Stir-Fried Mushrooms and Peppers

Stir-Fried Mushrooms and Peppers

This is likely to become a favourite vegetable dish in our home because it's so simple and takes no time at all to put together. It's composed of pre-sliced mushrooms, onions, red and green peppers, and seasoned simply with some salt, ginger and garlic paste and black peppercorns that are ground to a powder along with mouri/fennel seeds.

A vegetarian couple a while back spent a week with us. Any longer than that would have caused me to eat heads because I was craving non-veg food so badly! But I picked up a few tips and tricks about cooking vegetables, particularly mushrooms. Because they shed so much water, the trick to cooking mushrooms, I was told, is to fry them first in nothing but oil until al dente. More oil is then added to fry the onions and other vegetables and salt should be added at the very end. This produces a dry stir-fry that is delicious served with steamed rice. It can be had with a variety of Indian breads, too.

Burmese Stir-Fried Cabbage with Scrambled Eggs

Cabbage with Scrambled Eggs

Weekends were very special when we were growing up, made even more festive by Mum's cooking. She was a consummate cook of Indian, Burmese and Asian cuisines and passed on her love for cooking to all eight of us. We were curious and eager to try all kinds of food, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. 

Being a single mother of eight and a professor in a women's college meant that she was not able to spend as much time in the kitchen as she would have liked. Evenings and weekends were festive affairs because visitors dropped by unannounced, tea and snacks were constantly being served and meals were prepared by Mum with a lot of help from all of us and the hired help. There were occasions when her Thai students who lived at the hostel would arrive with all the necessary ingredients to prepare a feast for all of us. They were so happy to have a kitchen that was open to them so they could enjoy their cuisine, which they missed terribly.

This stir-fried cabbage dish is one that I associate with Mum's loving and nurturing nature. Cabbage is totally tasteless on its own, but is transformed when stir-fried until crisp, flavoured with the zing of black pepper powder and the umami of fish sauce. Add eggs into the mix and it assumes an unforgettable contrast in texture from the crispness of the cabbage to the creaminess of the scrambled eggs.

This is served as a side dish to accompany any Asian meal and is best suited to be had with hot, steamed long-grain rice.