Broccoli Fish Maw

Fish Maw, sound like fish claw. Since when does fish have claws? More, more.. It is MAW, it is an air bladder to make the fish stay deep in the water for swimming and balance their weight.  You would be thinking that this would be in all fishes in the world, so did I. But it seems not all fishes have it.

It is like a rubber bag where is can expand and contract itself. It is an organ for the fish, but it is another delicious food for us. We call it the fish maw! It does taste fishy when it is soaked wet in water. Since it was like a rubber bag, it would be chewy and crunchy after cooking. But this depends on the way you cook them.

But if you don’t cook it well, it would be really really fishy and really unpleasant to be eaten. It is a well known delicacy during Chinese Lunar New Year, where fish maw will be cooked together with chicken broth, black mushroom, sea cucumber (not a vegetable but a sea creature which looks like a cucumber) and simmer for a few hours. You could make it at home, but it sounds like a lot of job, no worries you could have it at any restaurant. Since I have a pack of fish maw laying around from a gift pack, so I might as well cook it. But today I am not cooking this special Lunar dish. I will be making it simple broccoli fish maw.

The longer you soak, the softer the maw.

Ingredients

1 pack broccoli, ½ carrot

1 fish maw size 15cm

5cm ginger

3 cloves garlic

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

1 tablespoon wine

Add dash of salt, dash of sugar

Prepare & cook

Soak the fish maw till it turns soft (soak for 1hour)

Fish maw cut to strips (square or triangle shape 2-3cm)

Slice ginger

Heat a teaspoon oil fry ginger

Put ¼ cup water boil fish maw 10-15 minutes,

Add dash of salt, dash of sugar

Add Chinese Wine simmer for 1 minutes. Remove

Fry carrots, broccoli

Add 1 dash salt, oyster sauce

Add fish maw and stir for 1 minute

Ready to serve

Note : If you still feel that it is fishy, you may add a dash of pepper.

Chayote Vegetable Garlic

Don’t get mistaken with Coyote, spells almost the same, sounds almost the same, but it is definitely not the jackal or the fluffy brush wolf. It is totally opposite and not meat. Chayote here is a type of vegetable.

When I first saw this vegetable with the curls, I thought it was paku-pakis (Diplazium esculentum) a type of vegetable fern. Seems like it was not a very favourable vegetable as there were still many packets on the shell.

After reaching home, and having a second look it seems like it does not seem like what I thought it was. It did not really look like the paku-pakis anymore as there was not as much curls as it was supposed to have as a paku-pakis. And the leaves looks like maple leaves. Something must have gone wrong. I did not think it could be a poisonous vegetable else it won’t be sold in the supermarket. As I was not quite sure about the taste of the vegetable anymore, I decided to cook it the simplest method. Garlic. This is to have a more clear taste of the vegetable for the first time.

Later on, I surf the net and found out that it has a fruit where is called vegetable pear with smooth skin and crunchy texture.  It is pronounce as Cha-yo Tee, Sechium edule. But it is a categorize under the gourd family, also known as mirliton, choko, chrisophine (not Christopher) and other names in different countries. This totally green vegetable carries a total of 15 names. Cool? In fact, I read some blogs, Chinese calls it dragon beard vegetable. 

I have yet to try out any Chayote fruit, if I do, I will sure share the recipe.

Ingredients

1 pack Chayote leafs

3 cloves garlic

Prepare & Cook

Heat oil

Fry 3 cloves garlic

Add Chayote

Parsley Powder

1 table soy sauce

1 table oyster sauce

While cooking, it cross my mind, since I had no idea how this vegetable would taste I added some soy sauce and oyster sauce, just in case the vegetable was bitter.

 

Egg Wrap Chicken Burger

Many of us do not cook our burgers meals at home. It is another quick meal for us. Cheapest and fastest Burger Meal. Usually we would go out and take-away (take home) a burger from the closest burger stall located outside 7-11 store. They usually sell the famous local brand “Burger Ramli”. Cost about 2.50 for the plain burger. We could skip the part of washing the pan and plates after cooking. But recently, we have stopped buying from this stall near our home.

The story goes, one late afternoon, while we were passing by the stall, they had just started to unpack their things for business of the day. We saw them taking out the whole packet of bread bun from a dirty long grey container. I was wondering why the container was so so so dirty, it has lines of dirt on it. Looks like the container was never been washed. After they remove the bun, I took a closer look. The container was the trash bucket! OMMggg! How could they do this?? How could they put the whole packet of bun which they are about to sell for the day in that dirty trash bucket!! Even if the bread buns were still in their own plastic wrap. I felt so disgusted, so unhygienic.

What if the plastic wrap had holes? Or accidentally broke open? Imagine the germs, virus or god knows what would have stick to the bread buns. Oooooh My!!

I told myself, I would never buy from this stall forever.

Please note that this was only for this particular stall. I ain’t saying that all stalls do this.

After this incident, we bought our own burger patty from the supermarket. Can’t be lazy and skip the washing pan part now. It is either you wash the pan or you eat the buns from the trash bucket. Make a choice.

We will be using the normal prepack chicken burger. I forgot to get the bread bun, so I will be using the normal square bread. Since it is made at home, you could make 2 or even 3 chicken meat patties burger! You may add on your lettuce, cucumber slices, tomato or just anything you fancy! Superb Kids snack!

Ingredients

2 chicken meat patties,

4 slices bread

2 eggs

Cooking it

Fry burger with half tablespoon butter, fry both sides

Remove from pan

Fry egg, once egg start to cook, turn over/ flip over

Put burger on the center of the egg.

Cover it up.

Ready to serve