Choy Sum Vegetable with Chicken Cubes

Choy Sum is a vegetable under the mustard family, under wiki it’s a type of Chinese Flowering cabbage. It comes with some tiny yellow flower. When I was young I only like to eat the part with the flower, but when you wash this vegetable, most of the time the flower part will already be washed away because it’s the most fragile part of the vegetable. But the flower looks lovely. There are 2 types of Choy Sum, unfortunately, the one which I am cooking now is the one without the yellow flower but comes with longer stem and larger leaves.

Ingredient

1 chicken breast meat,

1 pack Choy sum vegetable

4 cloves garlic, 3 shallots

Prepare & Cook

Slice 2 cloves garlic

Chop cubes for 3 shallots and 2 garlics

Chop chicken breast to cubes

Heat 2 table spoon oil

Add in the CUBES shallots, wait for a minute

Add in the CUBE garlic

Remove it once it turns to gold or caramelize

Add in the sliced garlic, wait for a half a minute

Add in the chicken breast

Add 2 table spoon soy sauce

Add 1 table spoon oyster sauce

Stir it for 10 seconds

Add in the Choy Sum vegetable

Fry for about 5 minutes

Ready to serve

Well for the soy sauce and oyster sauce, you could add or less more according to your level of saltiness.

Washing Your Vegetables

How do you actually wash your vegetables?

Well for me, I wash them 3 times. My first, rinse is to remove the sand and dirt or worm. Gently pressing them into the water, turn them in circular motion, putting hands into the water holding the vegetable gently like a shape of a ball then raise them up from the tub and back into the water. I do this for a few times like about 5 times.

Then I remove the veggie to another tub, pouring the water and cleaning the tub because there will be a lot of dirt stuck to the tub.

The 2^nd wash, I will do the same, making the veggie spin circular motion in the water slowly for few times and rinse them up and down just like previous. This time after removing the veggie, I will check the tub, if the tub still remains a lot of dirt, I might need to change the water and repeat the same washing method.

The final wash, means there would not be dirt in the water and tub after removing the veggie in the previous round. This wash will be the time to remove chemical residues, toxic pesticide and bacteria surface contamination which might not be able to be done by water. You may add in a few drops of some fruit and vegetable wash of any brands you like. I found some brand name Safeguard fruit and veggie wash, Good Maid Bio, Mercola and many other brands.

Well if you can’t find any of these from your grocery shop, you could try out your own home made veggie wash with a 1 teaspoon of vinegar and 2 table spoon of salt. Soak them for about 10-15 minutes. Sounds simple, right? The vinegar will get rid of the bacteria and dissolve pesticides residues and wax. Not to forget, spin circular motion slowly for a few round just to ensure the veggie wash or vinegar goes through all the leafy veggie. Rinse them and let us start cooking.

For me I don’t scrub my veggies, I just spin them in circular motion as I mentioned above, I don’t want my veggies to break into pieces and melt while cooking later. But if you are having apples or harder surface food, you may scrub your fruits gently.

Meanwhile, what can you to do with the 10-15 minutes? Don’t just stand there and watch your vegetable. Not to worry, it ain’t going to run away. You could get ready your ingredients and spices, chop your garlics and shallots or even utensils and plates for cooking.

Optimize your cooking time. Happy Cooking!

Fish Tail Curry Okra

You could make curry from fresh ingredients, curry powder, grind some chilies, garlic, onions and all sorts of spices, but if you choose to take the shortcut like me, just get a prepack curry paste. I got this from Cosway retail, brand Deli Chef, Fish curry paste. (Recently I saw the packaging name been rename to brand Mildura but still same fish image)

Taupok is deep fried tofu or deep fried bean curd. I bought the rectangle shape and cut into half. I prefer to cut it up as I do not want the curry sauce to be squeezed out and splash all over my face or my shirt or getting into someone’s eye. Be really careful while you have this especially if you are wearing a white shirt, unless you are in the mood to change your shirt to some red polka dots design.

Vegetable here would be Okra aka ladies finger.

Why do we add squeeze lemon juice? To remove some slimy texture from the ladies finger, else the whole pot would be super slimy.

You can add milk in replace of Santan (coconut milk)

Add taupok first because texture is harder and tough, it takes longer time to be soft.

Ingredients

1 Fish tail, 1 prepack curry paste

6 shallots, 3 cloves garlic

6 Taupok (fried tofu), ladies finger

¼ cup milk, 1 lemon

Prepare & cook

Chop your shallots and garlics

Cut ladies finger, rinse them

Press half lemon into the ladies finger

Fry 6 shallots, 3 cloves garlic

Cook curry paste add ¼ cup water

Add taupok

After 5 minutes add fish to cook for 10 minutes

Add ladies finger, add half lemon,

Add milk

Stir up simmer for 5-7minutes

Ready to serve

Please prepare 2 bowls of white rice to enjoy the curry sauce!

Tofu Mushroom/ Beancurd Mushroom

After all the yummy fried chicken, why not we have something with less oil and less dry. Tofu reminds me of protein. Having this dish with some white rice would be perfect if tofu comes with little bit of sauce. Let us make some saucy soft tofu as a main dish.

Ingredients

1 square pack soft tofu

4 cloves garlic, 2 shallots

4-6 mushrooms

1 spring onion

1 teaspoon corn flour

1 cup water

3 tablespoon soy sauce

Prepare

Cut mushroom to cube sizes

Tofu cut to cubes size

Dice garlics and shallots

Mix 1 teaspoon corn flour with 2 tablespoon water in a bowl

Cooking Time

Heat oil, fry garlic and shallots

Add mushroom fry for 3 minutes

Add 1 cup water

Add 3 tablespoon soy sauce

Add tofu simmer for 10minutes

Add the bowl of corn flour mix

Stir up till it starts to dry

Ready to serve

Why did I add water after stir fry the mushroom? To avoid the tofu being  burn because the pan is already hot. Tofu is fragile ingredient.