Easy Stir Fry Rice Noodles

I haven't forgot that I have got a blog and I haven't stop cooking. Just that most of the time, I was too tired to take photos and haven't had the time to sit down and write.

Doesn't this look delicious even in summer?

 Any way, I made my own fried noodle recently and because of the heat of summer, I decided on something quick and easy for myself. It tastes better than the one ordered from the Chinese place! Here's how I do it.

Ingredients for 1 person:
1 - 2 large Cabbage leaves, julienne*
Pork, about a match box size, sliced
4 shrimps, cleaned and shelled

1/2 carrot, julienne
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
half an onion, julienne
125g rice noodle^, soaked
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 Tbsp dark soy sauce
1/2 Tbsp soy sauce
1/2 chicken stock cube
cooking oil, as needed
salt & white pepper to taste
1 large spring onions, sliced (for garnish)
half chilli**, sliced (optional)

I use thin rice noodle but you can use flat rice noodle. Here's it has been soaked in water and softened

From top, clock wise: carrot, cabbage, spring onion, shrimp, pork

Directions:
Heat wok until hot, drizzle in a few table spoon of cooking oil. Under medium heat, add in half of the sliced onion and fry until brown and crispy. Remove and set aside.
 
Dilute the dark soy sauce together with a few table spoon of water, soy sauce and chicken stock. Set aside.

In the remaining oil (add a few more table spoon if require), add in the chopped garlic and give it a few stir. Turn up to high heat and add in chicken meat and shrimp and stir until the chicken is cooked. Move the ingredients aside, making sure that there is enough cooking oil in the wok, pour in the beaten egg. When the egg starts to solidify, give it a few stir to break it up. Fry the egg until it is almost cooked and move aside together with the other ingredients.

At this point, make sure that there is a few table spoon of oil left in the wok. Add in the rice noodle, shredded cabbage, carrot, remaining sliced onion and the sauce mixture. Stir and toss everything together, add a few table spoon of water if it is too dry. Continue to stir fry for about 5 minutes or until the noodle is cook. If the noodle starts to stick or look too dry, add in a table spoon of water at a time, as required.

While you toss and stir, make sure that you coat the noodle evenly with the sauce mixture and all the ingredients are nicely mixed. Season with salt and white pepper and heat off. Move the noodle to a plate and garnish with sliced spring onion and chilli on top. Serve immediately or at room temperature.

One thing I would like to suggest to you though is that, it is easier to cook in small batches if you are cooking for more than 1 person, leaving a lot of room to toss all the ingredients in the wok. It cooks faster and allow you to mix much easier.

notes: *Julienne means cut into long thin stripes.
            ^I use Blue Dragon brand rice noodle. I find it a better option for stir fry as it doesn't break easily or stick to the wok too much (my wok is not that non-stick you see). You may want to break them shorter (about 8 - 10 inch in length), it does make it easier to toss.
          ** I got these small chilli (about 1 - 1 1/2 inch) which is very spicy from the lady at the Chinese restaurant in Marousi, Athens. She told me I can get it in Exarxia, Athens. Unless you are a season chilli eater, I suggest that you either use the Greek red pepper or the normal Asian chilli.

Saffron Rice

Rice and saffron goes very well together. The flavor and aroma of saffron enriches the blandness of the rice and at the same time gives it a gorgeous yellow/golden color. There are many ways to cook saffron rice and I have tried a few. I find that adding stock to the rice, particularly chicken stock, brings it up a level. Parsley adds a fresh note to it and the crispy shallots adds on additional flavor and richness to the rice. This recipe is particularly great when serve with curry (try my vegetable curry or chicken curry). It goes well with squid in tomato sauce as well.

For 2 person
1 small pinch of Kozani Saffron (κροκος Kοζανης)
1 1/2 cup long grain rice (Basmati or Jasmine)
3 cup water
1/2 cube of chicken bullion
4 - 5 shallots
2 - 4 Tbsp cooking oil
1/4 cup of roughly chopped Coriander leaves

Saffron water: Soak the saffron stems in about half cup of boiling hot water for about 30 minutes.

