preserved black beans

Stir Fry Mushrooms

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Stir Fry Mushrooms

My wife bought three types of mushrooms the other day and wanted me to fry them up as a dish. My lightning quick mind immediately thought of the style and how I would cook it. We love mushrooms, there is really nothing that we love eating more than the mysterious fungi.

The style that I would usually cook these mushrooms would be to roast them with rosemary herbs, olive oil and sea salt. Yum! But I also wanted to do a simple stir fry and see where the rabbit trail of cooking risk rewards would lead me. I wanted to see if it would taste just as fantastic if they were cooked in a Chinese uncle style. Like a charred-kway-teow uncle as he rocks his wok and flog the living daylights out of the kway teow in the pan with his magic stick.

For this dish, I am trying out the Szechuan Mala style. I have come to love the black beans used in frying this dish. So I thought I would also try it, but using the usual black beans that I always use when I make my Stir Fry Beef and Bitter Gourd. The end result was only so-so.

I think the problem could be the lack of a proper wok and big fire that is usually needed when cooking Szechuan Mala. Sigh, so sad for us home cooks with conventional equipment. Still keen to learn how I did it (and do it better)? Read on.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 packet of King Mushrooms
1 packet of Shitake Mushrooms
1 packet of White Button Mushrooms
3 tsp of preserved Black Beans
Olive Oil

Method

1. Slice and cut up the mushrooms. Add oil into frying pan, throw all the mushrooms into the pan, add the black beans. Turn up the heat and fry until the mushrooms are softened and shrunk. You generally want to sear them so that the fragrance of the black beans are infused. Make the fire as big as possible. Once fragrant, serve.

Bon Appetit!

Stir Fry Beef and Bitter Gourd

Stir Fry Beef and Bitter Gourd

This has got to be my my mum’s favourite dish amongst all the dishes that she cooks. I know this simply because she cooks it every other week and it is always with my favourite preserved black beans. The sauce is wah shiok!

I think this was also the dish that turned me to love bitter gourd as a child. I never use to like vegetables all that much but overcoming bitter gourd was a milestone in my gastronomic journey. Everything else was palatable compared to bitter gourd.

She likes to stir fry it with beef slices marinated in ginger juice. She would pound the ginger into a pulp and extract the juice. I found a better way to do this and that is to grate the ginger instead. Beef was an essential source of iron and it was great for keeping anemic kids healthy. The tell tale sign would be to look at the palm of our hands and it would be decided that we would have stir fry Beef and Bitter Gourd for that day. Just kidding.

Recipe

Ingredients

200 grams of Beef Flank (NTUC has one of the best beef flank and it is perfect for Stir Fry)
1 tube of Bitter Gourd
3 inches of Ginger
3 cloves of Garlic
1 tbsp Salted Preserved Black Beans
1 tbsp Light Soy Sauce
1 tsp White Pepper powder
2 tbsp Olive Oil

Method

1. First boil a kettle of water. This is for cooking the bitter gourd. Then sliced the beef fillet thinly. Once done put the beef slices into a ziplock bag. Add soy sauce and pepper into the bag. Then grate the ginger into the bag as well. This forms the Marinate for the beef slices to make it tender. Marinate for about 5-8 minutes.

2. Slice the bitter gourd thinly and then blanch in a pot of boiling hot water (pour the kettle in). As the bitter gourd is sliced thinly, it should also cook quite fast while still retaining some crunchiness.

3. Pour the oil into the frying pan and heat it up. Once heated fry the garlic pieces until fragrant. Then add the marinated beef slices and stir fry until semi cooked. Then add the blanched bitter gourd slices and stir fry until the juices come out.

4. Add the black beans and continue to fry until flavours are thoroughly mixed. Once ready, serve with steam rice.

Bon Appetit!