Chinese Hawker-Style Noodles and More Catching Up

The thing about street food, in places like Singapore and elsewhere, is that it has to be cooked quickly over charcoal (at least originally - goodness knows what they use now, as it's been a over ten years since we have been there) and, therefore, in a modern kitchen is sinfully quick to prepare. Get your veggies chopped early, then heat your stock (I am usually in a hurry and use a powdered stock or cubes) with the spicy ingredients in there to add more flavour, then pop most of the stuff in the bowls as directed. Now this can all wait until you're ready to eat. Then cook the noodles, add them to the bowls, and pour on the scalding stock. Top with whatever you've chosen for garnish and you're done. A simple and easy lunch or supper, any time of the year!

HAWKER-STYLE NOODLES - BO MEIN

This is my basic recipe - one doesn't really need to write it down, but it's nice to have a base from which to work. Variations, two of which I have used recently, work just fine.

For two persons (and halve or double or treble etc. as needed).

3 - 4 cups Vegetarian stock
3 - 4 slices of ginger root or to taste, cut into matchsticks
3 chilies finely chopped (more or less to taste)
2 - 3 green onions, sliced crosswise very finely
1 tsp asian sesame oil
6 mushrooms, sliced (if you have time, soak a couple of dried ones too)
50 gr. (or so) medium tofu, sliced into bite-sized thin strips
NOTE: for the photos pictured above and below I used some vegan hamm.
100 gr. fine noodles (angelhair kind - often in 'nests' in asian groceries)
NOTE: for the photos you see I used japanese-style buckwheat noodes. Ya use what ya got!
2 - 3 handfulls bean sprouts
coriander, chopped, for garnish (optional)
peanuts, for garnish (optional) - I used raw cashews this time
soy sauce as needed

And here are most of the ingredients (I think!) just as I was ready to make the whole thing.



Heat your vegetarian stock together with the ginger root, the mushrooms and the chilies. (If you do use some dried mushrooms, add the soaking liquid to the stock.) Slice onions and divide between two large soup bowls together with the sesame oil and the tofu slices.

When stock comes to the boil, break the noodle nests in half and throw into the stock, separating the strands as soon as you can with a couple of forks or a spaghetti server. Noodles should soften very very quickly. Don't let them overcook. Remove from stock with spaghetti server, dividing between the two bowls. Toss the beansprouts into the stock, swirl around for a few seconds then divide between the two soup bowls.

Finally, divide the stock and any mushrooms, etc., that remain in the noodle pot between the two bowls.

Give each bowl a stir to bring up the flavours and ingredients from the bottom and disperse them through the noodles. Garnish and serve.

NOTE: The ingredients are barely cooked - the tofu heats from the hot soup, the beansprouts likewise. The mushrooms are still crisp. You can do variations on this, as I've noted above, but this is how we've eaten it for years. I have also made it using vegan chikken pieces instead of the tofu. Works fine too :)



AND for the rest of this 'catch-up' round?

Well, have a quick look at some photos I have on file.

Here are a few things we've been eating lately:



Above is STIR-FRIED TEMPEH WITH VEGETABLES (well, again, steamed). This is always a good and quick dish, with or without the rice. I like to make sure I always add some ginger root, garlic, onion, chilies and a little celery to give a good flavour to whatever else I'm using. And I generally marinate the tempeh in soy sauce and a little minced garlic and giner before adding to the rest.



And oh yes, above is my SPLIT PEA SOUP that I keep making again and again, enhanced this time with extra spices (mostly mexican style) plus some chopped vegan hamm and coriander and some dear little baby corns cut into coins AND cilantro. Very nice. You can do almost anything with split pea soup as a base. Actually, you can also do it more quickly with red lentils, but that's not what I used here :)



GINGERED CARROT-SQUASH SOUP (above) is exactly that - some onion (not too much) with carrot and squash and flavoured with fresh ginger root and varied herbs etc. Excellent. You can play with the ingredients and flavourings to your heart's content here and not go wrong!



An just above is of course a simple side SALAD. Gotta get your fresh raw veggies as often as possible, especially if you're having a touch week or month or year!

And here comes a favourite standby:



Variations on my STUFFED AVOCADO recipe abound. It doesn't really matter what you use in the way of stuffing as long as it tastes good to you and doesn't fight with the avocado. I usually base mine on carrot, celery and onion, then add all sorts of things like lime or lemon zest, lime or lemon juice, dark or light miso, a little Braggs, plus some seeds (generally pumpkin or sunflower) to give it texture after I've pureed the rest. Any stuffing left over makes a great spread for anything you've got a mind to put it on.

Take care now!

Catching Up - and Spiced Tempeh-Stuffed Shells

[POST EDITED TO CORRECT OMISSIONS IN ORIGINAL, WITH APOLOGIES.]

Is it really possible to catch up after such an absence! Whew!!!!!

