Exploring Vegetarian Dishes

During the Nine Emperor Gods festival recently, I managed to indulge in delicious and yet simple vegetarian dishes. I was lucky enough that the vegetarian stall was on my doorstep. The combination of ingredients used are very interesting and creative. 

Here are the wonderful recipes that I have learned from them but have yet to try cooking them on my own:

Dish 1: Stir-fried sweet potato leaves, tau pok (fried bean curd) with tau ju (fermented tofu) (I guess salt is not needed here as fermented tofu should be saltier enough)

Dish 2: Cook bitter gourd (cut in cubes), thin slices of soy-sauced bean curd and tausi (fermented black beans)

Dish 3: Stir-fried slices of brinjal, tomatoes and red chilli (a little too oily but good) (Although there are rings of red chilli in the dish, the dish is not spicy.)

Dish 4: Stir-fried chopped long beans, tong cai (a kind of salted vegetable) in small cubes with fried salted peanuts. (This dish is crunchy.)

Our lunch box ~ featuring Dish 8 (left) and Dish 4 (right)

Dish 5: Cook slices of tomatoes, red and green capsicums, pineapples and a gluten-based meat. (A little sweet and sour and feels light.)

Dish 6: Stir-fried tau bor (a kind of bean curd skin product) and black fungus with deep fried thin strips of gingers sprinkled on top. 

Dish 7: Stir-fried chopped lady's fingers with tau jian (fermented beans) and red chilli. (It is not spicy as one can easily pick out the rings of red chilli.)

Dish 8: Cook yam (in cubes), mushroom (in slices) and vegetarian mutton

This lunch box features the vegetarian otak-otak (on the right) (made of tofu, instead of egg and fish)

Three-Cup Broccoli and Cauliflower

Heard of three-cup chicken? Yes, it is a Taiwanese cuisine with rice wine, sesame oil and soy sauce.

For this recipe, broccoli and cauliflower are used instead of chicken. So, it is suitable for vegetarians.

The ingredients:

1. Broccoli 
2. Caulifower
3. Sesame oil
4. Thin slices of ginger
5. Chopped spring onions (about an inch size)
6. Chopped red chilli (about an inch size)
7. Chopped red onions
8. Rice wine
9. Sugar
10. Salt
11. Soy sauce
12. Black sesame oil
13. Chopped basil

The steps:

1. Oil the non-stick frying pan with two table spoons of sesame oil.
2. Place the thin slices of ginger in the pan and fry the ginger until the sesame oil has dried up and the ginger is fragrant.
3. Add in the chopped spring onions, red chilli and red onions.
4. Then, add in about two to three table spoons of rice wine and a table spoon of sugar.
5. Next, add in soy sauce and a little water.
6. Keep them boiling until the sauce thickens. If it does not, add more sugar. (Beware! It can be too sweet.)
7. In a different frying pan / pot, boil water. When the water is boiled, add in a little salt, broccoli and cauliflower. Close the lid for 30 seconds and quickly drain them.
8. Transfer the broccoli and cauliflower into the first frying pan to soak them with the sauce.
9. Lastly, transfer the broccoli and cauliflower into a claypot. Add in black sesame oil and chopped basil into the claypot and cook for about 5 minutes.

(Source: Feng Shu's Cooking Class TV programme)

Three-cup broccoli

My version:

I used only broccoli. I skipped the claypot as I did not have one. Instead, I cooked them longer with a small fire with the lid on. Overall, everything was okay except it was a little too sweet for our liking (as I have cautioned in Step 6).