Bean Threads Noodle

I would love to introduce my readers to this bean threads noodle. It was made with mung bean starch, potato starch and water. It tasted a lot like the Korean Jap Chai noodle (made with sweet potato starch) with the chewy texture and transparent look. This noodle was introduced to me by my Chinese neighbor and I have since hooked. This is good serving it cold, in soup or stir-fry. I haven't tried it in soup yet because I like to serve it cold with fresh vegetable.



Method:

1) You need to boil the noodle until cooked. Set aside.

2) Then, stir-fry the chicken or pork (marinated with soy sauce, pepper, sesame oil) with garlic & carrots until cooked, dish out and set aside.

3) Thinly sliced the seedless cucumber, lettuce and prepared the cilantro.

4) In a big bowl, add in noodle, fresh veggies (3) and (2), mix well. Then seasoned to taste with soy sauce, Chinese black vinegar, salt, sugar and sesame oil. Toast well.

5) Garnished with toasted sesame seeds. Serve as is.


This is how the package looks like. Of course other brand works fine too.

Sundubu Jjgae (Korean Spicy Bean Curd Stew)

Sundubu Jjgae is a Korean thick and spicy bean curd stew. Traditionally people crack an egg on top of the stew before serving, many still do it now. Some serve this stew with clams, clam juice, seafood, onion, enoki mushroom and other vegetable. This stew is normally served boiling on the table over a hot fire in a Korean pot.

I came to love this soup while dining in a Korean restaurant. I just love the spiciness of this soup and the flavor of Gochujang. The silken soft tofu with the Gochujang made me want to drink this stew non-stop. This stew is especially good while eaten during the cold winter days because it will just warm up your body instantly. Therefore, it will be my favorite soup to cook during winter. What a surprise, my hubby loves this soup too!

Product Review: Delimas Stir Fry Sauce

I have been invited by Ray, the founder of mytasteofasia.com to do product review on Delimas brand. I gladly accepted his offer because as a Malaysian, I love to help out a fellow Malaysian and to introduce delicious and easy to prepare Malaysian food to other Asians around the world. This paste is handy for a busy mother who just doesn't have time to do it from scratch. Or for working parents who just dead tired from a day work. Even for a novice cook who wants to impress her friends.



I was cooking for a friend who is moving to Boston and she requested a spicy Malaysian dish. What a better way to try my Delimas stir-fry sauce on the shrimps that I was intended to cook.



This is how the package looks like. It tasted like the authentic Malaysian Sambal Prawns and quite spicy.

Below is what I did:
Ingredients:

16 extra large prawns
6 cuttlefish balls, cut each into 3 slices (or you can use cuttlefish or squids)
A handful of green peas
1/2 small yellow onion, sliced
1/4 yellow bell pepper, sliced
1/4 orange bell pepper, sliced (or red/green bell pepper for colors contrast)
1 package of Delimas Stir Fry Sauce

Method:

Heat oil in a wok. When heated, add in prawns and cuttlefish balls, stir well. Then, add in the stir-fry sauce and the rest of the ingredients except peas. Stir to mix well, add a little water if need to. Lastly add in the green peas, give it a quick stir and serve hot.


Another way of cooking it:



One packet of sauce is a lot and thus I saved some to make this Sambal Green Beans. I added dried shrimps, sliced shallots and a wee bit of fish sauce. This sauce will be good for shrimps and petai too! Kind of a all-purpose stir fry sauce.

Chai Tau Kuih My Way

Blur_mommy, you got it right! :) Great guess!

Even though I called this dish Chai Tau Kuih but there is no Chai Tau (radish) in this. I used my leftover rice pudding from the wah kuih, cut it into cubes, added some scallion, bean sprouts, chai por, shrimps, garlic, eggs and some of the leftover topping for the wah kuih to come out with this. The sauce for this dish is simple, just dark soy sauce, soy sauce, sugar, chili paste and white pepper.

Haven't had this for a long time, so this dish was very satisfying. As you can see, I made it quite spicy too! Next time I can probably just make the rice cake to make this dish. Since it has wheat starch in it, the shape holds up really well during stir-frying, it won't turn mushy and soft. One thing though, I need to do better with my eggs, should have stir-fry the eggs first, take it out and add in later since my eggs seem to be missing from all the stir-frying (and I want to see big pieces of fried eggs!).

Chinese Rice Bowl Pudding

A good friend of ours came by on Saturday and I decided to make him a treat. I made this Chinese rice bowl pudding that looks like chwee kuih but actually it's a wah kuih. First time trying this and glad that it turned out well and my guest said it's very good. :)



I used Gina's Wah Kuih recipe. The differences I noticed between wah kuih and chwee kuih are for the pudding, wah kuih has wheat starch in it and thus making it more chewy/bouncy in texture as opposed to soft. Also, wah kuih has more ingredients in filling as opposed to just chai por. Before this, I have not heard of wah kuih.



As for my filling, I added dark soy sauce and sugar when stir-frying. Also drizzled some Sriracha hot sauce for extra spiciness. I didn't bother to steam the filling with the rice pudding together (lazy me as you know!), therefore it might look more like a chwee kuih.

Stay tuned for what I did with the extra rice cake. ;) Or you would love a guess?

Thai Green Chicken Curry the Short-cut Way

I love Thai green curry because I find it to be more versatile. I can use it to make seafood curry, meat curry or simply a vegetarian curry and all will turn out delicious. I also used it to fry rice or stir-fry my chicken.

I called it short-cut because I used the ready made paste by Mae Ploy. You can find it in any Asian supermarket these days, this brand is quite popular. Once opened, you can keep the paste in the freezer. What's great about this is you don't even have to defrost it, just take it out and use it straight from the freezer, very convenient.

All you need to make a good Thai green curry is a little Thai palm sugar (1tsp.), fish sauce and coconut milk (or milk) and above 2-3 Tbsp. of green curry paste. For the above curry, I used skinless and boneless chicken thighs, sliced yellow onion, sliced kinda thick carrots and frozen green beans. This curry is spicy as it is but if you really can take the heat, you can add Thai bird eye chili as well.