wing beans

Stir Fry Wing Beans in Garlic and Tomato

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Stir Fry Wing Beans in Garlic and Tomato

I cooked this dish in belacan the other time and it was delicious. So this time around, I did a Chinese spin on it. Decided to cooked it with garlic and tomatoes and some signature Chinese sauces and ingredients and surprisingly the taste was excellent. It just made us want to eat more.

Kacang Botol as the locals call it, its origins are kind of mysterious to me. It seems the exotic wing bean originates from New Guinea. Well at least that is what Wikipedia tells me. The fragrance of the garlic and the sweetness of the tomatoes adds to the taste of this simple dish.

A little light soya sauce, oyster sauce and dried Chinese Scallops and the umami in the dish turns up a few notches to a fever-pitched confluence of familiar flavours. Very nice and easy to cook.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 packet of Wing Beans
4 cloves Garlic
1 large Tomato
5 pieces Dried Chinese Scallops
1 tsp Sesame Seed Oil
1 tsp Light Soya Sauce
1 tbsp Oyster Sauce
4-5 tbsp Olive Oil

Method

1. Peel and rough chop the garlic pieces. Then cut the tomato into slices. Wash the wing beans then cut them into bite size pieces.

2. Heat the oil in the wok and add the garlic to stir fry. Make sure the garlic pieces are not burnt. Moderate the heat to medium. Then add the scallops (unsoaked) to fry. Then add the tomatoes. Fry till tomatoes are softened. Then add the wing beans. Continue frying. Add a little water.

3. Add soya sauce, sesame seed oil and a little oyster sauce in a bowl. Then pour mixture into the wok. If it is too dry, add more water. Then cover the lid and allow the vegetable to cook through for about 4-5 minutes.

4. The sauce should have thickened and the wing beans softened slightly. Do a test taste and it should still be crunchy in texture. Serve with steam rice.

Bon Appetit!

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Stir Fry Wing Bean in Garlic and Tomato

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