Butter Oats Asparagus

I'm sure Cereal Prawn is one of the very well-liked dishes amongst the CNY celebration food.  A popular dish that served at most zi char stalls and restaurants. Of course ... the prices hiked during festive season too.

We have been feasting with too much meaty stuffs during the CNY celebration week. So instead of using prawns, I tried out with just asparagus, so called "a vegetable dish". I have adopted asparagus 芦笋 in cooking some CNY dishes as it sounds auspicious like 顺顺, 如意顺利 {proceed smoothly in whatever you do} ^-^!
Anyway, glad that my family liked it as I again 'agak-agak' guesstimate the taste and ingredients.

Butter Oats Asparagus
Serves 4
Ingredients :
1 bundle asparagus about 200g
100g unsalted butter (you can use salted butter and omit/reduce the salt)
100g plain oats or cereal (I used rolled oats)
3 - 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 - 3 red chilli padi, deseed and thinly sliced
Curry leaves, a handful just the leaves without stem. Wash clean and pat dry with kitchen towel.
1 - 2 tablespoons sugar (adjust the sweetness to your preference).
Pinch of salt to taste
Cooking oil for pan-frying the asparagus

Method:
1) Wash, rinse and drain the asparagus in colander.  Cut and discard about 1cm of bottom stalk. Cut diagonally about 1 inch long lengthwise.

2) In a wok or frying pan, heat some cooking oil with medium flame.
Pan-fry the asparagus for about 2 minutes, remove and set aside. Lightly pat with kitchen towel to drain off any excess oil.

3) Using the same wok or frying pan, wipe clean the excess oil with some kitchen towel. Melt the butter over low flame.  Stir-fry the garlic followed by chilli padi and curry leaves until fragrant. The curry leaves looked crisp at this stage and you could also smell the aroma of chilli and curry leaves.

4) Add in the oats and sugar, quickly stir them around. Pour in the asparagus, pinch of salt and coat with oats mixture evenly for about a minute. (Note: use low flame as the oats will be browned very quickly in high heat).

Off the flame, dish to a serving plate and serve immediately.

We loved the fragrance of butter & curry leaves. Mouthful of crispy crunchy oats a perfect complement to the asparagus! Enjoy!

Here's wishing everyone 顺顺利利 , 万事如意in Year of the Red Fire Monkey! 

☆☆《《《☆》》》☆☆

Linking this post to Cook & Celebrate Chinese New Year 2016 hosted by Yen from GoodyFoodies, Diana from The Domestic Goddess Wannabe and Zoe from Bake for Happy Kids