Broccoli with Fresh Lily Bulb and Wolfberries

A simple dish. No vegetarian oyster sauce. Fear not, just substitute with 2 tablespoons light soy sauce, and use some mushroom seasoning or vegetable stock instead of water. Corn flour or cornstarch can be used instead of tapioca starch.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 8 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g broccoli florets, blanched
° 25g fresh lily bulb, petals separated
° ½ teaspoon wolfberries, soaked
° 1 slice ginger, finely chopped
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° 1 tablespoon vegetarian oyster sauce
° 1 teaspoon tapioca starch, mixed with 1 tablespoon water
° 125ml water

Method
1. Arrange the broccoli in a serving plate and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger and fry till fragrant.
3. Throw in the lily bulb, wolfberries, water and vegetarian oyster sauce. Bring to a boil and stir in the tapioca starch mixture to thicken the sauce.
4. Drizzle the sauce over the broccoli and serve immediately.

Stir-Fried Eggplants with Basil Leaves

The usual way to maintain the lovely colour of eggplants is by blanching them in oil, but for this recipe I used water instead, for a healthier dish. Eggplants can soak up oil very easily and if you love stir-fry eggplant and do not want the huge intake of oil, maybe you can tried out this dish with some compromising.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g eggplants, cut into sections, blanched for 5-7 minutes and drained well.
° 25g basil leaves
° 2 slices ginger or 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° 1 tablespoon light soy sauce or to taste
° few slices red chilli, for garnish
° salt to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger or garlic and fry until fragrant.
2. Throw in the basil leaves, eggplant and stir-fry briskly for 1 minute. Drizzle with light soy sauce.
3. Stir fry for another ½ a minute and season to taste with salt.
4. Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with chilli and serve immediately.

Chayote and Pumpkin Green Curry

Chayote - pronounced [chah-YOH-teh], is an edible plant belonging to the gourd family can be eaten raw or cooked. In this recipe, I use chayote and pumpkin as the main ingredients to cook green Thai curry. It is my first time eating this plant. Next, I might try out stir-frying chayote and pumpkin with basil leaves. Check out other ways of cooking chayote @ mummyrecipes.blogspot.com - Fou Shou Gua with Dong Fen & Tofu with Vegetables .

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2-3)
° 150g pumpkin (weight after peeling), diced
° 150g chayote, peeled and diced
° 1 small firm tofu(beancurd), cut into cubes and deep-fried/pan-fried
° 50g “Earthen Pot” green curry paste, or to taste
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° 1 stalk lemongrass, peel off outer layers leaving tender whitish centre, cut out 5cm, bruised
° 2-3 kaffir lime leaves
° 125ml water
° 125ml fresh coconut milk or soy milk
° small handful basil leaves
° 1 fresh red chilli, seeded and cut into large pieces
° salt and sugar to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the lemongrass, green curry paste and fry till fragrant.
2. Stir in the pumpkin, chayote and fry for a minute.
3. Throw in the water and bring to a boil. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. Add in the lime leaves, basil leaves, tofu and coconut milk. Season to taste with salt and sugar if necessary.
4. Garnish with chilli and serve hot with rice.

Stir-Fried Soybean Sprout with Celery

Soybean sprouts with Celery is not a bad combination. The result is simple, crunchy and oozing with “freshness”. Oh, the soybean sprouts which look like gigantic mung bean sprouts are rich in vitamin A, B and C and can be eaten raw. Now it is available in some supermarkets or wet market.

Preparation: 5 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g soybean sprout, tailed
° 2 stalks celery, trimmed and sliced
° 2 slices ginger or 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
° ¾ tablespoon olive oil
° salt, to taste
° Korean chilli powder or dried red chilli flake, or coarse chilli (optional), to garnish

Method
1. Heat oil in a wok. Add the ginger or garlic and fry till fragrant.
2. Add the soybean sprout, celery and stir-fry briskly for 1½ -2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and transfer to a serving dish.
3. Garnish with chilli powder/chilli flake and serve immediately.

