Sambal Petai with Prawns

Petai (or Bitter Bean or Stink Bean) is also called the Wonder Bean. Just Google the word and a whole lot of information on its health benefits appear. It is claimed that it can help those suffering from diabetes, constipation, depression, anemia, blood pressure, heartburn and so on. Not everyone likes petai because of its repulsive smell. Petai is actually an acquired taste for most. However, one can learn to eat it and love it.

One of the best way of cooking petai is to fry it with sambal and prawns, squids or anchovies. However, I usually fry it with sambal and prawns.

• To cook this dish, you have to get the sambal ready. (Please see my post on "Sambal".)

• Wash the prawns, cut off the tip of the heads and tails. Remove the entrails. Give them a rinse.

• Peel the petai, remove the membranes and split them into two to ensure that there are no worms in the petai. Rinse them.

• Prepare the tamarind juice. Take some tamarind, add some hot water and stir. Sieve to trap the pulp and seeds.

• Heat up some oil in the kuali. Put in a few tablespoons of sambal (amount depends on amount of petai to be cooked) when the oil is hot. Put in some red chilli if so desire.

• Fry the sambal until it is fragrant and it separates from the oil.

• Add in the prawns. When they are half cooked, pour in the petai.

• Add in the tamarind juice. (Add more for a more sour sauce.)

• Add in the seasonings - salt and light soy sauce.

• Fry until the prawns are cooked and the sauce is reduced.

• Dish out.

Man Fan (Rice Covered with Meat and Vegetables)

Man fan is rice covered with cooked meat and vegetable. It makes light my work in the kitchen; instead of cooking three to four dishes of meat and vegetable to go with rice, the meat and vegetable are cooked together and poured onto the rice, covering it.

The first step to cook man fan is to cook the rice. Once cook, scoop the rice onto a shallow plate.

While waiting for the rice to cook, the next step is to cook the meat and vegetables to be poured onto the rice:

• Chop a few cloves of garlic.
• Soak the shitake mushroom. When they have soften, cut them into pieces, lengthwise.
• Peel and cut some carrots.
• Wash and cut up the mustard (sawi), the amount depends on one's appetite for them.
• Wash and cut up the napa cabbage.
• Wash and slice up half of a piece of chicken breast. (If pork is preferred, then cut and slice the pork.)
• Beat up an egg.
• Get ready some water or chicken stock. I use only water.
• Put a tsp of cornflour in a bowl and mix it with some water (for thickening).
• Get ready the seasonings - white pepper, salt and thin soy sauce. Dark soy sauce is optional.

• Heat up a wok.
• Put in a tablespoon of sesame oil.
• Saute the garlic till fragrant.
• Add in the mushroom and fry till fragrant.
• Add water or chicken stock into the wok and let it simmer for a while.
• Add in the carrots, mustard and napa cabbage. Cook them for a while.
• Add in the egg when the water or chicken stock is boiling, stirring to break up the egg.
• Add in the seasonings of white pepper, salt and soy sauce. You may add some dark soy sauce if you prefer the sauce to be darker.
• Let the sauce boils. Once it boils, pour the cornflour water, stirring the sauce so that it thickens evenly. Let the sauce boil.
• Scoop up the ingredients and the sauce and cover the rice.
• Serve while it is hot.

Sambal

I

Our family loves spicy food, however, the degree of spiciness varies from person to person. I love my food to be as spicy as possible. In order to be able to cook my dishes easily, I will

usually grind a lot of chilli at one go and freeze them in containers.

I have the following ingredients to make my chilli sambal:

• fresh red chilli - 1 kg
• dried chilli - 1/2 kg
• bird's eye chilli (chilli padi) (optional) - 200 g
• onions - 2 big ones
• garlic - 1 bulb
• shrimp paste - 1 1/2 inch

The directions:

• Remove the stems of the red chilli. Wash and dry them. Then, cut them into smaller pieces. Some people may not like the seeds and would like to remove them. However, I do not remove them.
• Remove the stems of the dried chilli. Wash and soak them overnight or soak them for at least 4 hours with hot water. When they have softened, cut them into smaller pieces. You may or may not remove the seeds.
• The bird's eye chilli are for those who want a very spicy sambal. You may leave them out if you wish. if you are including them, then remove the stems and wash them.
• Remove the skin of the onions and slice them.
• Remove the skin of the garlic.
• Toast the shrimp paste. You don't have to if you don't want to.

