Vegetarian Stir Fried Baby Asparagus

I know the asparagus in the photo look rather thin. These are very young shoots and they are very crunchy. Asparagus is sweet and there are many ways to cook it. One of the easiest ways is to fry them with garlic.

Ingredients
Asparagus, 1 bunch, cut in to bite length
Garlic, 3 pcs, chop finely
Salt to taste
Olive oil or vegetable oil

Heat up pan and saute garlic until fragrant. Put in the asparagus. Stir fry until it is cooked and pour in a little water. Add salt to taste. Serve while still hot.

Vegetarian Fried Brinjals (Eggplant) with Long Beans

Brinjals belongs to the nightshade family and is in the same group as tomatoes. This wonderful vegetable is very easy to cook and taste good too. In order to make it tastier, you can pre fried it so that it turns soft and caramelised. Then you can cook it with whatever ingredients that you think would be suitable and goes along well with it!

Ingredients
Brinjals, 2pc, cut into bite sizes
Long Beans, 4 pcs, cut into 1.5 inch length
Garlic, 3 pcs, chopped finely
Light Soya sauce, 1 table spoon
Salt to taste
Olive oil

Heat up non stick pan to brown the brinjals and long beans. Turn to medium low heat so that the brinjals would cook slowly until they turned soft. Put the brinjals and long beans aside. Pour a little olive oil on the pan and sauté the garlic till it turn golden brown. Add in soya sauce and a little water. Pour in the brinjals and long beans. Add salt to taste. Serve with steamed rice.

Vegetarian Mutt Cho (Preserved Chinese Dates), Lotus Fruit and Figs Dessert Recipe

This dessert recipe uses Figs (a sweet fruit, Wuhua guo, Ficus Carica) which moisten the lungs and clear excess heat from the body. Meanwhile, Lotus seeds (Lianzi, Nelumbo nucifera) nourish the kidney and spleen. In order to make the dessert more flavourful, I added in some mutt cho (preserved Chinese Dates).

Ingredients
Lotus Seeds (Lianzi), 10 pcs
Chinese Preserved dates (mutt cho) 10 pcs
Figs, 10 pcs
Water, 8 bowls
Rock sugar, to taste

Put all the ingredients in a pot with the water in it as well. Boil for around 1 hour. Add rock sugar to taste. Serve this wonderful dessert hot or chilled.

Vegetarian Crispy Fried Tempeh with Flour Recipe

There are many ways of cooking this wonderful Indonesian healthy food made from soya beans. Tempeh can be cut into thin slices and fried in batter just like ubi goreng (fried sweet potato). The crispy tempeh can be eaten plain or with spicy chilly sauce. Alternatively it can also be part of your regular dishes to be eaten with rice.

Ingredients
Tempeh, 1 pc cut into thin slices
Rice Flour, ½ cup
Corn flour, 1 table spoon
Salt to taste
Sugar, a little
Water, to mix with flour

Add water to flour slowly and make into a batter. Add corn flour, salt and sugar. Heat up wok and put in vegetable oil for deep frying. Coat the tempeh with the batter and deep fried until golden brown. Eat while still hot and crispy.

Vegetarian Kiam Chye (Salted Vegetable, Ham choy) Soup Recipe

Some people find vegetarian soup rather plain. In order to dish out a savoury and flavourful vegetarian soup, I used various ingredients to prep up the taste. I tried cooking salted vegetable soup (ham choi) by using groundnuts and turnips for natural sweetness. The taste turned out quite good!

Ingredients
Salted vegetable, 3 leaves, cut into bite sizes
Carrot, 1 pc, cut into cubes
Turnip (sengkuang), 1 small, removes skins and cut into four
Groundnut, ½ cup
Tomato, 1 pc, cut into four
Assam Keping (dried sour fruit) 3 pcs or more if you want it to be very sour
Ginger, 3 slices
Sugar to taste
Salt to taste
Soya sauce, 1 tablespoon
Olive oil or vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon
Water, 4 bowls

Put water in pot and bring to a boil. Add carrot, turnip, assam keping, ginger and groundnut. Boil until the peanut turned soft. Add in the rest of the ingredients and boil for a short while. Serve soup with steamed rice.

Vegetarian Fried Chinese Chives Flowers (Ku Chai Hua) with Ginger Recipe

It has been a long time since I last cooked this dish. I like to cook Chinese chives flowers with a little starchy gravy just like the way I fry kailan or broccoli.
Here is my stir fry Chinese Chives Flowers recipe.

