Bite On It!

Bought some snake beans (the broader and more wrinkles version of the normal long beans) but not sure what to cook with… then saw the ikan bilis my mom bought for me during her last visit so decided to clear them. Since we like spicy with a little sourish type of food, the idea for sambal ikan bilis kicks in.

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Recipe

• 350-400gm Snake beans
• 150gm Ikan bilis (anchovies) - medium size
• 2 Onions
• 5pcs Dried chilies
• 2pcs Fresh red chilies
• 250ml Tamarind juice
• 5pcs Shallots
• 2 Cloves garlic
• Salt and sugar for taste
• 50ml Water

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Method

1. Blend dried chilies, fresh chilies, shallots and garlic. Wash ikan bilis and drain all the water.
2. Heat up wok with 2tblsp of oil and fry the ikan bilis till fragrant and slightly crispy look then lift up and fry onions until soft.
3. Then add in the blended items and continue stirring for about a minute.
4. Put in the fried ikan bilis into the fried onions with the chillies paste. Fried for a while and add in the tamarind juice. Cover for 5 minutes with occassional stirring so the paste will not dry up.
5. Once the paste look thick add in salt and sugar to taste and it’s ready.
6. Cut snake beans into about 4cm long. Heat up wok with 2 tblsp oil and fry till a little crisp looking.
7. Add in the sambal ikan bilis and continue frying for about 2 minutes.
8. Add in some water and continue frying for another 3 minutes.
9. Once the mixture looks thick, lift up and it’s ready to serve.

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Note: For tamarind juice, add more tamarind if you prefer a more sourish taste.

Found some squids hiding in my freezer the other day. They were the left over from PiggyBeng’s Assam Curry Fish that he cooked during the weekend.

Have wanted to use them to fry some vermicelli but did not have all the ingredients so came out with this idea instead… stuffed squid since I found a small piece of pork belly. Have not attempted this one before so not sure if it will turn out nice or a total disaster.

As usual, there is no definite portion to this recipe as I only have 5 pathetically small squids…

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Ingredients

• Squids
• Pork belly (minsed)
• Chili padi
• Garlic (about 2 cloves)
• Corn flour
• Salt
• Pepper

Sauce

• Juice from the steamed stuffed squids
• Corn flour
• Salt

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Method

1. Minced the pork belly. Add in chopped garlic and chilies with a little corn flour and water to hold them together.
2. Stuff the minced pork mix into squid.

   

3. Steam the stuffed squid for about 10 minutes
4. Remove the juice (was surprised that there were lots of it - no idea where it came from). Add corn flour with a sprinkle of salt and pour into the wok to cook the sauce. Remember to stir so it would not turn lumpy.
5. Once the sauce began to boil (lots of bubbles), pour over the stuffed squids. Serve.

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Note: Do not stuff the squid till you fill the whole squid as the stuffings will come out when the squids shrunk during the steaming process! So, just stuffed them about half will be just nice. That was why you see so many pork balls around the stuffed squids…

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Finally a vegetarian dish! I seldom cook dishes that made up with just vegetable as PiggyBeng thinks there are not filling… he needs his meat (very carnivorous hor?)

This dish was actually inspired by PiggyBeng’s 3rd uncle’s wife (sar-jim). They are a staunch Buddhists and will go on a vegetarian diet on every 1st and 15th of the Chinese Lunar month. We went to their house on one of the 15th and they served a similar dish so I thought I can concoct one myself by using some of my favorite ingredients.

It’s not a difficult dish to prepare but do take up some time as there are 8 items that needed to be prepared individually before cooking it. And the best part is… there’s no exact recipe because I just cut and put in all the ingredients I have with me…. so if you want to feed more mouths…. just put more of the items you like.

