Stir-fry Bittergourd WIth Prawns & Salted Egg

Saw this interesting dish from Lilian's Blog(Food Heaven). She had it on a local coffee shop stall and had briefly share the idea and recipe on how to replicate this dish. I had never used salted egg as a seasoning for dish before and this is my very first time.


So far whenever I cooked this stir-fry bittergourd dish, I always followed what my dad did as to add in prawns and egg then season with some oyster sauce. So the adding of salted egg is really something new for this dish. I follow the guideline from what Lilian had mention and come up with my own version.

Ingredients:
1 Small Bittergourd, about 150g
100g Minced Pork/Pork Slices
6-8 Medium Prawn, shelled and devein
1 Salted Egg
1 Fresh Chicken Egg
3-4 Garlic Cloves, minced

Methods:
1.Remove seeds from the bitter gourd and slice it thinly before rubbing it with with 1 teaspoon of salt and rinse well with water.
2. Crack the salted egg in a bowl, remove the egg yolk and mashed it with a folk to break up into pieces, do keep the egg white for later use.
3. Preheat a pan with 1 tablespoon of oil, saute the garlic until fragrant, add in pork and prawn and stir-till half done.
4. Add in the bittergourd and salted egg yolk, stir for a few second until the yolk changes colour then add in 100ml water and let it simmer for about 2 minutes.
5. Lastly add in the salted egg white and fresh egg, stir until well combine. Dish up and serve.

Notes:
a) The salted egg should be able to flavour the dish, you might need 2 salted eggs if you used a lot of bittergourd.
b) The end result of the dish should be mushy dish with lots of eggs.

Steam Herbal Chicken With BRAND’S® Chicken Essence

Since I had a few bottles of BRAND’S^® Essence of Chicken left in the cabinet, I thought of giving this dish a try. The original dish used Frog and Chicken Essence while I replace it with Chicken and some extra herbs to boost the favour as well as the fragrant.

Ingredients:
1/2 portion of a medium chicken
3 Slices Of Ginger, shredded
1 Bottle Of BRAND’S Chicken Essence
3-4 Slices Of Dang Gui(当归)
4 Red Dates(红枣)
1/2 Tablespoon Gou Qizi(杞子)
Marinade:
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Tablespoon Cooking/Rice Wine
10g Finely Grated Ginger

Methods:
1. Rinse the chicken, pat-fry and season with marinade for at least 30 minutes or more.
2. Arrange the marinated chicken on the plate together with the herbs, cover with foil and steam for about 15 minutes.
3. Remove from the steamer, pour in the chicken essence over the chicken, cover the foil and steam for another 15 to 20 minutes until the thicker part of the chicken is tender.
4. Remove the chicken, braised it with the chicken essence sauce and serve immediately.

Notes:
a) You can used any favour of the Chicken Essence.
b) You may omit the extra herbs if you find it too heaty.

Stir-fry Cabbage With Golden Mushroom & Woodear

Woodear is a type of mushroom that resembles a large ear when it is fresh and grows as large as half a foot. The surface of the mushroom is purplish-gray in color and the flesh is a dark purplish gray to almost black in color. They have a slightly crunchy texture and delicate, almost bland flavor that more often than not absorbs the taste of any strongly flavored ingredients with which they are cooked. They have both fresh and dried wood ears sold in the supermarket, the dried one usually look like brownish-black, dried chips. Upon soaking in water it might increase 5 to 6 times in size and resemble the shape of an ear. Wood ears are mainly popular in stir-fries and soups.


Saw a few kinds of mushrooms on sales from the local supermarket. So I decided to grab hold of 1 packet of Fresh Woodear and 1 packet of Korean Golden Mushroom. I found that the Golden Mushroom was very special, it's kind of like the normal Enokitake(金针菇), but in shorter and brown in colour. My son said it looks like little matchsticks.

Ingredients:
1/2 Small Beijing Cabbage(北京包菜)
1 Packet Korean Golden Mushroom
2 Pieces of Fresh Woodear(黑木耳), cut into thin strips
1 Small Carrot, cut into thin slices
2 Slices Of Fresh Ginger
1 Tablespoon Oyster Sauce

Methods:
1. Cut the cabbage into bite size then soak in water for about 5 minutes, rinse and set aside.
2. Cut the stalk off from the golden mushroom, rinse in water, drain and set aside.
3. Preheat the pan with 1 tablespoon of oil, saute the ginger until fragrant then add in the cabbage and carrot.
4. Stir-fry for a few minutes then add in the woodear and oyster sauce, stir for another few second then add 100ml water.
5. Cover and let it simmer on medium low heat for 5 minutes then add in all the mushroom and cover, continue to simmer for another 3 minutes.
6. Slowly add in some cornstarch water to thicken the sauce then dish and serve.(you might not need all the water, just add till the sauce is thicken)

Notes:
a) You can also used dried woodear if you prefer.
b) Cornstarch mixture = 1/2 Tablespoon Potato/Cornstarch mix with 2 Tablespoons Of water.