Pork

Stir Fry Bitter Gourd with 妖肉 in Salted Black Beans

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Stir Fry Bitter Gourd with 妖肉 in Salted Black Beans

I am throwing down the gauntlet for this recipe, it super heightens umami in an amazing manner that I can’t even begin to describe it. Like they say, the proof of the pudding is in the tasting.

This twist to an old recipe that my mum always made looks likely to stay in my arsenal of recipes. Instead of the usual beef stir fry slices, I am using “yeow” meat or in Mandarin 妖肉 as I so fondly refer to that prized cut of pork.

Sliced thinly and simply marinated with light soya sauce and white pepper yields a flavour that is out of this world. Perfect, at least it is in my culinary journey so far.

The bitter gourd fried using the pan flip method and hot oil, flung up and down to a sweetened tenderness that is just fabulous. The key is to cook the ingredients separately and then bringing them together later on to cook together.

Recipe

Ingredients

A whole Bitter Gourd (sliced thinly or about half a centimetre thick)
2-3 tsp of Salted Black Beans
4-5 cloves of Garlic (bruised)
50 grams of “Yeow” 妖肉 (in hokkien it is called “yo lai ba”)
Light Soya Sauce
Thai Fish Sauce
White Pepper
Olive Oil

Method

1. Slice the pork into thin slices and then marinate in light soya sauce about 2 tsp. Add some white pepper. Leave the pork slices to marinate for about 5 minutes.

2. Bruise or crush the garlic, no need to mince. Then heat 3-4 table spoons of oil in the wok and stir fry the garlic pieces. Fry until the sides are slightly brown. Then add the black beans in to stir fry. Then add the marinated pork.

3. Stir Fry the pork until it starts to change colours and the water content starts to form what looks like the sauce.

4. Reserve the pork slices aside once the meat texture start to change colours.

5. In the same pan, wash and heat another 3-4 tbsp of oil. This time around, you are frying the bitter gourd using the pan flip method. Fry until the bitter gourd is softened and tender (not mushy). Add a drizzle of Thai dish sauce to the bitter gourd pieces and continue to stir fry. The key I believe is the separate frying of the bitter gourd and the addition of fish sauce.

6. Once the bitter gourd is softened, add the reserved (from just now) meat and combine the ingredients. Keep frying and ensure that the ingredients are cooked and that there is now a confluence of flavours.

7. Serve with steamed rice.

Bon Appetit!

Pigtail Black Bean Soup

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Pigtail Black Bean Soup

The ubiquitous Pigtail Black Bean Soup. This soup is as Chinese as any soup could be. Every time I think of this soup, I am reminded of Brad Pitt. The names of the ingredients have elements of his name which seemed quite unfortunate really.

Don’t get me wrong, I love his portrayal of characters in his movies. Just that with his name as iconic as that, it seem to rhyme with the name of the soup.

Anyway, I heard this soup makes your black hair blacker and shiny. Not sure if it is true or not. I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as it is a good bowl of soup with delicious pigtails.

I bought 4 pigtails for this soup, so the flavour sure to be power. Plus I added a piece of dried cuttlefish to boost the flavour as well, so no excuse for it to not taste great. A very easy recipe especially with the thermal cooker.

Recipe

Ingredients

4 Pigtails (chopped)
1 bowl of Black Beans (pre-soaked overnight)
10 Wolfberries
5 large Red Dates
Half piece of Dried Cuttlefish
1 tsp Sea Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Place the pigtail (frozen) into the pot. Dump in the pre-soaked black beans. Add the wolfberries, red dates and cuttlefish. Finish off with a tsp of salt.

2. Once water is boiled, add into the pot. Turn fire to high and boil for at least 20 minutes. Then place the pot into the thermal cooker to simmer for at least 12 hours. Re-boil it tonight. The soup sure nice one.

Bon Appetit!

Siam Square Mookata (Review)

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Siam Square Mookata (Review)

It’s date night and thank God for precious date nights after marriage. My parents offered to take care of the toddler while we enjoyed a semblance of time together when we were dating. Thank God for understanding parents.

