Stir fry Vegetables, Fish & Udon noodles

It's been a little while since my last entry. I was wondering whether it would be my last, but it turns out I couldn't resist! Plus I couldn't disappoint the small, but faithful followers who have taken time out to give me good, encouraging feed back. Thanks guys!

Tonight, I have another simple, after work, chuck stuff in the wok, kinda recipe. It's a weekday recipe & those people out there who work & have young kids will understand the importance of "quick" meals!

Feeds 4, or 3 very hungry people

Ingredients:
2 cloves garlic
3cm cube of ginger (optional - I didn't use any tonight, but it gives a very different, but nice taste)
1 dash of sesame oil (optional - but gives a nice smell to the dish)
1 teaspoon - 1 tablespoon olive oil (depends on your non-stick pan & how healthy you want to be)
300g fish cut into wedges (I used snapper, but this breaks up very easily when frying. I recommend "kingfish" or similar white, thick fleshy fish. I think Barramundi would be good too)
Vegetables:
1 bunch of Bok Choy
1 carrot
1/2 capsicum
1 handful of snow peas
1 handful of broccoli stems
(I can keep listing all kinds of vegetables, but any veg is good. Some other suggestions are Cauliflower, Chinese broccoli, mushrooms, onions, choy sum, celery. Nothing, which will result in the stir fry turning wet. I.e. avoid lettuce. Keep the proportion of veggies to fish of 3:1.)
2 spring onion stems
1 cup Chicken stock
1 tablespoon Oyster sauce
1/2 tablespoon Soy sauce
2 teaspoons of corn flour
(mix Chicken stock, Oyster sauce, soy sauce & corn flour all together in small bowl)
500g Udon noodles (You can use any type of noodles, but I prefer Udon or Shanghai noodles) Prepare the noodles per the packet instructions.
salt to taste

Instructions:
Heat wok with oils, garlic & ginger. Add fish & cook till lightly browned. Try not to move the fish around too much, otherwise the fish may break up into flakes. Lightly fry on once side, then gently turn over & brown the other side. Remove the fish from the wok & place into separate bowl to avoid further break-up. Add vegetables to the wok & stir-fry till cooked. (Will take about 5mins). Once vegetables are cooked, add the fish & noodles. Mix all together.
Add the small bowl of flavouring to the wok & continue to mix all together. The corn flour will thicken up the sauce. Add salt to taste.

Variations:
- Rather than fish, use any kind of meat
- Cook steamed rice as a side dish, rather than adding noodles.
- Add 1 tablespoon sweet soy sauce & 3 stems of fresh basil leaves, for a Thai flavour

Simple Steak & Salad - favourite sauces

Tonight I cooked an extremely simple BBQ Marinated Scotch Fillet Steak & Maggie Beer Vino Cotto Salad for 2. This dinner took me <1/2 hr to prepare & cook. It left me time to enjoy the great evening weather & went bike riding with the family.

Below is a picture of my 2 favourite sauces:

1. Maggie Beer's Vino Cotto; it's like a sweet balsamic vinegar. Use it sparingly, drizzled over salad. You don't need a lot of it, to make a statement. Probably only about 1 tablespoon. It's also great with your best olive oil for dipping bread. I first got introduced to it through my sister-in-law who bought it direct from the Maggie Beer farm, but you don't need to travel to the Barrossa Valley to buy it, as it should be in David Jones.

2. Korean BBQ meat marinade. I don't know what it says on the label, but it's a really nice beef marinade. Just a tablespoon of it rubbed over 1 piece of steak, then grilled, is great. You can find this sauce in any Korean Grocery. There are a couple on Grote St in Adelaide city.

I chose 175g Scotch Fillet steak, as I find it to be the most tender, as it has the most fat. But heh, you only live once right? If I'm only going to eat meat once (or twice) a week, I might as well enjoy it : )

For the salad, it was a handful of baby spinach leaves, 6 raw snow peas, 1 tomato, 1 avocado, 1/2 carrot, 1/3 capsicum. These were the only veggies in my fridge tonight, but the dressing will go great with anything.

