Cooking Lesson 1

There are all these yummy foods that my parents cook up and as a cook, I pale in comparison. I cook vegetable soup. That basically means you chop up all sorts of vegetables and chuck them into a slow cooker and let it do its magic for a couple of hours and wala! You have vegetable soup. Not much to brag about.

Hence, I decided that it was time to learn to cook my favorite dishes, beginning with a vegetarian dish that we call mee kng. It's some gluten dish with salted vegetables, tomatoes and mushrooms.


Ingredients:
Flour 1 kg
15 mushrooms, all about the same size
Salted vegetables
3 tomatoes
1 large red chilli
Garlic
Light sauce








I was told that this was the most important step. Add water to the flour to make a sticky paste.



















With more water and kneading, it should start looking like that.

Finally, when it all sticks together, leave it for an hour to hour and half, covered with a moist cloth.

After 1 hour to 1.5 hour, start to rinse the dough, kneading it at the same time.



















After several rounds, the water should become clear and the gluten (mee kng) will stick together again. Rub some salt into it. Again, leave for 1 to 1.5 hr, covered with a moist cloth.



















Then separate into small pieces like so.















Meanwhile, the salted vegetables should be soaked in salt water to ensure that it isn't too salty.















Mushrooms to be soaked to soften them. Then wash them and soak again in hot water. The mushrooms were separated into two bowls as some were ready but there were others that were still not soft yet.















Cut the tomatoes into 6 pieces each and the deseed a large chilli and cut into 4 pieces.



















Now the frying begins. Heat up some oil till it is really hot. Put in the pieces of mee kng and fry them till they are golden brown. Set aside.



















Remove the oil and leave only a little. Fry the garlic till brown. Then add the mushrooms and fry till fragrant. Add the light sauce.

Next, add the salted vegetables.



















Followed by the mee kng.



















Add the chilli and tomatoes.



















Then add about 500ml of water. Add more later if necessary.



















Cover the wok and let it simmer at low heat for about an hour.















Tada!! There you have my favorite met kng dish. My maternal grandma would have been so proud of me. My first attempt and it was a success. Success because I managed to get 32 mee kng balls! My mum has told me so many times about how some people end up with none or very few because they were not able to "wash" it properly. Must remember to soak the salted veggies in salt water for a longer time next time though as the dish was a little too salty.