The Malaysian connection series (3) : Dec 2007 trip : wild vegetables
Bidin and Paku are 2 wild vegetables . They are not being planted but grow wild in the jungles. The native people collected and sold them to the fresh produce market.
I love bidin stir fried with some garlic and rice wine. They sure look delicious on these flicker photos selection.
This is bidin fried in belachan.
Picture courtesy of jimmychin.99.com.my
I have been vegetarian for 4 months and always looking for new veggie recipes.
I will send you some on tofu dishes which are very good vegetarian dishes.
tofu is the king of food for me.
paku n bidin…nv eat b4 leh =_=
Paku and bidin are like the best vege I think. Sometimes you just don’t need to buy em, you can just pick em up from your backyard.
Alvin,
I especially like Japanese tofu, soft and taste very nice.
I think the 2 vegs are mainly Sarawakian local spices.
Bidin used to be only eaten by the natives, dirt cheap but for some reasons, the Chinese marketed it into main stream veg, and it is very expensive now.
Paku still eaten mostly by natives and not a lot of Chinese eat it.
My mom did not even let us eat Bidin and claimed that they are for people who are poor, see even vegetable also got class in Malaysia, sigh…
But, I love both vegs.
Yes, I agree with you Cibol. I think there is a study done on bidin that it has one of the ingredient for anti cancer. That is why it is getting very pouplar now.
those Veggies look delicious! I think looks a little like spinach.. am I right? n_n
Paku is yummy!!! Tried it when I was in Kuching last time.
Anyway, you can find it in KL now.. Kekeke.. But you have to ask for it. (^^)
BTW, Happy New Year!! I’m back from my blogging hiatus… I hope!
Oh, just come back to KL, and reading this entry sure make me homesick
Jamezu,
Hmmm…, bidin is very crunchy, not like spinach which is quite soft.
Angie,
ooh, now you can have paku in K.L ? That is good.
Welcome back.
Daniel,
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At least you only need to cross South China sea, me, have to cross Pacific ocean. I am so dumb you know, I only realize this trip that America is on the other side of the globe from Malaysia
I think it is good to know which wild plants are edible.
Rachael,
We have so many wild plants in Malaysia that are edible. We “used” to (not so many now) who live in the jungle. They eat what are naturally grown in the tropical jungles. There are many of these kind of vegs that I have never seen here. Here our vegs are mostly grown by farmers, there the farmers go pick the wild vegs and sell in the market.
er…still donno paku tastes like what. ahaha. 1 thing for sure, they don hv it in uk
I don’t know too much about tofu.
Ahna,
I will send you some tofu receipes.
Alvin,
Both of these vegs tastes very good.
I think they have very good nutrient, they are not grown by human, so there is no pesticides.
I hope the Westerners do not discover them, if they do, prices will be high like all our cheap food such as tempe, mongostem, prices all jerked up by Westerners once they found out that those things have high anti oxidant content.