And as my aunty told me before so wisely, “don’t waste time watching movies when you date.. Go have a meal..” she advised. Those were words worth its weight in gold. The simple reasoning behind those words were, you can’t get to know and understand each other if you don’t communicate. Conversations over a good meal are way better than watching a movie.

So we decided to have Thai BBQ for dinner as we could better afford the time and what better place than to try out Thai Mookata Steamboat and BBQ (in a nutshell it is BBQ meats, seafoods and vegetables on a rather unique looking hotplate with soup combination). I did a search and realised that there was only one outlet in Singapore. It was at East Coast Road and kind of out of the way.

Also I knew it can’t be true as I was sure there were plenty more of these Thai BBQ places around, most notably the ones located all over Golden Mile Complex. So I did another search but this time more ambiguous and that result yielded more than 50 weblinks of Thai BBQ places in Singapore. Nice.

Plus my friend told me that there was a tiny stall at a coffee shop located at Block 332 Ang Mo Kio Ave 8 (just behind Christ The King Catholic Church). Siam Square Mookata was the name of that stall and it seems the reviews of the place are that they were “cheap and good”.

That sounded good with us and off we went. I remembered there was a time almost all of our construction was completed by Thai foreign workers. And that just makes sense that Thai food places begun springing up all over the island to cater to their tastes and needs and over time everyone loves Thai foods as well.

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It was just a tiny little stall space in a coffee shop and their BBQ plates of ingredients were reasonably priced at either $1.80, $2.80 or greater as you order the more premium stuff like scallops ($3.80).

They have a rather interesting price menu where they offer ala carte prices first and if you feel at any one time you would wanna go all out at the buffet, you can change to buffet price (about $29 per person). Of course the caveat is you can only switch to buffet price if you are still ordering another round of items and not when you are paying up. But the stall people are very nice about it, they will frequently ask if we wanted to convert to buffet. Such nice people, always thinking for their customers.

Apart from that, the freshness of the ingredients was undeniably good, and for what it’s worth, the entire experience was very nice. They offered both marinated and meats without marinate, but I preferred them plain without the sauces. They taste much nicer after BBQ-ing. Plus it wasn’t crowded even at dinner time, so that was an added bonus. I always love these quaint coffee shop places that are located next to a big spacious carpark, it just gives me a feeling of comfort and I am naturally at ease.

Conclusion

So would I go again? Maybe, if I lived nearer. They didn’t offer anything very special, and in the end we almost ordered the equivalent of their buffet price. But still a very nice experience.

Yu Kee Bak Chor Mee (Review)

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Yu Kee Bak Chor Mee (Review)

The NTUC Foodfare at Sembawang MRT just opened after a brief period of renovation and this time around I think they got it right. The layout of the place is now more sensible and it actually is much more spacious for their customers. Maybe they heard the cries of the populous masses that flow through their doors everyday.

But that’s not the purpose of my rambling, don’t worry. I don’t usually rant and rave about food court renovation designs.

So it seems Yu Kee has opened its own Bak Chor Mee. Yes, the famous Duck Rice guys are also selling BCM. I can’t say that I would disagree with their move, after all there is no existing Bak Chor Mee place at the food court.

So by this offering, their profits increase. People are predisposed to eating bak chor mee in the morning especially me. I love bcm and I can eat it everyday. It is comfort food to me.

So the question is, “is this yu kee bak chor mee any good?” The honest answer would be, “it fills the gap” (tongue in cheek). It is not exactly the best bcm, but it has all the elements of a standard bcm should carry.

My wife thinks I love bcm too much to give these guys a bad review. But there is nothing much to penalise them for. It’s not fantastic but it is not bad either. And especially so in the early morning when the other shops are not yet functioning, I think they make a very nice bak chor mee.

Try it if you are nearby, but I won’t drive my Ferrari down for this.