Shallot crisps: Meanwhile, clean and thinly sliced the shallots. In a pot, heat the cooking oil under medium heat and fry the sliced shallots until golden and crispy. Remove and set aside.

In the same pot and with the remaining oil, add in rice and stir to coat the evenly. Add in saffron water (along with the stem) and water. Stir in chicken bouillon until completely diluted.

Bring the rice to a boil under high heat before turning down to medium/medium low heat. With lid on, cook until the water has been completely absorbed and the rice is cook (about 10 - 15 minutes).

Fluff the rice with a damp chopstick or fork and sprinkle in the chopped parsley. Put the lid back on and remove from stove to set aside for another few minutes. Serve with sprinkled shallot crisps while still warm.

ABC Soup

This is one healthy and colorful vegetable soup. It is quick and easy to cook hence the name "ABC". I often cook this soup for my dinner (I just can't live without dinner!) when I am on a diet, especially after the Greek Christmas/Easter celebrations when we eat meat like there is no tomorrow. ABC soup is basically boiled root vegetable in stock. You may also add glass noodle to it for a very light noodle soup. Like all recipe, there are many variations, this is my grandmother's recipe.

Ingredients:
1 potato, peeled
1 onion
1 carrot, peeled
1 tomato
water
Chicken meat, about the size of a match box OR
2 Chicken gizzard* (optional)
Chopped spring onion (for garnish)
Stock (chicken or vegetable)**
Salt/Soy Sauce and White Pepper

Chopped all the vegetables into small cube, about 1 cm. Cut the chicken meat or gizzard* into approximately 2 cm cubes of your preferred size. Ultimately you can cut the vegetable and the meat it into any size you prefer however keep in mind, the smaller the size, the shorter the cooking time.

Place the chopped carrot in a small pot and fill half the pot with water. Bring the water and carrot to a boil before adding in chopped potato, onion and tomato. Make sure that the water level is about 1 - 2 cm above the vegetables, add more water if required/desire. Bring the soup to a boil again and reduce heat to simmer until all the chopped vegetables are soft. Add in chicken stock and cubed chicken and continue to simmer until the chicken is cooked. Season with salt and/or soy sauce and white pepper. Sprinkle with some chopped spring onion if you like and serve warm or lukewarm.

This gives you anything from 2- 4 bowls of soup. Serve with glass noodle, as soup or with dakos (ντακος).

Notes:
* Usually, my grandmother use chicken gizzard instead of chicken meat. I preferred it with gizzard rather than chicken meat. Chicken gizzard is more chewy than meat, hence give you the impression that you are eating more meat. But since it is almost impossible to find gizzard here in Greece (unless you know your butcher very well) I am stuck with using chicken meat, that is if I am adding in any meat. You may use pork if you like.
** You may omit the stock if you are using meat. But if you are not, you will definitely need to use stock.

Shrimps in Caramelized Dark Soy Sauce

My recent attempt to cook caramel shrimps bring back memories of this shrimp in dark soy sauce. We (my brother and I) "stumbled" upon this in a small "restaurant" on a jetty in Penang island. It is quiet similar to the Vietnamese Caramel Shrimp but the sweet dark soy sauce adds a rich flavor to it.

Ingredients:
12 large shrimps, cleaned and de-veined (keep the shell and head intact)
1 tsp Chinese cooking wine or sherry
1 small clove garlic, chopped
2 - 3 Tbsp cooking oil
1 Tbsp dark soy sauce (sweet dark soy sauce)
1 Tbsp soy sauce
1 Tbsp water
2 tsp sugar


Marinate the shrimps with the cooking wine for 5 minutes. Dilute dark soy sauce together with soy sauce and water. Add in the sugar and stir.