Stir-Fried “Fu Gui Cai”

You may have seen this vegetable before, usually only during Chinese New Year period. This is a simple recipe, just stir-fry it with ginger or garlic. To make this dish more interesting, you may opt to use vegetarian oyster sauce, or even stir-fry with vegetarian abalone.


Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g “Fu Gui Cai”, trimmed and leaves separated
° 2 slices ginger or 2 clove garlic, finely chopped
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° salt to taste
° pepper (optional) to taste

Method
1. Heat the in a wok. Add the ginger or garlic and fry till fragrant.
2. Throw in the “Fu Gui Cai” and stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

Braised Chinese Cabbage with Bao-Bailing Mushroom

This is a simple and easy to cook dish. The Bao-Bailing mushroom which had the same colour and texture as the abalone can be easily used to fake as real abalone. I bought this can of Bao-Bailing mushroom from HockHua Tonic. On this can of this Bao-Bailing Mushroom, it says that Bao-Bailing Mushroom (pleurotus eryngii var) is a rare fungus and well-known as prince in fungus family.

Preparation: 8 mins, Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g chinese cabbage (wong bak), base trimmed and halved
° 100g can Bao-Bailing mushroom, sliced
° 5 slices ginger
° ¾ teaspoon olive oil
° 1½ tablespoon vegetarian oyster sauce, or to taste
° 1 tablespoon light soy sauce
° 250ml water or vegetable stock
° 1 teaspoon Chinese wolfberries, soaked in warm water
° pepper to taste (optional)
° few sprig fresh corianders, for garnish

Method
1. Combine the chinese cabbage, bao-bailing mushroom, ginger, olive oil, vegetarian oyster sauce, light soy sauce, water or vegetable stock in a claypot. Bring to a boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Stirring occasionally.
2. Add in the chinese wolfberries and season to taste with pepper. If it is too watery, thicken the gravy with a bit of corn flour solution, if desired.
3. Transfer to a serving dish, garnish with coriander leaves and serves hot.

Stir-Fried Fuzzy Melon with Silken Tofu

This is a light and simple dish. Add vegetarian ham or sweet beancurd wafer, if desired.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 4)
° 150g-175g shredded fuzzy melon or hairy melon
° 25g carrot, peeled and shredded
° 1 slice ginger, finely chopped
° 1 pack silken tofu (300g), cut into cubes
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° 1 tablespoon cooking rice wine (optional)
° 200ml vegetable stock or water
° 1 tablespoon tapioca flour, mix with 50ml vegetable stock or water
° salt and sugar, to taste
° pepper to taste
° ½ teaspoon sesame oil (optional)
° a small handful fresh coriander leaves, for garnish
° few slices fresh red chilli, for garnish

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger and fry till fragrant.
2. Throw in the fuzzy melon, carrot and stir-fry for 3 minutes or until the fuzzy melon is tender. Drizzle with cooking rice wine and season to taste with salt and sugar.
3. Add in the tofu and stir in the vegetable stock or water. Bring to a boil.
4. Stir in the tapioca flour mixture and bring to a boil. Sprinkle sesame oil and pepper and transfer to a serving dish.
5. Garnish with coriander leaves, chilli and serve immediately.

Simple Vegetable Curry

Vegetable curry is always one of the daily dishes you can find at the Vegetarian stalls. In fact cooking this is very simple. This is a light and simple vegetable curry using only cabbage, long bean and tofu puff. If you like the veggie to be softer, cook it a bit longer till it is tender. If you prefer it to be more robust, you may want to use more oil to fry the curry paste till there is a layer of red chilli oil or also by using more coconut milk. If you prefer to add egg-plants and lady fingers, just add them in. If you want to have lovely coloured egg-plants or long bean, you can consider blanching them in oil and wash with water prior to adding to the curry after the curry is cooked.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 15 mins

Ingredients (serves 4)
° 300g cabbage, cut into 3cm squares
° 100g long bean, cut into 5cm lengths
° 6-8 tofu puff, cut into 4 sections
° 1-2 sprigs curry leaves
° 1-2 stalk lemongrass, peel off outer layers leaving tender whitish centre, cut out 5cm, bruised
° 1 slice ginger (1-2cm thick)
° 375ml water
° 125ml coconut milk
° 1 tablespoon curry powder
° ½ teaspoon chilli powder, or to taste
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° salt and sugar, to taste

Method
1. Mix the curry powder and chilli powder with a tad of water to form curry paste and set aside.
2. Heat oil in a pot or wok, fry the curry leaves for ½ minutes. Add in the curry paste and fry over medium heat until fragrant.
3. Throw in the cabbage, long bean, tofu puff, lemongrass, ginger, water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10-15 minutes or until all vegetables are tender. Add in the coconut milk and season to taste with salt and sugar.
4. Serve hot with rice.