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Special Fried Egg

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Special Fried Egg

I called this dish Special Fried Egg because I really didn’t want to call it Fried Egg with Prawns Pork Minced and French Beans. That would be a tad too long for a title of dish, and remembering that it is important to name your dishes so that it won’t be too obvious. So there, Special Fried Egg.

Of course there is nothing very special about this dish except that it has quite a few ingredients all combined together. Fresh glass prawns are really good for this although a tad expensive. You may just use grey shrimp. Much cheaper and you won’t burn a hole in the wallet. Add regular minced pork and French beans and there you go. Comfort food that every kid who used to eat at home before fast food chains came along and dominated our tastebuds with salt and all things unwholesome.

Putting this special fried egg together was really a walk down memory lane for me. My nanny used to cook this dish for lunch every other week. It has become somewhat a cult classic for me. The taste, textures, the classic burnt edges. They all make up what this classic dish should be.

Recipe

Ingredients

3 large Glass Prawns
60 grams of Minced Pork
10 pieces of French Beans
2 whole Eggs
Light Soya Sauce

Method

1. De-shell the prawns and use only the meat. Chop into a paste. Then mix with the minced pork. Now use a heavy cleaver, chop and continue to combine the two ingredients until they become one paste.

2. Cut the French Beans into small pieces. Discard either ends. Assemble all the ingredients into a large bowl. Crack the eggs into the bowl. The egg acts as the social glue. Add soya sauce about 1 tbsp.

3. Now use your hands to mix. I like getting my hands dirty. Leave it to marinate a while.

4. Add oil into a wok (if you don’t know what a good wok looks like, you may want to refer to this Helen Chen non-stick pan). Turn heat up high. Pour the mixture into the frying pan and allow it to cook and congeal. Then do the magic flip and repeat on the other side. Use as much oil as you like. It has to be cooked nicely.

Bon Appetit!

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Special Fried Egg

Braised Pork Trotters

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Braised Pork Trotters

My favourite pork trotters in soya sauce. Finally found a recipe that I think works, but decided to cook it the way that I like to. Sorry the photo doesn’t do the dish justice. But I wanted to show that I took a short cut when preparing this dish.

In a nutshell, everything was thrown into the pot without marination. Reason is because this is a braised dish. Braising means you got to cook it for a reasonably amount of time and that means load everything essential into the pot and let the heat melt the gelatinous fat and bond everyone together.

In the end, it was a very nicely cooked pork trotters. Done the Ho Sim Lang way. It’s so easily done, anyone can do it also.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 whole foreleg of Pork (i’m sure you know I meant Pig)
5-6 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce (more if you like)
2 tbsp of Light Soya Sauce
2 tbsp of Oyster Sauce
5cm length of Cinnamon Stick
2 pcs Star Anise
5 pcs Cloves
2 tbsp Castor Sugar
2 tbsp Corn Flour
5 pcs of Dried Shitake Mushrooms
Half a bowl of Hakka Rice Wine
Water (enough to cover the meats)

Method

1. Place the foreleg into the pot. Drop the cinnamon stick, star anise and cloves in. Add the dark soya sauce, light soya sauce, oyster sauce and rice wine in. Add in hot boiling water and make sure the water cover the meats. Boil until water is bubbling. Do a taste test for saltiness. Meanwhile soak the Shitake mushrooms in hot water. Once soaked, cut off the stems and slice and continue soaking.

2. This is the part that is tricky. You want to taste the correct taste before you let the heat take over. If it is not salty enough, add more dark soya sauce. If it is not sweet enough add more castor sugar. The reason why this is crucial is because you are allowing the saltiness of the broth to braise the meats. So it has to be reasonably salty but not too salty. After your taste test is done, mix in the corn flour (mix with some water first) mixture. Add the soaked mushrooms.

3. Cover the lid. Turn the heat to low and go read a book. After about one hour and thirty minutes. It should be nicely done.

Bon Appetit!

