The ‘mrs’ and I have been doing a bit of a ‘ready steady cook’ thing recently. We have to buy an ingredient we have never cooked with and make something, ideally edible. I went first with stuffed aubergines. Yes I know it seems odd that after 31 years on the planet I have never cooked one, well I hadn’t. The recipe (well I wasn’t going free style quite yet) said to boil the vegetables for 10 minutes. How can you boil them? It’s like trying to boil 2 buoys! In the end the underside which got boiled stayed a lovely purple and was tender, while the top went brown and tough. I triedkeeping them under the boiling water with a less than successful scaffolding made out of spatulas, chop sticks and bowls (best not ask). Despite this the meal was a triumphant success and appreciated by all!
Next was the ‘mrs’ turn. She had to do battle with a butternut squash. Un-chartered territory indeed. The meal of choice was a vegetable curry. I wasn’t involved in the preparation so I can not report on the most appropriate cooking method. Anyway the curry was really nice and the big chucks of orange squash were uber nice; much nice than suede which it reminded me of.
Last night was my turn. A few weeks ago I had gone into the local tiny Chinese supermarket and had picked up some packets of bean curd. I love the bean curd I get at the Chinese takeaways and have always wanted to know how they did it. One of hard things about being a vegetarian is finding something for dinner you can have a good chew on. What also attracted me to the products was the ingredients; bean curd – that’s it! Unlike quorn and other veggie alternative there is a list of ingredients as long as your arm. This has one ingredient.
So my challenge last night was to do a 5 spice stir fry. I prepared all the ingredients such as onions, mushrooms, fine green beans, 3 colours of peppers and pok choi, all in separate bowl in a Blue Peter stylee. Following the strange instructions written in Chinglish (the word used for Chinese badly translated into English), I boiled the bean curd (packet in the middle) for only 3 minutes. After draining I added it to my stir fry that was coming along nicely (I’m sure the burnt bits on the bottom of the wok just add to the flavour). It was another success although I think I should have added them earlier to absorb some of the flavour or maybe marinated the bits first. Oh well I look forward to more trial and error.
As a side note, why not google images of Chinglish, they are very funny. This is a good one.
Next was the ‘mrs’ turn. She had to do battle with a butternut squash. Un-chartered territory indeed. The meal of choice was a vegetable curry. I wasn’t involved in the preparation so I can not report on the most appropriate cooking method. Anyway the curry was really nice and the big chucks of orange squash were uber nice; much nice than suede which it reminded me of.
Last night was my turn. A few weeks ago I had gone into the local tiny Chinese supermarket and had picked up some packets of bean curd. I love the bean curd I get at the Chinese takeaways and have always wanted to know how they did it. One of hard things about being a vegetarian is finding something for dinner you can have a good chew on. What also attracted me to the products was the ingredients; bean curd – that’s it! Unlike quorn and other veggie alternative there is a list of ingredients as long as your arm. This has one ingredient.
So my challenge last night was to do a 5 spice stir fry. I prepared all the ingredients such as onions, mushrooms, fine green beans, 3 colours of peppers and pok choi, all in separate bowl in a Blue Peter stylee. Following the strange instructions written in Chinglish (the word used for Chinese badly translated into English), I boiled the bean curd (packet in the middle) for only 3 minutes. After draining I added it to my stir fry that was coming along nicely (I’m sure the burnt bits on the bottom of the wok just add to the flavour). It was another success although I think I should have added them earlier to absorb some of the flavour or maybe marinated the bits first. Oh well I look forward to more trial and error.
As a side note, why not google images of Chinglish, they are very funny. This is a good one.
It’s the ‘mrs’ turn next to cook something different. Any suggested unusual vegetarian ingredients would be welcome!
2 comments:
quinoa. or artichokes.
smduge
No ponders in ages?!!!! Have you given up the tea breaks????!
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