Chayote Lontong

The last time I cook chayote was when I made Chayote Wrap. A few days ago I was talking to a friend about chayote. We exchanged information on how to cook this succulent and delicious vegetable. When I was at Price Right for my produce shopping, I saw beautiful chayotes. I bought about 6 chayotes. Each chayote cost $0.39. Yes, I love Price Right for selling their vegetables at a cheaper price than Giant or WEIS. I gave two chayotees to my friend to try. The chayote is wrap in an individually small plastic bag.

From wikipedia, chayote is an edible plant that belongs to the gourd family Cucurbitaceae along with melons, cucumbers and squash.

In my area, I can buy chayote from regular grocery store like giant, weis, and price right. Sometimes, the Asian store sell it too.

The way to prepare chayote is very easy. Sometimes I leave the skin on and at other times I peel it off. The skin is very tender and easily remove with a peeler. There is a small white seed inside this chayote. I remove the seed by balling it off with a spoon. I am not sure if the seed taste bitter. I never thought of tasting it.

When I saw Shafidah Shamen featured Lontong in her site, I told myself that this chayote will go perfectly well in the Lontong soup. To prepare this lontong soup you need the following ingredients:

1 can of coconut milk or 1 packet of coconut powder
2 cups water + 1 chicken cube or 2 cups chicken broth
1/3 cup chopped dried shrimp (must use this)
1 cup medium size shrimp
1 teaspoon ground lemongrass (serai)
1 teaspoon ground galanghal (lengkuas)
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
pinch of salt

For the vegetables I am using the following:
1 large yellow onion (chopped)
1 chayote (peel off and sliced)
1 cup shredded carrot
1 packet of Tempeh (you can buy this from Giant or WEIS market) -cut into bite size cube.
5 bird eyes hot chili (whole - do not chopped)

Method:
Add water and chicken cube in a big pot. Bring the chicken stock to boil. Add in onion, bird eye chili. Then add in the dried shrimp, regular shrimp, all the spices and lastly add all the vegetables. Add salt and coconut milk. Let it cook and simmer for about 15 minutes on medium heat. Turn off the heat and ready to serve.

Lontong is not complete without pressed cook rice. In bahasa we call it Nasi impit or ketupat. In my case, I am using nasi impit or pressed rice from Adabi. You can buy a packet of pressed rice from the asian store here in the State. Inside the packet, there are 2 small packets of rice. Cook these 2 packets of rice in a big pot with water for about 1 hour. Drain the water and let the pressed rice cool. I prepared this nasi impit the night before.

To assemble the chayote lontong, cut some of the pressed rice into a bowl. Then pour some of the lontong soup. Serve warm. I garnish this lontong with some slices of cooked beef and satay peanut sauce. Yummy! The taste is out of this world.