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Braised Pork Trotters

Pumpkin Tomato Soup

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Pumpkin Tomato Soup

Interestingly the vegetables and meat arranged in that manner kind of looks cheesy and seem to resemble the letters “COI”, which seem also to mean conflict of interest. Honestly, I don’t see how there could be any conflict of interest here. Conflict of Ingredients maybe? Again it is not likely either because this soup tasted absolutely gorgeous.

But one thing though, the pumpkin after 12 hours of thermal cooker magic kind of makes it mushy and not the texture that I wanted. I was a tad disappointed. The taste of the soup on the other hand was fantastic and that was all that matters. Taste wise, it was a home-run. So that’s two thumbs up. Hurray.

Recipe

Ingredients

A small slice of Pumpkin (just the regular type will do)
A large Tomato (cut into quarts)
250 grams of Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Slice the pumpkin into chunks. Quart the tomato. Place the pork ribs into the pot. Dump the prepared ingredients into the pot. Pour the hot water into the pot, add a little salt and boil for about 20 minutes on high heat before placing the pot into the thermal cooker. Allow at least 12 hours to cook the soup.

Bon Appetit!

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Pumpkin Chunks

Old Cucumber Melon Soup

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Old Cucumber Melon Soup

The old Cucumber Melon can readily be found almost everywhere and is available at your local wet market grocer or NTUC supermarkets. But for some reason, I have resisted cooking it until now.

Don’t get me wrong, I love this traditional soup especially at the Chinese restaurants and sometimes at the food courts. But like the Burdock Soup 牛蒡汤, I have only recently started cooking this melon soup.

Simple, nutritious and delicious. If I can do it, anyone can.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 medium size Old Cucumber Melon
10 pieces Dried Red Dates
5 pieces Dried Scallops
2 pieces Dried Octopus
250 grams Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Cut the old Cucumber in half and gorge out the seeds with a spoon. Then chop into chunks. Place the pork ribs, red dates, scallops, octopus and the prepared melon into the pot. Add a little salt. Pour in a kettle of boiling water into the pot.

2. Boil for at least 20 minutes. Then place the pot in the thermal cooker and re-heat after 12 hours when you are back from work.

Bon Appetit!

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Old Cucumber Melon

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Delicious Old Cucumber Melon Soup

Pork Belly in Soya Sauce

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Pork Belly in Soya Sauce

I am making a very simple pork belly in soya sauce. This dish is great for breakfast or if you wanna have it with buns and lots of Chinese Parsley. Plus I bought a different brand and type of soya sauce recently and this is the thick type, compared to the more diluted one. I wanted to try out and see if this works as well.

Some of you may remember that I made something quite similar before. That was the Braised Pork Belly in Soya Sauce. Maybe you might ask how different is this version compared to that one. The difference is largely in the soya sauce. I am also adding galangal in this version, so I think it will have a slightly different taste to it.

I left out the mushrooms, so it would be interesting to try out this plain version. Also I had already pre-cooked the pork belly when I prepared my Boiled Pork Belly for the soup stock. So cooking time is merely to heat it up and it is great for quick meals if you are short for time.

Recipe

Ingredients

200 grams of Pork Belly (cut in chunks, pre-cooked)
2 tbsp of Dark Soya Sauce
1 Cinnamon stick (about 5cm)
3-4 cm Galangal (blue ginger)

Method

1. Place the pork belly (usually it is frozen) into the claypot. Add the soya sauce, cinnamon stick and galangal. For the blue ginger, you can either slice or bruise it.

2. Add a one and half cups of water and boil at low heat for about 45 minutes. Keep stirring to prevent the sauce from burning. Once done, garnish with Chinese Parsley if you like.

Bon Appetit!

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Lotus Peanut and Pork Ribs Soup

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Lotus Peanut and Pork Ribs Soup

I have always wanted to make this soup, but have until now been unable to do so for one reason or another. This was largely due to the fact that I was always forgetting to buy that one crucial ingredient – peanuts.

