I think you got the idea. We like to cook. Edition #5

Yep, it's time for a new home cooking post. And, as usual, it is full of curry and stir fry and a pasta dish. 

First up, curry! We have aubergine curry:

Dal and spinach. Yum. Inspired by a lunch I had up at my customer's Indian stall. Found a Madhur Jaffrey receipe and recreated it. Yummy yummy yummy. The trick to getting it silky is using mung dal and gram flour (chickpea flour) mixed with some water to thicken it. 

And a simple chicken curry.

A full plate:

Rainy rainy day, so we were cold (by Singapore standards it was freezing - 25 degrees is winter-like!) We even wore longer sleeves!

So we fancied pasta. And G decided to cook from one of his favourite cookbooks, the Silver Spoon I bought him. A lovely traditional italian cookbook that was only translated into English 50 years after it was published in Italy. This one seemed odd when we first read about it but it is yummy, especially with my adjustment to it. Basically, you slice potatoes into chip size and add them to some water which you bring to the boil. You cut up some green beans if needed, otherwise just top and tail them, add them to the water with the pasta when boiling, or a bit before depending on how you like your beans cooked. Then you drain, keep a bit of the cooking water in there then add pesto to the mix. My twist is that I caramelise some onions to add into the finished dish and add some black pepper also. 

Next, we fancied stir fry. Lovely, quick, easy. This time we went for black bean sauce as we hadn't had it in ages. And we are growing veggies in our courtyard and had some green and purple peppers so we cooked chicken with red onion, green & purple peppers and black bean sauce. Super quick and very good!

And as you know, we are pea shoot obsessed so we had pea shoots with garlic also. 

And I have a bit of a new obsession with tofu. We buy pressed tofu which you can get fresh, and I slice it, dry it a bit, cover in cornflour and black pepper and chili flakes and then shallow fry til super crisp and golden (and it is great as it doesn't get all greasy). Getting there with G, he liked the addition of the spice, and happily snacked on them, so will continue playing with the seasoning and marinade. 

Next an excuse to show off our new plates :-) We bought them in Tangs and love them. Japanese style, very sweet and pretty. As you know, we have a Thai basil plant in the courtyard, well two actually, because we love Thai food. G especially loves meat with thai basil and long beans and chilies, so that is what we make quite often:

And the same day we found a random green veggie we hadn't had before from the supermarket. When in doubt, add garlic and oyster sauce. We did, and it was yummy!

Here is the full meal. Delicious, quick, healthy. What else could you ask for?