The Mundane Fare

i realised that how mundane things have become on some days.

i stay home pretty much these days and live out some pretty mundane times. on such days, they end up with dinners that look pretty much like this. simple mundane fare to end a simple mundane day. just The Wife and the kiddo at the dinner table with me.

in my younger days, i'd often rile at my mum for cooking the 'same ol same ol' day in day out, and i'd point out eagerly the inspirational glossy pages of recipe books she'd stashed away in the cupboard. hoping that she'd try something different for dinner. on occasions when she did, the evenings were more colourful and certainly everyone else had a few extra lines to say. of cos, it's back to the mundane the following day and takeaways were always helpful in breaking the monotoneity.

over the years, i've grown to understand the mundane that surrounded my mum's life. i'd concluded that a lot of sacrifice had to go into one's life in exchange for the mundane. had my mum not been a housewife, i'd be eating takeaways most of my formative days and be deprived of mundane, yet wholesome meals that i'd been 'so sick of' in my youth. it's definitely another set of mental challenge to stay home and take care of the house (strangely with the both of us at home and caring for just 1 kid, time really flies). i'm still nudging my mum to try out new stuff every now and then though i guess old habits die hard.

hence i'm dedicating this post to dishes that i'd skipped over previously - the un-interesting daily fare that sit on the dining table on most days of the weeks - the blanks that i'd otherwise not address in my blog.

Stirfry Asparagus with Carrots & Mushrooms

ingredients

• 10 asparagus, peeled and chopped
• 1 x large carrot, peeled and cut to strips
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 5-6 large button mushrooms, quartered
• cooking oil
• 1/2 tsp chicken stock powder (optional)
  
• fish sauce (to taste)
• chinese cooking wine (to taste)
  

recipe

• brown garlic lightly and add in the carrots. fry till the oil is slighty orange-y
• add in asparagus and some water. cover and let simmer
• when a sauce is seen in the frying pan/pot. add chicken stock and fish sauce. stirfry and simmer till asparagus is 80% cooked
• add in mushrooms, stirfry with dash of cooking wine
• let simmer till mushroom is cooked (not shrunk, so as to retain a degress of crunchiness) then remove and serve

Stirfry Pork Slices with Onion & Ginger

ingredients

• thinly sliced pork loin
• ginger slices
• 1 onion quartered
• chopped chilli (to taste)
• spring onion (cut to strips for garnish)
• chopped garlic
• dark soy sauce
• pepper
  
• fish sauce/ light soy sauce (to taste)
  
• cooking oil
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp chinese cooking wine

recipe

• brown garlic, ginger and onions till fragrant
  
• on mid-hi heat, add in pork slices and stirfry quickly (till about 70% cooked)
  
• add dark soy sauce, fish/soy sauce, pepper and sesame oil (you can actually choose to marinate the pork with these prior to cooking)
• when slices are about cooked, add wine, fry quickly, turn to low heat and let simmer for <1min
• add in chilli and spring onion, stir fry quickly and serve (for more spiciness, chilli can be added after the sauces are in)
  

Mock Fried Carrot Cake

Did i mention that carrot cake is also one of my comfort food?
Incidentally The Wife likes the white version while i prefer the black.

When i was much younger and staying with my paternal grandma, she'd pamper me with fried carrot cake from ghimmoh market pretty much every other day. it's simply breakfast in the dunno-much-abt-calories days and together with youtiao, soya bean milk, they make up some fond memories. it's a really simple hawker dish, steamed daikon flour cake and eggs, not like these days with the extra prawns and what nots.

so what happens when you haven't gotten round to figure out how to make daikon flour cake n u r craving for this dish? then must be creative lah. so here's my non-carbo, hi protein version. i used what's readily available in most asian kitchen for this adaptation that serves 2-3.

ingredients

• slab of tofu (not the silken kind, and not tau kwah type...those with texture somewhere in between). you dun want too much cos later it tastes too tofu-bean-y. cut the tofu to small cubes
  
• 3 eggs
• pepper
  
• fish sauce (not optional. add to taste)
• chai por (preserved turnips, also not optional. add to taste)
• small portion of chopped garlic (optional...)
• spring onion (finely chopped, use as garnish. optional. i dun have in fridge today so i used dried parsley instead)
  
• cooking oil

recipe

• heat non-stick pan/wok at medium heat, brown the chaipor + garlic. you shld be able to smell the fragrance of the chaipor
  
• add tofu and fry with the chaipor+garlic. try to brown the tofu a lil too
  
• drizzle fish sauce and fry till you can smell the fragrance of the sauce
• keep pan at medium heat. beat eggs with dash of pepper, more fish sauce (optional) and add to tofu-chaipor mix
• wait till 1 side is browning and edges are crisping, then flip to fry the other side. you may turn up the heat to create faster browning
  
• serve with garnish when cooked

You'll get a slightly springier texture cos of the tofu, but you should get the fried omelette fragrance that comes with the chaipor n fish sauce. Glad The Wife likes this version. now i got to google on how to make the daikon cake......

