Fried Tomato with Minced Pork is a dish I learnt from my mother-in-law. Well, perhaps not exactly learnt but she cooked it and I ate it. Recently, we had a few tomatoes lying in the fridge and I thought why not give it a try. I did not ask my mother-in-law for the recipe and tried to cook it to resemble the one she cooked and it turned out quite alright.

It is a simple dish, and takes just a couple of minutes to prepare and cook. Actually, you just need to cook the minced pork. The amount of time for the stir frying of the tomato is pretty much up to you. The longer you cook it, the softer it becomes. If you prefer it firmer, just give it a few stirs to coat it with the sauce. Try this recipe for Fried Tomato with Minced Pork. It is quite appetising and suitable with steamed white rice.

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Early September, one of my avid readers, Reese, came to Kuala Lumpur and we met up for a Yong Tow Foo lunch at Ampang. She brought me a bottle of General Tso’s Sauce & Glaze from Boston to let me try it out. I’ve never heard, let alone tasted General Tso’s sauce all these while. Reading the ingredients, it looks like the sauce is a blend of garlic and plum (I think) and I thought this would work well with pork, especially pork chops. In the internet, however, I discovered that this sauce is more famous with what is known as the General Tso Chicken dish but being adventurous myself, I decided to give pork chops a try.

The result was absolutely mouth watering. General Tso’s sauce works well with fried pork chops which have been cut into small cutlets. The slight sour and musky taste compliments the pork chops and made the dish really appetising. My daughter gave it the thumbs up. It is such a simple dish that anyone can try it at home.

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Crabs! Finally they appear on this site. There are many recipes for crabs but this Stir Fried Crabs recipe focuses on simplicity and natural goodness. The usage of garlic, ginger and spring onions help to mask away the slight “fishy” smell of the crabs (I use mangrove / mud crabs here) whilst maintaining the natural sweet taste of the flesh. Unlike other crab recipes like Marmite Crabs, Tomato Crabs, Kam Heong Crabs, Chilli Crabs, Black Pepper Crabs or Cheese Crabs which overpowers the natural sweet taste of the flesh, this recipe ensures that you get to enjoy crabs at its best. By the way, you only kill the crab just before cooking.

How does one kill crabs? Well, in Malaysia, these crabs are sold live and bound with strings or reeds. So, they are pretty safe to handle. You have to place the crab upside down and use either a knife or chopstick to kill it. Prior to this however, is to place the crab in a freezer for 15 minutes or so. This will sort of put the crab into hibernation mode and at the same time (from what I heard), will prevent the claw or other parts of the legs from dropping off immediately upon being killed. Anyway, after you have placed the crab upside down, poke a knife or chopstick through the centre portion of the crab (where there is a triangle looking portion on the underside of the crab). Alternatively, poke a chopstick through the soft part between the legs. See the photo below. Read the rest of this entry »

Hairy Gourd is also known as haired gourd, fuzzy gourd, fuzzy squash, Mao Gua, Mao Qua, Mokwa, Mo Kwa or Hairy Cucumber. It is essentially a cucumber looking gourd which has dark green and short hair. Well, don’t worry about the hairy bit because you will need to skin the gourd and only use the flesh for this soup. And just like most of the other soups you find on this site, you can either use the slow-cooker / crockpot, charcoal stove, gas stove or electric burner stove to cook it.

If you use the slow-cooker or charcoal stove, you will need to adjust the amount of water used. My usual rule of thumb is that if I want to serve one large bowl of soup, I will put in 1 1/2 bowls of water to cook it in a slow-cooker or charcoal stove and allow it to cook and reduce to one bowl. If I am using the gas or electric stove, I would put in 2 to 2 1/2 bowls of water instead. This is because water evaporates much faster in the gas and electric stove cooking. However, the funny thing is, if I want to serve 2 large bowls of soup, I would use not more than 3 bowls of water instead. It’s kind of hard to explain but it is just a habit I learn through cooking soup all these years. You just need to experiment and learn. One thing about cooking soup though, is not to add in additional water midway as it will somehow deteriorate the tastiness of the soup.

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