Sambal okra

I'm not a big vege eater, but there are a few types of vegetables that I absolutely adore and could eat them everyday without fail. One of them is okra, or ladies fingers. I love my okra cooked any way, but my favourite is when it is cooked with sambal.

It is extremely easy to cook this dish but I can never seem to get the hang of 'agak-agak'-ing (estimating) my ingredients. But that's how it is with local cooking, so that's one thing that I need to get used to. In a nutshell, here's how to cook this yummy dish. You'll have to 'guesstimate' the amount needed for the ingredients. :p

Ingredients:
Fresh okra, sliced diagonally 
Fresh chilli, unseeded
Shallots
Dried shrimp
1 tsp Belacan powder
Cooking oil
Some water
Soy sauce to taste 

Directions:
1. Pound the chilli, shallots and dried shrimp together until it becomes a paste. Add in the belacan powder and mix.
2. Heat the wok and add the cooking oil. Saute the paste until fragrant.
3. Add in the okra. Stir fry for a few minutes until the okra becomes sticky and cooked. Add in some water while stirfrying.
4. Add some soy sauce to taste. Dish out and serve hot.

Today, mum and I cooked up a very Malaysian feast for lunch. Nasi lemak, served with my sambal okra, peanuts and sambal anchovies, fried fish and fried turmeric chicken, and hard boiled eggs with raw cucumber on the side. So good!