Fried String Beans with Chives & Egg

There are many ways to cook string beans or long beans. You can stir-fry with dried prawns and chilli paste, add it to sayur lodeh, vegetable curry, fried rice, etc, etc.

A favourite of mine is to fry it with eggs.

What I Used:

6 to 8 string beans, chopped thinly

1 medium-sized onion, chopped

1 clove garlic, chopped

some chives, cut to 2-cm lengths

some prawns, cubed

2 to 3 eggs, lightly beaten and seasoned with some salt

oil

salt

a little water

sliced chilli (optional)

What I Did:

1. Heat some oil in a pan and saute garlic, onions and string beans.

2. Add a little water to cook the beans to soften slightly.

3. Then add prawns and chives, stir to mix.

4. Pour egg over and leave it to set, then turn over to cook the other side.

5. Serve with rice or eat it in a sandwich.

Spicy Sting Ray (Ikan Pari)

I've been cooking rather simple fare and quite bland food for a while. It's time for a slight change of menu. My poor husband simply cannot eat bland food for too long. He doesn't care if it's for health's sake. So on days when I don't cook, he would go off and return with a big packet of Malay food and rice. To make up to him, I cooked his favourite fish - sting ray or ikan pari in Malay. It is a very easy dish to cook.

Sting ray was not a popular fish before, but now the demand for it is so great that its cost has escalated many times more. But we have to eat!

What I Used:

About 700g sting ray, cut into chunks

(Before cutting, remove the black skin(topside) or scrape with a knife to remove the 'dirt'. I prefer to remove the skin. Next scrape the white part(underside) to remove the slime. Rub salt and scrub with hands, then rinse and cut)

1 large onion, sliced

3 to 4 kaffir lime leaves

1 tomato, wedged

To be ground:

2 medium-sized onions

4 dried chillies, soaked and drained

2 fresh red chillies

1 clove garlic

1 teaspoon belachan

1 packet coconut cream (I used Kara)

salt to taste

water

oil

What I Did:

1. Heat oil and saute sliced onions and ground ingredients till the oil comes through.

2. Add fish and stir gently to cover the pieces with the spices.

3. Add some water and simmer till fish is cooked.

4. Add kaffir lime leaves, tomato and coconut cream and some water (depends on how much gravy you want). Add salt and bring to a boil. Remove from stove and serve.

Simple Fare - Potato and Bean Curd

Simple fare

Just for the two of us!

Cheap! Good! Easy!

Stir-Fried Potato

2 medium-sized potatoes, cut into strips

1 piece fish cake, cut into strips(leftover from mee siam)

1 large white onions, cut into strips

1 clove garlic, chopped

1/2 teaspoon black pepper

1 red and 1 green chilli, sliced

1 tomato, wedged

1 tablespoon oyster sauce

a little dark soya sauce

juice of half a lemon or 2 teaspoons vinegar

sugar to taste

water

1. Heat a little oil in a pan, stir fry potato strips till lightly brown and remove from pan.

2. Add a little bit more oil in pan, saute onion and garlic for a while and add the potatoes.

3. Stir to mix and add some water, bring to a boil, then simmer to cook potatoes.

4. Once potatoes are soft, add fish cake, oyster sauce to taste and a little dark sauce for colour, lemon juice, chilli and tomato and sugar. Stir to mix and let fry for a while and it is done. There's very little gravy for this dish.

Stir-Fried Bean Curd(tau kwa) with Bean Sprouts (leftovers from mee siam)

1 piece of bean curd, sliced and fried

a handful of bean sprouts

some chives, cut to 3-cm lengths

1 tomato, wedged

2 cloves garlic, chopped

oil

any seasoning preferred

1. Heat oil in pan and saute garlic for a while. Don't let it turn brown.

2. Add bean curd, stir fry for a moment, then add bean sprouts, chives, tomato and seasoning all at one go.

3. Stir fry till mixed and remove from heat. Serve with rice.

Mee Siam

My younger girl has not been coming home for her meals lately. She is a volunteer, helping out in the Youth Olympics. That's why lately, I've been resorting to cooking simple fare for myself and my husband.

Today, I felt like eating mee siam.

I love mee siam, in fact anything that's bee hoon! The danger of my cooking bee hoon is that I don't have limits eating it. Today is one such day! BURP!!

Forty-two years ago, I met a charming Indonesian lady in her late thirties . She was one of my guy friends' aunt. I learned a lot of baking and cooking from her. She was very knowledgeable in the art of cooking and baking including cake decorating with buttercream, royal icing and even gum paste. You could say she was my 'Guru' or 'Sifu' then.

I learnt to cook many Indonesian dishes. The mee siam is one of them. Hers is a wet version with gravy but I did a dry one instead and tweaked it a little.