• Put all the ingredients into the grinder.
• How fine you want your sambal to be depends on you.
• Once all the ingredients have been ground, put them into a few containers for easier use.
• Freeze them.

Note: If you are making sambal for nasi lemak, the amount of fresh chilli and dried chilli should be reversed i.e. more of dried chilli and less of the fresh ones. Then add 1 piece of galangal (about 1 inch) to be ground together.

Fried Pumpkin Rice

Fried Pumpkin Rice is a normal serving in our house. It is easy to make and delicious to eat. You only need a few ingredients to make it. They are:

• Rice
• Pumpkin
• Pork slices
• Egg
• Chilli padi
• Garlic
• Oil
• Seasonings - salt, light soy sauce and black pepper.

There are 2 methods of frying pumpkin rice. You either steam the pumpkin and put them in when the rice has been fried or you fry the pumpkin and then put the rice in when the pumpkin is cooked. I prefer the first method. This is because if you were to fry the pumpkin first, they tend to stick to the kuali when they are being fried and make my rice look unappetising.

• Skin, cut, wash and steam the pumpkin.
• Fry the eggs and break them up. When they are cooked, dish them out onto a plate and set it aside. If you prefer, you can break the eggs into the rice while it is being fried. (This would make your rice even more fragrant. But I prefer to fry the eggs in the beginning as I would like to be able to see pieces of them in my rice.)
• Pour oil into the kuali and saute the garlic.
• When the garlic is fragrant, pour in the pork slices. Fry till the pork is almost cooked.
• Pour in the rice and the chilli padi and fry.
• Add in the fried eggs. Or, crack an egg into the rice. Cover the egg with the rice to let it cook. Then, stir to mix well with all the rice. 
• Add in the seasonings - salt, light soy sauce and black pepper - according to your taste.
• When the rice has been done, add in the steamed pumpkin. Stir the pumpkin to mix completely with the rice.
• Dish out onto a plate and serve. You may decorate in any way you like with some parsley or celery or coriander leaves.

Note: if you like you may fry some onions with your rice.

Pumpkin Soup

According to some people, pumpkin is a "superfood". Eating pumpkin helps to reduce the risk of cancer, regulate blood pressure, combat diabetes, provide our daily fiber requirement, boost our immune system and many more. There are many ways of eating pumpkin, for example, smoothie, pie, soup, bread, pasta, pancakes, chips....the list goes on.

My family, especially my husband, loves the pumpkin soup as it is sweet and very tasty. When I am not making soup with it, I will just steam it only for him to eat with rice (without fail for every meal). So, I usually keep stock of a few pumpkins at home.

To make soup, I will usually choose a pumpkin of about 1.2 kg to 1.5 kg in weight to ensure that everyone has more than enough to drink. I use the following method to make the soup:

Ingredients:

• 1.2 - 1.5 kg of pumpkin, skinned, remove the seeds and cut into cubes. Then, give them a good rinse.
• 2 big onions, chopped
• 4 cloves of garlic, chopped
• 1 litre of chicken stock (or use 1 1/2 chicken stock cube and dissolve in water to make up 1 litre of stock)
• generous amount of black pepper
• butter
• double cream (optional)
• cheese (optional)

Method:

• Put a dollop of butter into your frying pan.
• Saute the garlic until fragrant.
• Add in the onions and fry them till they are soft.
• Add in the pumpkin.
• Then, add in chicken stock. Let it boil until the pumpkin becomes mushy.
• Add in a generous amt of black pepper.
• Leave the soup aside to cool down. (This step is important to prevent the soup from splashing all over when the ingredients in the soup are being blended.)
• Once it has cooled down, use a hand-held liquidizer or normal blender to blend the ingredients.
• Then return the soup to the pot to be heated up. The soup is ready to be served.

You may serve by:

• adding cream (optional) on top.
• sprinkling some cheese (optional) on top.
• adding even more black pepper into it.

