Gnarly Garlic!

Suddenly craved for porridge + chye poh (salted radish) yesterday. To my surprise, I have a packet of chye poh ready to be cooked! This dish has been my ultimate favorite since I was a kid. My dad loves Chinese dishes and I have been fed some of the oiliest spread of deep fried vegetarian snacks from the defunct vegan stall at Tanglin Halt in the late 80's. I grew up in Bukit Merah / Tanglin Halt area until my late paternal grandparents passed away in the early 90's. The countless fun void deck wedding days, sleepovers with cousins, dwelling on television (Aksi Mat Yoyo! LOL!) and snacks on weekends and all good, simple things which I can only reminisce.

Ok, back to porridge! I chopped up some garlic and cooked some porridge for an easy, breezy fuss free meal!

This dish calls for an egg (optional), salted radish
and chopped garlic.
I used two eggs snce they're relatively small.

Fry the garlic until fragrant, add in the radish.
Add in sugar, salt, dark soya sauce, stir fry.

Add in the eggs.
Mix them up when the egg is half cooked.
The radish practically jumped out of the wok
when they're cooked.
Serve with porridge
(and a cold glass of herbal water chestnut drink).

Since I was already chopping the garlics (which I kinda hate to do because they're so small),
I chopped extra for my guilty pleasure indulgence of buttery garlic spread. Home made!
Fortunately, there's a new tub of Praise so I took the old one (no expired ok!) which is a quater full.
I left out the parmesan cheese because I'm don't have any handy since my last garlic spread frenzy (last week). I don't fancy celery for my spread and ready made spread tasted kinda yucky for the aftertaste. In with salt, sugar, rosemary and basil. You can use dry or fresh herbs. Basil and rosemary combo doesn't fail my tastebud. Mix them up, label my tub and keep them in the fridge. I can just spread it over rye, white, foccacia, ciabatta etc, with a little dash of olive oil and popped them in the oven. Serve them with a hearty soup, slices of lean meat, sun dried tomatoes or simply with a glass of fresh fruit juice. I love mine on any grainy bread (the added texture and bite), a side of grilled button mushroom, slices of cracker barrel extra sharp cheddar and apricot nectar juice. Yummy!

Try them!