Eggplant with Sweet&Sour Sauce

Eggplant is quite an unique vegetable.  It taste rather bland.  So, the secret of a scruptious eggplant dish lies on the gravy.

Cut eggplant into bitesize, then blanch it for about 5 minutes.  My mother prefer to saute it, instead.

For the gravy : on another pan, sauté  some minced garlic, with some minced dried prawn and minced pork.   Over small flame, add in a handsome amount of ketchup, some soysouce, a pinch of sugar, and pepper powder to taste.

Add in the blanced/sauté eggplant into the gravy. 
voilà ! Bon appétit!

One-Pot-Rice

Feeling a bit lazy today, so I cooked myself a one-pot meal.  All in one pot…. carbohydrate, protein, fiber….

Just some frozen corn, frozen pea, frozen meat balls, an onion, a carrot cut into cubes…. all into ricecooker ( with rice and water, of course ).  Seasoned with a bit of salt, flakes of chili, & pepper.

橄榄 Ca'na aka Chinese Olive

Ca’ na 橄榄 ( pronounced gǎn lǎn  ) is a popular preserved fruit consumed as snack during my childhood ( 1980s ). 10¢ for 3 piece.  Its packed with a long rectangular plastic, wrapped 3 pieces in a row, then rolled to wrap, further twisted at both end of each piece to seal, and finally intertwine the head with tail to form a circular ring.  It is still available in the market ( 2010s ) at about RM3.50/kg.

It is called Chinese Olive ( Canarium album ), yet not truly an olive ( Oleaceae ).  A member of Burseraceae instead.   Ca’na 橄榄 is native to subtropics of Asia.

The tree is 10 – 180 m high. White to yellowish white flowers.  Fruit an elliptic to ovate drupe.  It flowers from April to May, and fruits mature from October to December.

The fresh fruit is crisp, bitter following with fragrant sourly sweet after chewed for a while.  Fresh fruit is used in stir-fry dishes.  Dried fruit is consumed as snacks.  The fruit, nut, seed and root have been used as medicines in traditional Chinese medicine.

http://www.fruitipedia.com/chinese_olive%20-%20Canarium%20album.htm

http://haogouwu.com/lies/50013103/

Sweet Potato tongsui

a simple sweet potato tongsui :

 cut sweet potato into bite-size cubes,

boil with water in a nice big pot,

put in sago pearl, if you like it,

and pandan leaves,

and a generous portion of sugar !

Bring to boil till the potato is cooked .

as simple as a... b... c... !