Add the cooking oil into a hot wok or pan. Add chopped garlic and saute for few seconds. Add shrimp into the wok or pan and stir. Cook the shrimps on each side for about 1 or 2 minutes or until they turn pink (cooked). Add in the dark soy sauce, soy sauce and sugar mixture and stir to coat the shrimp with the sauce. Let the sauce reduce (as you can see in the photo, the sauce is almost dried out), stirring occasionally to make sure that the shrimp is evenly coated with the sauce. Turn off the heat and serve with other dishes.

I considered this a side dish. Great for appetizer as well.

Vegetable Curry

This is perhaps one of my favorite vegetarian dishes. To say the least, it is flavorful and aromatic. You can use any combination of your preferred vegetables. As the season changes, you may use cauliflower, fresh beans, peas, eggplants, cabbage, potatoes, peppers and carrots. This dish warms you up in cold days and helps you break into a sweat in summer.

Ingredients: (Serves 2 very hungry adults)
A handful of shallots or 1 medium red onion
2 cloves garlic
1 small piece of ginger (no larger than a small olive, optional)
dried chilli or chilli powder (optional)
1 Eggplant
1 - 2 carrot
3 medium potato
1 green or red pepper
1 packet of Miss Khoo's Essential Curry Powder
1/2 cup of vegetable oil or olive oil

1/2 pack coconut milk or 1/2 cup milk
water
salt and pepper to season

Preparations:
Soak dried chilli in a bowl of hot water for about 30 minutes or until soften. In an electrical blender, pulverize ginger, garlic, onion and dried chilli into a paste (nevertheless, pulverizing these ingredient in a stone mortar is even better). Drizzle in some cooking oil and pulverize if you find the mixture hard to get into a paste.

In a small bowl, mix the curry powder into a thick paste with a little water. Cut the vegetables into cubes or wedges to your preferred size (presumably you already un-bitter the eggplant).

Lightly fry the eggplants in a large pot with a few table spoon of cooking oil, remove and set aside. 

In the same pot, heat the vegetable oil until pipping hot. Turn to medium heat and add in the onion paste saute continuously (this will prevent it from sticking to the pot and burn) until fragrance. Add in the curry powder paste and continue to saute the mixture until you can smell the fragrance of the curry powder. Add in cubed vegetables and mix before adding water, just enough to cover the vegetables. Turn to high heat and bring to a boil before turning it down to a simmer. Stirring occasionally, continue to simmer until the vegetables are soft and cooked. Add in coconut milk, salt and pepper to season and bring it to a boil and it is ready. Serve with rice or bread.

Notes:
Miss Khoo's curry powder can be ordered online or simply use the generic curry powder from the supermarket or Asian store. The curry powder i used here contains coriander, cardamon, cloves, turmeric, fennel, cumin, garlic, ginger, cinnamon, chilli (it is labeled as moderately spicy), white pepper, star anise seeds and salt. If there is a choice, pick something for vegetables otherwise, any curry powder will do.

Curry

As I am trying to write something about curry in my own words, I could almost smell the rich flavors of it, the spice that tingles on my tongue, my mouth starts to fill with saliva (and it is early in the morning!) and I have this urge to cook huge pot of curry.

This "introduction" is meant for those of you who do not know what curry is. So what is curry? Simply put it, it is a saucy dish (or stew) flavored with spices (think cinnamon, anise seed, cloves etc) and for those who love some heat in their food, it can be made very spicy (think chilli) but depending on region, it may not be spicy at all (like the Thai green curry or the Indian dhal).

According to Wikipedia's definition, Curry is a generic description used throughout Western culture to describe a variety of spiced dishes .... Three spices found in most curry powders are turmeric, coriander and cumin; a wide range of additional spices may be included depending on the geographic region and the foods being included (meats, fish, lentils, rice, etc.). The word "curry" is analogous to "soup" or "stew" in that there is no particular ingredient that makes something "curry".

So, lets get on with the cooking shall we?

Chicken Curry

Vegatable Curry

Stir Fry Broccoli with Shrimp

In Asia, broccoli is considered a luxury as it is much more expensive compared to other kind of vegetables. However, stir fry broccoli is perhaps one of the most popular dishes on the menu of any Chinese restaurant.