Soya Bean Milk

i'd better state this outright......if you have spare time, lurrve the homebrew taste with no preservatives....yah go ahead try this out yourself. this is really cheap back home & you shld really save yourself the hassle. but since it costs >AUD$2.50/cup here, i thot i'd give it a shot (actually this is my 2nd go at it).

another item to add to my ever increasing list of comfort foods...the everyday humble soyabean milk, the pride of 5k yrs of chinese civilisation (hmmm maybe that was tofu). i'm a BIG fan of this drink and The Wife & my ex-colleagues can attest to that...every opportunity we get to lunch at ghimmoh market, i'd rather have this than fizzies. and warm one....not cold one hor. I even have my ICQ & MSN nic as SoYaX- The Mutant Bean for the longest time (that's another story that i'm working on).

the beany aroma seeping out of big hawker vats tucked away in their tiny stalls was a distinct part of my childhood. you see, i was brought up by my paternal grandma in ghimmoh and she lived just next to the market/hawker centre. on days when i get to accompany her and her neighbours down to the market/hawker centre, i'd see hawkers pouring this out of their vats into big plastic containers (those with lucid green frames and ladles) with icebergs in them. the gurgling of the ladle stirring and navigating through those icebergs and the generous portions of syrup sounded just right amongst the cacophony of marketplace.....& better yet you get one big sweating glass mug (not the puny pvc disposable cups they use these days) for less than 50 cents.

so here's the recipe adapted from a couple of sites. you have the option of blending the pandan leaves together with the beans to top the fragrance in the drink (it'd get slightly greenish but edible) or you can go with the 'traditional' approach of bundling up pandan leaves and boiling it with the milk (as described in this post). the latter approach will allow you to save the pulp. as The Wife's googles tell me, you can actually bake the pulp (okara) , blend them further and make more good stuff outta it. but all i really want is my soyabean milk lah.

Tools You'll Need To Make approx 1.5-2 litres of SBM

• blender with the centre sift attachment (i used The Wife's U-like blender. you can buy this inexpensive and really easy to use blender from isetan. the downside is that it's quite small so you'd need to repeat the process a few times. we use it mainly for making bb's food.)
• medium size metal/earthern pot
• sift lined with filter cloth (i used my bb's linen nappy)

Ingredients

• 300g soya beans
• 8-10 pandan leaves
• Water
• Rock sugar / raw sugar to taste
  

Preparation

• Soak the beans in clean tap water overnight. they'll look quite 'bloated' after soaking
• next day, drain and rinse once
• wash pandan leaves thoroughly, slit at the centre of each leaf into 2 (more flavourful instead of just using without slitting). bundle them up into a few knots.
  

Brewing

• fill about 3/4 full in the centre attachment of the blender with the beans
• pour boiling water into the blender until it reaches 3/4 full of the blender's jug
• blend for about 40-50 seconds. (Avoid blending for more than 1 minute non-stop, it will cause the motor to be over-heated and stall, then you'd have to wait at least 20 min for the motor to cool down....according to the phamplet that came with the belnder, it aint a design fault. duh)
• pour out the blended milk into the pot with a filter lined sift
• then pour more clean water into the blender's jug, this time only about 1/3 full
• blend the soya pulp for anther 10-15 seconds
• pour out the milk and place the pulp aside for okara
• repeat steps until all the beans are blended (your should need to do this about 3 times using u-like)
• you can sift the milk as many times as you like....apparently, the more the milk has been sifted, the smoother the milk will be...i simply just folded the nappy n place it in the sift and drained through once. it tasted smooth enuff fer me
  
• add in all the bundled up pandan leaves and bring to boil at medium heat
• once the milk starts to bubble, IMMEDIATELY lower the heat to low. else you will have burnt taste in your SBM
  
• continue to brew for about 20-30 minutes till the pandan leaves turn yellowish
• add sugar to taste & serve
  

Preparation of okara

• press and drain milk out of pulp
• line it on aluminium foil and bake for 20-30 min. oven at low heat
• stir it occasionally so that it doesn't get burnt
• remove from baking tray and blend it further to get a powdery substance
• seal in airtight bag/container
  

now all i need is to find out how to make youtiao.......