Quay Po Cooks: kung pao

Showing posts with label kung pao. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Quay Po's meat is Quay Lo's poison

I have not had this dish for umpteen years! How did that happen? This is one of my favorite dishes. Aah, I know, out of sight, out of mind. My Quay Lo does not quite like “Sotong”, he said it is like eating rubber. LOL! There are so many Chinese dishes that mum and I like that my Quay Lo will not touch. To name a few, sea cucumber, chicken feet and pig’s ears. I agree with him that these things have not much taste on its own but when it is properly cooked with nice ingredients and spices, they taste awesome. I am sure many Asian friends will agree. I told him what we love is the texture, which is exactly what he hates. I can understand that because we are different, we came from different heredity. I will not try to convince my Quay Lo to like what I like to eat because one man's meat is another man's poison.

Kung Pao Sotong (Cuttlefish)

Ingredients:

20 dried chillies, soak till soft

3 cloves chopped garlic

500g sotong (cuttlefish), cut

2 tbs light soy sauce

1 tbs oyster sauce

1 tbs dark soy sauce

1 tsp sesame oil

1 tbs chilie sauce

1 tsp sugar

1 tsp corn flour, mixed with 2 tbs water

2 tbs cooking oil

½ cup toasted cashew nut

Method:

Toast cashew nuts and set aside. Wash and cut cuttlefish. Heat wok, add oil, stir fry dried chillies at low heat till turn to dark color and fragrant. Add in garlic, light soy sauce, dark soy sauce, oyster sauce, chilli sauces, sugar and sesame oil, stir till mix well. Add in sotong (cuttlefish) and stir fry over high heat till sotong (cuttle fish curled up). Add in the corn flour mixture, when it’s thicken, add cashew nut and mix well. Dish up and serve.

Note: You may want to add, capsicum and green onions, I did not use them because I am out of it and I am lazy to drive out to buy. Sorry:D

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.