Spatula, Spoon and Saturday

No. Not really. I am one of those people who can safely say that I have no family recipes as my parents never really cooked so there was nothing to pass down. But last week I had a play around with the pad thai sauce and came up with something I rather liked.

Basically, a pad thai should always be made one serve at a time in a heated wok or frying pan. The idea is to get all the ingredients ready to go and fry them off in quick succession. Hence the origin of the pad thai sauce. I have tried a couple of pre-made pad thai sauces and they were never really any good.

Pad Thai Sauce
(this makes about 1 cup of pad thai sauce – about 8 servings)

1. 1 small onion, finely chopped
2. 1 red chilli, finely chopped*
3. 5 tbsp of tamarind paste**
4. 8 tbsp of fish sauce (substitute with mushroom soy sauce and vegetarian oyster sauce for vegetarian version)
5. 2 tbsp of water
6. 1/2 tbsp of vegetable oil
7. 2 tbsp of palm sugar or 1 tbsp of normal sugar

Sautee the onion and chilli very slowly in the vegetable oil until the onion becomes translucent and softens. Add the sugar, fish sauce and tamarind. Add a bit of water and bring to boil (yes your kitchen will probably smell of fish sauce). Simmer very gently for about 10 minutes. Let it cool and blend with a stick blender.

(oooh double yolk!) Read the rest of this entry »

What my esteemed Chinese cookbook told me was that twice-cooked pork is a popular dish where pork is boiled and then stir-fried in chilli bean sauce. I rather thought that that would be a good way to use up the leftover roast pork.

What we would need for two hungry people:

1. 150 g. of roast pork, sliced into bite sized pieces*
2. 200 g. of yellow noodles**
3. 1/2 onion, sliced
4. 1 cup of sliced cabbage
5. 1 cup of snow peas***
6. a few green beans
7. 2 tbsp of chilli bean sauce
8. 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
9. 2 tbsp of shao hsing rice wine
10. 1 tbsp of tomato sauce
11. a few drops of sesame oil Read the rest of this entry »

I have half a packet of fresh rice noodles and beansprouts leftover from my attempt at char koey teow (failed, but I’ll write about it. For now I feel like writing about an experience that actually didn’t fail) and Beef Chow Fun seems to be right for a quick weekend lunch for all the ingredients I have.

(marinated beef, spring onions, red capsicum)

This is enough for two:

1. 250 g. fresh rice noodles*
2. 100-150 g. of beef  (rump, sirlion, non-stewing cuts.), sliced into bite-sized pieces
3. 3 spring onions, chopped into long strips
4. 1/2 red capsicum, sliced into thin strips
5. 3 cups of beansprouts
6. 1 tsp of chopped garlic
7. 1 tsp of chopped ginger
8. 2 tbsp of light soy sauce**
9. 2 tbsp of oyster sauce
10. 2 tsp of corn flour
11. 1 tsp of sesame oil
12. a pinch of sugar
13. fresh coriander, for garnish (optional)

(fresh rice noodles)

First of all, what’s really important in this dish is that the wok or the frying pan must be very hot. The noodles need to be mildly charred to give it the full ‘breath of a wok’ effect which you need in all stir-fried rice noodle dishes. What I do now, since my wok is out of commission and my stove isn’t a killer, I fried the noodles in two batches on my $4 Ikea non-stick pan on my hottest hob, which worked out rather well. Note that the ingredients are for two serves so you’ll need to halve things if you do two batches.

First of all, marinade the beef with1 tbsp of oyster sauce, 1 tbsp of light soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil, corn flour, garlic and ginger for about 1/2 hour. Or if you’re in a hurry, just marinade for however long it takes to slice other veggies and separating the rice noodle strands.*

Heat your frying pan or wok on very high heat. Add a tbsp or so of vegetable oil to the frying pan when it’s hot. Add the capsicum strips and stir-fry for a few minutes. Add the beef and cook until the meat is nicely browned. Add the rice noodles to fry. Keep the heat as constant as possible. This means after adding new ingredients, make sure the pan is reheated before you add the next ingredient. Keep stirring. Add beansprouts, the rest of the soy and oyster sauces. Add spring onions and stir for a minute and then turn the heat off. The whole process shouldn’t really take more than 4-5 minutes for one serve.