Asam Fish Curry

Yesterday I decided to cook fish curry, but this time I wanted it to be special. Normally I would just use a Malaysian Curry Powder (has to be Malaysian as they are the only ones who know Asam curry & I'm Malaysian) but I wanted it to be better that my past ones.

Spice up your life!....

I bought spices from the Continental Wholesaler, in bulk; whole cumin, whole coriander seeds, whole peppers plus loads more. Cleaned out my pantry. Cleaned out my old spices & made way for tubs of new ones. Then today, I went & bought a coffee/spices grinder from Myer, so I can grind up the spices I bought yesterday. It seems a little excessive to go to this much effort for spices you can buy ground up already, but by doing it this way, the spices, smell & taste a lot better. Also I find that its important to add more spices to the curry powder as a lot of the curry powders have different tastes. Just open different brands of "curry powder" & the colour difference is significant.

Next, choosing the right fish...

It's important to chose a good fish. Normally for this dish I would chose Snapper (even a large Snapper head, to make my mum proud - you'll understand if you're Malaysian). But this time, we decided to chose Kingfish & it was a fantastic choice. (Lucky my Husband's friend works at the fish factory & he recommended it - see husbands are useful too when it comes to food)


The Kingfish isn't as fishy as Snapper & the flesh is also tighter which is better for such a dish. We got the shoulder area, as it's tastier especially sucking the sauce from the bones : ) However, not recommended if you want to avoid the bones, especially with kids. Therefore it's better to stick closer to the tail.


Ingredients:
2 tbs olive oil
4 tbs curry powder
Additional spices: 1 tbs coarsely ground cumin, 1/2 tbs ground coriander seeds, 1/2 tbs ground fennel, 5 bay leaves
1 Onion, diced
1 can tomatoes, loosely chopped
Water
1 kg fish
300g Okra / lady fingers
Add to taste: Approx 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 tbs soy sauce, 2 teaspoon fish sauce


Instructions:
Heat oil in large deep fry pan/wok. Cook spices all together. The aroma is fantastic!
Add onion. Fry. Add Tomatoes. Tomatoes give the dish the sourness you'll find with Asam curries. Add water & boil for several minutes. Add the fish & okra. Cover & let simmer on medium heat for 1/2 hour. I like to cook this dish for as long as possible, so the flavours get stronger and the sauce gets thicker. All along, taste the dish to make sure it's salty enough. Use the soy sauce & fish sauce for added flavour.

Serve with steam white rice.

This dish will bring out the Malaysian in anyone!

Family's secret Lamb Skewers

You've all heard about the 11 secret herbs & spices in KFC, but I can beat that & it's only got 3 herbs & spices! & tastes a-heck-of-a lot better!
I don't know whether I should be doing this, but I'm going to share the family's secret Lamb Skewers. You might have already heard about them in the Uyghur Restarant blog, but here's how you can cook them for yourself.
However, you do need to have Stainless Steel Skewers & a coal BBQ for authenticity.

Ingrediants:
500g Lamb
1 Onions
5 tbs Ground cumin (or more. The more the merrier!)
3 tbs Chilli flakes/powder
Salt

Instructions:
Cut up the lamb into 1 inch cubes. Dice the onions. Add at least 3tbs of cumin. Mix well. Adding any tenderising formula (i.e. milk, water, corn flour) is optional. Marinate overnight.

Skewer about 4-6 lamb cubes onto skewer. Discard the onions. Cook over coal flames for an authentic BBQ. While cooking, sprinkle more cumin, chilli flakes & salt over each skewer.
Everyone chats & eats straight off the BBQ.
Grab a skewer of lamb today!

However, if you're lacking the coal BBQ, you can still experience the taste, by frying the lamb in a pan including the onions. Add more cumin, chilli & salt to taste. This is just as great.