Posted by Patrick.C
Yellow curry is another kind of Thai curry, commonly found in the Thai restaurants in Los Angeles here. Comparing with other Thai curries, yellow curry is normally creamier and richer. This is because coconut cream is being used instead of coconut milk. However, I preferred watery curry instead of a creamy one, so I used the coconut milk this time.
Potato is a must-have ingredient to be added in the yellow curry as I heart potato for life. Who doesn’t? Other than potato, I put in okra (lady’s fingers), carrot and red chili peppers as well to give it a more colorful version.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Eric.N
I like eggplant. We often pick up eggplants from the market for cooking. Many times we ended upcooking our own recipe of Szechuan Spicy Eggplant with Minced Pork , or omitted the spiciness for a simple version of Stir Fry Eggplant with Minced Pork. However I know not many people like eggplant maybe because of its texture, it will get mushy if it is overcooked. Or maybe they just don’t know how to handle eggplant.
Eggplant is really weird kind of vegetable or fruit. It has spongy texture and slight bitterness when raw. What I normally will do to prep the eggplant is cut it into pieces then soak and rinse with salt water. This will soften the texture for faster cooking and also help to reduce the amount of oil that absorbs in the eggplant when cooking.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Bel.C
We love taro a lot and we were thinking to make the Pork Belly with Taro which Eric wanted to eat all these while. But it requires too much of work and then it was often put aside. While I was researching about the dish, I stumbled across this long forgotten Hakka recipe Stir Fry Taro Dumpling or Abacus Beads “Suan Pan Zi”(客家炒算盤子). I was so excited as I didn’t have this for years. So I have decided to give the recipe a try. Obviously Pork Belly with Taro was put aside again.
Since my father side is Hakka, that’s why I know of and have tried this dish. We often get to eat various traditional Hakka dishes whenever we go back to “Semenyih”, our old home town (老家) in Malaysia. My uncle is a great cook and he will always prepare a big meal, like 8-10 dishes sometimes double the dishes because we have so many relatives visiting.
In Chinese the dish is called 炒算盤子 “Chao Suan Pan Zi”, literally means Stir Fry Abacus Beads. The taro is steamed and prepared into dough form then shaped into round balls resembling the beads on the Chinese Abacus, an old calculating tool before calculator.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Patrick.C
If you’re not tired of Thai curries, here is another one for you – green curry. I am so into the Thai curries lately after I started off with panang curry and then red curry. The green curry is hotter than panang curry and it tends to be as hot as red curry. The names of most Thai curries are derived by their colors such as red curry and yellow curry. So does the green curry.
The cooking method of green curry is similar as the previous Thai curries. No fancy skills are needed for this dish. You might need to know the right ingredients to go well with the curry. Eggplant is always a good ingredient to go with Thai curries or some Asian curries. I used it in the green curry this time together with green bean. The result was great and it was cooked as yummy as those in Thailand.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Bel.C
The Braised Napa Cabbage and Mushrooms, or more commonly known as “白菜滷” in Chinese word, is a Taiwanese style vegetable stew. I learned this dish from my Taiwanese coworker as she always likes to cook it. I think it is so much different to our style of cooking and I decided to give it a try. The main ingredient of the dish is the napa cabbage. You can add other ingredients to the pot, some common ones are carrots and all sorts of mushrooms. You can also add pork strips for a more complete pot dish to your meal, or opt out for a vegetarian style.
Eric did not get used to eat this dish the first time when I cooked it, because he didn’t like the cabbage being cooked to that soft texture. But after a couple of tryouts and changes to the recipe, now we enjoy this dish very much. Sometimes we will cook a pot and just goes with white rice, that’s how good it is. I used some dried shrimps and lots of garlic to sauteed the vegetables, that will add more flavors and also a nice fragrant to the dish. Seasoning is also very important to create a tasty sweet broth. Do not overcook the napa or it will turn out too mushy, so be watchful of the time and heat.
Read the rest of this entry »
