 c. coconut milk
½ tsp. minced fresh ginger
1 clove garlic, minced
1 medium leek, washed of all dirt, sliced in ½” pieces (about 1½ c.)
½ tsp. Sambal Olek chili paste (or ¼ tsp. crushed red pepper)
¼ tsp. turmeric
½ tsp. coriander
1 bay leaf
¼ tsp. laos powder (galangal) or 1 stalk fresh lemon grass, chopped
½ tsp. cumin
¼ tsp. salt
1 red jalapeno or other red pepper (for garnish, if desired)

DIRECTIONS: Toast sesame seeds and dehydrated onion on a little pan in oven at 400º for 5-8 minutes. Turn off heat, remove and set aside a tiny bit for garnish on each bowl and put the rest into a large soup pot. Prepare meat/shrimp and add to the pot. Add water, broth and coconut milk. Add all seasonings listed (except the red jalapeno, which is just for decoration). Add 3/4 of the toasted sesame/onion blend now if you have not done so already. Bring soup to a boil and reduce to a slow simmer. Cook, occasionally stirring for about 20 minutes, to allow flavors to blend. While soup is simmering, take the red jalapeno and slit it several times from the tip, 3/4 way back toward the stem. Drop in a bowl of ice water with 1 ice cube in it for a few minutes so the “petals of the flower” will curl outward a bit. Remove bay leaf and dish into serving tureen. Garnish with jalapeno “flower”, the reserved sesame/onion mixture and if available, a bit of fresh cilantro leaves.

NUTRITIONAL INFO: Makes 10 servings each contains:

178 calories
11 g fat
4.5 g carbs, .9 g fiber, 3.6 g. NET CARBS
16 g protein
203 mg sodium
353 mg potassium
21% RDA Vitamin B6, 12% C, 22% copper, 36% iron, 14% magnesium, 28% manganese, 31% niacin, 27% selenium and 16% zinc
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