Pork Balls on Xiao Bai Cai

Xiao Bai Cai is my son's favourite vegetable. He likes it cooked in any way whether stir fried plain with a bit of Chinese cooking wine, stir fried with some prawns or stir fried with mushrooms or even blanched and topped with some minced pork fried with mushrooms, carrots, dried scallops and dried oysters or topped with some pork balls. To cook the latter, the steps are listed below.

Ingredients:

• 16 xiao bai cai leaves
• 150 g pork
• 75 g carrot
• 2 pieces Shiitake mushroom, soaked
• 5 g black moss
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tbsp corn flour
• For the sauce:
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 3 cloves garlic, chopped
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp light soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp oyster sauce or abalone sauce

Method:

• Preparing the leaves.
• Remove 16 xiao bai cai leaves from the stalks. Try to have them of the same length.
• Wash them to remove any impurities like sand.
• Boil a pot of water and at the same time, get ready a pot of cold water.
• When the water has boiled, blanched the xiao bai cai for a few minutes.
• Remove them quickly and put them into the pot of water to stop them from cooking further.
• Then, take them out from the pot and arrange them on a serving plate in any style that you like.
• Set aside.

• Wash and mince the pork. When buying the pork, it is better to have a little fat so that the meat balls will not be hard.

• Wash, peel and chop up the carrots.

• Chop up or cut the soaked mushrooms into tiny cubes.

• Wash and soak the black moss. Cut them shorter so that they can be mixed easily with the other ingredients.

• Place the minced pork, chopped carrots, chopped mushrooms and black moss into a mixing bowl. Stir to mix them well.

• Add salt, light soy sauce and pepper to the mixture. Again, stir to ensure all are well mixed up.

• Finally, add in either the corn, tapioca or potato flour or starch into the mixture. Mix them up. The use of the flour or starch is to hold all the ingredients together so that they can be rolled into balls.

• Take some of the mixture and roll it into a ball, the size of the ball is discretionary. Repeat this until all the mixture is used up. Then set them aside.

• To make the sauce, saute some garlic with sesame oil. Add water and seasonings (I use light soy sauce, dark soy sauce and pepper only. However, you may add oyster sauce or abalone sauce if you like) and let it boil. 

• Place the pork balls into the simmering sauce and let them cook. Turn the balls midway into cooking to ensure they are fully cooked.

• Let the sauce continue to simmer until the amount is reduced. There is no need to add corn, tapioca or potato flour or starch into the sauce as the flour or starch in the pork balls will thicken the sauce.

• Once the pork balls are cooked, dish them out onto the xiao bai cai.

• Serve.

Treasures in a Garden.

This is another simple dish that I often cook for my family. On normal days, I will leave out the black moss and dried oysters and it is only during special occasions that I add these in.

The ingredients are xiao bai cai, mince pork, dried mushrooms (wash and soak overnight), dried oysters (wash and soak), black moss (soak), garlic (chop), sesame oil and seasonings - salt, soy sauce and pepper. The steps are:

• Carefully remove the xiao bai cai from the stalks. Wash them. Boil a pot of water and get ready a pot of cold water. When the water is boiling, blanch the xiao bai cai for a few minutes. Remove and put them into the pot of cold water to stop them from cooking further. Then take them out and arrange them on a serving plate. Set aside.

• Cut the soaked mushrooms into cubes.

• Cut the dried oysters into half if they are big. Or use them as they are if they are of smaller size.

• Drain the black moss.

• Put some sesame oil into the kuali and saute the garlic. Once the garlic is fragrant, add in the dried mushrooms. Stir until they are fragrant. Then, add in the mince pork and dried oysters. Add in the seasonings. Let the pork, mushrooms and oysters simmer for about 10 minutes. Once the pork is cooked and the mushroom and oysters are soft, add in the black moss. Once the sauce boils, turn off the fire and dish them out onto the serving plate with the xiao bai cai.

Note: You may substitute pork with chicken.

Minced Pork or Chicken in Napa Cabbage

I often cook this dish for my family as it is easy to make and I can choose the ingredients that I want to put inside the cabbage besides the mince meat. Usually I will add chopped carrots, chopped mushrooms and chopped parsley. However, for special occasion like the Chinese New Year I will add chopped mushrooms, minced prawns, black moss, chopped water chestnuts, chopped carrots to the minced meat. 

