Chinese Recipes | Cooking Tips | Good Eats

This was something I had put together quickly for lunch. The inspiration to add Dodo fishballs came from Teczcape’s Real Spinach, Fake Fishcake post.

The red chili added some spiciness to the dish and the fishballs gave a sort-of crunchy texture that complements the soft spinach.

Ingredients (Serves 1):

- 1 plateful of spinach (thoroughly washed to remove soil and sand)
- 1/2 tsp garlic
- 2 tsp mini dried anchovies (pre-fried)
- 1 tsp shallots (pre-fried)
- 1 cut red chili
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 5 Dodo fishballs (frozen)

Cooking Method:

1. Bring a small saucepan of water to a boil and then add in Dodo fishballs and allow to boil for 5 minutes. (The Dodo fishballs were frozen, that’s why I boil them first to soften them. You can also choose to thaw the fishballs then cut them into halves.)

2. At the same time, heat up 1-2 tbsp oil in frying pan. When oil is hot enough, add garlic, mini dried anchovies, shallots and red chili and stir fry until fragrant (or until garlic turns light brown, but not burnt).

3. Add spinach and oyster sauce and stir fry for a few minutes until spinach wilts. Remove and plate.

4. In the same frying pan, heat up 1 tbsp oil. Remove Dodo fishballs from boiling water, cut them into half and add them to the frying pan to fry for a few minutes or until fishballs turn slightly brown.

5. Plate fishballs with spinach. Serve with plain white rice.

Cook’s Tips:

1. It’s troublesome to be peeling and chopping shallots if you just need a tiny portion like a teaspoonful, so what I do is that I peel, chop and pre-fry my shallots and keep them in the freezer for future use.

The point to note is that I prefry the shallots until just before they turn golden brown. Shallots turn light brown to golden brown very quickly and when it becomes too brown, it’ll have a burnt taste - that’s not good eats.

It’s OK to keep them in the freezer. They won’t stick together.

2. I do the same for my mini dried anchovies. Prefry them and keep them in the freezer, for future use with stir-fried vegetables or fried rice.

Spinach Stir Fry With Fishball makes an easy healthy dish, doesn’t it?