Now that I have gotten over that hurdle. I can finally make this Lotus Peanut and Pork Ribs Soup. Actually I believe I have made this soup once before but the peanuts didn’t cook as well as I would have liked. But that could also be because I was boiling the soup as opposed to cooking it in a 12 hour thermal cooking process. Also, I didn’t pre-soak the peanuts as most tradition home cooks would advise.

So I did it my way, and to be honest, the experts are right. You really need to pre-soak the peanuts overnight. Oh well, at least I managed to get a rather soft peanut, but not soft enough. Plus I kept it in the thermal cooker for more than 12 hours. Didn’t know peanuts are so resilient.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 long tube Lotus Root (they say the lotus root should be covered in mud, otherwise not so good quality)
A bowl of Peanuts (better to pre-soak overnight, I tried not soaking and failed, so please soak)
1-2 pieces of Dried Octopus
250 grams of Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Place frozen pork ribs into pot. Throw the pre-soaked peanuts into the pot. Throw the dried octopus into the pot also. Wash the lotus root, shave off the skin, then slice the tubular root into beautiful shapes. After that throw into the pot. Add a pinch of salt to taste. Add boiling hot water. Boil for 20 minutes. After that, place in thermal cooker for 12 hours and let the magic happen.

Bon Appetit!

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Sliced Lotus Root

Carrot Corn Tomato Mushroom Soup

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Carrot Corn Tomato Mushroom Soup

I tend to use only two types of meats for my soup base. Either pork ribs from Indonesia or carcass of chicken. Both yields a very lovely soup with my preference leaning more towards a pork base flavoured soup. But I tend to leave out the meats that flavours the soup when naming them because it just gets too wordy. Don’t worry, I will still make mention of them in the ingredient listing.

So today’s soup puts a twist to the ever popular ABC soup. The confinement recipe is great for mummies who are breastfeeding, somehow what you eat is what baby will grow to love when they grow up. I am adding dried shitake mushrooms into the soup today and I know that it will taste absolutely fantastic.

Just an update on the soup that I was trying out, the Carrot Radish Bamboo Burdock Soup. Interestingly the soup was suitably muted, which came as a surprise as I was sure the taste of the soup would have a strong radish or burdock flavour. Instead there was no outstanding ingredient that stood out. It tasted very nice.

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams of Pork Ribs
1 medium sized Carrot
1 ear of Corn
1 large Tomato
4-5 pieces Dried Shitake Mushrooms
Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Peel and chop the carrot into chunks. Chop the corn into 8 pieces. Quart the tomato. Soak the mushrooms and then slice them. Place the frozen pork ribs into the pot. Then add the rest of the prepared ingredients into the pot.

2. Once water is boiled, add into the pot. Add salt to taste. Boil at high heat for 20 minutes.

3. After boiling, place the pot into the thermal cooker and come back 12 hours later to have it for dinner.

Bon Appetit!

Carrot Radish Bamboo Burdock Soup

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Carrot Radish Bamboo Burdock Soup

There are times when clarity is no longer there, and we are now into unchartered waters. I looked into my fridge and the slew of ingredients that I bought over the weekend, and for the life of me, I couldn’t recall the recipe that someone suggested for me to do.

That problem could be compounded by the fact that information fly at us all the time, in simultaneous fashion, and unstoppable. To the point that if we heard something interesting, and if we didn’t make a special effort to note it down, then it is likely to be lost in the wasteland of forgotten words.

I vaguely remember it, and it goes something like, this plus this plus that and that. Bah! I can’t remember. Forget it.

So today, I am making carrot radish bamboo burdock soup. Making it in the way that I always like to do, and that is to keep it simple.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 medium Carrot
1 medium White Radish
1 packet of fresh Bamboo
80-90 cm length of Burdock Root
250 grams Pork Ribs
Sea Salt

Method

1. Peel, shave the carrot, the radish and the burdock. If you want, you may soak the burdock first. Otherwise throw the prepared ingredients into the pot. By this time the frozen pork ribs would already be in place and waiting (with open arms and open palms).

