- Cut eggplant into slices. Soak them in water, also sprinkle in some salt.
- Wash several cherry tomatoes. Cut cross at the bottom. Soak them in hot water for a while. Peel them and set aside for later use.
- Squeeze the water out of eggplant. Place them in a big bowl. Add in 2-3 tablespoon corn starch. Shake a little to let eggplant be coated with starch.
- Fry eggplant till the starch layer becomes crispy. Set eggplant aside.
- Leave a little oil in the pan. Saute chopped garlic till aromatic.
- Add in cherry tomatoes with 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 table spoon vinegar, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce and 1 tablespoon water. Simmer a bit to reduce sauce.
- Add eggplant in. Stir to let eggplant coated with sauce.
- Add in green chili. Stir fry for another minute and ready to serve.
Category Archives: Vegetables
Homemade Spicy Cucumber
I really enjoy the scene of people eating in the TV show. Recently, I watched a Japanese TV drama, the main character loves spicy cucumber. Every time I watched him eating spicy cucumber, I was drooling. 🙂 I went to supermarket yesterday to buy fresh cucumber and decided to make spicy cruncher by myself today.
Ingredients:
3 medium cucumber
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon garlic paste
1 tablespoon sugar
2 stalk spring onion (cut into slices)
1 tablespoon chili paste
1/2 tablespoon chili powder
1/2 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon white sesame (toasted)
1. Cut cucumber into slices or small chunks or any shape you like. Put them in a big bowl. Sprinkle salt over them. Set for 30 mins. A lot of water will come out and cucumber will become a little soft. Pour the water out and squeeze cucumbers by hand to let the water out. Then drain them.
2. In another big bowl, put all the rest ingredients in. Mix well.
3. Add all the detained cucumber into the sauce. Toss and mix well.
Look at that shiny reddish cucumber.
If you want it to be less spicy, you can feel free to use less chili paste and chili powder.
This spicy cucumber is a good appetizer and also a good match with porridge.
You can store them in an air tight container and put into fridge for longer days.
Yum!
Korean Army Stew
It’s really like spicy one-pot dish.
1. Prepare ingredients. Vegetables you like. I chose onion, mushroom, Chinese cabbage, tofu and sausage. Cut them into smaller pieces and place them in the pot.
2. Prepare sauce:
2 tablespoon Korean chili paste, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1 tablespoon water. Mix them well.
3. Pour sauce into the pot. Pour in stock which can reach half height of the ingredients.
4. Turn on the heat. When all ingredients are almost cooked. Add in instant noodles and 1 piece of cheese along with some kimchi.
Wait till noodles are cooked, ready to serve.
Sweet & Sour Eggplant
Eggplant is one of my favorite vegetables. Yet, it’s hard to cook eggplant well without frying. This dish also needs frying which means a lot of oil is used.I have to admit that it’s not very healthy, but it’s very delicious.
1. Cut eggplant into cubes. Place them in a big bowl. Add in 2-3 tablespoon flour. Mix eggplant with flour to let them be coated with a little flour.
2. Deep fry eggplant till golden brown. Set aside on kitchen towel tissue to absorb oil.
3. Heat a pan. Add in 1 tsp oil. Sauté 2-3 cloves chopped garlic and 1 chopped red chili till aromatic.
4. Add in 1/2 1 tablespoon vinegar, 1/2 2 tablespoon sugar and 1 tablespoon light soy sauce. Stir well.
5. Put in all the fried eggplant. Stir fry to mix eggplant with sauce till sauce thickened.
Serve hot.
Di San Xian
Di San Xian (地三鲜) is one of my favorite dishes. And it belongs to northeastern Chinese cuisine.
Main ingredients of this dish are three vegetables: eggplant, potato and green pepper.
1. Cut eggplant, potato and pepper into medium chunks.
2. Heat oil in a deep pot. Fry potato till golden brown on the edge. Dish them out. Fry eggplant till soft and brownish. Dish out and fry pepper for 30 seconds.
3. Heat a pan. Add in 1 tsp oil. Sauté chopped garlic and ginger till aromatic.
4. Put all fried vegetables in the pan. Stir fry evenly.
5. Add in 2 tsp light soy sauce, 1/2 tsp dark soy sauce, 2 tsp sugar and 1 tsp salt. Stir fry evenly.
6. At last, pour in corn starch water. Mix evenly and serve hot.
Easy Egg Sandwich
Ingredients:
1 hard boiled egg
2 crispy butter rolls
Mayonnaise
Tomato slices cucumber slices
Butter 5 g
Salt
Black pepper
1. Mash boiled egg in a bowl. Season with salt, black pepper and 1 tablespoon mayonnaise. Mix well.
2. Mix butter with 2 tsp mayonnaise in another bowl.
3. Cut butter rolls with a knife.
4. Brush the cutting surface with Butter mayonnaise mixture.
5. Add in tomato and cucumber slices. And mashed egg at last.



