Stir-fried snowpeas (with baby corn and carrot)

I hardly cook snowpeas but since I decided to cook lunch and dinner for hubby and Alicia for the whole week, I had to serve up a variety of vegetables to break the monotony. :P

Stir-fried snowpeas with baby corn and carrot

 Ingredients:

• 1 packet snowpeas, pluck both ends to 'devein' 
• 1/3 large carrot, slice thinly
• 3 baby corn, cut diagonally, about 1.5cm long
• garlic, minced
• water

Method:

1. Heat oil in wok. Fry the garlic till fragrant.
2. Add in the carrot and corn and fry for about 2 minutes. Add some water if it's too dry.
3. Add in snowpeas and a bit more water/stock and let simmer for a few minutes till it's cooked. Carrot should not have a raw taste and snowpeas should look very bright green.
4. Add fish sauce to taste.
5. Dish and serve.

You will realise that the gravy has a sweet taste even though no sugar was added - that's due to the sweetness of the vegetables! Carrots especially once cooked through (i.e. no raw taste), will add much sweetness to the gravy... and since baby corn and snowpeas are also 'sweet', that the gravy is sweet comes as no surprise! :)

Stir-fried Nai Bai with dried shrimps

I've got toooooo many overdue posts! I shall shelve them for the moment and try to cover the more recent ones - which are mainly food entries. :P

I'm not sure what this vegetable is called in English but it's a fairly easily available vegetable at the market. :)

Stir-fried Nai Bai with dried shrimps

Look at the crispy garlic bits!

Ingredients:

• 1 packet of nai bai or about 70cents worth of it
• a couple of cloves of garlic, minced
• olive oil
• about 1 tablespoon dried shrimp
• 1/4 bowl water

Seasoning:

• salt/ fish sauce/ soy sauce to taste

Method:

1. Rinse the dried shrimp and soak in 1/4 bowl of water for about 15 min. Drain and reserve the water for later use.
2. Remove any wilted leaves and slice off the base of the veggie. Wash thoroughly in case dirt is trapped in the leaves.
3. Place the garlic and oil in a microwave safe bowl (loosely cover with microwave safe wrap and leave one corner uncovered) and heat for about 2-3min, stopping every about 1min and opening the microwave to prevent the oil for overheating. Once the garlic is a nice golden brown, you can stop cooking it. Alternatively, just fry garlic in oil in a wok (I was doing a batch of garlic oil for the whole day's worth of cooking so I used the microwave). :P
4. Heat the garlic oil in wok and add in dried shrimp. Fry till fragrant.
5. Add the nai bai and fry for a short while before adding in the shrimp water.
6. Cover wok and simmer till vegetables are cooked.
7. Add seasoning to taste.
8. Dish and top with crispy garlic bits.

You may wish to prepare the nai bai in the same way as the oyster sauce romaine lettuce (it tastes yummy too).