April 11, 2007
Stir-fried Bean Sprouts With Salted Fish And A Lot Of “Extras”
I’ve been wanting to eat this for a long time. The crunchiness of the bean sprouts and the flavor from the salted fish makes this dish a good accompaniment to a meat dish and plain white rice.
Have you noticed that this Bean Sprouts With Salted Fish dish is overpriced in restaurants? A plate costs about US$6.95 or was it US$7.95?!? A packet of bean sprouts from the supermarket costs less than a dollar and the salted mackerel fish (咸鱼) I bought (US$3+) could last me through many times over! (I can cook fried rice with that too :))
The shelf life of bean sprouts isn’t very long - at most one week. It is best to consume the whole packet within 2-3 days of purchase. With some planning, I added the bean sprouts to my Mee Rebus for one meal and cooked the rest the next day.
Here is my recipe for Bean Sprouts With Salted Fish And A Lot Of “Extras”. You can just do with garlic, salted fish and green onions only, if you do not have the “extras”. It’ll taste just as good.
Ingredients:
- 1 big plateful of mung bean sprouts (you can choose to remove the roots or just leave it)
- 1 tsp garlic (minced)
- 1 tbsp salted mackerel fish (咸鱼) (cut into small pieces and pre-fried)
- 1 tbsp dried sole fish (扁鱼) (cut into small pieces and pre-fried)
- 1 tbsp dried mini anchovies (pre-fried)
- 1 red chilli (sliced)
- 1 stalk green onions (cut into 2″ lengths)
- 1 tbsp oyster sauce
- 2-3 tbsp water (optional. Used only if the bean sprouts appear too dry during the stir frying)
Cooking Method:
1. Heat up 2 tbsp oil in a wok. When oil is hot enough, add garlic, salted fish, dried sole fish, dried mini anchovies, sliced red chilli and stir fry until fragrant.
2. Add mung bean sprouts, green onions and oyster sauce and mix well. Stir fry for about 3 minutes or until bean sprouts soften a little (depend on the crunchiness level you want. I like mine crunchy.)
3. Add some water if the dish looks too dry. Mix well and serve.
Cook’s notes:
- The salted mackerel fish was something I prepared earlier - cut into small pieces and stir fried with oil. Remember to properly ventilate the kitchen and living area when you stir-fry the salted mackerel fish. A can of Lysol air freshener will come in handy too! :)
- The dried sole fish was something I brought back from Singapore. It had been cut into small pieces and pre-fried.
- All these pre-fried ingredients, I keep in the freezer for ease of use in future.
Stir-fried Bean Sprouts With Salted Fish - It’s definitely waaaay cheaper to cook this at home.
Bite This!
More recipes:
Stir Fried Mung Bean Sprouts Recipe
Roasted Duck Gives You Bang For The Buck
Stir Fried Bee Hoon is the same as Stir Fried Rice Vermicelli
Tofu And Fishballs In Black Bean Sauce
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April 11th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Wow! I usually only stir fry the bean sprouts for not more than 2 minutes. I don’t like them limp.
April 11th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Agak agak (approx) 2-3 mins :)
April 12th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Where to buy the kiam-hir? Wah, you even brought back 扁鱼 ??? Can cook claypot rice liow loh! :P
April 12th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
The 咸鱼 was bought from the other Asian supermarket at Castro. Good idea about the claypot rice. Pablopabla has a claypot chicken recipe that does not need a claypot. :)
April 12th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
You’ve got my two kinds of favorite fish there, kiam hu and pee hu…wah lau, good combo.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
An easy yet flavoursome recipe! I like the flavour of dried fish a lot. My mom makes similar dish to yours, and it is tasty!
April 13th, 2007 at 12:41 am
LOL! Yeah…the claypot mutated to an electric rice cooker liao!
April 13th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
I love salted fish fried rice a lot. I don’t recall ever having salted fish with bean sprouts. But I can imagine how delicious it is. I used to hate eating bean sprouts as a kid but now I like it a lot. Korean restaurants serve them all the time (without salted fish though) as appetizers.
April 14th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
RM:
The kiam hu was so stinko but delicious :)
Anh:
Mom’s the best!
PP:
Make do with what we have lor hor!
Ming:
I haven’t eaten bean sprouts as appetizer in Korean restaurants before, usually just kimchi.
April 14th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
This is my Ess favourate dish when we go out to eat. Thank you for tips. Now I can cook at home. Baby kicking hard from all the standing up?
http://2esses.blogspot.com/
Check out the double ess blog.The young one tried to make easter eggs last week.
April 15th, 2007 at 10:12 am
looks nums. i love bean sprouts!
April 18th, 2007 at 3:54 am
i miss home!
mum used to cook sprouts for us. i dun like peeling the heads of the sprouts, so i dun cook them.
spoit huh… :-)
April 18th, 2007 at 7:55 am
KM - It’s a luxury to be spolit… but u r in SG, so it’s ok la… you can get bean sprouts from the rice-vegetable stall anytime.
September 30th, 2007 at 6:56 am
[…] I use dried sole quite a bit, like in soups, stir fried vegetables, Minced Pork with Tofu and Wantons. It is packed with flavor! […]