Fiddleheads in Coconut Milk Sauce

For me there is no substitute for paku or pakis, the fernshoots I used to gather with my grandmother on our way to her paddy field in the beautiful landscape of West Sumatra. And her gulai paku was out of this world; I can’t pretend that I have fully recaptured it. This is partly because fernshoots or fiddleheads are only available in London frozen or in jars, packed in brine or water. However, the sauce described here is excellent, so as alternatives to fernshoots I cook yard-long beans, w