Recipe: Stir-fry Fragrant Garlic Stems

Garlic stems with fried garlic

Garlic Stems.

Does the name sounds intriguing to you? The name of the vegetable already describes the vegetables. They are lovely and sweet - long, thin and absolutely crunchy green stems with subtle hints of garlic flavour.

Have you tried this vegetable before? If you have not, I recommend that you should. It is very tasty. I used garlic stems in my mee siam and they added another dimension to the noodles, somewhat different from the normal and bland long beans.


I know that they do sell it in Malaysia because I saw it in the morning wet markets. I believe that they are imported from China - just like the ones sold here in Melbourne. I introduced the vegetables to my family in Malaysia recently and my brothers love it - and they are both do not like vegetables.

Try it on your loved ones who you think need to eat more vegetables - my guess is that they do not need to be coaxed to eat them (unless they hate garlic, of course.. or they are really, really anti-vegetables. =)

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This is my recipe:

Ingredients:

2 cloves of garlic - chopped finely
200g of garlic stems - sliced into 3 cm
1 tsp Shaoxing wine
1 tbsp water
1 tsp oil
salt to taste

Method

1. Fry garlic in oil until fragrant and golden in colour.

2. Add the garlic stems and mix well.

3. Add water, wine and salt to taste and let it simmer for 3 minutes until cooked.

4. Serve hot with rice

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This dish goes great with white rice. The fragrance of the wine and the sweetness from the fried garlic together with the crunchy vegetables made this an appetizing dish.

You may add fresh prawns to this dish. Prawns and garlic are the perfect match in food heaven. =)

Recipe: Okras with Crispy Chilli Prawns

Okras (Ladies Finger) with Crispy Chilli Prawns

This is another easy recipe using ready-to-use crispy chilli prawn. They can be found in jars at nearly all good Asian groceries. Mine is from Malaysia. =)

I added garlic and dried prawns for added flavour.

Fresh okras soaking in water

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This is my recipe:

Ingredients:

1.5 tbsp of dried prawns - soaked and dried on paper towel
1/2 tbsp oil
200g of fresh okras (ladies finger) - sliced thinly
1.5 tbsp of crispy chilli prawn
2 cloves of garlic - chopped finely
1 tbsp water
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Fry dried prawns in oil until crispy. Leave aside.

2. Using back the oil, fry the garlic until fragrant and golden in colour.

3. Add the crispy chilli prawn. Stir well for 10 seconds on low heat.

4. Increase the heat to high and quickly add in the okras. Stir well. Add water and let it simmer for 5 minutes until cooked. Add the dried prawns that you had fried earlier. Stir well until all the ingredients mingled together.

5. Serve hot with rice.

Recipe Photolog: Beef Rendang

Beef Rendang

I love rendang. However, the thought of pounding spices put me off from cooking it the authentic way. On the other hand, that doesn't stop me from making my favourite dish. I mean, why strain your arms pounding spices when there are absolutely delicious ready-to-use rendang pastes in stores waiting to be used for the lazy ones - ie yours truly?

The only spices that I added are onions, ginger, star anise, cinnamon and cardamom pods - all which are available in my pantry. You could omit the spices since the rendang paste is already very flavourful, but I just like the fragrance and taste that comes with it. =)

I also added kerisik, which made the rendang even more flavourful. It also thickened the rendang by about 10 folds, which is what a beef rendang supposed to be like, thick and creamy.

The secret to a tender beef rendang is to boil the beef chunks for 2 hours beforehand. You may reserve the beef stock for another recipe - say, beef soup with vegetables?

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This is my recipe:

Ingredients:

1 kg beef - chopped into bite-size pieces
1 liter of water
1 large brown onion - chopped finely
1 thumb-sized ginger - minced finely
1 cinnamon
1 star anise
4 green cardamom pods
1 packet of ready-to-use rendang paste
400 ml coconut cream (substitute with coconut milk if available)
1/2 cup of desiccated coconut for kerisik

Method:

1. Place the beef in a pot with water. Bring it to a boil. Once it is boiling, lower down the heat until simmering point. Let it simmer for 2 hours until tender.

