You would have known by now that I love eating eggplants. They’re great grilled, baked, deep fried or airfried, in a low-carb lasagna, yong tau foo and stir-fries. I’ve featured it many times in my lunch boxes grilled and topped with tuna and egg, but one of the best ways to eat this is in this dish: Eggplant with garlic minced meat gravy 鱼香茄子.

Restaurants or zi-char stalls cook this by deep frying the eggplant in hot oil to quickly get them soft and melty. You can achieve the same by doing a shallow-fry in your wok, but it is more time-consuming. By nature, eggplant absorbs oil easily, so I turn down the heat and just add about two tablespoons of olive oil for 2 eggplants. Still relatively ‘oily’ by my standards but way better than deep frying.

If I can eat rice freely, I will totally wallop 2-3 bowls of rice with this! The minced meat and garlic gravy matches so well with the soft and melty eggplant! And the sliced chilli and spring onions lift the flavour to another level. I used big red cut chilli for this as the aunt can’t really take spice cos of her gastritis. I would have used chilli padi! If using chilli padi, chop them really fine and fry together with the garlic and ginger.

The post Eggplant with Garlic Minced Meat Gravy 鱼香茄子 appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.

I love vegetables, especially when they’re simply steamed or blanched in water without any seasonings. The husband doesn’t share the same love so this stir fried dou miao dish is perfect for him.

I had some leftover Taiwan sausage in the fridge (yes I buy processed food too!) and sliced them up to add to the dish hoping that someone else would eat it. Although Taiwan sausage is delicious, I really recommend adding sliced chicken fillet strips (or pacific clams!) instead :)

The thing about stir frying vegetables is that it can become limp if you add too much seasonings like soy sauce or oyster sauce, and I’m not a fan of soggy vegetables (cooked-to-death napa cabbage and fishballs soup is another matter altogether. I LOVE IT!). My vegetables must be stir fried on high heat and remain bright and crunchy from wok to plate. Just a little bit of seasoning is enough. Really, vegetables give out water on their own and drowning them in even more liquid will make it a soggy mess. My choice of seasonings for stir fried vegetables are mushroom granules, XO sauce or a light sprinkle of fish sauce and Chinese cooking wine. With dou miao, take note not to undercook it or it will taste grassy, but don’t overcook it in sauces or liquid too. Use high heat and a bit more oil.

This is the mushroom granules that I use and I get a whole big packet from Sheng Siong:

What’s your favourite way to eat vegetables? Can you accept eating them without any condiments or dressing and simply steamed or blanched?

The post Stir Fried Garlic Dou Miao (Pea Shoots) appeared first on Budgetpantry | Singapore Mummy Blog on Food, Recipe & Baby.