Food has to be smelly to taste good

Huh??!!

I realize many of the things I find delicious smells putrid to others. Despite that, I'm unapologetic about the pungent fragrance food from my culture emits. Durians, one of my biggest loves apparently tastes like feet to many. On the other hand, I think stinky tofu is one of the most vile food I've tried, while hubs thinks it's such a delicacy.

For dinner yesterday, I made a fishy smelling vegetable dish that made me wanna eat more rice than I should. Here's my version of spicy long beans with dried shrimps and garlic. This is similar to 干煸四季豆 but with a more southeast Asian twist.

Spicy Long Beans
- 1 bunch of long beans cut into 2 inches sections
- 5 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 tablespoons of dried shrimps cut into smaller pieces and soaked for about 15 minutes
- 3 teaspoons of your fave chilli sauce
- salt to taste

Heat up about 2 tablespoons of oil in a wok. Throw in the garlic and dried shrimps and fried them for 1-2 minutes till fragrant. Stir them constantly so that the garlic doesn't burn. Add in chilli sauce, you can adjust the amount to suit your tastebuds. After coating the garlic and shrimps with the chilli sauce, throw in the long beans. If you find it too dry, feel free to add more oil. Fry for about 5 minutes until long beans are cooked through. You can sprinkle in a few teaspoons of water to create steaming effect to help soften the beans. Before serving, sprinkle some salt to taste. This is optional, my chilli sauce wasn't very salty so I had to add some for taste. If yours is salty enough, feel free to skip this step.

Here are some recommendations for chilli sauce.  I think they are mostly available in Chinese grocery stores.

Amped up brown fried rice with kale

Gotta give it to Gywneth Paltrow for giving fried rice such a good rep. I love fried rice, but it isn't exactly a dish that is known to be healthy. When you go to chinese restaurants and order fried rice, you are expecting a plate of rice and other ingredients coated with oil emitting a wok smokiness. But of course, fried rice is like a blank canvas, you are free to put in any ingredients you like and Ms. Paltrow has chosen kale, scallions, garlic and soy sauce.

My love for kale started when I found out it has the highest nutritious value. I was excited to try out this dish since we already eat brown rice almost everyday and I'm always on the lookout for easy and healthy recipes. However, I made some tweaks to it to up the wow factor. Instead of using regular oil, I used a mixture of roasted sesame seed oil and grapeseed oil. The latter has no taste but just to even the taste out. Instead of using soy sauce, I used soy sauce paste. Soy sauce paste has a sweetness to it that I thinks adds another dimension to fried rice. It is important to buy good tasting soy sauce and soy sauce paste as you don't want to end up with a flat tasting sauce that is simply salty. I use the Kimlan soy sauce paste, it should be available in Chinese supermarkets.

(Amped Up) Brown Fried Rice with Kale

adapted from Gwyneth Paltrow's recipe

- 2 and 1/2 cups uncooked brown rice, cooked

- 1/2 bunch of black kale or 1 bunch of regular kale, cut into thin strips

- 1 tablespoon of grape seed oil and 1/2 tablespoon of roasted sesame oil

- 3 large green onions sliced diagonally

- 4 cloves garlic (I love garlic so I used more)

- 1 and 1/2 tablespoon of soy sauce paste

- dash of white pepper

Heat up the oil in a wok and put in garlic and spring onions. This allows the wok to take in the smell and taste of these ingredients. Next throw in the kale and fry it till slightly wilted. Put in the cooked brown rice and try to separate the chunks of rice so that each grain of rice can be coated with the oil and the ingredients can be mixed in well. Drizzle the soy sauce paste and sprinkle some white pepper over the rice and stir and stir some more and you're done!

This dish is really delicious, thank you Gwyneth!