Long Beans with Pork (乱棍打死猪八戒)

This is a very simple and common chinese dish.  I think almost every housewife knows how to cook this.  I have used only 3 basic ingredients here: long beans, thin pork slices and carrot.  Normally, I would add fried egg tofu, but I didn't buy it during my routine morning marketing because I thought that I still have two tubes of it in my refrigerator.  Well, stock checking is also an important step in cooking.  Anyway, it will not affect the taste of the dish except that my eldest son will ask why there is no fried egg tofu because it is his favourite.  However, my youngest son hates it.  He only likes the long beans.  My second son likes the pork meat.  Sometimes, instead of pork meat, I will add prawns or chicken meat (breast or fillet).

The chinese wordings in parenthesis means "A lot of wooden rods kills the Pig God".  This was a nickname given to this dish, because the long beans symbolize the wooden rods and the pork meat symbolizes the Pig God {The character is from a famous masterpiece "JOURNEY TO THE WEST" which talks about a monk traveling to the west to collect the Buddha Script (唐三藏西天取经)}.

Ingredients:-

Long beans (2 packets)
Carrot, thinly sliced
Pork, thinly sliced (or prawns or chicken breast/fillet)
Egg tofu
Light soya sauce
Sesame oil
Garlic
Pepper
Cornflour
Peanut oil

Method:-

1. Wash and pluck the long beans into short strips (about 1½ inches long).
2. Cut the carrot into thin strips.
3. Marinate the pork with light soya sauce, sesame oil and pepper.  Just before stir-frying, coat it with some cornflour.
4. Heat up a wok with some peanut oil.
5. Stir-fry the garlic till fragrant.
6. Add in the marinated pork and stir-fry till slightly golden brown.  Dish up and set aside.
7. Heat a little peanut oil, stir-fry some garlic and carrot and then add in the long beans.  Mix them well and cover with a wok cover.
8. Open the cover and stir-fry the mixture a few times until you can smell the fragrance of the long beans.
9. Lower the heat and let the long beans simmer (with the cover back on).  Remember to stir-fry it every few minutes to make sure the long beans don't get burnt.
10. Use the spatula to press on the long bean to feel the degree of softness.  Once it has reached your preferred softness, add in the pork, mix it well and cover it to let it simmer for a few more minutes on medium heat.
11. Then add in the fried egg tofu, mix it well, add in the light soya sauce to your taste, mix well on high heat for a few seconds, dish up and serve.

Whenever I was stir-frying the pork, the aroma will attract my second son (if he's at home) to the kitchen to find out what I was cooking.  He would comment "Wah, smell so good!"  I would cook this dish at least once a week.  Sometimes, I would put prawns as they are said to be good for the development of the brain power.  Don't know true or not, but it's definitely a good source of protein for the developing children.

Pan-Fried Red Garoupa with Coriander Leaves & Chili Padi

Pan-Fried Red Garoupa with Coriander Leaves & Chili Padi

This is one of the dishes I cooked for yesterday's dinner.  It's a very simple dish but it's very tasty and appetizing.  I can eat a bowl of white rice drizzled with just the gravy.  The tastiness comes from the Hua Diao Jiou (花雕酒), the coriander leaves and the chili padi.

I used to cook fish with dark soya sauce or black bean paste.  So one day, I tried this and my family loves it.

Ingredients:-

1 piece of red garoupa (whole fish or just the tail also can)
Salt & pepper for marinating the fish
Ginger, thinly sliced
Cornflour
Coriander leaves
Chili padi (2 if you can take the spiciness, 1 if cannot)
Hua Diao Jiou (花雕酒）
Dash of Light Soya Sauce
Hot Water
Dash of Fragrant Sesame Oil

Method:-
1. Wash and scale the fish.
2. Marinate it with salt and pepper.
3. Before pan-frying, rub the fish with some cornflour.
4. Heat a little peanut oil in a wok till hot, fry some ginger till golden brown, push aside.
5. Add the fish and pan-fry both sides till slightly golden brown.
6. With the fish in the wok, splash the chinese wine in a circular movement around the side of the wok (don't pour directly into the fish).  This is to evaporate the alcohol content.
7. Add a little light soya sauce and water.
8. Add in the coriander leaves, chili padi and the ginger.
9. Let it simmer, remember to turn the fish to the other side as well to let the meat absorb the gravy.
10. Splash a dash of fragrant sesame oil, mix well and off the heat.
11. Dish up and serve.

