Stir-Fried Yau Mak with Garlic

I like vegetables. I think I am okay with all types of vegetables except the obvious bitter ones eg. bitter gourd. I know it is good for health but I usually give it a pass. Not with green leafy vegetables though.

There are many varieties of lettuce around and most of them can be eaten raw or cooked. If you intend to stir-fry the lettuce, make sure that your wok is really heated up to very high temperature (smoking) so as to minimise cooking time and to prevent too much water oozing out from the leaves. The idea is not to have the vegetables swimming in a pool of gravy. You also lose a lot of essential vitamins and minerals by prolonged cooking of the vegetables. Here, I use a type of lettuce known as “Yau Mak” which is a slightly smaller version of the romaine lettuce. I should have taken a photo of it before the leaves were separated and rinsed.

This is my recipe for Stir-Fried Yau Mak with Garlic

Ingredients

• 2 pieces yau mak (or to your desired amount but bear in mind that they will shrivel and reduce in size as you cook, separate leaves and rinse well. Drain in colander to remove excess water)
• at least 5 cloves of garlic (chopped)
• 4 cloves of shallots (sliced thinly)
• 3 tablespoons of palm oil

Seasoning

• 1 1/2 tablespoons of oyster sauce

Method

Heat up oil in wok and fry shallots till golden brown. Remove fried shallots aside.

Add garlic into remaining oil and stir fry for about 10 seconds followed by yau mak. Give it two or three stirs and add oyster sauce. Stir till leaves are evenly coated with sauce. I like the leaves crunchy, so I do not usually stir fry them for more than 1 minute.

Sprinkle fried shallots prior to serving.

Remember I used to have a recipe called Mixed Vegetables - Cabbage, Carrots, Wood-Ear Fungus, Dried Lily Buds and Mushrooms? Well, I am going to modify that recipe a bit instead. Using most of the same ingredients, these will be steamed together with chicken to make a nice healthy dish.

In this dish, the chicken is sweet-tasting and has a hint of chinese cooking wine as it was marinated prior to steaming. The meat will usually be tender when cooked as whole chicken leg (drumstick and thigh meat) is used and the wine further tenderises the meat. This is in contrast with the crispness of the wood-ear fungus, sweetness of the carrots and lily buds and smoky taste of the mushrooms. Truly, it comes with a riot of taste and goes well with steamed white rice.

Actually, as emphasised in most of my recipes, you don’t actually have to follow the ingredients in full especially if you have difficulty finding them at the place you live. Just use a bit of creativity and substitute them with different ingredients. If you are not sure, feel free to ask me at the comment section below.

This is my recipe for Steamed Chicken with Carrots, Wood-Ear Fungus, Dried Lilybuds and Mushrooms.

Ingredients

• 2 whole chicken legs (chopped into bite pieces)
• 1 small sized carrot (sliced)
• 50 to 100 grammes of wood-ear fungus (pre-soaked till soft)
• 5 dried chinese mushrooms (pre-soaked till soft) or enoki, oyster or button mushrooms
• 50 grammes of dried lily buds (pre-soaked till soft and knotted in the middle)
• 1 whole bulb of garlic (chopped)
• 1 tablespoon of cooking oil (preferably palm oil)

Marinade for chicken

• 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
• 2 teaspoons of light soya sauce
• A couple of dashes of white pepper powder
• 1 tablespoon of chinese cooking wine
• 1 tablespoon of corn flour

Seasoning

• 1 tablespoon of oyster sauce
• Salt to taste

Method

Marinade the chicken for about an hour.

Heat oil in wok, followed by garlic and chinese mushrooms. Fry till garlic begins to brown. Add carrots, wood-ear fungus and lily buds. Stir-fry for 2 minutes. Remove and set aside.

Place chicken on a suitable plate for steaming (I use a stainless steel plate as seen in the picture above). Place the pre-stirfried vegetables on top of the chicken. Steam in wok / steamer for at least 20 minutes or until chicken is thoroughly cooked.

A B C D Soup

There is a famous soup called ABC Soup which is essentially a combination of cubed potatoes, carrots, tomatoes and onions cooked in meat stock (usually pork or chicken). After my posting on Hot and Sour Szechuan Vegetable Soup recently, Tummythoz, girlgirl and tekko informed me that they add carrots and even corn into the soup. That was new to me.

So, when I went home to my mum’s place last night, I was most surprised to see a bowl of Szechuan Vegetable Soup which has carrots, onions and potatoes in it! It is indeed a marriage of the Hot and Spicy Szechuan Vegetable Soup with the famed ABC Soup! And true enough, it has the hot and sourness of the szechuan vegetables and the sweetness of the ABC soup. I shall call it the A B C D Soup then!

It is another one of those simple-to-cook yet appetising and nutritious soup which is great on a cold weathered day!

This is the recipe for A B C D Soup.

Ingredients

• 200 to 300 grammes of meat (pork ribs or suitable cuts or chicken parts)
• 2 medium sized potatoes (washed, skin removed and cubed in big chunks)
• 1 carrot (cut in big pieces)
• 2 large tomatoes (quartered)
• 2 large onions (quartered)
• 1 piece szechuan vegetable (washed and sliced)
• 2 bowls of water (approximately 800 ml to 1 litre)

Method

Bring water to boil. Add meat and let water reboil. Remove layer of scum from surface of water.

Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to boil again for 5 minutes and then lower heat to simmer for at least 1 hour or longer.

You don’t really need to add any seasoning to this soup as the various ingredients will impart its taste.

Got szechuan vegetable in your kitchen? Why not cook soup with it? Szechuan vegetable which is preserved with chilli and salt imparts a distinct flavour when cooked in soup. The soup will be spicy hot and salty. When you add a couple of tomatoes into the soup, it’s be hot and sour. Definitely appetising especially when eaten with long bean rice or even cabbage rice.

Depending on how hot or salty you want your soup to end up, you can actually wash or even soak the preserved szechuan vegetable prior to cooking. I usually just wash the szechuan vegetable rather than soaking as I like the original taste of the preserved vegetable. My mum adds a couple of cloves of garlic for added taste but I don’t really fancy that. You can try it if you want.

This recipe is simple and not intimidating for first timers!

This is my recipe for Hot and Sour Szechuan Vegetable Soup.

Ingredients

• 1 piece szechuan vegetable larger than the size of an egg (washed and sliced)
• 3 - 4 large tomatoes (quartered)
• 50 to 100 grammes of minced pork or pork ribs or chicken parts
• 2 soup bowls or 600 ml of water

Method

Bring water to boil and add sliced szechuan vegetables and tomatoes. If you are using pork ribs or chicken parts, add them now. Simmer for 1 hour or more till water reduced to approximately 1 soup bowl.

If using minced pork, 3 minutes before intended serving, bring back to boil and add minced pork shaped into small balls.

Serve steaming hot.