No-Frills Recipes ... cooking, baking & excerpts on travel

  This is a very simple, easy to prepare, fuss-free dish which will go very well with plain white rice.  Also a very popular dish with kids and adults alike.  If the kids cannot accept too much chilli, you can omit it and the chilli sauce too.   All you need to do is just to dump all the ingredients into the wok and  cook.  Here's how ........ Sweet and Sour Pork Ribs ~  甜醋排骨 Ingredients 500 gm pork ribs, cut into 2 inch lengths 60 gm shallots          30 gm garlic                10 gm ginger            2 bird eye chillies      2 tsp chilli sauce 1 tsp tomato sauce 1 tsp sugar 1/2 tsp salt 4 cups water 1 tsp Balsamic vinegar, or to taste Thickening -  1.1/2 tsp cornflour + 1 Tbsp water Preparation Wash the pork ribs and blanch them in hot water, rinse under running tap water, drain and set aside. Lightly pound or smash the shallots, garlic, ginger and bird eye chillies. Put the pork ribs into the wok together with the pounded ingredients in (2) above.  Add in sugar, salt, chilli an

  A quick and easy pumpkin stir-fry,  just that I partnered it with some bittergourd to infuse  with the sweetness of pumpkin.  A comforting and healthy dish and it's delicious to load spoonfuls of it onto a bowl of hot plain white rice. Pumpkin and Bittergourd Stir-fry ~   南瓜炒苦瓜 Ingredients 150 gm kabocha squash (Japanese pumpkin), thinly sliced with skin 150 gm bittergourd, sliced 10 gm dried shrimps 3 pips of garlic chopped 1/4 cup water or more if needed Light soy sauce to taste Oil for frying Some curry leaves (optional) Method Add some salt into the sliced bittergourd, let sit for about 15 mins.  Squeeze out any juice, rinse.  This helps to extract some bitterness from the bittergourd. In a pan, saute the dried shrimp, garlic and curry leaves till fragrant. Toss in the kabocha and stir-fry.  Add some water to cook the kabocha.  When it's semi-cooked, add in the bittergourd, continue to stir-fry, add water if necessary. Use a fork to poke into the kabocha and bittergourd t