It is very appetizing with a bowl of hot, steaming white fragrant rice. You can see a lot of gravy on my dish, because my family loves to drizzle it on their hot, steaming rice.  If you do not want so much gravy, you can add lesser water.

How Do These People Survive?

Below are some funny situations I would like to share.  I especially like the first two.  They really made me laugh till I can't even open my eyes!

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ONE
Recently, when I went to McDonald's I saw on the menu that you could have an order of 6, 9 or 12 Chicken McNuggets.  I asked for a half dozen nuggets. 
'We don't have half dozen nuggets,' said the teenager at the counter. 
'You don't?' I replied. 
'We only have six, nine, or twelve,' was the reply. 
'So I can't order a half dozen nuggets, but I can order six?' 
'That's right.' 
So I shook my head and ordered six McNuggets 
(Unbelievable but sadly true.) 

TWO
I was checking out at the local Walmart with just a few items and the lady behind me put her things on the belt close to mine.  I picked up one of those 'dividers' that they keep by the cash register and placed it between our things so they wouldn't get mixed. 
After the girl had scanned all of my items, she picked up the 'divider', looking it all over for the bar code so she could scan it. 
Not finding the bar code, she said to me, 'Do you know how much this is?' 
I said to her 'I've changed my mind; I don't think I'll buy that today.' 
She said 'OK,' and I paid her for the things and left. 
She had no clue to what had just happened. 

THREE 
A woman at work was seen putting a credit card into her floppy drive and pulling it out very quickly. 
When I inquired as to what she was doing, she said she was shopping on the Internet and they kept asking for a credit card number, so she was using the ATM 'thingy.' 
(keep shuddering!!)

FOUR 
I recently saw a distraught young lady weeping beside her car. 'Do you need some help?' I asked. 
She replied, 'I knew I should have replaced the battery to this remote door unlocker. Now I can't get into my car. Do you think they (pointing to a distant convenience store) would have a battery to fit this?' 
'Hmmm, I don't know. Do you have an alarm, too?' I asked. 
'No, just this remote thingy,' she answered, handing it and the car keys to me.  As I took the key and manually unlocked the door, I replied, 'Why don't you drive over there and check about the batteries. It's a long walk....' 
PLEASE just lay down before you hurt yourself !!!

FIVE 
Several years ago, we had an Intern who was none too swift. One day she was typing and turned to a secretary and said, 'I'm almost out of typing paper. What do I do?' 'Just use paper from the photocopier', the secretary told her. With that, the intern took her last remaining blank piece of paper, put it on the photocopier and proceeded to make five 'blank' copies.  

SIX 
A mother calls 911 very worried asking the dispatcher if she needs to take her kid to the emergency room, the kid had eaten ants. The dispatcher tells her to give the kid some Benadryl and he should be fine, the mother says, 'I just gave him some ant killer......' 
Dispatcher: 'Rush him in to emergency!' 


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I let my eldest and youngest son read this.  Pertaining to Situation No. 4, I remarked to my eldest son that nowadays, the young generation relies so much on remote controls that they may not even know that there are ON/OFF switch, Volume and Channel Controls on the television.  So, should the remote control malfunction, it's not the end.  You can still manually control the TV.


Guess what?  So, it is true.  My eldest son immediately gave me a surprised look on his face.  "Ah? Have meh? Where?"  I brought him over to the TV and gave him a quick "tour" on where the controls are located.  I'm sure his expression tells me that he is "amused" by this new discovery.

Moleskine Folio Professional A4 Ringbinder & Organising Set

Folio A4 Ringbinder

This is one of the Folio Professional item manufactured by Moleskine for the office environment.  It is to be used with the Ringbinder Organising Set.  This series was made available in mid 2010.

