Bite On It!

For some quick healthy alternatives, I do make some simple and easy to boil soup. It’s not those double boil soup where you need to boil for more than 2 hours. These, usually called  ‘kuan-tong’ or simply translate to ‘heat up the soup’ in Cantonese.

What I normally do for such dish is to have some ingredients for the soup base as these type of soup do not requires spare ribs or chicken pieces. I substitute with dried anchovies and some soy beans. These two ingredients give the soup some nice sweet taste.

And most of all, it taste good and takes very little time preparing!

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Ingredients

• 1.5L Water
• 30g Dried anchovies (debone)
• 50g Raw soy beans
• 1″ Ginger (sliced)
• 1/2 block Silken tofu (cut into small cubes)
• 2pcs Fu-chock (bean skins)
• 10g  Wakame (Japanese seaweed)
• Salt and pepper to taste

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Methods

1. Heat up stock pot with a little oil and fry the ginger slices till fragrant before adding the dried anchovies and stir a bit. Then slowly add in the water and soy beans and bring it to boil. Bring down the heat to small and let it boil for 30 minutes.
2. Remove all the ingredients (dried anchovies, soy beans and ginger slices) and leave the soup to continue boiling.
3. Add in the silken tofu, wakame and fu-chock and stir till they are soft.

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This is one of my favorite dish which I learned from my mom many years back. I am not too sure if this dish is from Hakka, Hokkien or Cantonese influence as we are a mix of the three. What I like about this dish is the varieties of ingredients used and of course it is extremely yummy and appetizing but required a little more work.

Previously, like some 20 years ago, we can get really good ‘tau-kua’ or a type of bean curd which is harder than the normal tofu. They used to be yellow in color and has a very fragrant smell. However, I can’t seem to find this particular ‘tau-kua’ anymore. Though they are still selling the same thing but the taste and texture is completely different.

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Ingredients

• 200g French beans (cut into small piece of 1.5cm)
• 2pcs ‘Tau-kua’ - hard bean curd
• 150g Lean pork or pork belly (not too fatty ones) - cubed
• 2pcs Red chilies
• 150g Raw peanut (toasted with skin removed)
• 10g Preserved black beans
• 3 cloves Garlic (minced)

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Methods

1. Heat up wok with some oil and lightly fry the French beans and tau-kua separately. Lift them up and put aside.
2. Add some more oil into the wok and stir-fry the pork cubes until 50% cook. Lift up and put aside.
3. If the wok has not enough oil, add a little bit more and saute the garlic, add in the red chilies (squares) and stir for a while before throwing in the preserved black beans and continue to stir.
4. Add in the pork cubes, French beans and tau-kua and stir further for another few minutes till the pork is thoroughly cooked.
5. Before you life them up, throw in the roasted peanuts and stir.

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Another easy to prepare and healthy dish for tofu lover. I love tofu regardless of its texture, shape and taste. I have tried many types including those imported from Japan. Of course our local tofu can’t be compared to the Japanese tofu but they are still edible. I especially like the silky (silken) smooth tofu which we normally used in steaming or soup.

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Ingredients

• 1 box Silky smooth tofu
• 100 gm Chicken breast meat (shredded)
• 1 pc Dried Chinese mushroom (soak in hot water till soft, diced)
• 1/4 cup Carrot (coarsely chopped)
• 2 cloves Garlic
• 1 Chili padi
• 1tbsp Corn flour
• 1tbsp Light soy sauce
• Pepper to taste

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Method

1. Steam tofu for 5 minutes and removed any water after the steaming.
2. Heat wok with about 2 tbsp of oil and sauteed the garlic and chili padi. Add in carrot and mushroom and continue to stir for 2-3 minutes.
3. Add in the shredded chicken and stir till about 80% cook.
4. Dash in the light soy sauce and pepper before adding corn flour which is mixed with 30ml of water to thicken the sauce.
5. Scoop up and lay on top of steamed tofu and served.

Some of you must be wondering why I’m using a type of pest for my cooking… don’t get me wrong as this type of anchovy is commonly know as ’silvery-fish’ or ‘ngan-yee-jai’ (silver-small-fish) by the Chinese, hence the name given. They are the smallest version of the common anchovy and we can’t really see their bones. Normally we will cook the entire fish together with it head. It’s salty at time but the level of saltiness is not so extreme as compared to the bigger anchovies. They are nice to eat when being fried till crispy.

The taste of tofu is bland so to add a little silverfish and dried prawns will make this dish a very appetizing starter.

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Ingredients

• 1pc Tofu (9×9 cm type)
• 30gm Silverfish
• 30gm Dried prawns
• 1pc Chili padi
• Light soy sauce

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Method

1. Cut tofu to small square (1 pc of tofu can cut up to 8 small square pcs). Heat up wok with some oil and fry the tofu lightly till golden brown. Lift up and put aside.
2. Wash and chop or grind dried prawns to tiny pieces. Fry dried prawns with some oil for 2 minutes and add in the silverfish and chopped chili padi and fry until golden crisp.
3. Dash some light soy sauce on tofu before topping with the fried dried prawns and silverfish.

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Today we had a family gathering at our house as PiggyBeng wanted to show-off his Hokkien Mee (Penang Prawn Noddles) to his relatives. Yeah, PiggyBeng is obsessed with Hokkien Mee and he can eat 3 bowls in one serving!

Since we are not sure how many people will turn up, so I decided to cook some snacks to compliment the main meal… So came up with this easy idea… fried stuffed taupok (a type of fried tofu puff). Normally this stuffed taupok is cooked as one of Yong Tau Fu item.

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Ingredients

• 300gm Pork (minced)
• 20pcs Taupok
• 2tsp Corn flour
• Some water
• Salt & pepper for taste
• Oil for frying

Method

1. Minced pork and mix in the corn flour, water (not too much), salt and pepper. Mix well.
2. Cut all the taupok into half and turn them inside out.
3. Stuffed the minced pork mixture into taupok and fried till golden brown starting by frying the stuffed side first.

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