Masak lemak cili api pucuk paku......

When i parked my car at the parking lot of Ampangan market this morning, i sat in the car trying to figure out what to cook for today. I was in the car for almost 10 minutes before i decided what to buy and of course i off the engine, with the price of petrol that we have to pay now a little bit of saving goes a long way right??. I had not decided but as i entered the market i saw the most beautiful pucuk paku (jungle ferns/ferns shoot) at the first stall. See the first picture, how beautiful the pucuk paku is, but its not cheap either. One small bundle was RM1.00 and gotta buy 3 to get a decent amount to make the gulai. The lemon grass was RM0.50, the chili api was RM2.00 and the ikan bilis was RM2.70 per 100gm.
I pounded some cili padi, fresh tumeric, a bit of the ikan bilis at the end as i didn't want the ikan bilis be too fine. I roughly bashed 2 lemon grass. Put the cleaned pucuk paku in the pot, threw in the pounded ingredients, lemon grass, 100ml thick coconut milk with 1 cup of water and i used coarse salt as in the picture below. Let the gravy boil and stir often so that the gravy wont curdle.

Before
after - The cooked gulai ready to be consumed.

P/s, English words for pucuk paku when i googled - jungle ferns/ ferns shoot