Here is a quick and easy stir fry broccoli with shrimp. 

Ingredients
1 small broccoli, washed and broken into small florets
8 - 12 shrimps, cleaned, shell removed
1 clove garlic, crush and roughly chopped

4 Tbsp cooking oil
1 Tbsp Chinese cooking wine or sherry (Optional)
2 Tbsp Oyster sauce, (dilute in 4 - 6 Tbsp water) or salt to taste



Blanch broccoli florets in slightly salted boiling water (about 20 seconds), drain and set aside. The broccoli florets should not be soft or overcook; it should still have a vibrant green color.

Heat cooking oil in a very hot wok, add garlic and give it a few quick stir before you add in the shrimps. Stir fry shrimps until they are cook and add in the blanched broccoli, oyster sauce mixture (or salt) and continue to stir fry for about a minute. Pour cooking wine on the side of the wok and remove it from the heat. Serve.

Like many Chinese (especially those whom has Canton heritage), I like stir fry vegetables to be just cooked with the green color still vibrant and with a bit of a crunch.  So, if you do find it a bit raw to your liking, just cook the broccoli a bit longer.

A tiny note, you can add slice carrot or red pepper to add color to this dish.

The Asian Staple - Rice I (Plain White Rice)

RICE at least for us Chinese, has been a staple for thousands and thousands of years, so important that we have rice for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper! Steam it, stir fry it, cook it with meat or boil it into a broth (or soup). It is common in the Chinese speaking world to greet someone with "Have you eaten rice?" (吃饭了吗？）, which essentially means "Have you had your meal?" and it could be any time of the day. There are some who feel that they have not had a proper or complete meal without including rice. Rice is the first thing that our grandmother or mother will teach us to cook. Get the idea how important is rice to us now? Bravo.

Believe me that you do not need a rice cooker (then again, it is such a wonderful invention) to make a nice, fluffy, steamy fragrance plain white rice. I learned it from my grandmother to cook rice over flame stove (just in case there is a power outage) and have cooked it over electricity stove here over and over again.

The first time I saw my other half cooking rice, I was in shock and started screaming "NO, NO, NO! This is not how you cook rice". Basically, he boiled the rice like you would cook pasta, boiling rice in a lot of water until soft, and then drain it. I will explain to you why this is the wrong way to cook rice. I told my grandmother this later on and believe me, she had that "I cannot believe this!" look on her face.

The water that you cook rice in contains nutrients, by pouring away the water you cooked your rice in, not only you loose the starch, you also loose the nutrients. I was told by my grandmother that in difficult time not so long ago during WWII when food was scarce, they (the women) would cook rice in a large amount of water, remove the broth from the rice for the children and women and leave the grain to cook into rice for the men. For thousands and thousands of year, some women, who didn't produce enough breast milk for new born also fed their infants with rice broth.

How do I cook rice over an electrical stove? Basically there are 2 ways, but first some basic things you need to know.

• the general rule of cooking white rice is that the rice to water ratio is 1:2, that is 1 cup of rice, 2 cups of water (from tap, cold) but I strongly advice you to adjust to your liking. If you like your rice a bit hard or if you are cooking rise for fried rice, just take away a scoop with your hands and Always, Always trial and error. I was taught, different brand of rice of the same type of grain absorb water slight differently; different grain of rice (Jasmine, Basmati, California, Rosa etc) absorb water differently.  A few spoon of water more or less can make a lot of difference.
• Rinse only once. The rice bought from a supermarket is very well polished, sometimes too well polished. The nutrient is mostly stored near the husk. The more you rinse, the more nutrient you are washing away thus the less starchy the rice will be and hence, less fluffy, harder and less fragrance. We used to rinse at least twice to remove sands, husks and sometimes bugs (that was 20 years ago!). You DO NOT need to do that now.

