Well well well, here we are in another Covid 19 additional lock down measures, which for many of us, means more working from home, and best of all, cooking from home. So, allow me to share this simple recipe of stir fry long bean with dried shrimp and cilipadi, a dish that has a bit of kick, and perhaps satisfy some of the necessary nutrient requirements for your body.
Here goes.
Ingredients:
a bunch of long bean, cut to 2 inches chunks
6-12 cilipadi, chopped
2-3 tablespoon of dried shrimp, chopped finely, or mashed if you have pastel n mortar
3-4 bulb garlic, choppeed
1 tablespoon fish sauce, or alternatively, a pinch of salt
1-2 tablespoon cooking oil
Cooking Instructions:
heat up cooking oil, start frying cilipadi, dried shrimp, and garlic till fragrant
add long bean, fry until appropriate doneness (2-3 minutes at most)
shake some fish sauce in the last 30 seconds or so
serve while hot!
You can always use a less potent type of chili, or skip it altogether if you can’t handle hotness, which.. is a shame, really.
One day while trying to find something new to eat, we chanced upon Chu Cha Dan Fan (粗茶淡饭) at Seksyen 14, a restaurant that I’ve noticed for quite a while but somehow never manage to try. Looking at the menu posted at the stairway leading up to the restaurant, my buddy Horng immediately agreed to give it a try.
Chu Cha Dan Fan is one of the very few restaurants in Klang Valley that offers Hunan dishes, and since Horng spent a few years working in China, he was keen to relive the taste of some of those dishes.
Chu Cha Dan Fan at PJ Seksyen 14, or in English, humble food
粗茶淡饭 literally translate to “rough tea and bland rice”, or humble food.
So prior to looking at the menu, I initially thought that this is perhaps a place offering comfort food like porridge or tongsui. As it turned out, they have quite an extensive Hunan dishes instead. I think they can really use a line of description on their signboard outside.
The look of the restaurant though, really exudes that “humble food” name, there isn’t any decoration to speak of, but it was pretty clean and air conditioned.
all three dishes turned out to be spicy, in a good way
Since there were only 3 of us, we ordered 3 classic Hunan dishes for dinner – Mala chicken (辣子雞 RM 16), Hunan skewered prawns (串烧虾 RM 28), and dry fried green beans (乾煸四季豆 RM 10).
All three dishes turned out to be more than decent. While Horng commented that the mala chicken was not as aromatic as he’d like them to be, I found them to be delicious with the right amount of mild spicy numbing feel.
Our favorite was the shrimp on skewer, spicy, crunchy, and full of flavor, you can actually eat the whole thing with shells and all. The green beans weren’t bad either.
love the prawn, even though Yuki was trying to avoid spicy food that night
Overall it was a pretty pleasant dinner, we should go back there again with a few more people so that we can order more. I’ve heard that they also offer simple set lunches for the office crowd as well, so do give it a try.
Address: Chu Cha Dan Fan No. 6A-2, Jalan 14/20 Seksyen 14, 46100 Petaling Jaya Selangor GPS: 3.109763, 101.635860 Hours: Open for lunch and dinner
