Sayur Manis

Stir-fried sayur manis with garlic

The sayur manis ('sweet veg') is native to Sabah so in restaurants it is usually labelled as 'Sabah Veg'. In Malaysian-chinese, it somehow is called sujaicai, which either means potato veg or small tree/shrub veg (I'm not sure about the Chinese characters for this veg, can anyone help?), which makes it very confusing doesn't it? I think the Malay name is the most appropriate because this veg does taste sweet.

Sayur manis shrub

This is a very hardy veg that grows easily from stem cuttings into shrubs of 1.5 to 2m high. It needs minimal nutrients but lots of sunlight and is seldom attacked by pests although a planter friend has told me that because the veg is grown on a large commercial scale, it requires a lot of pesticides, especially against white flies. I've been lucky. I have two clumps of this veg that I first planted 10 years ago when I moved into my house and so far it's been pests-free. I think it's a neat plant to grow. The sayur manis is a perennial, meaning it can grow on and on unlike annuals which last for a year only. Each time you harvest it, you just cut it down to about 1.0 m above ground and new shoots will come up almost overnight. That means we get to harvest the shoots about once a week! We like to step out and pluck a bunch of shoots and leaves to throw into our instant noodles whenever, sometimes near midnight if we feel like a snack. In fact, writing this now I feel an urge to go get some. The flavor is just mmmm...

The young shoots of the sayur manis.

This veg is SO yum that I haven't met anyone who doesn't like it, including foreign tourists. The best way to cook it is to stir-fry it with minced garlic, or with blacan (stinky but yummy fermented shrimp paste). However, the true Sabah way is to fry it with a beaten egg. This is especially if the veg is the original leafy type. A new type (or rather the same type but cultivated in a special way to get more shoots than leaves), is the shoot sayur manis with very little leaves. Most restaurants serve this type of sayur manis which people like because the shoots are very sweet, flavorful and crunchy.

A warning though. This veg, like spinach, amaranth (chinese spinach/hunchoy/bayam) and rhubarb is said to contain a lot of oxalic acids so those with kidney stones and gout should go easy on that next plate of sayur manis blacan.