This recipe for stir-fried spicy brinjal is actually my grandmother’s recipe and after tasting it and learning a few tips from her, my Personal Chef started trying his hand at cooking it. Well, if anything, he aced it. So, this recipe today is partly my Personal Chef’s recipe and partly mine as I try to emulate his style of preparing this particularly simple dish.

Stir fried Spicy Brinjal with dried shrimps

So, here’s the recipe for this dish which we usually eat with plain steamed rice. Of course, you can even eat it as it is or as a side dish.

Stir Fried Spicy Brinjal

Ingredients

1 brinjal

3 tbsp dried shrimps, soaked and drained

2 tbsp paprika chili powder

3 tbsp diced garlic

2 tbsp butter (for a healthier option, use olive oil although the flavour would not be as fragrant)

3 tbsp Dark Soy Sauce

2 tbsp Light Soy Sauce

Instructions

1. Slice the brinjal thinly like this

2. Heat up the wok.

2. Add in the butter

3. Get your diced garlic and dried shrimps ready.

4. Add the garlic to the butter and sautee.

5. Sautee the garlic till fragrant before adding the shrimps

6. Stir fry the garlic and shrimps mix for a few minutes, then add in the chili powder. Stir and make sure that the shrimps and garlic are well coated with the chili powder. By now, the spicy aroma should be quite strong.

7. Finally, add in the brinjals

8. Stir fry the brinjals for a while and then add in the sauces.

9. Continue to stir fry the brinjals to make sure it is well coated with the sauces

10. If you prefer it to have a slight crispiness to it, then stir fry for another few minutes more. If not, remove from heat and serve hot.

And here's the stir-fried spicy brinjals

The shrimps actually gave it a nice salty and aromatic flavour while the butter gave it a richness that you can’t get with olive oil. Of course, the chili powder gave it the spicy tinge. However, I didn’t use a lot of chili as my son could not eat ‘too spicy’ food yet, so that’s why you could hardly see the chili here.

The stir fried spicy brinjal is actually an easy and simple dish to prepare as the whole cooking time takes between 10 to 15 minutes only!

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So, I usually do a lot of short-cuts in my cooking and one of it is to use the same sauce for two different types of mains and yet come up with absolute different flavours for both of it. Curious? Read on to find out how I do it.

I first use a recipe for BBQ Chicken from here, except that I didn’t exactly follow the whole recipe. Heheh…that’s me, I love to try out new recipes but I somehow never do follow the whole recipe and I tend to change it around.

So, here’s my own version of

Stir-fried Chicken in BBQ sauce

AND

Grilled Lemon & Herbs Salmon

Ingredients for chicken

1/2 chicken, chopped into four pieces (you can also use whole chicken)

2 onions, chopped

1 clove garlic, diced

3 tbsp homemade salsa

2 tbsp ketchup

1 tbsp honey

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 tbsp balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp Worchestershire sauce

2 – 3 tbsp mixed fresh herbs (I used basil, thyme, dill and rosemary)

1 capsicum, sliced

Ingredients for salmon

3 tbsp butter

2 tbsp diced garlic

1 lemon

4 tbsp mixed fresh herbs (thyme, dill and rosemary)

1 salmon steak

Instructions

1. Prepare the ingredients for the chicken

2. Heat up some oil in a pan and sautee the garlic and onion till fragrant

3. Add in the sauces and herbs

4. Add in the capsicum and stir fry for a few minutes over medium heat

5. Then pour the sauce onto the chicken and stir to coat the chicken completely to marinade it.

6. Set aside the chicken. But don’t wash the wok / frying pan.

7. Take out a salmon steak

8.Season the salmon with lemon juice

9.Roughly chop the fresh mixed herbs and rub it all over the salmon

10. Turn on the heat of the pan (the same one that was used to stir-fry the sauce for the chicken) and add butter to it.

11. Add garlic and sautee for a few seconds over low heat.

12. Then, add the salmon (together with the herbs) and grill it over medium heat

13. Once it turns opaque with a gorgeous ‘tan’ to it, it is cooked so remove from heat.

14. Now back to the chicken. Add about 3 tbsp butter to the same pan and heat it up.

15. Then, add in the marinated chicken together with the sauce and stir fry over medium to low heat.

16. Stir fry till the chicken is cooked through, about 10 to 15 minutes. Then, you will get this…

The stir fried Chicken in BBQ Sauce is done!

