Quickie post again as I'm a bit busy with work. This is a very lame stir-fried vegetable dish but of course I have a few tips to impart here. These watercress are done by heating up some oil in a wok before dumping in a heap of chopped garlic. Fry till fragrant before adding the watercress. Sprinkle in salt to taste and quickly stir till they turned a darker shade. Try not to over cook them. Dish up and serve. It's not necessary to add water as there would be some water that tend to cling to the watercress, well unless your watercress are absolutely very dry.
As watercress grew in water ponds, cleaning them is an arduous task! You'll need to go thru every single leaves and stems to spot for teeny weeny snails. I tried to take some pictures of them but they turned out rather lousy so I can't show them here.
Whilst cleaning, pluck the younger shoots, leaves and stems (make sure into small sections cos it's really fibrous to chew them all in one go); and placed them in one pile for stir frying or make a quick and simple soup (cook them in shortly in ikan bilis (anchovies) stock.
You'll noticed that there will be a lot of "leftovers" ie. the woody and fibrous stems. DO NOT throw these away! Clean them up as well to make a tasty and cooling drink by boiling them a couple of hours with dried/candied honey dates (mutt joe) sweeten with rock sugar if needed. Otherwise, you could also make a nutritious soup by boiling these stems with some meat bones, red dates and dried squid for about 3 hours.
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Sometimes my stir-fry watercress turns out a bit bitter. Why leh?
ReplyDeletepea, i get dat sometimes too. as i read in wikipedia, it said that watercress becomes bitter when the plants begin producing flowers. hmmm something you and i won't know if the watercress has flowered or not :p
ReplyDeleteWatercress reminds me of my recent post. He! He!
ReplyDeleteFor stir-frying, the really young and tender shoots are the best.
I am going vegeterian nuts today... cool!
ReplyDeleteThat cooling drink idea is new to me. Thx.
ReplyDeleteprovided the watercress is really young... otherwise very good jaw exercise ~ :p
ReplyDeletepablo, yeah i think i left a comment too
ReplyDeleteBBO, vege is good for you :D
tummythoz, ya ka... hmm ok i shall make a post out of dat when i buy watercress again
haha yeah ling, my hubby hates it, he said he nearly choked on them once :p
there are interesting watercrest farms in camerons where they sell this grassy juice in many strange bottles. Also found in most steamboat shops ! dun think is a common dish in KL but so far in soups only right? or those used in tang tongs probably
ReplyDeleteWatercress are so precious to me here.. i only use it for double bowl soup.. ;)
ReplyDeleteteam bsg, yeah but there are places that offer this stir-fry too. watercress juice ka? nice or not?
ReplyDeleteawww it's hard to get in your place, mamabok?? double boiled soup is good for you though.
juice is like grass very greeny but of course abundant sugar( as usual) took care of the other rawness( but of course we never told anybody except you only ). We suspect the honey sold in camerons also got plenty sugar then sell RM35 a bottle ! maybe thats why so many scared sugar price increase
ReplyDeletei love watercress. that's watercress ah? looks more like por choi. but i lurve watercress. the bitterer the betterer.
ReplyDeletewow fake honey, BSG??
ReplyDeleteFBB, yeah these are watercress, so far i hvnt bought any por choi cos i dun really fancy them. always eat them at my mom's though heh