China -- Vegetarian Shanghai Fried Rice

BM# 44: A-Z Cooking Series -- Around the World in 30 days

Country: C for China

Dish: Vegetarian Shanghai Fried Rice

So after trying 2 dishes from South America (Argentina & Brazil), we are travelling all the way to Easten Asia, to China. C for China was an obvious choice for me. Being in the apparel retail industry for as long as I did, I've had a lot of interaction with China and lot of Chinese too.
I went to China 8 years back for business and had a chance to try the local Chinese dishes. Traditional Chinese food is very different from the Chinese food we get in both India and the U.S. Both of the Indo-Chinese and American-Chinese dishes are highly customized and cater to the local palate.
Chinese cuisine is highly diverse and varies between the provinces. Styles and tastes are varied by class, region and ethnic backgrounds, A number of different styles contribute to Chinese cuisine but perhaps the best known and most influential are Cantonese, Shandong, Jiangsu and Szechuan cuisines. These styles are very distinct from one another due to factors such as availability of ingredients, climate, history, cooking technique and lifestyle.

I had so many Chinese dishes in mind that I wanted to try and I even asked one of my close Chinese friend to give me few recipes too. She told me few simple salad recipes, but that was before we went on India trip. At some point in the middle, I remembered this Shanghai Fried rice that I ate in Shanghai and I decided to make this simple fried rice for today.

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Vegan Gado Gado recipe

Blogging Marathon# 37: Week 1/ Day 1
Theme: National Dishes from around the World
Dish: Indonesia -- Gado Gado

We are starting this month's blogging marathon today and my theme for the first week is 'National dishes from countries around the world'. I didn't really realize each country has it's own national dish until I started researching for this theme. There is a whole list of national dishes on Wiki. Some countries have more than one national dish.

Choosing 3 dishes from countries all over the world was quite a challenge. I was really happy to see 3 dishes that have been on my to-make list on Wiki's list. So for the first day, I have Indonesian national dish "Gado Gado'.

Gado Gado is an Indonesian salad that is served with a creamy peanut sauce. This salad usually has both cooked and raw veggies along with boiled eggs, fried tofu and tempeh. Most of the ingredients for the salad are customizable. I read somewhere that boiled potatoes and eggs are absolute must and everything else is optional. I skipped the eggs and made this a vegan salad.

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Scallion Fried Rice

Time for another edition of Blogging Marathon. Today we start the 20th edition of Blogging Marathon and my theme for this week is "Cooking with Onions". Onions happen to be the most used veggie in my kitchen, not unusual for Indian cooking. But I don't usually make dishes ONLY with onions, they are generally part of the dish but not the entire dish itself (if that makes any sense). 

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Palak-Bok Choy Stir Fry (Indian Style)

Vegan Mofo Day 21:

Weekend whizzed by very fast as usual, nothing much was accomplished, though there are too many tasks on the list. Didn't touch the stove until Sunday evening due to laziness, little bit of shopping and party at friends place. So finally when I started to cook, I had half a bag of baby spinach, half a bunch of bok-choy and a 3 huge bunches of scallions. So all of them went into this easy, tasty stir fry. I fried some home made vadiyalu/ wada (fritters, for lack of good English translation). My mom makes sure that I'm well stocked with these at all times.

Ingredients:

Baby Spinach - 3-4 cups, chopped (half a 16 oz. bag)

Bok Choy - 2 cups, chopped

Green onions - 2-3 bunches, chopped

Carrot - 1 small, cubed

Green chilies - 3, slit

Curry leaves - 6

Garlic - 3 cloves, minced

Shahjeera seeds - 1tsp

Kitchen King Masala - 1/2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Method:

• Heat 2tsp oil in a sauté pan; add shahjeera seeds aonce they start to sputter, add garlic, onions, green chilies and carrots. Sauté for 4-5 minutes or until the onions are slightly wilted.
• Next add the chopped greens mix well; cover and cook till they are cooked, about 8-10 minutes.
• Add salt and masala; cook for another couple of minutes uncovered.

Serve with rice or roti.