And…

Here’s the

Lemon and Herbs Salmon

You will find that the salmon has a hint of the BBQ sauce but not much as it has its own lemon and herbs flavour.

I serve these two mains with

Stir fried green vegetables

and

Steamed brown rice

That’s a complete meal for the three of us. This is all done within an hour (including preparation time). The trick to using the same frying pan (or wok in my case) for the sauce, then the salmon and then the chicken is to keep the heat at medium or medium low so that it won’t burn.

Of course, the mains can be eaten as is or serve with other side dishes but I think the stir fried chicken in BBQ sauce goes very well with rice due to the sauce.

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This is a recipe for nutritious and highly healthy clear chicken soup:

Chicken and Ginseng Soup

Chicken Soup For the Tired Body

(with ginseng / pao sam and Dom)

Ingredients

Half chicken, cleaned and skin removed (so that soup will not be so oily)

6 – 7 pieces of pao sam (a type of ginseng)

4 – 5 tbsp Dom

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp kei chi (wolfberries)

5 dried red dates

1 litre water

Instructions

1. Prepare your chicken and place in a zipper bag.

2. Take out a bottle of Dom to use it as seasoning for the chicken and the soup

3. Pour about 2 - 3 tbsp of Dom into the chicken in the bag and sorta mix the chicken well

4. Seal the bag and let the chicken season for several hours or overnight in the fridge

5. Soak and drain the wolfberries and red dates

6. Heat up a pot of water till boiling.

7. Get your chicken, Dom and pao sam ready

8. First, add the wolfberries and red dates to the boiling water

9. Dump in the chicken

10. Then, add in these:

This is the pao sam / ginseng I use for the soup

Here is a closer look at the pao sam

It is wise not to use too many as this is a powerful herb and eating too much of it may cause effects such as fever. Just use four to five pieces, it is good enough.

Then add in the Dom Benedictine, about three to five spoonfuls

The amount of this is actually dependent on you. Also remember to add the salt to this soup.

Cover and then let it simmer over low heat for about 45 minutes

It is usually cooked by 30 minutes but if you want better flavour or taste, you can let it simmer longer. After that, you will get this..

Clear chicken soup for the tired body

This soup, in Chinese terms, is pretty heaty for the body so only cook this during cool weather. I also used more Dom as I like the extra sweet flavour it gave the soup. Also, this is not suitable if you have a cold or flu as it may make your sorethroat even worse!

You can use a slowcooker to cook this. Just put water in the pot, add the ingredients and let the slowcooker do it’s magic.

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I know, I know, it is not healthy to be eating prawns all the time due to the high cholesterol content but hey, it is not everyday that I eat prawns, okay? It isn’t exactly cheap nowadays, anyway. So, when I got about 10 free prawns, this is what I did with it:

Sweet and sour prawns and cuttlefish

Yep, I so happen to have some fresh cuttlefish so I throw that in with the prawns and made myself a plateful of stir-fried sweet and sour seafood!

Sweet and sour seafood

It is pretty easy to cook and takes me about 10 minutes to prepare and 5 minutes to get it cooked! Easy-peasy. Here’s the recipe:

Sweet and Sour Prawns and Cuttlefish Recipe

or

Sweet and Sour Seafood Recipe

Sweet and sour prawns and cuttlefish

Ingredients

Prawns, about 10 to 15

Cuttlefish, palmsize or about 100g

2 medium tomatoes, quartered

half clove garlic, peeled and diced

fresh ginger, about thumbsize, skinned and sliced thinly

Ketchup, 4 tbsp

Chili sauce, 4 tbsp

Pepper to taste

Salt to taste

Cooking oil

Instructions

1. Heat up the cooking oil in a wok (don’t know why but I always like to use the wok for stir-frying stuffs, it somehow tastes better).