2. To make kerisik: Toast desiccated coconut in a dry pan on low heat until the colour turns brown. Be very careful as they tend to burn easily. Leave aside.
(The other method would be toasting at 180 degrees celcius in a oven for 20 minutes).

3. Fry onions, ginger, cardamom pods, star anise and cinnamon until fragrant.

4. Add the rendang paste and stir well.

5. Add the chunks of beef. Mix everything well together.

6. Add the coconut cream. Allow it to simmer for 30 minutes until almost dry.

7. Add the kerisik. Mix well and let it simmer for 2-3 minutes.

8. Serve hot with coconut rice. A Malaysian Speciality.

Fork-tender beef rendang.

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The beef rendang was extremely tasty.. Each morsel was coated with spices and tasted absolutely orgasmic. The kerisik did a very good job in blending the spices all together. As it was very flavourful, we only ate about a quarter of the beef rendang.

I froze one half and keep the other half for tomorrow's consumption. All the better as this will taste even better the next day.

(Sausages), Bacon and Eggs for Breakfast

What is the best way to greet the man you love on an early Saturday morning? A big breakfast, of course.

It's double of everything. 2 eggs, 2 sausages and 2 rashers of bacon. Twice the calories, lol. But a food blog isn't about dieting and low-fat. Nuh-uh. Bring on the feast, I'd say!!

Big breakfast

Peppered Eggs

Mmm.. Sausages



What's a bacon without fat?

Best eaten with buttered toast and a tall glass of cold orange juice.

And make sure you finish it all up right to the last drop of the golden yolk.

What a way to start the day.

Step-by-Step Recipe: Mihun Siam - Malay Style Fried Noodles

Mee Siam
-spicy and moreish-

I absolutely adore this noodles. If I were to go to a Malay food vendor and they offer both nasi lemak and mee siam - I will definitely opt for the latter.

This is a relatively easy recipe. The base sauce that I used was sambal ikan bilis which I had made earlier using chilli paste. There was no pounding of spices involved and the flavour was just as authentic as the ones you can find outside.

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients:

1 large brown onion - chopped finely
2 cm ginger - chopped finely
4 cloves of garlic - chopped finely
250g *mihun (*rice vermicilli) - blanched in hot water
2 cups of sambal ikan bilis
1 tbsp belachan paste
100 g of boiled chicken breast - chopped
2 pcs of fish cakes - sliced thinly
150g cabbage - sliced thinly
150g long beans - sliced into 2 cms
2 tbsp oil
1 tsp sugar
Salt to taste

For garnishing (optional):
Omelette - sliced thinly
1 red chilli - sliced diagonally
1/2 cup parsley

Method:

1. Fry onions, garlic and ginger in hot oil until fragrant.

2. Add belachan paste to the mixture.

3. Fry and mix well for 2 minutes on low heat
(be careful because the paste sticks on to the pan easily).

4. Add sambal ikan bilis and mix well. (This only takes a minute
as you only want to heat up the sambal ikan bilis)

5. Add boiled chicken breast.

6. Add cabbages and long beans on top of the chicken pieces.


*By this point, I realised that my pan is too small to hold all the ingredients, and so I transfer them to a wok. *Lol*

7. Mix all the ingredients thorougly on medium heat for 3 minutes.
You may add oil if you find it a bit dry.

8. Add the blanched mihun (rice vermicilli) into the mixture. Add the sugar to balance out the spiciness. Add salt to taste. Now this is the tedious part. Use a spatula or a pair of chopsticks to blend the spicy ingredients into the noodles on low heat. (approximately 8-10 minutes depending on the amount of noodles)

9. Dish out the noodles on a serving platter. Garnish with omellete, chillis and parsely.
Serve immediately.

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Yummilicious

It is absolute heaven. I made enough for 2 days and it was just as delicious microwaved. The key to this dish is the packet of cili giling I used to make the sambal ikan bilis. Absolutely scrummy.


**Note - I know that those aren't long beans, these vege are from the garlic family (If I am not mistaken). They are crunchy and taste sweet and garlicky. I don't know what they are called, so I just called them long beans .. Haha.