Smoky Wok

Are you a fan of eggplant? The creamy texture of cooked eggplant makes a great topping for both rice and noodles.  Today's feature is a very easy and simply delicious noodle dish you can whip up in a matter of minutes.  For a non-spicy dish, simply skip the chili peppers.  I used to dislike eggplant when I was younger as I thought the texture was a little weird but then of course as one grows older, tastes change and definitely become more accepting so to speak.  This dish was made with some dried wheat noodles and topped with delicious eggplant stir-fried with garlic, chili peppers and just soy sauce for flavour. 



One thing to note when cooking eggplant is that you should give the eggplant a quick stir-fry with a little bit of oil in the wok prior to cooking to seal in the eggplant a little as eggplant is like sponge and will absorb a lot of oil while being stir-fried.  If you want to make this dish even creamier, you can add some miso paste to thicken the sauce as well.  I hope you will give this a try soon!



This recipe is part of my Yuen Chun Recipes, an ongoing project on this blog.

Whenever I feel under the weather, I crave for a piping hot bowl of smooth congee.  I took a look in my fridge and was trying hard to think of what ingredients I could use and I noticed the packet of mussels in my freezer so I thought I would give it a try.  This is rather like seafood congee except that the only seafood I used was congee - congee is great in that it provides the perfect backdrop to most ingredients and you can adjust them to suit your preferences.



If you are not a fan of mussels, you can use bamboo clams, prawns or other seafood.  I prefer watery congee where the ratio of water to rice is about 6:1 but do adjust this according to your tastes.  This was simply heartwarming and if you like mussels, I'm pretty sure you will like this easy congee!



Ingredients:

1/2 cup white rice, soaked for 30 minutes preferably (this it to ensure smoother consistency)
6 cups water
12 mussels in half shell
3 stalks green onions, sliced
4 slices ginger, slivered

To serve:
Sesame oil
Light soy sauce
Extra green onions and ginger for garnish

Method:

Firstly, place the rice and water in a claypot of large soup pot.  Bring to a boil.  Add a sprinkle of salt.  Once boiling rapidly, turn to medium low and allow to cook for about 1 hour stirring occasionally.  Once the congee reaches the desired consistency, add in the ginger, green onions and mussels.  The congee will be ready in 1 minute.  Serve hot with additional garnishing.

I love cooking and so far apart from my mom, no one has actually cooked for me that is until my boyfriend, F.  I am a huge fan of fried rice and after tasting my boyfriend's yummy fried rice, I wanted to share his simple recipe with you, my dear readers.  This is a spicy and appetising fried rice made simply with shallots, chili peppers, anchovies and onions.  F's tip is to add some butter to the dish instead of just using oil.  The small amount of butter adds to the richness of the anchovies and really takes the dish up a few notches.



Do give this a try the next time you feel like some fried rice!



Also wanted to say, thanks F for cooking for me no matter how simple you think the dishes are - I love all of them! :)

This recipe is also a part of my Yuen Chun Recipes, an ongoing project on this blog.