[Recipe] Fried Bee Hoon - Meatless

I used to always think in everything that I cook I MUST add meat unless it's stir-fry vegetables or a pure vegetable dish.

For as long as I've been cooking meals for my family, I've never once fried bee hoon without meat. I didn't think fried bee hoon would be tasty without any meat, so I was a little apprehensive at how this meal might taste.

I wasn't disappointed! With a wide variety of colours in the fried bee hoon, it was already very appetising even without eating!

To prepare this meal, it was SO simple. I love loads of colours in my meal because I know it is first very appetising, secondly, since we are not having any meat within the meal, I need to find substitutes for the protein that we will be lacking from. Thirdly, with a wide variety of different vegetables, we will have a vast amount of different nutrients drawn from them. So even without meat in our meal this evening, we were still able to have loads of good stuff packed within it.

Recipe for 4 pax
Ingredients
Dried rice vermicelli (bee hoon) (rehydrate it by soaking in water till soft)
1 Carrot (julienned)
1/2 Zucchini (julienned)
100gms Bean Sprouts (roots plucked)
6 Shitake Mushrooms (thinly sliced)
2 Eggs (beaten and fried as an omelette then shredded)
1 Red chilli (seeded, julienned) - you may replace it with red bell pepper
4 Cloves garlic (minced)
2 Onions (thinly sliced)
1" long ginger (skinned and flattened)
3tbsp light soya sauce
1tbsp dark soya sauce
1/2 cup Water
Salt & Pepper to taste

Process
1) Heat a tablespoon of cooking oil in a wok then saute the aromatics (ginger, garlic & onion) for a minute
2) Add all the vegetables except bean sprouts, stir-fry the vegetables for 2 minutes then add 1tsp of salt. When the vegetables are almost cooked down, add in the bean sprouts and stir fry for another minute.
3) Pour in the water followed by the rice vermicelli, add the seasoning (light and dark soya sauce)
4) Toss the vermicelli to even out the seasoning till it's well combined.
5) Taste to test if the seasoning is sufficient otherwise add a tsp more of light soya sauce if you prefer.
6) Turn out the heat and combine the shredded omelette into the mixture and serve with spring onions/red cut chilli (optional).

[Recipe] Vegetarian Tofu

This dish caught my attention as I was conscientiously trying to lift out all recipes that are mainly vegetarian/vegan/vegetable based from the cookbooks I have in my home library.

It's simple and I was able to adapt it by changing the vegetables that I fancy. The main thing that brought the dish together was the sauce. So this was a hit with my family that they asked for "repeat order" (ie. to have this in our next dinner meal in the near future).

With very simple ingredients everything can be pull off within minutes!

2 Pieces of Firm Tofu, sliced into approx 1cm thickness; then pat them completely dry

Pan-fry them till they form a crispy exterior - approx 5mins each side. Once done, set it aside.

Ingredients that I've used as the vegetable topping. Originally the recipe calls for baby corn, black fungus and mushrooms. Well I love my food colourful so these were the ones I've used - 1/2 pack of Sweet Snap Peas, Yellow Bell Pepper (thinly sliced into strips, Red Chilli (seeded & cut into thin strips), 1/2 Carrot (julienned), 2 Fresh Shitake Mushrooms (thinly sliced).

I cannot do without any aromatics in my dish, so garlic and onions are the usual aromatics I'll have in my cooking.

I've done away with the use of oyster sauce and even commercially made mushroom sauce. Have changed to the use of Natural Black Bean Sauce instead. Tasted just as good!

Recipe for the sauce:

1Tbsp Black Bean Sauce

2 Tbsp Light Soya Sauce

1tsp Sugar

1/2 Cup water

1-2tsp Corn Flour

*Note: Combine all the ingredients for the sauce together

Process

1) Pan fry the firm tofu slices till crispy on the outside and set it aside.

2) Heat oil and saute onions and garlic till fragrant

3) Add in all the vegetables and stir-fry till cooked

4) Add in the sauce and cook till the sauce thickens; turn out the heat

5) Serve by plating the tofu at the bottom of the plate and pour the vegetables with sauce over the tofu.

