food 4 tots

Pasta with minced meat and dried oysters

spaghetti, pasta, minced meat, dried oysters, Chinese oysters, dried mussels, food-4tots, one dish meal, recipe for toddlers


It’s almost three weeks since my last posting. We went back to my hubby’s hometown to celebrate this Lunar New Year and reunite with our family members and relatives, catch up with old friends and ex-colleagues, as well as to indulge in those “bad for health, hard to resist and once a year not-to-be missed” festival dishes and goodies (feeling guilty now after gaining weight ). Even though we had a shorter holiday break as compared to the previous year, it still took me quite a while to tune back to my “wokking” mode. Anyway, that’s quite usual of me after a holiday break. Sorry to keep you waiting for my update.


During this Lunar New Year, most of the stalls in the wet market were closed for as long as a week. As for the remaining stalls that operated as usual, the vegetables they sold were not fresh at all. Without much choice, I had self-improvised with whatever I could salvage from my fridge to prepare a quick and easy one dish meal for my family. Thus, it led to the creation of this “East meets West” pasta dish. It’s based on my mother-in-law’s signature dish “braised dried oysters and minced meat (蚝豉松) which I had posted earlier.


Dried oysters (蚝豉) are commonly found in Cantonese cuisine during Chinese New Year because this ingredient sounds auspicious in Cantonese pronunciation. Dried oyster (蚝豉) means good business (好市). Usually the dried oysters are mainly imported from Japanese and Korea. I personally prefer Japanese dried oysters because the texture is chunkier and tastier as compared to those originating from Korea.


spaghetti, pasta, minced meat, dried oysters, Chinese oysters, food-4tots, one dish meal, recipe for toddlers


To make this meal more wholesome, I added pressed tofu (tau gua 豆干) and edamame (salted soy beans). You can substitute edamame with green peas. Though I served it with durum wheat spaghetti, you are free to choose any kind of pasta you like. If you are not a fan of pasta, serve it with Chinese noodles, rice or congee are equally delicious as well. As you can see, there are many ways to recreate a dish. So put on your thinking cap and be creative!


There are still two more days left before the Lunar New Year celebration ends. May you and your family have a bountiful of Luck and Joy in this Year of Rabbit!


I am submitting this dish to Presto Pasta Night, founded by Ruth of Once Upon A Feast , and hosted by Pia of Cook with Pia this week.


>>>> Click on PAGE 2 BELOW for pasta with minced meat and dried oysters recipe…………….

If you like this article, please share:

Pin It!

47 Comments

  1. Wow I really wasn’t expecting minced meat to look so wonderful! Great presentation and I like the beans for a bit of healthy veggies and fiber, too!

  2. j3ss kitch3n says:

    oh my, looking at your noodles and looking right now at my beehoon for lunch makes me want to throw the whole pack away and grab yours! looks so delicious!

  3. I like this type of pasta or noodle but must minus away the dried oyster, I afraid of the smell and taste 😛

    • food-4tots says:

      Jess: If you use my mother-in-law’s recipe to braise the dried oysters, the smell and taste of the chopped oysters will be milder (in fact, tastier) as compared to those whole oysters served in CNY dishes. Do give it a try! 😉

  4. Looks really good!I would love to try it with noodles!

  5. noobcook says:

    Love this Chines-style pasta dish, looks very yummy!

  6. Joanne says:

    Welcome home! I’m glad to hear you had such a fun trip!

    What a delicious pasta sauce…I bet the oysters give it such a great flavor!

  7. mycookinghut says:

    I love this pasta.. looks very appetising!

  8. tigerfish says:

    I cooked a minced meat dish recently too and have my own take on the “secret” ingredient: not dried oysters though. Totally love the sauce with steamed rice. Am cooking again soon. Maybe next round, I can toss them with pasta.

  9. anncoo says:

    Yummy! This reminds me the 炸酱面 I recently made, will use pasta the next round 🙂

  10. this is truly awesome, a fusion pasta!

  11. Alice says:

    Looks so yummy! Great food for lunch! *drooling*

  12. marla says:

    It is great to see you back and posting delicious recipes. The dried oysters sound and look awesome with this pasta.

  13. peachkins says:

    wow! I’m lovin’ the looks of your pasta dish!

  14. CNY is a great time to reunion with our family. Welcome back. Thanks for bringing us this intriguing pasta!

  15. Ching @ LCOM says:

    Looks so delicious! What a treat with dried oyster.

  16. LK, what a perfect east meets west dish! Wish I could have a large plate of this right now hehe

  17. Kathryn says:

    Yum! It kinda looks like spaghetti bolognese minus the tomatoes and plus some oysters! What a unique recipe! I’ll have to try this.

  18. A great looking pasta! Love that you have added dried oysters in it.

  19. lena says:

    Happy Chap Goh Mei! this really sounds good, i love the aroma of the dried oysters in cooking, even without the salted soy bean is good enough for me.

  20. KY says:

    This is very creative of you! Who would have thought of pasta with dried oysters. 😉

    I’m forwarding 2 awards to you, ‘One Lovely Blog’ and ‘Stylish Blogger Award’. You can read the details on my blog. 🙂

  21. Hello LK! I thought I had commented on this but apparently not.. Such a clever way to use dried oyster! I’m pretty sure I have an unused packet lurking about someplace…

  22. Kana says:

    Hi, Thanks for this recipe I tried it on Saturday night and my partner loved it. I use shanghai noodles instead and it still tasted fabulous.

    • food-4tots says:

      Kana: Thanks for your wonderful feedback. So glad that it suits your partner’s taste bud. I love Shanghai noodles too and will try to use it when I make this recipe again. 🙂

  23. rrichnow says:

    I think this has to be one of if not the worst recipe I’ve seen. I can’t imagine all those ingredients singularly much less altogether assaulting my pallet with such shiver me timbers shuddering blecch!

    • food-4tots says:

      Rrichnow: Thanks for dropping by and your sincere comment. I’m sorry that the ingredients sound weird to you, but this recipe was tried and tested (and well accepted too!) by Ms Kana who dropped me her positive feedback on 20 March 2011.

  24. John says:

    Hello food-4tots,

    I’ve just searched your site and I’m very pleased with it. I like your blog content and design. I have a food and drink blog, which features about food and drink for all age groups.

    I would like to feature you in “My Favorite Links” section. We are always looking to feature new sites that have content relevant to our readers and would love it if you share us with your readers as well.

    Every month i get more than 2000 views on my blog. I look forward to hearing from you about being in “My Favourite Links” section, and feel free to ask me if you have any other questions about my blog.

    My Blog: http://tipsonfoodanddrinks.wordpress.com/

    Thanks

    John

Leave a comment to Jess @ Bakericious