Cooking With Ah Mak: Ah Mak's Home-Cooked Dinner in under an hour!

Comfort food for us has always been a yummy home-cooked meal from Mous. But since the parents have moved back to HK several years back, I've taken over in whipping up a dish or two from time to time so we can revisit our favourites. It's never anything fancy, just some simple form of stir-fry, and a flavourful soup with rice.

This is exactly why I decided to start this blog a few months ago - to document delicious, yet easy-to-do dishes that I've grown up with! My aim is to share these recipes with those who love to cook, but more importantly, those who DON'T cook! Hopefully these recipes will show them that a home-cooked meal is easily achievable and what joy it is to feed family and friends. :)

Today, after a long hiatus from the kitchen aside from baking stuff, I'd decided to cook a simple dinner for Kays and Jack. I grabbed some quick groceries from the supermarket (spent less than $15) and got cracking. Dinner was ready within 1 hour, just as the 2 boys reached home! (Didn't cook soup this time round)

from left: egg with tomatoes, spicy eggplant with pork,

blanched lettuce with oyster sauce

I don't move especially fast, nor do I have special shortcuts to be able to whip up a meal relatively quickly. The only key to this is PLANNING.

What I'm about to say is probably common sense to most, but if not planned properly, one would spend lots of time, re-cutting, re-washing utensils, or end up in a last minute rush... All of which still happens to me from time to time.

1. Plan your ingredients/ utensils - what do you need, how much do you need and when do you need them? Are there common ingredients (like garlic & onion) that will be used more than once? If so, combine the quantities and wash, peel, chop etc altogether.
2. Plan your preparation steps - for me, it almost always goes like this: wash, cut, marinade, cook. And as much as possible, I find way to work a few steps in parallel to save time.
3. Plan the order of the dishes you want to cook - for example I would leave any deep frying to the end, because I want to retain the crispiness, just as I would steamed fish or prawns, because you don't want the food to turn cold while you prepare other dishes and have to reheat it again and overcook the meat.

So, let's start the clock!
Serves 3-4 persons

7:00 pm
- Put on my apron and line up all the ingredients!
- Cook rice on "quick cook" mode
- Wash & cut ingredients :
4 tomatoes, roughly diced
2 stalks spring onions, finely chopped
6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 eggplant, cut into thick strips (you may want to soak the cut pieces in salted water to prevent them from oxidizing)
1 head lettuce, peeled, washed and drained

Cut tomatoes into wedges and then dice, pulp portion optional

7:15pm
- Marinate/ Prepare other ingredients:
4 eggs, lightly beaten with 1/2 tsp salt
300g minced pork, seasoned with 2 tsp light soy sauce, 1 tsp sugar & some pepper
1 packet Lee Kum Kee Spicy Garlic Eggplant Sauce
2 Tbsp tomato ketchup
- Line up all prep-ed ingredients and I was ready to roll!

All in the right place!

7:25pm
- Half fill a large pot with water, add 1 tsp salt, drizzle some olive oil and bring to a boil
- Then working in parallel, heat up a wok/ frying pan. Once it's hot enough, add 2 Tbsp oil, swirl around and pour in the beaten eggs. Flip over once the bottom has cooked, and randomly chop up the "omelette" as you stir fry. Remove and set aside.

- Rinse the wok and return to heat. Saute half of the chopped garlic and add chopped tomatoes and stir on medium/ high heat. Season with 4 tsp sugar, 1 tsp salt, 2 Tbsp tomato ketchup and stir quicky for about 30 seconds. Add in cooked eggs, coat with sauce... and voila!!

- Meanwhile, my rice is also cooked!

Savoury flavours from the eggs go very well with the tanginess from the tomatoes

- very appetising especially for kids!

7:35 pm

- By now, the pot of water should be boiling quite furiously. Gently add in the lettuce leaves and make sure all of it is submerged. Cook on medium heat for 2 minutes before draining and placing in a serving dish. Drizzle some oyster sauce, and you're done!

Can't get simpler than this!

7:45 pm

- Ok, time for the last dish. First, heat up wok on medium/high, add 2 Tbsp oil and stir fry eggplant until cooked through and softened. If it still looks a little too chewy, add 2 Tbsp water and leave to boil until reduced. Set aside.

- Return the wok to medium/ high heat, saute remaining chopped garlic and very quickly stir in the minced pork, pressing down from time to time to ensure it's cooked through and separated into small chunks. Add LKL spicy garlic eggplant sauce, stir through and allow to simmer for 1 minute before adding in eggplants and spring onions. Simmer for 2 more minutes, and serve! Easy right?