This dish is simple to make:

• Blanch the napa cabbage so that it is easy to fold/roll and set aside.
• Minced the pork (add some fats so that the meat will not be hard) and place them into a large mixing bowl. Add corn flour (to smoothen the pork) and seasonings - sesame oil, salt, pepper, light soy sauce to the minced pork. Mix well and set aside.
• Chop up the carrots and put them into the mixing bowl with the minced pork.
• Chop up the mushrooms which had been soaked overnight and add them to the minced pork.
• Chop up the parsley (can be replaced with cilantro or Chinese celery). Put them into the mixing bowl.
• Shell and take out the veins of the prawns. Then mince them after which add them to the minced pork.
• Wash and soak black moss. Loosen them up and put them into the mixing bowl.
• Peel and chop the water chestnuts. Add them to the minced pork.
• Stir all the ingredients till they are well mixed up.
• Divide the amount of minced pork with all the ingredients according to the number of napa cabbage that had been prepared.
• Take one leave of the cabbage and lay it on a plate. Take one portion of the minced meat and roll the meat firmly with two palms. Once done, put the meat onto the napa cabbage and roll up the cabbage with the sides tucked in. Placed the rolled up cabbage onto a metal plate. Repeat until all the meat and cabbage have been used up.
• Place some soaked gojiberries on the cabbage.
• Boil water in the steamer. Place the plate of rolled cabbages into the steamer and steam for at least 20 minutes or until the meat is cooked.
• Remove plate from the steamer.
• Transfer the cabbage onto a serving plate, keeping the sauce in the metal plate. Set aside the serving plate.
• Heat up the kuali. Pour in some cooking oil (or sesame oil) and saute the garlic. Once the garlic is fragrant, pour the sauce from the metal plate into the kuali. Let it boil.
• Meanwhile, put a teaspoon of corn flour or tapioca flour into a small bowl. Add water  into the bowl and stir well, ensuring there is no lumps of flour. Pour the corn or tapioca flour mixture into the kuali, stirring the sauce until it thickens. Then pour the sauce over the rolled cabbage.
• Decorate with Chinese celery, parsley or cilantro before serving.

Note : This dish can be made with minced chicken.

Minced Pork on Mushrooms

This is a common dish in our family. On normal days I will just steam minced pork on mushrooms and then drizzle the sauce over it. I serve this dish on Chinese New Year with whatever grandeur that should be accorded to this dish to bring out the New Year mood.

• To make this dish, we have to soak the mushrooms overnight, the number of mushrooms is arbitrary. Some will have eight for the auspicious "Fatt" while others will make enough so that every person surrounding the dining table will have at least one. Once soft, cut off the stems.

• On the day of making, mince the pork. If only lean meat is used, the end result will be hard minced meat. So, it would be advisable to mix a bit of fat while mincing.

• Chop up some carrots.

• Chop up some mushroom.

• Chop some garlic.

• Wash and soak some fatt choy.

• Mix the mince pork with the above - chopped carrots, chopped mushroom, chopped garlic and fatt choy. Add some corn flour (to smoothen the pork), sesame oil, salt, light soy sauce and pepper. Mix well and make into little balls.

• Put the balls on top of the mushrooms. Steam them for about 20 minutes or until the pork is cooked. Set aside.

• Cut the broccoli into little florets. Boil some water and prepare a bowl of cold water. When the water is boiling, add in the florets and blanch them for 5-10 minutes. Remove them and quickly immerse them into the bowl of cold water to stop them from being cooked further.

• Cut some carrots and blanch them for 5-10 minutes. Remove them.

• Arrange the mushrooms with meat on a plate, leaving the sauce in the plate for later use and decorate the plate with the blanched broccoli and carrots.

• Meanwhile, put some oil into the kuali and saute some garlic. Once the garlic is fragrant, pour the sauce from steaming the mushrooms and meat into the kuali. If the sauce is too little, add some water (or if you have pork or chicken broth, you may use them here). Then add seasonings like salt, light soya sauce and pepper.  Once the sauce boils, you may thicken it with some corn flour. Pour the sauce over the plate of mushrooms with mince pork.

• The dish is ready to be served.