[Recipe] Meatless Fried Rice

Fried Rice has always been the easiest meal for me to whip up in a jiffy because it's one-pot and best of all it's just a huge marrying of all ingredients in one wok! Very little to think much about seriously when it comes to preparing a traditional yang zhou fried rice. However, it's a different story when it's meatless!

I thought long and hard how to make the fried rice tasty and still full of flavour with just vegetables alone without the enhancement of taste from chinese sausages and prawns.

Decided upon using the mushrooms and French beans to replace the protein that's missing in the meal. Sweet corn kernels was for the added sweetness to replace the chinese sausages. The rest of the colours were for the added fibre and nutrients and of course visual appeal. 

Fried firm tofu is entirely optional, but since I have a left over piece of it I just included it into this fried rice meal. This added a level of texture to the meal.

Don't these colours look attractive? I was salivating even before the rice was added.

Voila! It's Done!

Serves 4-5pax
Ingredients
1 pot of cooked Basmati Rice (or you may use regular Jasmine Rice)
4 cloves Garlic (minced)
1/2 large Yellow Onion (chopped)
8 stalks French Beans (cut into thin slices)
1/2 Carrot (julienned)
5 Fresh Shitake Mushrooms (sliced thinly)
Corn Kernels from 1 sweet corn
1/2 Red Bell Pepper (cut into cubes/julienned; may substitute it with red chilli that's been seeded)
1 Firm Tofu (cut into cube and pan fried - this ingredient is optional)
Salt to taste

Seasoning
2tbsp Vegetarian Oyster Sauce (commonly known as mushroom sauce - I have instead used an Organic Black Bean sauce)
1tbsp Light Soya Sauce
1tsp Sugar
*Note: prepare this seasoning in a small bowl adding all the seasoning ingredients.

Process
1) Saute Onion and Garlic till fragrant and onion has slightly soften
2) Add in all the vegetables and stir-fry till it's cooked down
3) Add salt to the vegetables and stir-fry till well combined
4) Tip in the rice and add the seasoning
5) Add the firm tofu ^(optional ingredient)
6) Stir and Toss till all ingredients are well combined
7) Serve it warm with a dash of white pepper

[Recipe] Prawns with Glass Noodles

This could potentially be one of the easiest and wonderfully delicious dish I've ever tried. Best of all it can be done in a matter of minutes, literally!

Ingredients

300gms Prawns (shells removed; I used peeled frozen prawns)

2 small bundles of Glass Noodles (soaked in cold water for 10mins)

4 cloves garlic minced

2 slices of ginger

2 stalks of spring onion (chopped)

1 stalk of red chilli (deseeded, and roughly chopped)

Seasoning Sauce
1.5Tbsp Light Soya Sauce

200ml Chicken Stock (I used 1Tbsp concentrated chicken stock blended in 200ml of water)

2Tbsp Chinese Rice Wine

1.5Tbsp Brown Sugar

1/4 tsp salt

Pepper to taste

Method

1) Heat oil in frying pan or wok and saute garlic, ginger, red chilli and half of the chopped spring onions till fragrant.

2) Add in the prawns fry till it's half cooked, add the ingredients of the seasoning sauce 

3) Bring the mixture to a boil and let it simmer and add in the glass noodles

4) Cover with a lid and let the mixture simmer for 5-10mins till sauce reduce by half.

5) Cease the heat and serve with the remaining spring onions.

Cooking with Pink Himalayan Salt

When I first heard of Pink Salt, I was fascinated by its colour more than what's in it. Seriously, anything that's pretty appeals to me so this was no exception *wink*

But on a serious note, it's not very commonly seen in our supermarkets here in Singapore. I chanced upon it quite unexpectedly when I was at the supermarket one day. 

Then I learned about how wonderful this rock salt is. Most of the salt we use to season our food are highly refined, processed and devoid of nutrients. This Himalayan Pink Salt, however, contains the full spectrum of 84 minerals, including iodine. It's an unrefined, unprocessed "raw" salt that's hand-mined from abundant caves that were formed many years ago. The many hues of pink, red and white are an indication of this salt's rich and varying mineral and energy-rich iron content.

Photo credit link

And here's a list of benefits of this great salt-

The Himalayan Pink Salt can be used to cure meat, season food and even garnish. Since it's packed full of benefits, why not make the switch? You just might enjoy it better than regular table salt!