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Ingredients

• Lotus roots
• Lotus seeds
• Gingko nuts
• Peanuts
• Carrot
• Brinjal (eggplant)
• Button mushrooms
• Enoki mushrooms
• Water
• Salt and soy sauce for taste

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Method

1. Boil peanuts, lotus seeds and gingko nuts until soft in a small pan (one after another).
2. Sliced lotus roots and carrot thinly. Cut brinjal into a few sections and cut each section into 4 or 6 triangular piece. Cut button mushrooms into 4 sections each.
3. Firstly, heat up wok with approximately 2 tblsp of oil and fry lotus roots, followed by carrot, button mushrooms and brinjal. Then add in the soften peanuts, gingko nuts and lotus seeds.
4. Pour in the water and let it boil and cover. Stir occasionly and continue to boil in slow fire for at least 30-45 minutes until all the vege are soft.
5. Add salt or soy sauce before putting in the enoki mushrooms. Covers for another 10 minutes and serve.

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Note: Remember to remove the ‘heart’ from both lotus seeds and gingko nuts as they could be bitter.

You can boil them in a claypot too if you own one.

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Legume is among one of my favorite food. And there are quite a few types of legume sold in the nearby market. One of the day during my weekly market trip, I saw my regular vege seller is selling winged beans.

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It has been a long time since I last cooked winged beans and knowing PiggyBeng will like spicy dish, I decided to get some and cook some dried prawn sambal with the winged beans I bought.

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This is a short-cut recipe as I did not blend the sambal myself (lazy me) but used those ready made sambal belacan which I bought from the market… which is pretty handy! Saves a lot of time and don’t have to wash the blender too!

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Ingredients

• 300gm Winged beans
• 100gm Dried prawns
• 2pcs Chili padi (cut strip)
• 2tblsp Sambal belacan (from ready made)
• 2 Cloves garlic
• 50ml Water
• Salt for taste
• Soy sauce for taste

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Methods

1. Wash and sliced the winged beans to around 0.5mm thick in a slanting position.
2. Dried prawns can be used as whole or could be chopped into tiny pieces depending on individual preference. I used them whole this time.
3. Heat up about 2 tblsp of oil in wok and fry dried prawns until fragrant then put in the chopped garlic and ontinue to fry for another minute.
4. Put in sambal belacan and fry till fragrant (you will feel your nose starts to itch and feels like sneezing) then thrown in the chili padi and continue stiring.
5. Next, put in the winged beans and stir before pouring about 50ml of water in. Stir and over for 3 minutes and stir and over for another 2 minutes. This will helps soften the beans.
6. Sprinkle some salt or a few dash of soy sauce before serving.

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Not that I love to eat pork that much but it seems to be a really versatile ingredient in many types of cooking.

Ever since Darrius started taking solid, I have been buying lean pork to add into his porridge. Will buy around RM2-3 of lean meat each week and sometimes I’m left with a huge chunk in the freezer after slicing a few pieces for Darrius’s porridge. As it is lean so the best and simplest thing to do with it is to make some pork chops ala Chinese style.

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Ingredients

Marinade

• 250gm Lean pork (slice to about 1cm thick)
• 1tsp Black soy sauce
• 1tsp Light soy sauce
• 1tsp Cooking oil
• Sugar
• Pepper

Topping Sauce (optional)

• 30ml Water
• 1tsp Corn flour
• 1tbsp Tomato Ketchup
• Salt
• Pepper

Decoration

• 1pkt Snow peas

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Method:

1. Marinade pork for 1/2 hour or more.
   Heat up wok with about 1 tbsp of oil and fry the marinated pork on slow fire.
2. When the pork are all cooked, pick them up and use the remaining oil to cook the topping sauce. Mix all the ingredients and pour into wok and stir until boil. Pour in the pork chops and stir lightly before taking out.
3. For the snow peas, boil in water with a dash of salt and oil for about 1-2 minutes (not too long or the peas will not be crisp)

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Note: Before marinating the pork, tenderise it first by using the back of the clever and chop lightly in a criss-cross way for a few times so the meat will not be tough to bite.

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