2. Sautee the garlic till fragrant and then add the ginger. Sautee till fragrant.

3. Add the prawns and stir fry till it is half cooked and then add the cuttlefish. Remember to turn the heat down to medium low.

4. Add the tomatoes and sauces, stir to mix it around. The cuttlefish cooks very fast so don’t overcook it or else you’d end up with rubbery cuttlefish!

5. Add a dash of pepper and only add salt if you think it is not salty enough. Usually I don’t add salt because the ketchup gave it enough saltiness.

6. Immediately remove from heat and serve hot. Goes well with fluffy white rice or you can even eat it on its own.

You can enjoy this sweet and sour prawns and cuttlefish with rice

If you noticed, I used cherry tomatoes when I cooked this. That’s because I ran out of tomatoes so I ended up using around 6 to 8 tiny cherry tomatoes but the flavour is just as good!

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Min Jiang Coffee Shop

They have quite a selection of hawker foods from bee hoon soup to lor bak to fried oyster and prawn omelette. They are particularly well known for their great bee hoon soup and tom yam. The tom yam stall here is really good, quite comparable to Lai Hoe Tomyam.

Bee Hoon Soup with fried fish

My husband is a bee hoon soup freak. He’d try all the bee hoon soup and koay teow th’ng that we could find here and in other states too! So, naturally, he loves this stall’s bee hoon soup. It is quite different in taste and the fried fish is damn good, crunchy even though it’s soaked in the soup.

A meal of bee hoon soup and Lor Bak

My son simply loves the lor bak and actually ate half the plate of the lor bak! It is crunchy and not oily despite it being deep fried. The ‘lor’ (the sticky sauce) goes very well with it.

Prawn Omelette

Normally, hawkers will sell oyster omelette, so this is the first time I’ve seen a prawn omelette! So, naturally, I have to try it out. The omelette is fried the same style as they normally fry oyster omelette, starchy-based and instead of oyster, she replaced it with prawns. It’s RM6 per plate.

This coffee shop is only open in the evenings. For directions to the place, click here.

Rating: 7/10

Price: $$ (prices are from RM3.50 and above)

If you want to try to make your own Prawn Omelette (and save the RM6!), here’s the recipe:

Prawn Omelette Recipe

Ingredients

1 tbsp plain flour

4 tbsp tapioca flour

2 tbsp rice flour

1 tsp fish sauce

1 tbsp light soya sauce

a dash of pepper

300ml water

6 eggs, whisked

500g prawns,skinned

spring onion, chopped

coriander leaves, chopped

Instructions

1. Mix all of the flour with the water into a batter.

2. In a wok, heat up some oil and stir fry the prawns for about 30 seconds. Once it is just only cooked, remove from heat.

3. Heat up more oil and pour in most of the batter, leaving about a small cup of batter aside.

4. Wait till the batter is almost cooked, then add the eggs. Stir and mix it around. Sprinkle the sauces over it and stir the mixture some more, so that the omelette break into many pieces instead of one big piece.

5. Let the mixture cook over low to medium heat and once the bottom turns a bit brown, add the prawns and the remaining batter.

6. Flip the omelette pieces over. Stir for awhile more and then remove from heat.

7. Sprinkle the coriander leaves and spring onion on top and it is ready to serve!

Best served with chili sauce.

Tip on preparing the prawns: If you are worried about a strong ‘prawn’ smell, you need to peel the skin off, wash it thoroughly and season it with some salt for about 15 minutes. Then wash the salt off. It should give it a slightly salty taste without the smell.