Stir-Fried Okra with Special Tom Yum Paste

This is a simple to cook dish. Get a wedge of pineapple from the Fruit Seller, this can save you some time. If you do not like stir-frying, blanch the okra and heat up the special tom yum paste with or without the pineapple in the wok. Vegetarian mock fish slices can be added, if desired. Tomatoes puree is used instead of using corn starch or flour, which is a much healthier alternative. The amount of sugar used is to make up for the sourness of the lime juice which is used for adding tangy taste.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2-4)
° 75g okra or lady’s fingers, trimmed and sliced
° 1 (125g) wedge pineapple, diced or sliced
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° 3 tablespoons water

Special Tom Yum Paste
° 150g tomatoes, peeled and diced
° 1 slice ginger
° 1 stalk lemongrass, peel off outer layers leaving tender whitish centre, cut out 7.5cm, bruised and chopped
° 1 teaspoon (1 lime) freshly squeezed kalamansi lime juice
° 2 teaspoons sugar, or to taste
° 1½ tablespoons vegetarian tom yum paste

Method
1. Blend special tom yum paste ingredients until fine in a food processor. Set aside.
2. Heat oil in a wok. Add the okra, pineapple and stir fry for 2-3 minutes.
3. Stir in the special tom yum paste and stir-fry briskly for a minute.
4. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

Broccoli and Cauliflower Curry

I had broccoli and Cauliflower Curry served in claypot at few hotels’ cafes in Malaysia and I just love it. It is simple and yet delicious. I regretted not remembering this dish when I was having it. Now, I am trying real hard to re-create this dish. If you prefer the curry sauce to be slight thicker, just mashed few pieces of cooked potato and stir in.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 20 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 125g broccoli florets, blanched
° 125g cauliflower florets, blanched
° 100g potato, peeled and diced
° 25g carrot, peeled and diced
° 1 lemongrass, peel off outer layers leaving tender whitish centre and bruised
° 200ml water
° 1.5 tablespoons vegetable oil
° 10-15 curry leaves
° 1 tablespoon curry powder, or to taste
° 1 tablespoon chilli powder, or to taste
° 125ml coconut milk
° salt to taste
° 1 teaspoon sugar (optional), or to taste

Method
1. Mix the curry powder and chilli powder with a tad of water to form curry paste.
2. Heat oil in a wok or frying pan, fry the curry leaves for half a minute. Stir in the curry paste and fry until fragrant.
3. Add in the potatoes, carrot, lemongrass, water and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Stir in the coconut milk and bring to a boil. Season with salt and sugar.
4. Off the fire and throw in the broccoli and cauliflower. Mix well and serve hot.

Stir-Fried Mixed Vegetable with Potatoes

Kids will love this dish, frozen mixed vegetable seems palatable to them. On top of that, toasted hard roll or bread dices are so crispy. Alternatively, you may use bread croutons. By adding potatoes, this makes a wonderfully simple dish to attract the kid to fall in love with vegetables. And 2008 is the international year of potatoes – check out why potato is good for you at: www.potato2008.org

Preparation: 7 mins, Cooking time: 8 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g frozen mixed vegetable, thawed
° 150g potatoes, peeled and diced
° 1 hard roll or 1 slice bread, diced and toasted
° 1-1½ tablespoons olive oil
° salt to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the potatoes and fry till golden yellow or until tender.
2. Throw in the mixed vegetable and stir-fry briskly for 1 minute. Season to taste with salt.
3. Toss in the toasted hard roll or bread.
4. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

Stuffed Toff Puff with Stir-Fried China Dou Miao

I love China Dou Miao (Snow Pea Shoots) stir-fried with ginger or garlic. It is simple yet delicious. If you have too many of such simple stir-fry veggies for meals, you might like to jazz it up a bit, like combining it with some tofu or tofu puffs and drizzle with some simple sauce. For a more robust sauce, you might want to use vegetable stock, light soy sauce etc.

