Sarawakian Local Delights : Pumpkin Leaves

A simple way of cooking pumpkin leaves - boil some onions, garlic and ikan bilis in two cups of water, When boiling add the crushed pumpkin leaves to the soup base.

This method of cooking amongst the indigenous people of Sarawak is called sup terjun. For vegetables, this oil-less cooking requires less water and the resulting vegetables taste sweet, and awesome.

For soup, one has to add more water, or as desired.

This healthy way of food preparing is getting more and more popular in Sarawak.

When visitors arrive at any longhouse for an occasion, they would find pumpkin leaves as one of their dishes.

 If the people are more endowed, they would have another more elaborate dish, by adding pumpkin flowers, cubes of pumpkin, cubes of cucumber and even sweet young corn.

Photo by Mary H Ting.