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Peanut and chicken soup

Here’s the recipe:

Peanut and Chicken Soup

Ingredients

1/2 chicken and chicken feet, seasoned with salt

1 cup peanuts, washed and soaked

4 dried red dates, seeded

1 tbsp wolfberries (optional – I add this because of its nutritional values)

3 pods garlic

2 pc beancurd sheets

Instructions

1. Heat up a pot of water to boiling

2. Add in the chicken, peanuts, red dates, garlic and wolfberries.

3. Let it simmer for about 45 minutes over low fire.

4. Stir occasionally and add a large pinch salt. It is done when the peanuts are cooked and softened.

5. Add in the beancurd sheets. Stir and let it soften.

6. Best to serve hot.

This soup goes well with rice. It can also be eaten as is.

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I cook on most weekends and sometimes I’d be too busy to prepare complicated dishes so I’d usually cook something simple, easy and healthy too. So, I tried out some of my chicken breast recipes.

Simple stir-fried chicken

It is a very simple and easy recipe. Most important of all, it is healthy and tasty too. Here’s the recipe:

Chicken breast recipes: Simple Stir-fried Chicken

Ingredients

1 pc deboned chicken breast meat, sliced thinly into strips

1 stalk spring onion, roughly chopped

Half clove garlic, diced

2- 4 red chillies, cut and seeded (if you don’t want it to be too spicy)

1 small onion, peeled and chopped

Instructions

1. Season the chicken strips with some soya sauce and oyster sauce.

2. Heat up some cooking oil in a wok

3. Sautee the garlic and onion for a few minutes or till brown

4. Add the onions and chillies and sautee for a while.

5. Add the chicken.

6. Sautee until fragrant. Remove from heat and serve with rice.

Simple stir-fried chicken

Make sure you do not overcook or else the chicken will tend to be stringy and dry. Also, to soften the meat, use a meat tenderizer (the utensil, not the seasoning).

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Soya Sauce Chicken

I like to cook this dish too because it is quite simple and easy to prepare. It is also quite versatile where you can add different ingredients at different times. So, here’s the recipe:

Soya Sauce Chicken Recipe

Ingredients

One whole chicken, chopped into quarters

3 pods garlic, smashed with skin intact

3 – 5 slices ginger

1/2 stick cinnamon

Five-spice powder (optional)

Dark soya sauce

Light soya sauce

Sugar

Pepper

Oyster sauce

3 – 5 dried Chinese mushrooms, soaked and sliced (alternatively, can use fresh shiitake mushrooms)

Sesame oil

Soya Sauce Chicken

Instructions

1. Season the chicken with the five-spice powder, 1/2 tsp sesame oil, a dash of pepper, 3 tbsp soya sauce and 1 tbsp dark soya sauce. Best to keep in a container and refrigerate it for at least one hour, preferably several hours.

2. In a wok, heat up some cooking oil and saute the garlic till fragrant. Add the mushrooms and ginger and 1 tbsp sugar. Stir till the sugar has melted and add 4 tbsp light soya sauce and 2 tbsp dark soya sauce.

3. Add 1 tbsp oyster sauce. Add the chicken and coat it with the sauce mixture. Then add in 1 cup water. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes before adding the cinnamon.

4. Let the mixture simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes or until the chicken is cooked through. It is best served with steamed fluffy white rice.

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Well, I checked and found that:

lotus root is a good source of Dietary Fiber, Thiamin, Vitamin B6, Phosphorus, Potassium, Copper and Manganese, and a very good source of Vitamin C.

• It is also traditionally used to treat various lung-related ailments, such as tuberculosis, asthma, and coughing, for heart disease, and to increase energy and neutralize toxins.

• It is believed to be able to melt mucus accumulation in the body, especially in the respiratory system, and relieve coughing.

• It is one of the ingredients used for a macrobiotic remedy treat colds accompanied by fever or stomach and intestines ailments.

• If it is combined with the juice of grated ginger, it is also good for enteritis (inflammation of the intestine).

• It could be used as part of ingredient for a plaster compress. Just combine it with white flour and grated ginger and it is used as a traditional remedy for dispersing and moving stagnated mucus.

