Long Beans with Dry Shrimp Paste aka Belacan

Long Beans, need I say more?  

What is Belacan? Fermented shrimp paste but not the cincalok type.

How is it made? Small Shrimps are dried then smashed and ground to a paste form together with salt. So you can’t see any shrimp anymore. The paste will be place into a mould shaped into round or square. Then they will be dried in the sun for 2-3 days until its harden. So you will have to cut it out to smaller cubes or pinch it out yourself. Remember to keep them in dry places or keep in refrigerator once the packet is opened to avoid mold or worms.

These days belacan can also be found in powder form packed and sold in supermarket.

Unfortunately they are not as tasty as the cube types. Those cube forms paste smells more fishy then the powder type. So it is definitely more tasty.

It kind of stinks before it is cook but once it is in the pan, you will smell it, the smell will change from the fishy stinking smell to an aromatic smell. This condiment is used mostly in many vegetable frying dish but sometimes also some meat dishes. Let us start cooking and enjoy this delicious mouthwatering long beans.

Ingredient

1 tablespoon dry shrimp (har mai)

3 tablespoon dry shrimp paste or belacan powder

3 baby carrots sliced

Long beans cut to size of 4 cm

Cook and prepare

Fry carrots, remove to plate

Add 2 tablespoon

Fry dry shrimp until caramelized

Add dry shrimp paste or belacan powder

Add a table spoon water if it dries out

Add long beans fry for 5 minutes

Garnish with carrot

Ready to serve

Express Cod Fish

I love pan fry cod fish, it does not just smells good but it taste delicious. Fry till the skin is a little Crispy but not totally crunchy.

Done in 7- 10minutes

Ingredients

3 cloves of garlic, 2 shallots

1 spring onion,

3 table spoon soy sauce

2 birds eye chilies

Prepare and cook

Fry garlic, shallots till turns yellow gold

Remove from pan

Fry the fish for 5 minutes

Remove from pan

Add 3 table spoon of soy on top of fish

Add in the fried shallots and garlic with spring onion

Add the cut bird eyes chilies

Ready to serve.

Tofu Bamboo Shoot

Where does it come from? Are bamboo shoots grown on the bamboo like the mango trees? Nop, it is grown on the ground and not the bamboo branch, it is about 5-6inches in size. It is high in fibre and protein but most important is it has a succulent yet crunchy texture but color wise, it is just white or more like beige.

 I don’t grow them myself, but I know it is available in tinned can or vacuum packed, so I picked the vacuum packed from the supermarket. When I was young, grandma used to get narcissus brand bamboo shoot. it is still available in tinned can now.

The only problem is bamboo shoots comes with an odd smell. The vacuum packed I bought has already been clean, therefore the smell is less strong. Some people would say it smells as sour urine smell. All I can do is soak them in water and keep changing water every half hour for about 2 hours. So before your start cooking, you have to start 2-3 hours earlier.

As for the dry mushroom, soak them in another bowl for 2 hours earlier before cooking. This is to make it soft and able to absorb sauce later. Why do I add mushroom to this dish? This is because mushroom has a nice fragrant, it can help cover the left over odd smell of the bamboo shoot. Great combination.

Ingredients

1 soft tofu, 1 piece bamboo shoot

2 dry black mushroom, shredded chicken meat

2 cloves garlic

Prepare and cook

Soak and rinse bamboo shoot every 30 minutes for 2 hours

Slice bamboo shoots

Slice black mushroom

Steam tofu in pot for 10 minutes

Fry garlic 1 minute

Add bamboo shoots, chicken and mushroom

Add 2 tablespoon oyster sauce

Simmer for 5 minutes

Place tofu in centre of plate

Add on the bamboo shoot, chicken and mushroom

Ready to serve

Black Chicken Herbal Soup, Ren Shen Chong Cao Tang

This is another version of Herbal Soup.I bought it from an expensive looking herbal shop named, HockHua Tonic herbal shop. It is almost double the price of the previous packet I bought from another herbal shoplot . So what’s in the box, Ren Shen, Hua Shan, Yu Zhu, JiZhi, DangShen, Chuan Xiong, Chong Cao, Gan Cao, Dung Gui, not to forget they have cooking instructions too.

I am using half the packet of ingredient because the packet label it is for 4 person. Since I am making it for 2 person, I would have to remove half. Having all in the soup might make it too bitter for 2 person.

Ingredients

1 black chicken

½ pack herbal ingredient as mentioned above

Prepare and cook

Parboil chicken 5 minutes, ensure water covers the chicken

Remove impurities

Add herbal ingredients

Bring to boil 20minutes on medium heat

Taste, add salt if required (2 teaspoon)

Low heat Boil 30 minutes, taste again

Boil 30 minutes

Ready to serve

Don’t you think is tiring checking on the soup every 30mins? Those days old folks keep saying they gotta watch fire for the soup. Is this what they meant.  I did this for this soup, checking every 30minutes. Aw … this is really so tiring! Next round of soup cooking, I am just going to add salt after 1.5 hours of boiling.

Logically thinking, if we keep soup boiling for the first 30minutes, the soup taste would be a little sweet, if we add some salt, the taste would be balance. If we keep another 30 minutes (total 1 hour), the soup taste would be sweeter, then you add salt again. . If we keep another 30 minutes (total 1.5 hour), the soup taste would be even sweeter, then you add salt again. Why trouble yourself? So my conclusion, I will only add salt after 1.5 hours after boiling in future.

Prata with Mushroom

What’s for breakfast?? Something quick before you rush off to work? Or taking it slow for a lazy weekend. You could go out for some prata with some curry mix and dhal, or you could just a quick prata for yourself. Prata usually goes well with curry mix and dhal but today let us try something different. Let’s keep our fingers cross. This is something I had not found outside at my eating spots. I had no idea how it would taste, but it did suit my taste. Thanked God! Else it going to go down the drain. Hope it suits you too.

Ingredients

A handful mushroom

1 or 2 tablespoon soy sauce

½ tablespoon sugar

1 dash garlic parsley powder

Prepare and Cook

Mushroom sliced thinly

Heat 1 tablespoon oil, heat up the prata

Remove in 5 minutes

Add mushroom,

Add 1 or 2 tablespoon soy sauce

½ tablespoon sugar

1 dash garlic parsley powder

Simmer for 10minutes

Ready to serve

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.