Preparation: 15 mins, Cooking time: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g china dou miao/snow pea shoots
° 1 slice ginger or 2 clove garlic, finely chopped
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° salt and pepper to taste
° 6 big tofu puffs, make an incision on 2 sides and toasted

Sauce
° 1 tablespoon vegetarian oyster sauce
° 125ml water
° 1 teaspoon tapioca flour
° pepper to taste
° dash sesame oil

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger or garlic and fry till fragrant.
2. Throw in the china dou miao and stir-fry briskly for 1-2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Divide the dou miao equally into 6 portion and stuff into the beancurd puff pocket.. Arrange the tofu puff on a serving plate.
4. Combine all the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl and mix well. Stir in the sauce mixture in a heated wok. Stirring constantly until the sauce thicken.
5. Drizzle the sauce over the tofu puff and serve immediately.

Stir-Fried Watercress with Vegetarian Sambal Chilli

Someone just told me that stir-fry watercress with sambal chilli is real yummy. Vegetarian sambal chilli can be easily purchased at most vegetarian shops. If not, you can easily make some. This dish can be done in a jiffy!

Preparation: 3 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g watercress
° ¾ tablespoon vegetable oil
° 1 tablespoon vegetarian sambal chilli, or to taste
° salt (optional) to taste

Method
1. Heat oil in a wok. Add the sambal chilli and fry till fragrant.
2. Throw in the watercress and stir-fry briskly for a moment or 1-2 minutes. Season to taste with salt.
3. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

Pickled Cabbage

Sometime back, an anonymous left a suggestion on my Plum Sauce Achar, on using shredded cabbage and sprinkling some salt and then leaving it in the refrigerator for 20 minutes. That sounds like making Sauerkraut and led me to making this. This pickled cabbage recipe requires slightly more work but it is much more simplified than compared to Sauerkraut. Some pickled recipes require you to boil the vinegar to blanch the vegetables. In this recipe, I skipped that process. It tastes better when serves chilled and sprinkle some roasted sesame seeds, if desired. If you like it spicy, add one or two chilli padi.

Preparation: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 4)
° 300g round cabbage/white cabbage, shredded
° 50g carrot, peeled and shredded
° 1 tablespoon salt
° 100ml-125ml white rice vinegar or distilled white vinegar
° 4 tablespoons sugar, or to taste

Method
1. Sprinkle the salt on the shredded cabbage, carrot and mix well. Let it sweat for 2-3 hours.
2. Drain and squeeze the shredded cabbage and carrot to remove the moisture as much as possible.
3. Combine the shredded cabbage, carrot, vinegar and sugar in a glass container, mix well and leave to stand for 24 hours prior to serving.

Stir-Fried Endive with Deep-fried Beancurd Stick

This is a simple and easy stir-fry dish. Deep-fried beancurd stick or beancurd sheet can be added to most stir-fry dishes to enhance the look and taste. It can help to soak up any liquid in the dishes.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 250g endive, cut into 5 cm lengths
° 25g deep-fried beancurd sheet or beancurd stick
° 10 carrot slices
° 5 slices young ginger
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger and fry till fragrant.
2. Throw in the endive and stir-fry briskly for 1 minute.
3. Add in the deep-fried beancurd sheet, carrot slices and stir-fry for another minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

Stir-Fried Sugar Snap Peas with Baby Corn

This is a perfectly simple dish. Sugar Snap Peas is also known as sweet peas and it is sweet and crunchy. Just don’t overcook them, if not it will lost its flavour.
Preparation: 5 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 150g sugar snap peas/sweet peas, trimmed
° 8 (50g) baby corns, halved
° 5 slices ginger
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° 1 tablespoon cooking rice wine (optional)
° salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger and fry till fragrant.
2. Throw in the sugar snap peas, corn and stir-fry briskly for 1 minute. Drizzle with cooking rice wine. Stir fry for another ½ a minute or until tender. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

Spicy Stir-Fried Yard Bean

Omit the tempeh, if desired.