What I Used:

A

500g bee hoon (vermicelli)(I used the thick ones meant for laksa)

1/2 cup shelled prawns (I omitted this and used sliced fish cake)

B (to be ground)

2 teaspoons belachan

3 cloves garlic

10 dried chillies, soaked to soften

12 small onions

C

50g dried prawns/hae bee/udang kering, soaked and ground

1 and 1/2 tablespoons preserved soya bean paste/tau cheo

2 big onions, sliced

2 handfuls of bean sprouts/tau gay

1 tomato, sliced

Oil

1 tablespoon assam, soaked in 300g water and strained

sugar to taste (I used 2 tablespoon gula melaka syrup)

D (save some for garnishing)

3 pieces tau kwa, fried and cubed

2 eggs, beaten and made into omelette, cut into strips

a bunch of chives, cut into 3-cm lengths

limes

fried shallots

What I Did:

1. Heat oil and fry ground ingredients.

2. Add sliced onions, dried prawns and bean paste and fry for a while.

3. Add fish cake and bee hoon and stir well to mix and then add assam water and simmer to cook.

4. Add bean sprouts, tomato, 1/2 tau kwa, omelette and chives and gula melaka. Stir well and fry for a couple of minutes. Do not overcook bean sprouts or it will be soft and limp. No salt is required as the dried prawns and bean paste are salty enough.

5. Serve, garnish with remaining tau kwa, omelette, chives and fried shallots. Squeeze juice of one lime over mee siam. Yum!

I forgot to buy limes when I went to the market this morning. I had to make do with lemons which I happened to have in the fridge.

Crocs Alive at Swampland!

My oldest grandson turned eight on Thursday. He requested for a chocolate crocodile cake.

Instead I baked him a light butter cake and threw in some chocolate chips. Frankly I was getting bored baking chocolate cakes all the time and I wanted to have a chance to do something else.

I covered the cake with chocolate frosting - that's the closest I could do to accede to his request for a chocolate cake!

Here it is!

What a mess!

The crocodiles, tree, birds and the butterflies were made of fondant with tylose added to it so that they would harden and not become sticky in this humid climate.

The 'mud', flowers and leaves were home-made marshmallow fondant. My grandsons had a whale of a time peeling off the leaves and flowers and popping them into their mouths.

I didn't allow them to eat those with tylose added as the fondant was bought and it doesn't have a nice taste.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY NATE!"

Brinjal and Spicy Dried Shrimps

I love brinjals and I eat them cooked with chilli or coconut milk.

When I was a child, my mum forbade me to eat too much brinjal. Her reason was - "It's bad for the eyes!" I never thought of asking her to elaborate further because I would be deemed rude and disobedient then. Nevertheless, I still eat it and today I have to rely on a pair of 'extra' eyes! LOL!

I Used:

2 purple brinjals (don't seem to see green ones around for a while), sliced to size and leave to soak in salt water to prevent discoloration. Drain water before cooking.

2 to 3 tablespoons dried shrimps (hae bee/udang kering), soaked in water for a while and drain off. Use grinder and just pulse once to get it coarsely ground.

1 large onion, sliced or chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 tablespoons chilli paste (for nasi lemak)

Sliced red chillies, optional

Oil

water

What I Did:

1. Heat a little oil and fry onion, garlic and dried shrimps for a minute or so.

2. Add chilli paste, stir to mix.

3. Add brinjals and stir to mix before adding some water to cook. Do not add too much water at one go. Cover to simmer to cook. Check if more water is required from time to time.

4. Taste to find out if salt is required. I didn't add any salt as the chilli paste is already seasoned and the dried shrimps are quite salty.

5. Cook brinjals to your preferred softness. I like mine 3/4 cooked, not too mushy and with a little gravy.

Stewed Chicken in Soya Sauce

This is a very easy-to-cook dish. You definitely can't go wrong with it. I cook this when I'm in one of those 'don't know what to cook' mood!

What I Used:

4 whole chicken legs, chopped to preferred size (I removed the skin)

6 slices of ginger

2 tablespoon sesame oil

About 3 to 5 tablespoon light soya sauce to taste

1 teaspoon dark soya sauce to give some colour

a little sugar to taste

1 tablespoon hua tiao chiew (wine) optional

enough water to cook

How I Did It:

1. Saute ginger in sesame oil till fragrant and then add in chicken and stir fry for a short while.

2. Add sauces and water. Bring to a boil and then cover to simmer till chicken is cooked.

3. Add sugar to taste and then the wine. Bring to a boil and remove from heat.

4. Serve hot with rice.

This stir-fried broccoli with mushroom and carrot in oyster sauce was the accompaniment to the chicken.