All Folio items still retain the classic features of Moleskine - ivory color pages, smooth black cover, thick paper, rounded corners, elastic band closure (where applicable), inner expandable pocket and the little booklet with the history of Moleskine's legendary notebooks.

All paper used in the Folio collection (with the exception of the Folio Index) is certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), an international non-profit organization established in 1993 to promote socially and environmentally responsible management of the world's forests.

Below are the detailed photos of this item:-

The Front with the iconic paper band

The Back of the iconic paper band

The interior

The left side of the interior

The Front with the elastic band

The Loss & Rewards Information (an iconic feature of Moleskine)

Moleskine website address on the back of the Front Cover

The Metal Ring

The Inner Expandable Pocket

Booklet of  the history of Moleskine's legendary notebook

Identification Number sticker that accompanies every Moleskine

Moleskine's Folio collection also has an Organising Set to be used in conjunction with the Ringbinder.  It consists of 6 dividers, 1 expandable pocket and 12 labels.  Detailed photos as seen below:-

The 6 Dividers

Expandable Pocket

12 White Labels

The Side of the Expandable Pocket (made of cloth)

As usual, this will include a booklet on the history of Moleskine's legendary notebooks and a notebook indentification number sticker.

Dark Soya Sauce Fried Chicken Wing (Or Kwei Sit/黑鸡翅)

I came across this dish more than 20 years ago when my parents bought it from a mixed vegetables stall in a coffee shop near their home.  It costs 50 cents a piece then.  Sometimes, we will buy a packet of rice with vegetables and 2 pieces of this.  Sometimes, my mother would just buy 10 pieces of this to add to the dishes she had cooked for our dinner.  This dish has never failed to stimulate our appetite.

After I got married and have my own kids, I bought for them and they love it immediately.  This is a dish which my maternal family call it "Or Kwei Sit" (in hokkien).  Whenever we didn't cook and we bought mixed vegetable rice, we would be sure to include this delicious dish.

Unfortunately, about 5 or 6 years ago, the coffee shop was converted to a CK shop and the stall (and this dish) was no more to be found.  And we had never seen this dish in any other mixed vegetables rice stalls.  Fortunately, my dad loves this dish so much that he had tried to figure out the ingredients used to cook this dish and had asked my mom to try cooking it.  After a few tries and failures, she came quite close to it.  The only thing we still can't master is the crispiness of the chicken skin.  However, the taste is still as good.  My mom passed the recipe to me and I also tried it many times and only until now managed to scrape by.  Though not exactly as the original, my kids and my husband still love to eat it.

Print Recipe

Ingredients:-

1 kg frozen chicken wings (big ones with the 3 parts (thigh, middle wing and the tail) bought from the wet market, I find the ones from supermarket too small)

Plain flour

Corn flour

1 egg white (big egg) or 2 egg whites (small egg)

Salt

MSG (optional)

Ginger juice

Pepper

Cooking oil for deep frying

Garlic, minced

Dark Soya Sauce
Light Soya Sauce

Sugar

Water (about ⅓ rice bowl)

Method:-

1. Wash the chicken wings, rub them with salt, rinse and cut into 3 parts.  Dry with paper towels.

2. Marinate them with salt, pepper, ginger juice, MSG (optional).  I would normally marinate them overnight to make sure that the seasonings are absorbed well into the wings.

3. When ready to cook, add the egg white, corn flour and plain flour.  Use your hands to mix and make sure all wings are well coated.

4. Heat up cooking oil (enough to cover the wings) and deep fry the wings until they are crispy.

5. Leave about 1 tablespoonful of cooking oil in a wok and stir fry the garlic till fragrant.  Make sure they don't get burnt or they will be bitter.  Cook them on low fire.

6. Add in the dark soya sauce, light soya sauce and sugar and stir fry a bit and then add in the water.  When the water boil, add in the fried chicken wings and quickly stir fry to ensure that all the wings are well coated with the dark soya sauce mixture.  When the liquid are dried up, dish up and serve.

My youngest son and I love to eat the tail because the skin will be crispy and fragrant.  Hope you like this recipe.