* You can fresh rice noodles at supermarket or Asian grocery. Microwave them on high for a minute or so to warm them up before separating the sticky strands one by one so you don’t end up frying a cake of noodles. Unfortunately, I have yet to find a satisfactory shortcut.
** I do believe the traditional Cantonese method includes dark soy sauce so you end up with noodles that darker and a little bit sweeter (such as Vegie Hut) but I prefer without. If you like, substitute add 1 tbsp of dark soy sauce to the noodles when frying instead.

I miss the proper Indian mee goreng that you get in Malaysia and Singapore. It’s always spicy and rich and just bursting with flavours. Most of the mee goreng you get in here in Melbourne is just not spicy enough. There needs to be that element of dried spices: chilli powder and tumeric. And sometimes they get it so red, it’s scary!

I can’t say I have successfully replicated the real Indian mee goreng yet. In fact, it tastes just like most mee goreng you get at restaurants here in Australia. But it’s all right, it’s still quite good.

For 4, you’ll need:

1. 1 pack of Hokkien noodles (500 g.)
2. 10 medium-sized prawns
3. 5 fish balls, sliced (or 100g of fish cake, sliced)
4. 2 medium potatoes, peeled
5. 1 onion, sliced
6. 3 cubes of fried tofu, sliced*
7. 2 cups of beansprouts
8. 1 tomato, diced
9. 5 spring onions, sliced
10. 2 tbsp dark soy sauce (or kecap manis)
11. 2 tbsp soy sauce
12. 2 tbsp sambal oelek (reduce depending on taste)
13. 1 tsp chilli powder (reduce depending on taste)
14. 1 tsp tumeric powder
15. 3 tbsp of tomato ketchup
16. 1 red chilli, sliced (or yellow)
17. 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
18. 2 tbsp of fried shallots
19. 1 egg

Boil, steam or microwave the potatoes until cooked. Cut into 2cm cubes and sprinkle 1/2 tsp of tumeric and mix well. Separate the noodles and set aside.

Add 2 tbsp of oil onto a large heated non-stick frying pan. Add the fish cakes and fry until browned. Add prawns, garlic and onion. Fry for a minute. Add the noodles and fry until the noodles become well heated and starts to char in places. Add tomato ketchup, dark and light soy sauce, the rest of the tumeric, chilli powder, sambal oelek. Fry well until the sauces and the noodles mix.

Push all the noodles to one side. Crack an egg onto an empty space on the frying pan. Scramble the egg slightly and pile the noodles back on top of the egg. Wait for a minute or so before stirring everything together.

Add beansprounts, potato cubes, fried tofu and tomato and stir fry until everything comes together. Turn off the heat, add chilli slices and spring onion. Stir through until the spring onions wilt.

Served topped with some fried shallots and a wedge of lime.

* I didn’t really have any so I used supermarket-bought firm tofu. I cut them into slices and fry in a non-stick pan with a bit of oil until well browned on both sides and just placed them on top of the noodles.

I based this on  Kylie Kwong’s recipe in her My China book – it didn’t really turn out the way I thought it would be. It’s a bit plain on its own so it’s best served as a side dish. The recipe was called stir-fried rice noodles with bean sprouts and ginger but it, strangely enough, didn’t contain any ginger in it!

Instead of normal mung bean sprouts, I use the soy bean sprouts – I like the nutty flavour that it has and it makes the dish a little bit more substantial. I start by adding a bit of oil to a very hot wok and stir fry the soy bean sprouts with a little bit of salt. The soy bean sprouts will take substantially longer than normal bean sprouts to cook. I just keep tasting it as I go along. Add a little bit of water, if necessary.

Once the sprouts are cooked, add 1 tbsp of chopped ginger, 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of sugar, 1 tbsp of oyster sauce and 1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar. Add the rice noodles and stir quickly until the noodles are coated with the sauce. Have a quick taste and adjust the flavour as necessary.

Push the noodles aside, add a bit of oil and crack an egg onto the hot bit of oil. Let the egg set for about 1/2 a minute before scrambling the eggs into the noodles. Sprinkle the noodles with 3 tbsp of chopped coriander leaves and 1 tbsp of chopped spring onions.

Serve as a side dish. I had it as a main dish and I think it would be better off alongside something else.