Farm Recipes: Tasty Green Sweet Potato Leaves Vegetable Dish

Nowadays we are more familar with the commercially available vegetables such as kailan, sawi, pak choy, etc. - with many of them being imported from China due to their cheaper cost.  Many of us do not know that sweet potato shoots or pucuk ubi keledek makes a great tasting vegetable dish and is very nutritious.  At my Sunday market stall, I am often asked how these leaves can be prepared.  There are many ways of cooking these leaves and they are quick to prepare.  In this blog, I am presenting two ways to prepare the dishes.

As with any leafy vegetable, get those that have not been contaminated by pesticides or herbicides - if the leaves have "bite" marks, this is one of the pointers.  In my opinion, these leaves taste like a cross between kangkong and spinach but without the "thready" texture of kangkong.

Green Sweet Potato Leaves with Eggs or Sayur Pucuk Ubi Manis Goreng Dengan Telor

Ingredients:

1. Sweet Potato young leaves (pucuk ubi manis)
2. Garlic (bawang putih)
3. Red onions (bawang merah)
4. Eggs
5. Salt and pepper
6. Oil

Preparation:
Cut the leaves the way you would prepare spinach, separating the young stalks and the leaves.  Dice onions and garlic.  Heat oil in pan and fry the onions until translucent.  Add garlic and continue cooking until garlic soft.  Add the sweet potato stalks and toss for a few minutes.  Add eggs, scrambling them in the mixture.  Add the leaves and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Notes:

• The quantity of garlic used can be adjusted to your taste.  The garlic can also be cut in big chunks instead of diced.
• You can use 1-2 eggs, depending on the quantity of vegetable.
• You can use either white or black pepper - depending on your preference
• The oil used is according to your taste.  For added health benefits, you can use olive oil or good quality vegetable oil such as safflower or sunflower.
• If you like chillis, you can add them either as paste or cut.

Green Sweet Potato Leaves with Salted Fish or Sayur Pucuk Ubi Manis Goreng Dengan Ikan Masin

Ingredients:

1. Sweet Potato young leaves (pucuk ubi manis)
2. Garlic (bawang putih)
3. Red onions (bawang merah)
4. Dried salted fish
5. Salt and pepper
6. Oil

Preparation:
Cut the leaves the way you would prepare spinach, separating the young stalks and the leaves.  Dice onions and garlic.  Heat oil in pan and fry the onions until translucent.  Add garlic and cut-up salted fish and continue cooking until garlic soft.  Add the sweet potato stalks and toss for a few minutes.  Add the leaves and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Notes:

• The quantity of garlic used can be adjusted to your taste.  The garlic can also be cut in big chunks instead of diced.
• Choose good salted fish that is not too salty.  Depending on the salt content in the fish, you may not need to add more salt.
• You can use either white or black pepper - depending on your preference
• The oil used is according to your taste.  For added health benefits, you can use olive oil or good quality vegetable oil such as safflower or sunflower.
• If you like chillis, you can add them either as paste or cut.

Farm Recipes - Ikan Kering Lampan Goreng Herba

The lampan fish has many bones but like many fish with lots of bones, have great taste.  I love dried salted fish but often find that the ones available are very salty hence that's the dominant taste in any dish you cook.  I decided to produce our own salted fish without the overpowering salty taste.  I also love the flavor of lemon basil and kaffir lime leaves and thought that it would enhance the flavor of the dried fish.
Most often, people just fry the fish or make a curry so I decided to make a variation to just frying the fish using lemon basil (kemangi) and kaffir lime (limau perut) leaves.  With the crispy, lemony taste of the fish, I also enjoy snacking on it without worrying about the bones.

Ingredients:

• 200gm Ikan lampan kering
• 1 red onion
• 2 stalks of lemon basil (Kemangi)
• 1 medium sizetomatoes
• 2 red chillis
• 2-3 kaffir lime (limau perut) leaves
• Cooking oil preferably sunflower or safflower oil

Preparation:
Rinse the dried fish and place on a strainer.  Heat the cooking oil, sufficient to fry the dried fish.  Fry the fish until crispy and remove from the pan.  Reduce the oil in the pan, leaving sufficient quantity to fry the the remaining ingredients. 
Slice the red onions and red chillis, and chop the lemon basil and tomatoes.  Fry the onions until soft and translucent, add the red chillis and lemon basil and toss until it has softened. Add the dried fish and tomatoes and mix them together in the pan.  It is now ready to serve.

SHL Project: Aqua Jannah Part 1

In the past two years, I have learnt a lot from my aquaculture project of producing fresh water fish.  The main driving factor of this project was the good quality water supply and sufficient land space to create the fish ponds.  Recently, I decided to do a major harvest.  In order to performn the harvest, it was necessary to drain all the water out of the pond. 

During this process, I discovered that it was difficult to dry the ponds due to the fact that my ponds were deeper than the Sg. Lui water level.  On top of that, since the depth of the pond had touched the ground water level, this resulting in difficulty of drying the pond, almost an impossible mission.

The quantity of the fish was also low and it was discovered days later, that it is possibly due to two main factors: (1) a clan of otters and (2) a species of snake that consumes fish.

The quality of the fish harvested was very good, sweet tasting with no "muddy" flavour or strong smell.  This is attributed to the water quality and what the fishes eat.  As SHL is a no pesticide, no herbicide farm, this help to prevent water contamination.  Since the water is piped down from the source up in the hills where pollutants are minimal, this ensured good quality water with good oxygen content constantly entering the ponds.  The presence of small river shrimp as fish provided a good natural source of food for the fish, supplemented by tapioca and keladi leaves as well as good fish meal.  Chicken innards or animal carcasses is a bid no-no.  This contributed to the good flavor of the fish.

Based on my proof-of-concept fish ponds, I have concluded that SHL Aqua Jannah is a viable aquaculture project capable of producing good quality and tasty fish.  The species of fish that do well include tilapia, lampam, haruan, keli, jelawat, kelah, tengas and ketutu.

Moving forward, improvements are underway.  A third pond has been constructed and the existing ponds are being made bigger.  The depth of the first and second pond will be adjusted to enable ease of drainage with a catchment area at each pond to ensure that the fish is kept alive and prevented from injury during the harvesting process.  Each pond will be separated by a barrier to enable the types of fish in each pond to remain separate.

The water supply will also be increased with the upgrading of the supply pipes to support the additional pond as well as the increase in size of the existing ponds and also support of fountains for water aeration to ensure plenty of oxygen in the water - an important factor for fish growth - as well as providing aesthetic value.  Drainage pipes will be placed at the base of the ponds to facilitate draining of the ponds and enable selective drainage of ponds.  The pond banks will also be reinforced to prevent soil erosion.

In the next phase, with the improved ponds as well as the additional pond, the quatity of fish will also be increased.  By the grace of Allah s.w.t., we should be able to have a bigger harvest in about 6 months time.