Stir Fried Water Spinach (Kangkong Goreng)

This morning, I bought a bundle of water spinach (or Kangkong as Malaysian called it). It is an essential dish, both in homestyle cooking and at restaurants. Water spinach is a very common vegetable in Malaysia, as well as other South East Asian countries. It's usually cook with hot chilli pepper and shrimp paste. However, you can just cook it with just garlic or onions (depend on your taste).

It's simple to cook, just basically get all the leaves and the young stems. The older stems, can be planted and it grows very easy. I am going to plant all the stems from this, so that can have plenty of it during this spring through autumn.

Directions

1. Smash the garlic and remove the skin or slice onions. Set aside.
2. Prepare the vegetable by breaking off the leaves at the base, and then breaking the stems with your hands at about 1.5″ intervals. Leave the top last part of stem intact with the top 2 leaves on. Wash the water spinach and shake it dry.
3. Heat your pan on medium high and add the oil till it's hot.
4. Throw the garlic or onions in, stir quickly until it just starts to turn light brown. If your pan is hot enough, this should be less than 10 seconds. Then throw the vegetable in with the chilies. It should sizzle like crazy. Flip the vegetables and spread out a few times to make sure they evenly cook. Then add the water, bean sauce & oyster sauce, and stir for maybe 1 more minute, until the vegetable is finished. They’re done when the leaves are dark green and wilted and the stem is medium green. Don’t overcook, or they’ll taste bad.

This is half of the bundle of the water spinach I cooked and finished it all for my lunch. Don't want to keep it in the fridge.

Cooking Method.
1) Take all the leaves and young stalk (stems) and wash it.
2) Just few slices of onions.
3) 1 can of spicy shrimp paste (or shrimp paste and chilli peppers)
4) 1 or 2 tablespoon of olive oil or vegetable oil.
5) Heat oil, saute the onions till soft or light brown. Then add the spinach leaves.. stir till it's shrink in the skillet or woke. Then add the spicy shrimp paste and stir till well-cooked. (Till the leaves look darked green).

My Zucchini Plants

Zucchini is a type of squash, mostly called it summer squash. The zucchini can be yellow, green or light green, and generally has a similar shape to a ridged cucumber, though a few cultivars are available that produce round or bottle-shaped fruit. Its' leaves resemble the pumpkin but it has broader leave and spiky than that of pumpkin. In 2007, I planted some in my garden and it grew so well. Everyday, I picked one or two zucchini, fresh from the garden to cook as a side dish for dinner. My husband likes the zucchini very much. Sometimes, I made zucchini bread out of it or I stir fry it with mushroom.

In summer 2008, I grew them again and it was growing so well and all blooming with flowers. Hoping to see its produce too.. as my husband like to eat zucchini. I told him, that he would eat lots and lots of them, when I saw all the new flowers and young zucchinis sprouting from their vines. I guess, I talk too early to say that to him. It didn't happen the way I was hoping it would be.


The pests! The vine borers infested all of the plants.. and soon they were beginning to die. Every single little zucchini fruit turn yellow and died. I have tried to spray them with pesticide but it didn't work, as once their inside the vine it's difficult to get rid of them. I pulled all of them out from the garden and threw away the old leaves but the young leaves and its flowers.. I took them to cook it. You might be surprised to know that, but being a person who likes to eat lots of green vegetables and it turn out pretty well.

Here is what I did with those leaves.