Stir-fried Bean Sprouts with Jalapeno and Dried Anchovies

This is a very simple dish that you can easily find in Indonesia... quick and easy but always making people come back for more. In North America, you can get the dried anchovies at some Chinese herbal store or Chinese supermarket. The good ones to use for this recipes are the ones which length is about half your finger-length and width about 1/4 your finger-width.

I made a little twist in the common recipe by adding soy sauce and sesame oil. IMHO ( ^_^ ), it tastes better. If you ever find me cooking this, this means that I'm in a lazy cooking mode but still want good food.

1 pkg bean sprouts (about half kg)

2 jalapenos

1/4 medium onion, diced

5 cloves garlic, diced

1 cup dried anchovies

1 tsp ground black pepper

1/4 cup light soy sauce

3 tsbp sesame oil

1/4 cup vegetable oil

The level of spiciness depends on the amount of jalapeno seeds you want to keep and the amount of time you use to fry the jalapeno. Here's just the trick to make it not spicy (however I think you still need the jalapeno aroma to make this dish complete!!):

Remove the jalapeno seeds by cutting the jalapeno length-wise and clean the seeds with a paring knife. Slice thinly in whichever fashion you'd prefer. (Don't forget to wash your hands thoroughly after touching the jalapeno seeds).

On medium-heat, heat up half of the vegetable oil and stir-fry the jalapeno pieces. If you want to make it not spicy at all, fry the jalapeno pieces for about 5 minutes. The heating process slowly removes the spiciness.

Now...

After frying the jalapeno, put in the onion and stir-fry until it becomes pale in color then put the garlic in. Move all to one side of the pan and pour the rest of the vegetable oil onto the empty side of the pan. Stir-fry the anchovies until the color turns golden-yellow. Combine together with the jalapeno, onion and garlic. Stir-fry for about 30 seconds.

On high heat, Pour the beansprouts and stir-fry for about 3-4 minutes. Add the black pepper. The high-heat prevents the beansprouts to release water. Then lower the heat. Add the soy sauce. Mix-well. Remove from heat and add the sesame oil. Mix-well and move onto a plate.

This is good to enjoy with steamed rice... alone!

Yumm... yumm