Well, first, let me say thank you to everyone who wrote in to say lovely words about the loss of our little beagle Made' aka Maddie, our second (though older) dog-daughter on 14 June. She is so sadly missed by us all, but your thoughtfulness and kindness has somehow made it easier to bear. Meanwhile, our younger girl, Casey, is reaping the benefits of having full-time attention of both her parents. Well, you can imagine!!!

Soooooo, you ask, what have you been cooking/eating since your last food post??? Good question. I seem to have taken some photos, wobbly ones mostly (so what's new there? LOL), but nevertheless they remind me that we have eaten a few things other than salads and wraps and fresh fruit. Not that those three things don't make for very nutritious as well as tasty eating, but they don't exactly make for an exciting food diary!

So here goes on one of the things that seem to have come across our table since arriving back from Paris a month ago.

SPICED TEMPEH-STUFFED SHELLS



These are, you guessed it, another version of my Stuffed Shells recipe, which you can see HERE in my first experiment with such a dish and HERE as the then preferred version. I still like both of those, but I decided to branch out just a tiny bit and make this lot from tempeh and add much more creative spice to the mixture. I followed the same basic method as before, but rather than basil or spinach I used handfuls of chopped cilantro (coriander leaves) and used chopped jalapeno, ground cumin seeds, lime zest and juice, miso, nutritional yeast and goodness knows what else (it was a while ago - I must make it again to get it right!) to the stuffing. The result was amazing. The tempeh was mashed to make it like ground, er, ground stuff.

Here it is at the point I'd just put it into the shells.



At this point it still needed a sauce, right? I had none ready in fridge or freezer, so I grabbed a can or tomatoes, added onions and garlic to them with some cayenne, zapped them in a blender and poured it over the dish like this:



The crumby topping, above, is a mix of wholewheat cracker crumbs zapped in a mini-processor with some cashews and nutritional yeast plus varied dried herbs and paprika.

The baked result you have already seen - somehow it never looks quite as nice as the unbaked version when I do things. But it was excellent to eat, and here you have, below, a quick snapshot of my plate before I took it to the table.



The taste was more fusion than Italian, but that's the joy of being able to please oneself in the kitchen. My husband voted for this version over the two others, so that's good enough for me :)

More later :)

WARM BEET SALAD, BROCCOLI WITH TEMPEH, KALE WITH RAISINS

One thing I've been doing while shamelessly neglecting this blog is eating lots and lots of greens. Anything green!

WARM BEET SALAD



I love beets and I also love beet greens, lightly steamed, but they are available as tender baby greens for only a short while. The other day they had some lovely little organic beets with their pretty leaves still attached, so we bought a bunch - and wished we'd bought more!

I cooked them in their skins, because the skins slip off so easily once they're done, then sliced them through while still warm and put them in a fatless 'vinaigrette' of vinegar, mustard, horseradish, pinch of sugar. Then I roughly sliced and cooked the greens until just done (although they look a little overdone in the photo, I think). The greens were then tossed with the beets (I made enough dressing to coat the greens too) and served the dish warm. You could make this ahead of time, but it's best, in my opinion, either warm or at room temperature rather than chilled.

My husband is wild for this dish - so guess who is getting up early for the next market day!


BROCCOLI WITH TEMPEH

Broccoli goes beautifully in stir-'fried' dishes, and when teamed with tempeh needs little more than some nice fluffy brown rice to complete the meal.



I like to 'marinate' the tempeh, cut into little strips, in a little low-sodium soy sauce, a spoonful of minced ginger, another spoonful of minced garlic and one of minced chilies (I use sambal oelek, an Indonesian chilie sauce/paste sometimes made in California, but I doubt it matters much). Then I cut the broccoli into florets (saving the stems for another use another day) while I steam 'saute' a small sliced onion in some water to which I have added a couple of slices of ginger root (cut into tiny matchsticks) and a couple of large cloves of garlic (finely chopped) and one or two hot chilies (minced). The trick to getting broccoli to taste its best is not to overcook it, so must before it is 'ready' I throw in that tempeh along with its marinade, heat the tempeh through, then get the whole thing out into a heated serving dish before the broccoli starts to lose its crispness. Lovely!

KALE WITH RAISINS



When I can get kale, I buy a couple of bunches and we have it over a couple of days. The rest of the time I just pine for it! Preparation is a cinch - remove the tough stems and slice thinly (or keep them for stock), then slice the leaves at about quarter-inch intervals. It is much quicker and easier if you face them all the same way and then rolle them lengthways into a long cigar shape.



Kale is indeed a favourite of ours, and we especially like it when it is lightly steamed with a little sliced onion and a handful of raisins - The raisins puff up beautifully, and their sweetness adds a pleasant surprise when encountered in the occasional forkful (which is why we use only a small handful - to keep up the surprised factor). A squeeze of lemon over the finished dish makes it perfection!