Cap-Chai [Mixed Veggie Stir-Fry]

Cap Chai means mixed vegetables. It’s in Hokkien, one of many chinese dialects. I think the mandarin should be za-cai.

As the name suggest, it means mixed of many vegetables. Well, in fact, not only vegetables are involved, we can use other stuff like mushrooms, meatball, sausages, sliced-meat, prawn etc. Some materials like tomato and potato are not suitable though.  I think tomato is not suitable for it has too much distinct taste on its own. Potato, hmm…well, you can use potato if you like, but i don’t like it (hehehe).

Mom’s style is using these stuff. This recipe is using cauliflower, cai-sim, white cabbage, carrot, prawn, shiitake mushroom, button mushroom, fishball, sliced pork, onion and garlic. Cut all into smaller pieces.

 

How to:

• Heat up the wok and add cooking oil. Let it heat up for half minute.
• Put in cut garlic and small red onion. Fry for half min. You can start putting in the stuff. Start from the stuff that gets longer to cook such as shiitake mushroom and carrot.
• Shiitake mushroom ->carrot -> prawn and meat -> cauliflower -> leafy vegetable, fish ball, button mushroom.
• Add fish sauce (2 pumps) and pepper. And stir-fry for 3 min.
• Add water and cover for another 3 min. Open the cover and add oyster sauce.
• Stir and it’s done. It takes at most 15 minutes for preparation and cooking.

Tempe Goreng [Fried Tempe]

Tempe is many Indonesians’ can’t-missed part of daily meal. It’s healthy and cheap thus easily  accessed by anyone there. I am not sure if it’s widely available in other countries.

Tempe is made of fermented soybean. The beans are knit together by a mat of white mycelia (part of fungus).The fermentation made the protein more digestible and is a good source of fiber (see more in Wikipedia). 

There are many ways to eat tempe. This time Mom made this “crispy sweet spicy tempe goreng“. With additional of potato sticks, it really made a nice snack (I couldn’t stop eating, oops). Surpisingly, it was still crispy even after 8 hours in open air. It’s said that the sugar content captured the crispness (not sure how true hehe) The ingredient: tempe, potato, red chilies, small red onions, lime, sugar.

Preparation:

• Tempe usually come in a block. Cut the tempe into small pieces (around 5mmX5mmX35mm).
• Cut the potato into small thin sticks.
• Strip the red onions off the skin, put them in food processor together with the chilies, add a bit of water to assist the process. If you don’t eat chilies, you can forgo that.

 

Cooking: Step#1 Fry ‘em all  

Heat up some oil in the wok. Fry the tempe till it’s brownish. Fry the potato sticks until crispy. Put them aside.

Step#2: Mix ‘em all  

Heat up the wok again and input a bit of oil. Wait for half min, input the chilies+onion mixture. Add sugar (3 spoons), add lime juice; fry for one min. Turn off the heat. Input the fried stuff and mix them all