Delicious Thai flavors infuse this dish of long beans and pork.
We’ve been eating a lot of yard-long beans at house of Annie lately. They are a hardy bean and are full of protein and vitamins. We eat them almost once a week in this house.
One of the reasons I love them is that they keep very well in the fridge. I find that now that I live in very hot, humid Kuching, a lot of my green leafy vegetables spoil faster than when we lived in California. And now that I’m working, I have less time to shop for groceries—this means I have to buy most of my veggies on the weekend when I have time to market. Being hardy, the long beans are my go-to vegetable near the end of the week when I’ve cooked up all the leafy vegetables.
Updated 31 August 2010 Originally posted 28 September 2008
Popiah (also spelled poh piah, poh pia, baobing (薄饼)), is an Asian dish popular in Malaysia and Singapore that’s like a fat spring roll, only not fried. Think of it as kind of an Asian burrito. Except that the popiah filling itself is much more complicated and contains so many more ingredients than a regular burrito.
Mum’s popiah are the best. It’s a perfect combination of sweetness from the flour sauce, the savoriness of pork and prawns, the spiciness of chili and garlic, and the crunch of cooling vegetables. It’s so yummy, you will gobble it down and hurriedly make another without even thinking about it. I have had popiah from hawker stalls in Singapore and Malaysia, even in Penang, where you will find the best food in the world. Mum’s popiah beats them all.
When I was growing up, eggs were not just something you had at breakfast. As a matter of fact, we probably had eggs more often at dinner time than we did at breakfast. I love all types of egg dishes. And I don’t really care what people say about eggs—they are the most economical and perfect food. One day, when I have my own place, I plan to raise my own chickens and get me some fresh eggs everyday!
So anyway, getting back to egg dishes, my mom would make egg fuyong every so often and we loved it. As a matter of fact, the simplest recipe—sauteed slice onions with beaten eggs (onion egg fuyong) is still one of my favorite egg dishes today. And my kids wolf it down too everytime I make it.
Simple ingredients, combined in a delicious, easy to make dish for weekday meals.
Now that Annie and I are both working, we have a helper, Jessie, who picks the kids up after school a few days a week, brings them home, and tidies up the house a bit before we come back from work. She has been a real blessing to us! Jessie was recommended to us by one of our friends, who buys lunch dishes from her. It turns out that she is also a pretty good cook!
One evening, Jessie let us try a sample of her braised squash with lemongrass. It was so delicious! When she told us how easy it was to make, we decided we would have to try to make it ourselves.