Preparation: 8 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 200g yard bean/long bean, trimmed and cut into 3cm lengths
° 50g tempeh, chopped or cut into small cubes
° 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
° ½ tablespoon curry powder, mix with 1-2 tablespoons water
° salt to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok or non-stick pan. Add the tempeh and pan-fry till crispy or golden yellow.
2. Throw in the yard bean and stir-fry for 2 minutes.
3. Stir in the curry powder mixture and stir fry briskly or until the yard bean is tender. Sprinkle with a little bit of water if it is too dry. Season to taste with salt.
4. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

Stuffed Cucumber with Vegetarian Crab Meat Stick

Stuffed Cucumber with Vegetarian Crab Meat Stick

Stuffed Marrow Green with Vegetarian Crab Meat Stick (without Buna Shimeji)

This is a relatively easy recipe. Replace with marrow green (hairy groud) if you do not like cucumber, just steam a bit longer to ensure it is tender. The amount of vegetarian mock stuff used is very minimal. If not, try to stuff with mashed tofu with some seasoning or anything else you can think of. The sauce for this recipe is rather gluey, thin it with more water or reduce the amount of tapioca flour used if you prefer a thinner version sauce.

Preparation: 5 mins, Cooking time: 10 mins

Ingredients (serves 4)
° 1 cucumber, peeled and cut into 4 or 8 sections
° 2 vegetarian crab meat sticks, cut into 4 or 8 sections
° ¾ tablespoon olive oil
° few buna shimeji (optional)
° few coriander leaves (optional), for garnish
° few slices red chilli (optional), for garnish

Sauce
° 180ml – 200ml water
° 1 tablespoon tapioca flour
° 1 teaspoon light soy sauce
° 1.2 teaspoon salt
° 1 teaspoon sugar
° pepper to taste
° dash sesame oil (optional)

Method
1. Cut a small square in the centre of the cucumber using a small sharp knife and removed the fresh. Stuff one section of vegetarian crab meat stick in it.
2. Arrange the cucumber in a heatproof serving plate. Stream for 10-15 mins or until tender.
3. Mix the all the sauce ingredient in a bowl and set aside.
4. Heat the oil in a wok. Add in the sauce mixture and stirring constantly until it thickens.
5. Drizzle the sauce over the cucumber.
6. Garnish with chilli and serve immediately.

Asparagus with Golden Roasted Vegetarian Duck

This is perfectly easy dish. Wrapping blanched asparagus with the golden roasted vegetarian duck slice. If you find that this is a little too plain, add some enoki mushrooms/golden needle mushroom to the bundle. By making a sauce and drizzle it over the asparagus bundles, it can be a main dish.

Preparation: 15 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (makes 8)
° 24 young asparagus, end trimmed
° 8 slices golden roasted vegetarian duck
° 16 slices carrot
° 500ml water
° pinch of salt
° few toothpicks

Method
1. Bring the water in a pot to a boil. Blanch the asparagus for 30 seconds and removed. Drain well and cut into halve.
2. Place a slice of golden roasted vegetarian duck on a plate. Place 6 asparagus stalks and roll up. Decorate with carrot slice and secure with a toothpick.
3. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.

Stir-Fried Snow Peas with Fresh Lily Bulb

This is a simple and easy stir-fry dish.

Preparation: 10 mins, Cooking time: 5 mins

Ingredients (serves 2)
° 100g snow peas, trimmed
° 20g-25g fresh lily bulbs, trimmed and peeled
° 10 carrot slices
° 1 slice ginger, finely chopped
° 1 tablespoon olive oil
° salt and pepper to taste

Method
1. Heat the oil in a wok. Add the ginger and fry till fragrant.
2. Throw in the snow peas and stir-fry briskly for 30 seconds.
3. Add in the lily bulbs, carrot slices and stir-fry for another 30 seconds. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
4. Transfer to a serving dish and serve immediately.