Look out for recipes that I'll be sharing soon with this Himalayan Pink Salt as one of its ingredients.

Kitchen Tip: The Use of Parchment Paper

I love to bake, grill, roast and even steam using the oven! It's my way of saving myself the trouble of cleaning up pots and pans laboriously that's because I don't have a helper and neither do I enjoy standing before the kitchen sink for long periods of time whenever I have to prepare and clean up after each meal.

I love my oven to bits! Therefore, I use it heavily. But because I detest all that washing and cleaning up, I'd tend to find ways of minimising the cleaning up process! So I use a lot of these -

Top two rolls of cooking sheet were bought at Daiso, Glad Bake was bought at local supermarket, the bottom roll of parchment paper (with Korean words) was bought through Taobao.com

Yes! Parchment paper. It's a life saver! I've read up and also heard a lot of horror stories about aluminium poisoning that causes brain and nerve issues (read more details here), I try as hard as I could to reduce the contact of aluminium foil on the food that I prepare.

Those are the various brands of parchment paper that I use for oven-cooked/baked food. There's a difference between wax and parchment paper as I've read here and here, so read in detail if you are interested.

Nonetheless, I still use aluminium foil to save me from cleaning the baking tray/sheet in case there's spillage in the process of cooking/baking in the oven.

Baking Tray wrapped in aluminium foil to save from washing

How I use the parchment paper -

Ingredients wrapped up in parchment paper to prevent direct contact with aluminium foil

Here's a quick and easy way of preparing salmon or even cod fish -

Oven Baked Miso Glaze Fish

Ingredients:
200gms of fish fillet (salmon or cod)
1 Tbsp Miso Paste
2 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Mirin
1 tsp Sake
1 Tbsp Water

Process:
1) Mix Miso Paste, Sugar, Mirin, Sake and water till well combined
2) Prepare baking tray with aluminium foil and parchment paper
3) Place the fish fillet on the parchment paper
4) Coat fish with the miso mixture evenly
5) Preheat oven to 180C
6) Grill fish (on middle rack) for approximately 20mins
7) Remove tray from oven and glaze the fish fillet with another thin layer of miso mixture
8) Place the tray of fish just below the heating element in the oven to grill it for 5-10mins or till surface of fillet is nicely browned (the fish should turn brown very quickly so beware to standby the oven)

Serve immediately with steamed rice! It's so simple and tasty, try it some time!

Tuna Sandwich

Before I was married, I don't really cook at all, and there was a time I was assigned to prepare some finger food for a workshop that I attended. It was quite daunting to a person who did not know how to cook then, but with a stroke of luck, I made tuna mayo combined with apple and it was an instant hit with the group. You can imagine how I was beaming away.

Now, on busy days when I really need to have something to fill the tummies of my family, I'd prepare this fast and easy breakfast. It's so easy to prepare it's almost laughable for me to share this recipe.

Tuna Mayo with Apple Sandwich

Where there's no cooking involved this easy meal can be whipped up in less than 15mins! All that's needed is the cutting of apples and mixing the ingredients together, it's really that simple & definitely FAST!

Here's a quick look at the nutritional value of canned tuna:

Typically it's recommended by most healthy food websites to purchase tuna canned with water but to this recipe I am sharing below I have used tuna canned in olive oil instead. It is said on some of the websites I've read that water canned tuna tends to retain the omega 3 fatty acids better. In addition, the essential fatty acids will not tend to be drained away as we drain away the excess oil from the can when we prepare the tuna sandwich.

Here's what you need -

• Canned Tuna (drained and pour out onto a mixing bowl/plate)
• Add Salt (you may omit if you prefer) & Pepper to taste
• Add approximately 1Tbsp mayonnaise
• 1 small apple diced (the apple adds a nice layer of crunch to the taste, so try not to dice the apple too small - approx 1cm).
• A sandwich press (if you have one)

Just mix all the ingredients together, spoon the mixture onto a slice of bread and stack another slice on top and just press!

I love using this sandwich press, this makes handling the sandwich when consuming much cleaner and mess-free as it seals all four sides of the sandwich! It's very inexpensive, I've seen it at Daiso, so go grab one if you haven't done so :)

Go make yourself some Tuna Sandwiches today!