The Fail Proof Method
I use this method when I want to do something else while I cook the rice or I am too lazy to bother much. With this method, you simply cooking in a bowl over a pot or pan of water with the lid on. If you still do not know what I am talking about, read on.

Simply place the rice and water in a bowl (either metal or porcelain is fine), place it in a pot or pan of water (do make sure that there is enough water to keep boiling for 20 minutes, I would say if your water level is half way to the bowl, you are fine) with the lit on ,turn it to high heat and leave the water boiling until the water in the bowl evaporates completely and the rice is cooked (about 15 - 20 minutes). When the water has evaporated completely, you can always taste to check if it is cooked. Half way through, if you are not sure, you can always check. If it is slightly hard in the core and all the water has evaporated, simply add a few tablespoons of water and let it cook until the rice is ready; if it is already cooked through and through and there is still water, just remove the excess water with a spoon and let all the water inside the bowl evaporate completely; if it is al dente, you are doing fine, turn off the heat and leave it with lid closed on the stove for 5 minutes. If you are the first 2 case, just remember to adjust the amount of water used the next time. If you like it fluffier or harder, adjust accordingly the next time too.

Once the rice is cook, use a damp fork (I prefer damp wooden chopsticks, they stick less) and fluff (loosen) the rice and pronto!, your rice is ready. This is especially important if you are going to serve at a later time. It prevent the rice from hardening in to a cake (the you will have to put in more effort to break it). Keeping the rice warm in the pot with warm water will help keep it fluffy as well.

The advantage of this method is that it is really easy and you can fix it half way through in case it is under cooked or over cooked. The best part (and my favorite) is it will never burn!

Keep in mind that the usual bowl that we all have in our kitchens is enough for a 2 person portion, by Greek standards :-).

The Usual Method 
This method may be a bit intimidating at first but try it once or twice and you will be an expert.

Bring the rice and water into a boil over high heat. When the rice starts to boil, turn down the heat to medium or medium low, close the lid and let it simmer for about 5 - 10 minutes or until the water on top of the rice has dried up. Check the state of the rice, it should be al dente. Turn off the heat, it should be quite moist and doesn't stick to the pot when you stir. Close the lid immediately and let it sit over the stove for another few minutes (about 5 minutes or less). The rice should be ready by now, remove it from the stove and using a fork or a pair of chopstick, fluff the rice. It is alright if the rice sticks at the bottom. It may soften (probably after absorbing the moisture left) as it cools a bit. Let it sit for another few minutes before serving.

A few tips:

• A lid with a small outlet to let out steam. But if there isn't any, simply tilt the lid to create a small opening at the edge. This will minimize the chances of the broth from spilling out. 
• Do not open the lid to check too often, you will loose the steam. The steam help to cook the rice. 
• Personally I find using a pot with glass lid very useful as I can see when the water has dried up without opening the lid. 

For me, cooking is not rocket science and it is always experimental.  I like getting things right so I try and if I fail, learn from it and try again. So try it, and try it again if it doesn't work the first time. You will get it right.

Introduction

Of course, there are many blogs and places where you can find loads and loads of information on Chinese recipes but in my attempt to cook it here in Greece, I find it challenging as I could not get my hands on many ingredients. You see, I depend on public transport so specialty shop is out of the question and I am not going to travel for over an hour to get something just for a meal. To my own surprise, I find that I could actually make some dishes that have impressed friends and no, they are not fusion. These are actually very basic Chinese cooking that many have forgotten. There are some that is Malaysian, something I grew up with and some that I came across when I lived and worked in China. They are the everyday Chinese/Malaysian dishes. I am talking about something exotic, different and new that can be a casual meal or part of a feast.

If you are Greek and love Chinese food and bold enough to try new things, I hope you would find a thing or two that is useful. I assure you that you do not need big investment to cook authentic Chinese and you could cook well using mostly what you can find in any Greek open market or supermarket. Support your local community by using as much local produce as much as possible, it is good for your health, good for the local community, good for your pocket, good for the environment and definitely good enough to impress your friends.