Ingredients
Chinese Chives Flower, 1 bunch, cut into 1” length
Ginger, 5 slices
Carrot, 1 pc, cut into bite sizes
Light soya sauce
Garlic, 3 pcs, chopped finely
Chinese cooking wine (shao shing chiew, optional), 1 teaspoon
Vegetarian oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon
Corn flour and water mixture
Salt to taste

Heat up wok and put in 2 teaspoons of vegetable oil. Put in the garlic and sauté it until fragrant. Throw in the ginger and carrot. Add Chinese chives flowers and light soya sauce. Stir fry for a short while and add in the Chinese cooking wine. Add vegetarian oyster sauce and salt to taste. Pour a little corn flour and water mixture to make to thicken the gravy. Serve with steamed rice.

Young Tapioca Shoots with Sambal

This is another popular dish in the outskirt districts of Java Island. Young tapioca leaves are soft and it is nice if eaten with vegetarian sambal. However there are some sap in these young leaves that needs to be removed before eaten. In order to do that they are best boiled in water with a little soda bicarbonate added. Boiling the leaves this way also helps to soften the fibres in the leaves. Tapioca leaves have high contents of nutrients, protein and crude fibre.

Ingredients
Tapioca leaves, 1 bunch, remove stems
Water, 1 pot
Soda Bicarbonate, 1/3 teaspoon

Put water in a pot and bring to a boil. Add tapioca (ubi kayu) leaves and soda bicarbonate. Boil until the leaves turned dark green. Drain away excess water and serve with sambal (chilly).

Jawa Vegetarian Chap Chai Recipe

This recipe is popular among the community in Jawa Island, Indonesia. Fried flour is the base ingredient in this recipe. The aromatic fried shallots gave the dish a very nice flavour. For some crunchiness, vegetables like cabbage, spring onions and carrots. The Chap Chai is a quite a unique dish. Check out his recipe!

Ingredients
Flour, ½ cup
Water
Salt to taste
Cabbage, 2 leaves, cut into bite sizes
Carrot, 10 to 15 slices
Shallots, 4 pcs, slice thinly
Spring onions, 2 stalks, cut into 1” length
Vegetable oil

Mix flour, water and salt to form a batter. Heat up frying pan and put in some oil. Spread the batter on the pan thinly and fry until it is cooked. Cut the fried flour into bite sizes and put aside.
Add a little vegetable oil in the pan and sauté shallots until they turned golden brown. Add in the cabbage, shallots and spring onions. Stir fry for a short while. Put in the fried flour. Add a little water and salt to taste. Serve with steamed rice.

Vegetarian Stir Fried Crab Mushroom with Bok Choy Recipe

This is the first time I combined bok choy with crab mushroom. I was a little worried whether these two ingredients match or not but the results turned out quite good. For extra body and flavours I added starch with Chinese cooking wine to it. The tasty crab mushrooms blend well with the crunchy bok choy.

Ingredients
Crab Mushroom, 1 bowl
Bok Choy, 1 bunch,
Ginger, five slices
Garlic, 4 pcs, chopped finely
Chinese Cooking wine (Hua Tiau Shao Shing Chiew), 1 tablespoon
Light soya sauce, 1 tablespoon
Salt to taste
Sesame oil, ½ teaspoon
Corn flour and water mixture as gravy thickener
Vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon

Heat wok and put in vegetable oil. Sauté garlic and ginger until fragrant. Put in the white crab mushroom and bok choy. Stir fry for a short while. Add light soya sauce, Chinese cooking wine, sesame oil and salt to taste. Pour in a little water. Add corn flour and water mixture. Serve with steamed rice while still hot.

Vegetarian Smoked Tofu Recipe

Raw rice, tea and sugar to smoke the tofu

I used the same ingredients to smoke the tofu as in Lily Wai Sek Hong’s smoked ribs recipe. This resulted in a totally new flavour for my vegetarian tofu dish and a new acquired taste as well. Anyway, I guess we are used to smoked meat than smoked vegetarian tofu! LOL!
Here is my simple smoked tofu recipe.