2. Slice the bamboo, not too small slices, you don’t want the bamboo to “disappear”. Again once it is ready, just throw them into the pot. Add two pinches of salt and add a boiling kettle of water. Turn heat high and boil furiously for at least 20 minutes. After that is done, place the pot into the thermal cooker and allow time and heat to work the romance. Come back 12 hours later, and it’s ready.

Bon Appetit!

Pork Trotters in Black Sweet Vinegar

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Pork Trotters in Black Sweet Vinegar

I found a bottle of black sweet vinegar in my cupboard and thought – better quickly use or else spoy. So I decided to make Pork Trotters in Black Sweet Vinegar. Nice bo? Well nice or not, we will know after I cook it.

Incidentally if you are a mother-to-be without a confinement nanny, you may wish to follow this recipe and cook for yourself. If you can’t cook, ask your husband to cook. If he can’t cook, then too bad. But this recipe is so easy, anyone can cook. So no excuse if your husband cannot cook. Just follow only.

If you are a traditional mother-in-law-to-be and you don’t know this Cantonese delicacy, dont be ashamed. I also not Cantonese. I just see what works and if it works, then we all learn together. Sure nice one. However, if you want to be strict about it, then maybe this recipe might not work the magic for you. But if you wanna make it for dinner (like what I am doing) then can try-and-see.

Ready? Let’s try it.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 Kg Pork Trotters (pork hand)
4 large Eggs (hard boil)
100 grams Ginger
100 grams Rock Sugar
5 tbsp Sesame Seed Oil
1 bottle of Chan Kong Thye Black Sweet Rice Vinegar

Method

1. Blanch the pork trotters to remove scum. Then discard water. Pour sesame seed oil in wok and fry ginger (rough sliced) until fragrant. Add blanched pork trotters to fry until seared.

2. Boil the eggs until they become hard boiled eggs. Once everybody is ready, dump them all into a large pot and add the entire bottle of black sweet rice vinegar and 1 bottle of water (use the same bottle). Add rock sugar. Do a basic taste test. If nice then sure nice one.

3. Boil at high heat until bubbling, then reduce heat to allow it to simmer. You generally want to reduce the amount of liquid by about half. This will thicken the sauce and at the same time allow the fatty parts to gelatinized (is that a word?!) and your pork trotters will be absolutely fabulous.

Bon Appetit!

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Blanched Pork Trotters

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Rough Sliced Ginger

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Stir Fry Pork Trotters and Ginger in Sesame Seed Oil

Szechuan Minced Pork

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Szechuan Minced Pork

My family loves Szechuan vegetables stir fry with minced pork. It’s Wah-Shiok!! Just thinking about it makes me immediately 想要吃.

So I decided that we will have porridge today for lunch and cook up a dish of White Stomach Fish 白肚鱼. Just went to my regular fishmonger this morning and I saw a whole tray of that lovely fish and thought, mai-tu-liao and bought the entire tray. They look fresh. Well we will know soon. Sometimes buying fish is a hit and miss experience. The trial is to build trust between you and your fishmonger.

Oh a note on yesterday’s White Fungus Huai San and Chicken Soup, the wife said it was nice in flavour but that I made a blunder of not soaking the white fungus first! It was such a newbie mistake coming to think of it. Sigh. So naturally when the soup was ready, it was dry. The soup had all gone into the spongy white fungus!

Anyhoo. We learn from our mistakes and strive to be better! Back to the dish of the day. This is gonna be good. Try it.

Recipe

Ingredients

50-60 grams Minced Pork
1 small packet of ready-to-fry Szechuan Vegetable (you can get these from NTUC)
4 cloves Garlic
Dark Soya Sauce
Chinese Parsley

Method

1. Put a little oil, about a tablespoon into the frying pan. Minced the garlic and stir fry a little until fragrant. Add minced pork into the pan. No seasoning required. Fry until meat is about cooked.

2. Add Szechuan Vegetable and continue frying. Add a little bit of dark soya sauce and fry until fragrant. Perfection never look and tasted so good. Garnish with Chinese Parsley.