• If the plaster compress was applied to the face, it can relieve sinus congestion and inflammation.

There was also this taboo by certain Taoist believers that those who pray to the Goddess of Mercy (Kuan Yin) must not consume lotus root because she use to sit and meditate on a lotus flower. There were also stories that say that lotus root was used to save her and replace her bones after she was injured in a battle or something…

I checked with my Taoist / Buddhist sifu (master) and found that it is just one of the myths that people tend to pass around.

However, it is just a matter of faith so if you really believe this taboo, it’s your choice.

For those who don’t have such a taboo, here’s a recipe using lotus root:

Lotus Root and Peanut Soup

Ingredients

20cm – 25cm long lotus root, skinned and sliced

4 dried red dates

1 cup peanuts, scalded in hot water

1 piece of dried squid

1 piece of dried oyster

1 medium sized carrot, cubed

6 cups water (or two huge bowls / one pot )

250g chicken bones / spare ribs, cut into small pieces and seasoned with salt for an hour

3 pods of garlic

salt

Instructions

1. Blanch the meat in boiling water, then remove and drain.

2. Bring the pot of water to a boil. Add the meat. Reduce heat to medium.

3. Add in the other ingredients.

4. Let it simmer over low to medium heat for about 30 minutes. Add in some salt to taste. Stir occasionally.

5. It is cooked when the lotus root and peanuts are cooked through and the meat is tender.

6. Alternatively, you can cook this using a slow cooker.

For the vegetarian version, you add 2 cups of peanuts instead of one and you also add two to three pieces of tai tou choy or shanghai choy (preserved salted vegetables) for additional flavour in replacement of the dried squid, oyster and meat.

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That was because I was trying out commercial acar at coffee shops, economy rice stalls or even restaurants. My grandma, whom I think is the greatest cook on earth, seldom makes acar and whenever she makes any, I’d give the dish a clear berth when I was younger because it looked weird and later, because of the bad experiences with commercial acar.

So, it was only in recent years when she persistently told me to try it (also with a slightly hurt expression that I refused to give one of her most famous creations a try) that I took the plunge..a bite..to be exact. Since then, I was hooked, line and sinker! But only to her acar. I still do not eat commercial acar.

Recently, Chef Grandma created a new acar, different from the conventional mixed vegetables acar.

Carrots and Raisins Acar

(Pickled Spicy Carrots and Raisins)

Here’s the recipe for it:

Ingredients

Seasoning 1:

2 stalks lemongrass (serai)

1 small piece galangal (lengkuas), about 4cm

1 small piece of turmeric ginger (kunyit), about 5cm

15 – 20 no. dried chilies (more if you preferred it to be more spicy)

2 no. candlenut (buah keras)

5 garlic

20 shallots

Seasoning 2:

rice vinegar

sugar

Vegetables:

3 carrots, finely grated

1 box of raisins (1 cup)

lime (optional)

Instructions

1. Blend all the ingredients for the seasoning 1 using a blender till it became a paste.

2. Season the grated carrots with seasoning 2. Use just enough vinegar to soak all the carrots but not too much that the carrots are swimming in vinegar. Add sugar to negate its sourness so if you preferred it to be sweeter, add more sugar. Let it season for about an hour or so. This is to preserve the crunchiness of the carrots.

3. In a wok, heat up some oil and then saute the blended seasoning 1 till fragrant. Lower the heat and add the carrots (together with the vinegar) into the mixture.

4. Stir and add in the raisins. Add lime only if you prefer it to be more sour. Otherwise, can remove from heat and serve warm or at room temperature.

This acar can be kept for about two weeks in the freezer and you only need to thaw it the night before if you want to eat it the next day. No need to reheat it as reheating will only make it soggy and soften the crunchy carrots. Just take it out of the fridge early and let it ‘warm up’ according to the room temperature.

It is best served with plain white rice or even eaten on its own.

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