Quay Po Cooks: beancurd skin

Showing posts with label beancurd skin. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Braised ridged gourd with beancurd skin

This is one famous dish at a Chinese Restaurant down town called Overseas. That was where I first tasted it. I love it ever since and whenever there is nice ridged gourd in the market, I will ask my Mum to cook this dish.

Matured fruit section of the gourd can be used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed. My girfriend gave me a set of bath goodies last Christmas and there is this ridged gourd bath sponge in it. Gives me a nice scrub and I like it. Oh and it’s juice is believed to be a natural remedy for jaundice.

Serving: 4

Ingredients:

1 pc 300gm ridged gourd

1 tin 425gm mushroom

5 pcs beancurd skins

1 tb vegetable oil

1 ts chopped garlic

(A)

1 tb oysters sauce

½ ts ground white pepper

1 cube bullion chicken stock, mashed

1 cup water

(B)

1 tsp corn flour

2 tb water

Method :

Heat oil in wok and deep fry tofu skin till golden and set serving plate. Remove skin and ridges from gourd. Cut into wedges about 2-3 inches length.  Heat up 1 tbsp oil in wok, saute chopped ginger until fragrant. Add in fried ridged gourd and stir well.  Add mushroom and (A) and cook for 5 mins. Mix (B) pour into wok to thicken the gravy. Mix well and dish everything out and pour over tofu skin. Ready to serve.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.