Bon Appetit!

Burdock Soup 牛蒡汤

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Burdock Soup 牛蒡汤

Some say you are what you eat. Eat wood, you become wood. Burdock root is well as truly wood. The woody stem of the Greater Burdock plant seems to have some nutritional goodness other then looking like a tree branch.

It tastes like ginseng and apparently help with eczematic skin conditions. Otherwise it is a very delicious soup to drink. The wife loves it.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 Metre length of Greater Burdock
Handful of Wolfberries
Handful of Dried Red Dates
250 grams of Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Shave the bark off the burdock. Sliced it diagonally and soak in hot water for about ten minutes.

2. Boil a large kettle of water. Pour it into a pot. Turn on high heat. Add pork ribs, Wolfberries, red dates, and when the burdock is soaked, add it in as well.

3. Boil at high heat for 30 minutes with lid on. Serve. The ribs might not be drop off the bone tender but the soup is very good.

Bon Appetit!!

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Boiling the ingredients

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Greater Burdock Root

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Greater Burdock Root

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Greater Burdock Root

Roasted Pork Belly

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Roasted Pork Belly

If you like your kitchen to be smoking with delicious fumes, then this is the recipe for you. Contrary to what most cooks would have you believe, this is one recipe that requires you to have a huge exhaust or a airy kitchen. Yup, it’s gonna get real smoky indeed.

I am making roasted pork belly today and it is the easiest recipe in the world to do (I know I say this is easy and that is easy a lot, but it’s true!). There is no mystery about this seemingly difficult dish. All you need are the right ingredients, an oven or even the humble air fryer (which I don’t really recommend) and you are all ready to do this.

When it is done, you will get a kitchen full of smoke and a delicious crackling roasted pork belly or sio bak, and you will love it. Here’s how to make magic happen.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 piece slab of fresh Pork Belly (usually the butcher would have already cut the portion out for display)
Five Spice Powder
Shao Xin Hua Tiao Jiu
White Pepper Powder
Coarse Sea Salt

Method

1. Rub the Shao Xin Hua Tiao Jiu all over the underside of the pork belly. Be generous. Then rub a generous helping of white pepper on the same side. Don’t be stingy. Then rub the five spice powder onto the same side and make it generous as well. Lastly rub the sea salt (generously) on that same side. A lot of cooks suggest that you poke the skin with a sharp fork or sharp skewers. I think it is optional.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees. Place the marinated meat on a wire rack and the rack on a tray. Then place the pork belly into the oven and bake for 50 minutes. By the time it is nearly done, your kitchen should be covered in smoke. Make sure your exhaust is turned to full power.

3. Take the nicely roasted pork belly out to rest. Then with a sharp knife, slice and enjoy the cackle of crispy skin.

Bon Appetit!

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Ingredients

Sweet Corn, Carrots and Tomato Soup

Sweet Corn, Carrots and Tomato Soup

The item on the extreme right is frozen pork ribs just in case you are wondering. This is one of my favourite no-brainer soup for those days when you don’t want to plan or worry too much about what to cook for dinner. Some families call it the A-B-C Soup in Singapore, a hearty nutritious soup that every family with a young kid would love.

The ingredients when cooked together will truly produce one of the best flavours ever. Guaranteed that you and your family will love it. All natural and wholesome ingredients – what’s not to love? The sweet corn that I used is the covered one that when you unveil, is a sweet crunchy vegetable. I was surprised how sweet it was and even sweeter if they are from the farms in Cameron Highlands, Malaysia. For the tomatoes, some like the soup to be sourish, so if you’re one of those that like it like that, then add more tomatoes. So after adding all the ingredients, the soup would be already be very tasty. Just a tablespoon of salt and 12 hours of thermal cooking, it would be ready to be served.

I also loved Shiitake Mushrooms in my soups. Normally I use the dried ones as they tend to keep longer. However, my wife and son are not fans, and so I decided to leave it out.

