Beat the heat wave with quick, hot dishes

  Yesterday I could feel the trees themselves sweating and burnt my hands on the steering wheel getting into the parked car after just a short time in the shadeless car park.
Certainly too hot to spend much time cooking, and also too hectic. Takeaways are an option but recently I have been finding pleasure in shopping in the local Chinese supermarkets. Kow Lee Takeaways, in Avondale has a good one – and trying out exotic ingredients for a relatively reasonable price. Different kinds of soya sauce, Chinese barbecue sauce, rice vinegar, Japanese wine, glass noodles, palm sugar, pungent fish sauce, seaweed, spices and dried mushrooms all offer a tempting trip into another culture.
Looking forward to learning more about this cuisine, I am waiting with impatience and anticipation for a Kylie Kwong recipe book to arrive in the post. I hoped she would get here before this column deadline – but she hasn’t.  Having watched her on DSTV I am looking forward to trying out her quick, simple and delicious Chinese food – but in the meantime have been experimenting with the ingredients and a bit of guidance from a food magazine.
Another DSTV food programme Take on the Takeaway involves a ‘cook off’ between a famous chef and a local, favourite takeaway. This involves a time, price and taste challenge.  Often the chef is in the little used home kitchen of the takeaway eater so even basic ingredients are not there, which makes the shopping and the cooking quite a challenge. Still the celebrity chef often gets the jump on the local takeaway in terms of speed and price as well as taste.
I didn’t tot up the price of my fast meals against the local takeaway – we cooked quick Chinese twice this week – but reckon we beat the clock on speed – and the taste was great.
A little cheat on the night of Prudence Katomene- Mbo-fana’s album launch was to marinade the pork in adva-nce – in a mixture of soy sauce, chillie, garlic, sugar and ginger. But that only took a few minutes, before going out to enjoy Pru’s concert in the open air at the Alliance Francaise. And how good to have an album from this lovely singer. Her young band did her proud, the sound was good and the audience reveled in a mellow jazz night. As her husband Comfort Mbo-ana stated, “she reclaimed her throne”. 
When we got home it took ten minutes tops to put together the supper – stir fry the pork with some spring onions, garnish with fresh coriander and add fresh Japanese noodles.  They are one of my favourites – a US$1,50 pack is enough for two and couldn’t be faster. Pour boiling water over the noodles – drain, and add to your dish! Bok choi or spinach just wilted over a high heat in butter and garlic with a touch of sesame oil takes no more than three minutes for a quick accompaniment and a salad dressing of soy sauce, rice vinegar and sesame oil gives an oriental lift to thinly sliced cucumbers and radishes.
Any stir fry is quick and most noodles also take very little time to cook. I am looking forward now to some leisurely slower dishes – like sticky pork belly cooked for three hours – and I love rice paper wraps, one way to get communal in the kitchen with different fillings served with a variety of dipping sauces.
– g.jeke@yahoo.com