Ingredients
Tofu, 1 block, cut into 1“ thick slices
Spring onions, 2 stalks, cut into small pieces
Light soya sauce, 3 tablespoons
Vegetarian Oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon
Olive oil or any vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon
Shallots, 3 pcs, cut into slices and deep fried until crispy


For Smoking Tofu
Raw Rice, 1 tablespoon
Chinese tea, 1 tablespoon
Sugar, 1 tablespoon

Put tofu on a steaming tray. Add in light soya sauce, vegetarian oyster sauce and olive oil. Steam the tofu in high heat for 20 minutes. Turn off the heat and drain all the water from the wok. Line the bottom of the wok with an aluminium foil to protect it and put in all the ingredients for smoking. Sprinkle some water over the raw rice, Chinese Tea and sugar. Put the tofu tray into the wok and cover up the lid. Turn on the heat and smoke the tofu for 10 minutes. Garnish with spring onions and deep fried shallot before serving!

Simple Vegetarian Chinese Style Stir Fried Spinach Recipe

I bought a bunch of fresh Chinese spinach from the wet market last weekend. My favourite way of cooking the spinach is by frying it in a hot wok. If the wok is hot enough, you will have a spinach dish with nice ‘wok hei’ (wok burnt) smell.
Cooking the spinach briefly would help to break down some of the nutrients to enable our body to absorb them better. This is a rather healthy way of cooking green spinach.

Ingredients
Green Spinach, 1 bunch, cut into bite sizes
Olive oil or Vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon
Salt to taste
Garlic, 3 pcs, chopped finely

Heat up wok and put in the vegetable oil. Put in the garlic and stir it quickly to avoid burning it. Add in the spinach and fry until it turn a little light green in colour. Add a little water and salt to taste. Serve while still hot.

Simple Vegetarian Stir Fried Young Sweet Potato Shoots Recipe

This inexpensive vegetable is tasty and easy to cook. Sweet potato shoots (pucuk ubi keledek) normally do not contain harmful agricultural chemicals because they are rather easy to cultivate. I planted some in my backyard and they grew a little too ‘wild’. Therefore I have to get rid of them. Anyway, one bunch of sweet potato shoots average price is around RM1 (USD 0.30).

Ingredients
Sweet potato shoots, 1 bunch, cut into bite sizes
Garlic, 3 pcs, chopped finely
Vegetable oil, 1 teaspoon
Salt to taste

Heat up frying pan and add in a little vegetable oil. Add in the garlic. Put in the sweet potato shoots and turn up the heat. Stir fry for a short while and add a little water. Bring to a boil and put in salt to taste. Serve with steam rice while still hot.

Vegetarian Black Glutinous Rice (Bubur Pulut Hitam, Bee Koh Moi, hak lor mai chok) Recipe

This is a great dessert for the Ramadan month. Bubur Pulut Hitam (Black Glutinous Rice) is normally eaten with Coconut Milk and I love the smooth taste of this yummy dessert. My sister in law gave me a packet of black glutinous rice bought from Kedah. Very likely it was imported from Thailand through the southern border. The black glutinous rice should be boiled with water until they turned soft before adding the sugar or else the rice grains will never become tender.

Ingredients
Black Glutinous Rice, 1 cup
Water, 5 bowls
Coconut milk, from 1 coconut
Sugar to taste
Salt, a dash
Pandan Leaves (Screw pine), 5 pcs

Pour water into a pot and add in the black glutinous rice. Put in the pandan leaves (screw pine). Boil until the rice grains turn soft. You will have to open a lid a little or the content inside would overflow during cooking. Add salt and sugar to taste. Scoop a portion of the vegetarian bubur pulut hitam(black glutinous rice porridge, hak lor mai chook) in to a serving bowl. Pour a little coconut milk on top and serve.

Simple Chinese Vegetarian Spinach Soup Recipe

Spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is inexpensive and taste great too. It is full of nutrients and there are many ways to prepare spinach dishes. Spinach is a good source of Vitamin A, B, C & E, many types of minerals, iron and folic acid (B6). I tried putting it in soup and the end result tasted quite good! No wonder Popeye loves Spinach so much! LOL!

Ingredients
Spinach, 1 bunch, cut into small strands
Chinese Red Dates, 10 pcs
Dried longan, 10 pcs
Olive oil, 1 teaspoon
Water, 7 bowls
Salt to taste

Put water in a pot and bring to a boil. Put all the ingredients in the boiling water. Let it simmer under medium heat for around 20 minutes. Serve hot with steamed rice.