Broccoli & carrot with egg drop gravy that tastes like home 🧡🇸🇬
It’s national day tomorrow and already, my social media feed is full of Singaporeans celebrating our nation’s birthday in very delicious ways! Every year when national day comes around, I instantly think of kaya toast. While I’m not equipped to make kaya at the moment as our belongings are still on their way to us from Australia, I’d like to think that it’s enough to celebrate national day with a comforting and familiar vegetable dish that reminds us of home. It was so deeply satisfying and comforting that we had it two nights in a row.
This is a very simple dish that combines broccoli and carrot with a starchy, egg drop gravy. You’ll find it everywhere in Singapore - at home, at economic rice stalls at the hawker centres, or at Chinese restaurants where a more refined version might be laced with threads of dried scallop. You can ring the changes as you like, but at its core, its dead easy to prepare.
You begin by separating a whole head of broccoli into florets and cutting its stem into bite-sized pieces (yes, don’t throw the stem away!). Slice half a carrot fairly thinly. Blanch the vegetables in salted water until they are tender to your liking, about 2 minutes.
Drain the vegetables and set the wok back on the stove. Stir-fry a handful of sliced garlic and dried shrimp until fragrant.
Add water and you get almost like an instant stock as the dried shrimp releases its flavour. A touch of oyster sauce boosts the seasoning.
Thicken the stock to a gravy with cornstarch, then swirl in a beaten egg gently. I love observing the formation of what the Chinese poetically call “egg flower”. This gravy is very similar to what you’d get with hor fun - some call it “wat dan”, which translates to “silky egg” from Cantonese.
Pour this all over your blanched vegetables:
The gravy is a light sauce that coats the vegetables as you eat, but you can definitely make it more starchy if you want something more satiating. We enjoyed it with rice, pork rib herbal soup leftover from the night before, and a little drizzle of XO sauce to turn it into something truly special.
(The XO sauce was a gift from the very lovely chaitohkueh couple - I first got to know them because they have been cooking their way through Wet Market to Table and posting very delectable photos of their creations on IG! Recently, we met up when they made a stop in the Netherlands and they gifted us the XO sauce amongst other Singaporean food goodies! What did I do to deserve such wonderful readers - thank you!)
Whatever food you choose to celebrate it with, here’s wishing you all a wonderful national day 🇸🇬🧡
Broccoli and carrot with egg drop gravy
Serves 2
A handful of salt
1 broccoli, separated into florets (cut the larger ones in half), stem thickly sliced
½ carrot, sliced
1½ tbsp oil
A small handful of dried shrimp, soaked in just enough water to cover as you prep the vegetables
3 garlic cloves, sliced
1½ mugfuls of water
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp cornstarch, mixed with 3 tbsp water
2 beaten eggs
Fill a large saucepan or wok with water and add a handful of salt. Bring to the boil. Prep your vegetables while the water boils, if you have not already done so. Blanch the vegetables for 1-2 minutes, or until tender to your liking. Drain and transfer the vegetables to a serving dish.
Return the saucepan or wok to the stove. Add the oil. Lift the dried shrimp from the soaking liquid and add it to the pan with the garlic. Fry until fragrant. Add the soaking liquid from the dried shrimp, water and oyster sauce, and bring to the boil.
Stream in the cornstarch slurry while stirring. When the sauce thickens up, add the beaten egg and stir the gravy gently with a spatula until the gravy is streaked with delicate strands of egg.
Pour the gravy over the vegetables and serve with rice.
