Smoky Wok

This was my take on the popular Cantonese dish of beef with egg rice and inspired also by the popular Korean rice dish of bibimbap.  In the latter, the egg is usually cracked raw into piping hot rice with minced beef. The dish is then mixed up right before eating, resulting in a creamy and savoury dish.  However, for today I decided to cook my egg and simply served with some minced beef I whipped up earlier for my soba noodles.



A really easy and lazy dish I must say.  I added some sliced cucumbers for a refreshing bite but you can add green onions or other green vegetables of your choice.  If you like bibimbap, add in a dollop of gochujang mixed with a bit of sugar and sesame oil.  Mix everything up and tuck in!



This dish is part of my Yuen Chun Recipes.

I can never resist homemade sambal belacan.  When I say homemade, I mean pounding the sambal the old fashioned way, with a mortar and pestle.  I usually just use dried chilli peppers, shallots and of course belacan (shrimp paste).  Belacan is very pungent but oh so aromatic.  It is however not to everyone's taste and is an acquired taste.  But for Malaysians, this savoury condiment totally smells of home.  Growing up, I used to watch with interest whenever my mom or the helper started pounding the dried chillis together - I thought it was the most fragrant thing ever.  However, the auntie who lives on top of me sometimes start pounding like at night - definitely not a good idea when you're living in an apartment building!



Kangkung or water spinach is very crunchy and has hollow stalks.  Hence, it is very important to soak and clean these vegetables very throughly before cooking as biting into grit is definitely not appetising.  To really bring out the savoury flavours, I like to add some splashes of soy sauce.  This is a quick dish where you don't have to stir-fry the vegetables for too long to avoid them from turning yellowish and also to keep the crunchiness.

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

What's your usual breakfast fare? On certain weekends, I do yearn for some noodles right when I wake up.  Most of my friends don't feel hungry in the mornings but for some reason, I'm almost always starving when I wake up! Anyway, I am featuring one of my favourite easy to whip up noodles today.  Soba noodles are not only delicious, have great bite but also healthy - so that's a winner in my books.  I topped the noodles with some minced beef simply fried with some garlic, green onions and soy sauce.  This is great as a lazy brunch on weekends.  Oh, and topped off with some bird's eye chili peppers for an extra kick.  I like to use a combination of light and dark soy sauce for this. 



This recipe is part of my Yuen Chun Recipes.