Smoky Wok

Sometimes I just crave for something simple, something that reminds me of Mom's home cooking.  Growing up, green beans were not my favourite but after awhile, I definitely learned to appreciate the crunchy vegetables.  Today's dish is just a simple and rather healthy stir-fry of green (French) beans with small shrimp and some shallots.  The trick to this dish is to cook everything on high heat so I prefer to blanch the beans prior to stir-frying as I don't like them too crunchy, so it's entirely up to your preferences.  Great dish with rice, relatively low calorie and of course easy!



This dish is part of my Yuen Chun Recipes.



Here's wishing you all a very Happy New Year! May the year of the wood horse bring you health, wealth and happiness!

This is a simpler version of a popular festive Chinese dish.  Plump, succulent mushrooms braised with Chinese cabbage in a chicken broth flavoured mainly with oyster sauce.  It is rather important however to use a claypot for this dish if you can.  A claypot helps retain heat better and you can just serve the dish directly from the claypot at the table if you wish.  Not sure about you, but I welcome less dishes to wash anytime!



I can't believe that Chinese New Year is coming up so soon.  Time REALLY flies.  So if you're in the mood for a festive dish without all the trappings e.g. dried oysters, abalones and the like do give this humbler version a try.  No less delicious I must add.  It is quite important to stir-fry the mushrooms with garlic until fragrant before placing into the clay pot for braising.  The extra step makes a big (positive) difference.

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

I have recently been taking some short-cuts in the kitchen due to just pure unadulterated laziness.  Anyway, steaming is already a relatively easy method of cooking but I upped the easiness factor by preparing this easy spicy egg tofu dish entirely in the microwave.  Saves one a lot of hassle!  However, you will still need to slice up the ingredients (by the way, have I mentioned that I really dislike peeling the skin from the garlic bulbs??).  For this dish, I added Chinese spicy bean sauce (daobanjiang) essentially a staple condiment in Chinese Szechuan cooking.  Whenever Szechuan cooking is mentioned, the two most representative dishes are probably mapo dofu and dan dan mian.  I did get some inspiration for today's spicy tofu dish from the former but today's version is vegetarian and really much simpler.



If you like egg tofu, I am quite sure you will like this.  I find that the ginger is quite a vital ingredient in this dish, lending a fragrance to the earthy spiciness of the daobanjiang.  All in all, a very satisfactory dish and the thing that made me the happiest?  The total ease and convenience of it all!


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

*On a side note, I used the tofu as part of my bento box the next day and they were perfectly tasty.  Just remember to heat the tofu in the microwave the next morning before placing into your lunch box.  Remember to allow to cool to room temperature if using regular lunch boxes but there's no need for that if you are using thermal boxes.