Cooking Vegetables-Chinese Style

I love vegetables and feel incomplete if vegetables are not included in main meals.Fortunately, my children all eat and love their vegetables as well.

I do not like too much spices in vegetables. The Chinese method of preparing the vegetables suits my taste.

This is how I cook the Chinese stir fried vegetables.

Ingredients:
4 pieces each of 3 types of any mushrooms;(button,, abalone or black mushrooms)
4 pieces abalone
4 young corn
100g broccoli
6 pea pods
100g carrot
2 pieces bean curd
100g cauliflower

You can also use other vegetables you fancy such as water chestnuts, asparagus or celery.
All vegetables except the bean curd, and abalone are washed and cut to bite sizes and scalded in boiling water for 3 minutes and set aside.
Mix 1/2 cup chicken stock with 1 tbsp corn flour in a small bowl. Add 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp black pepper powder and 2 tsp soya sauce and set aside.

Heat a little oil in a wok or large frying pan and fry 4 cloves of garlic, crushed and chopped.Add abalone. Add vegetables and bean curd (quartered) and stir fry lightly for 2 minutes.Stir in the stock for 2 more minutes until gravy thickens.

Enjoy hot with plain white rice.

WASTE NOT,WANT NOT

Your grandmother, if she survived during the Japanese invasion of Malaya, will tell you how the people has to skimp on their meals then. Food was scarce and I remember my Mum telling how they had to eat tapioca as a staple diet.
Nowadays, we have so much food that it is more often wasted. In Britain, one third of food purchased ends up in the bins and lands in the landfill.

A number of British chefs has given tips to reduce remnants in the fridge:

• Write a shopping list before you go shopping. Buy only what is listed and don't buy on impulse.
  
• Freeze leftover bread wrapped in plastic and toast it frozen as it defrosts very quickly.
• Used bread can be reused as crumbs to dress chicken or turkey with a touch of mixed spice and herbs.
• Combine stale bread with milk, eggs, cheese, fresh herbs,salt and whatever else you can find in the kitchen and voila, you can make a delicious savoury bread pudding.
• Cold pasta can be fried like fried mee or baked in a macaroni cheese style sauce on the top.

I have added the following:

• Cold rice fried with leftover sambal or whatever gravy and added with leftover vegetables makes delicious fried rice.Leftover chicken, beef of fish can also be added. I also add sambal belacan to the fried rice if this is available.
• Leftover fried fish added to certain vegetables makes delicious kerabus.
• Leftover fried fish can be used in freshly prepared sambals or soya gravy, or added with mayonnaise and used as sandwich fillings.
• Leftover gravies can be frozen and reused when thawed and added with fish, seafood, chicken or beef.

If you do not want leftovers, cook only as required. In that way, you save your money and reduce the wastage. In a long run, you help save the environment as you have used less energy to cook food, and store them. If you don't throw into the bin, you have also reduce the amount of rubbish in the landfill.

Remember, some people believe that to waste means being friends with the devil. That certainly is not the way to go.

WORLD CLASS

The ongoing Beijing Olympics is a showcase of guts and determination.
Michael Phelps has got his target of 8 gold medals and Malaysia has lost the only hope when our Lee Chong Wei lost to Lin Dan of China in the badminton finals.
My tribute goes to Phelps and the American swimming team, the 3 Jamaican ladies who won the gold and 2 silvers for the glamorous 100 m race, and Nadal the soon to be number 1 in lawn tennis. These are world class athletes. While others aim to get the gold medals, these champions want to be legends.They must share something in common to be champions extraordinaire.Something that is still lacking in our Malaysian psyche. Perhaps the feeling of greatness is not inbuilt in us yet unlike the Americans who are ingrained in the mind from birth that they are the greatest and nothing is impossible.

We must also learn from the less fortunate Ethiopians and Iraqis who reach world class standards in sports without much help from their governments.

Our Malaysian athletes are given a lot of support and incentives.Except for Nicol David and the national squash players, and the national Bowling team, the rest are inconsistent in their performances. Physical and mental preparations must be equally important. The knowledge to build strength and stamina, physically and mentally, is something we need to acquire. We need to learn how the Americans, the Chinese and Koreans train thier sportsmen so that we can achieve world class standards like thay have.

The best place to start is in the schools especially the sports schools. As they say, shaping the bamboo must be from the shoot. The sports schools have been churning great sportsmen and women but still thay are not top world class yet.

As for you students out there, you too can excel in whatever you do. Students who are overseas on government sponsorships are already world class potentials. Prove to everyone that you are indeed world class. With globalization, the world is your oyster and you are not the village champion or the frog under the proverbial coconut shell. You can start by targeting your goals to meet world standards. Upon graduation, you should be far sighted and open-minded and ready to serve anywhere in the world.
Prove to the world that Malaysians can be respected and are indeed world class material too.

KERABU TAUGEH (BEAN SPROUTS SALAD)

Any kind of sprouts is good for you as sprouts supply the nutrients to the young plant. Try making your bean sprouts from mung beans (Kacang hijau). I am sure many of us learn how to do this in our Science class in primary school. The sprouts you get from the d-i-y lasts longer and tastes better. It is crunchier too unlike the ones you get from the market which turn soggy and sour after a day or two.

The beansprout salad is a nice change from the ordinary stir-fried vegetables.


Ingredients:

500g bean sprouts
1 cup oilfree toasted grated coconut, pounded for use as kerisek. You can use desicated coconut if you are not accesible to freshly grated coconut or you can buy ready made kerisek in the market.
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup cooked shrimps
toasted sesame seeds
2 fresh chillies,sliced
1 sprig cilantro, 1 sprig spring onion and 1 sprig celery (daun sup) chopped
a liitle sugar and salt for seasoning

Boil some water and pour over the beansprouts to scald them. You can also use the microwave oven to do these.
Mixed all ingredients except the bean sprouts in a large bowl till evenly mixed. Finally add the bean sprouts and serve.

ACAR CINA or CHINESE PICKLES

I wonder why it is called Chinese pickles in my recipe book. I have never seen it in Chinese cooking. At a wedding my family attended on Sunday, this vegetable dish was served. It is actually a Malay dish normally served at weddings. Perhaps the Malays adapted it from a Chinese recipe.

The ingredients are:
1 cucumber(remove the core), 5 strands of long beans (French beans if you cannot find long beans), 1 carrot, all cut into 5 cm strips.
2 fresh red chillies, 2 fresh green chillies, split halfway into 4
5 shallots, cut into 2, or 2 onions,cut into 4

To be grounded:
4 fresh red chillies,
5 cloves garlic
2.5 cm ginger
3 shallots

Other ingredients:
1 tsp mustard seed
a handful of oil-free toasted sesame seeds
4 tbsp vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
a liitle salt
3 tbsp oil

Heat oil and fry the grounded ingredients in a saucepan till fragrant. Add vinegar, sugar and salt. Add the vegetables and cook quickly but not for too long so that the vegetables remain crunchy. Remove from the heat and sprinkle the sesame seeds.