glass prawns

Special Fried Egg

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Special Fried Egg

I called this dish Special Fried Egg because I really didn’t want to call it Fried Egg with Prawns Pork Minced and French Beans. That would be a tad too long for a title of dish, and remembering that it is important to name your dishes so that it won’t be too obvious. So there, Special Fried Egg.

Of course there is nothing very special about this dish except that it has quite a few ingredients all combined together. Fresh glass prawns are really good for this although a tad expensive. You may just use grey shrimp. Much cheaper and you won’t burn a hole in the wallet. Add regular minced pork and French beans and there you go. Comfort food that every kid who used to eat at home before fast food chains came along and dominated our tastebuds with salt and all things unwholesome.

Putting this special fried egg together was really a walk down memory lane for me. My nanny used to cook this dish for lunch every other week. It has become somewhat a cult classic for me. The taste, textures, the classic burnt edges. They all make up what this classic dish should be.

Recipe

Ingredients

3 large Glass Prawns
60 grams of Minced Pork
10 pieces of French Beans
2 whole Eggs
Light Soya Sauce

Method

1. De-shell the prawns and use only the meat. Chop into a paste. Then mix with the minced pork. Now use a heavy cleaver, chop and continue to combine the two ingredients until they become one paste.

2. Cut the French Beans into small pieces. Discard either ends. Assemble all the ingredients into a large bowl. Crack the eggs into the bowl. The egg acts as the social glue. Add soya sauce about 1 tbsp.

3. Now use your hands to mix. I like getting my hands dirty. Leave it to marinate a while.

4. Add oil into a wok (if you don’t know what a good wok looks like, you may want to refer to this Helen Chen non-stick pan). Turn heat up high. Pour the mixture into the frying pan and allow it to cook and congeal. Then do the magic flip and repeat on the other side. Use as much oil as you like. It has to be cooked nicely.

Bon Appetit!

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Special Fried Egg

Stunned Like Vegetable

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Stunned Like Vegetable

I went about my usual shopping today at the wet market for the week’s grocery and planning new and interesting meals for my family. I gotta say this, cooking helps bond the family together. If you don’t believe me, try cooking all your meals at home and have everyone eating together at the same time. Powerful man.

But what is more power is this Kacang Petai that I got from the vegetable seller. They all look so innocently polished and refined, and such a  beautiful greenish hue, but oh my, the vegetable has an awful stench of fresh vomit on pavement. Stink beans as some people call it, and when I had a whiff of it, my stomach tied itself into a knot. As Chen Tian Wen would probably say Stunned Like Vegetable. Except perhaps in my case, I so stunned by vegetable.

Anyway, from what I read, the only way to cook this vegetable is to mix it with an equally convulsive ingredient, the Belacan. That old stinky fermented dried paste of the carcasses of rotting sea-creatures, dried in sun and congealed into blocks of smelly goodness. The two ingredients coming together officially makes it a double stunning to awaken the senses.

Add a little Assam, dried shrimps (hae bi) and a few tubes of chilli padi, this rather unique dish will take shape and become nothing short of delicious. I have had it at the Makchik’s Nasi Padang stall at the market, and it is just awesome. Of course, my version is more flavourful, I cooking for my family, not cook to sell.

Recipe

Ingredients

300 grams of Kacang Petai
100 grams of Dried Shrimps
5-6 tubes of Chilli Padi
2-3 cm of Belacan
4-5 Glass Prawns (fresh from the wet market)
A little Assam or Tamarind
Sea Salt
Olive Oil

Method

1. Soak the petai in hot water, so that it won’t be so stinky (I doubt it removes any stink). Process the dried shrimps, chilli padi and belacan in a food chopper to combine the ingredients into a paste.

2. Stir fry the paste in 2 tbsp of oil until fragrant (and pungent). Add some salt if you like, but the hae bi should be quite salty already. Once cooked reserved the paste one side.

3. Add the prawns (and more oil if needed) and fry until the prawns all turn into a “C” shape. Then reserved the prawns aside.

4. Now fry the petai beans in the wok with the Belacan paste. Then add the rest of the ingredients together for a good combine. Add a little water into the Tamarind, and then add the strained juice of Assam into the wok and continue frying until the beans are relatively cooked but still firmed.

5. Serve with steam rice.

Bon Appetit!

Garlic Tomato Prawns

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Garlic Tomato Prawns

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe. As much as you might wonder if the above photo resemble some kind of fossilized crustacean, I assure you, it is not. Those prawns were fresh. My picture taking skills on the other hand leaves much to be desired.

I asked my mother-in-law how she cooked it one day and she said a whole load of ingredients which sounded like a whole load of ingredients. Very hard to follow. So I decided that I would simplify her recipe to just three ingredients.

Make it easy for you and me. Prawns, garlic and good old tomato sauce. Easy. Best part is, it still tastes fantastic.

Recipe

Ingredients

6 medium sized Glass Prawns
Lots of Garlic (rough chop)
3-4 tbsp of Tomato Sauce
Olive Oil

Method

1. Heat oil in wok. Throw the prepared garlic pieces in to fry until fragrant. Then throw the prawns in. Fry until they form a “C-shape”. Then add tomato sauce. Continue frying, add a little bit of water. Let it simmer a minute and it’s done.

Bon Appetit!

Stir Fry Belacan Wing Beans

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Stir Fry Belacan Wing Beans

My wife bought this odd looking vegetable the other day and told me to work the magic. Of course everyone knows there is no such thing as magic, at least not in my kitchen that is.

Nevertheless, I took a long hard look at this vegetable otherwise known as “Wing Beans” or as they call it in Malay, “Kacang Botol“. It is a weird looking vegetable indeed with its “C-shaped” body if you were to slice it through. I remember having it once at some coffeeshop zi char stall and it was presented to us in an intense sambal belacan sauce. I thought that it was delicious.

So what better way to cook this dish than to do it in sambal belacan. My twist is to add a few glass prawns (my favourite prawns) and it would be perfect.

Recipe

Ingredients

6 medium sized Glass Prawns
300 grams of Wing Beans
Handful of Dried Shrimps (hae bi)
1 piece of Red Chilli (chopped finely)
3-4 grams of Belacan
Light Soya Sauce
Olive Oil

Method

1. Wash and slice the wing beans into 1 cm length pieces. Mix the belacan, dried shrimps and finely chopped chilli into a blender and blend the ingredients into a paste. At this point, it would be good to ventilate the kitchen.

2. Wash and prepare the glass prawns, heat oil in the wok and then fry the prawns until they curl into a “C-shaped” position. This means the are cooked. Reserve the prawns aside.

3. Now heat another batch of oil in the wok, throw the belacan paste into the wok and stir fry until fragrant. Then add a little more oil and throw the prepared wing beans into the wok and give it a good stir. Continue frying until the colour of the vegetable turns a dark green. Then add the prawns and continue stirring. Continue frying for another five minutes and it is ready to be served.

Bon Appetit!

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Wing Bean aka Kacang Botol

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Belacan, finely chopped chilli, dried shrimps