Pan-fried Cumin Baby Potatoes
1. Wash baby potatoes and peel them. You can also leave the skin on.
2. Put potatoes in a deep pot. Pour in enough water covers all potatoes. Heat on the stove and boil for 15 mins. If your potatoes are much smaller, then you can just boil for 10 mins.
3. Drain the potatoes. Heat a little olive oil in the pan.
4. Put potatoes in the pan. Fry till golden brown on the surface.
5. Sprinkle salt, cumin and pepper. Stir fry evenly.
Homemade Kimchi
I love Chinese cabbage. I also love spicy food. There is no reason for me not to love kimchi. Kimchi can be easily bought from supermarket. Yet, I still want to try to make it by myself.
1. Prepare a head of Chinese cabbage. Remove the root.
2. Cut cabbage into 4 part. And rinse under water. Clean each leaf.

3. Sprinkle salt ( I used sea salt) onto each layer. Let it rest for 2-3 hours.
4. In saucepan, pour into 1 cup water. Add in 2 tablespoon glutinous rice powder. Heat and stir at the same time. When the glutinous Rice powder dissolved, add in chili powder. You can taste when you add it. Stop when you think it’s spicy enough. Stir evenly.
5. Off the stove, add minced garlic, minced ginger, minced 1/2 pear and minced 1/2 apple. Mix them well.
6. Pour the water come from cabbage out. Rinse cabbage with water to wash the salt away. And squeeze the Chinese cabbage very hard.
7. Put the cabbage in a clean container. Spread chili sauce evenly on each layer of cabbage.


Finish with all the Chinese cabbage.

Make a label on the container with the date on it.
Fried Bitter Gourd Slices
Honestly, I don’t like bitter gourd. Although, it’s a very healthy vegetable. Its strong bitterness keeps me stay away from it. However, my husband likes it. So sometimes I use bitter gourd in my cooking but have very few of them during the meal. My opinion towards bitter gourd changed when last time my husband and I had lunch in a Malay restaurant. They served fried bitter gourd slices. I tasted it and it was really nice. Not very bitter and also crunchy. Of course, my husband liked it immediately. Then I searched the recipe online but found some special ingredients are needed, like chick pea flour ( I don’t know what that is). I decided to cook my own fried bitter gourd slices.
1. Cut bitter gourd into slices. I also remove all the seeds. Place them in a bowl. Sprinkle salt. And set them aside for about 40 mins to let bitter juice come out.
2. Dry bitter slices with kitchen towels. Slightly squeeze them to make them very dry.
3. Place dried slices in another bowl. Sprinkle paprika powder, a little salt, black pepper and flour. Just make sure each slice is coated with thin flour mixture.
Homemade Japanese Sukiyaki Pot
My husband and I tried sukiyaki pot while in Hokkaido. We both loved it.

That one required dipping in raw egg. Really delicious.
Japanese sukiyaki pot is different from shanushabu. It needs sukiyaki sauce, which I bought from a Japanese supermarket.

Prepare pork slices or beef slices.

Pour sukiyaki sauce in a pot. I chose to use my skillet. When sauce boils, put in meat and vegetables. I also put in Tofu.