Some of you may ask, why use a Thermal Cooker instead of a regular pot over fire? Well the thermal cooker will help tenderise the meats – kind of like a slow cooker, and everything is just more flavourful if you cooked your meals that way. It works for busy families, where you would cook the soup in the mornings before heading off to the office, and then come back to re-heat it when you’re home at night.

A pot of A-B-C Soup is just perfect with steamed rice or Maggi noodles.

Anyway, I said all that to say that this recipe is so easy to prepare. Anyone can do it. Easy until I wanna cry.

* please note that I have included amazon affiliate links to the products I use, so check them out if you wish to support me, and if I can get these items from NTUC Supermarket, I would just indicate.

Recipe

Ingredients

200 grams Pork Ribs (Indonesian pork is the best)
1 ear (haha) of Sweet Corn (better still if they are from Cameron Highlands, Malaysia, those are white in colour and very juicy and sweet)
2 medium Carrots
1 medium Tomato or up to three Tomatoes (for that slightly sour taste)
1 Tablespoon of Salt

Method

1. Boil a kettle of water. Place frozen pork ribs in thermal pot. The thermal cooker that I use for this is the Zojirushi SN-XAE60 Thermal Pot, just in case you’re interested to mimic the same cooking conditions.

2. Chop the corn into 8 parts. Slice the carrots into bite sized chunks. Quart the tomatoes. Dump everything into the pot. Drop in 1 tablespoon of salt. Pour in the hot water until it covers all the ingredients.

3. Turn on high heat for 15 minutes. Make sure the lid is on, and the water is bubbling. Then turn off the fire, and place the pot into the thermal cooker itself and close the outer lid. You can serve it 12 hours later or when you’re back from work, it would be perfect for dinner.

Bon Appetit!

Tua Cai with Stewed Pork

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Tua Cai with Stewed Pork

This is my wife’s favourite dish and one that she couldn’t wait for me to come back home to cook. So she decided that she would cook it herself whilst I was still caught in the typical expressway rush hour jam.

I must say she cooked the simple and delicious dish so well and made it look like a walk in the park. The tua cai is so soft and mixed with the stewed pork, it was just simply so amazing. The best part about this dish is, it is so easy to prepare.

Wanna try? Why not.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 whole Tua Cai (vegetable, easily found in wet markets)
1 can of Stewed Pork (narcissis brand)

Method

1. Wash and cut the tua cai and throw into a claypot. Open the stewed pork and dump the entire can into the pot with the vegetable.

2. Turn on high heat, with lid on, cook for about 10 minutes. After that stir and reduce heat to low and allow the tua cai to simmer in the broth. Turn off fire after 20 minutes (total cooking time 30 minutes).

3. Serve with steam rice. Easy.

Bon Appetit!

Mushroom and Ham Penne (Olive Oil)

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Mushroom and Ham Penne (Olive Oil)

Yesterday my wife and me took leave to go shopping and also have a little couple time together. We decided to have breakfast at our favourite sandwich shop called the sandwich shop and I pondered over the nondescript naming of the cafe. I guess there is no harm in calling a spade a spade.

But we were greeted with a smorgasbord of sandwiches and every permutation that we could imagine that could be placed on tiny shelves. There was roast beef, cold cuts and brie, egg mayo, wild rockets and crayfish.

Wifey wanted pasta and somehow the spirals with sundried tomatoes looked appealing as well. And so we decided on that and ate our breakfast. The pasta was cold and probably sat in the fridge chiller for a tad too long.

It was then that I vowed to myself that I would cooked a better pasta breakfast then that which we purhased at the shop. Here’s the recipe. Enjoy.

Recipe

Ingredients

1. 150 grams of Barilla Penne
2. 4-5 White Button Mushrooms
3. 2 slices of Breakfast Ham
4. 20 grams of Salted Butter
5. Pinch of Sea Salt
6. Sprinkle of Mixed Italian Herbs

Method

1. Cook the Penne in a small pot of boiling water for about 11 minutes to al dente. If you wanna make it softer, continue cooking for another 2 minutes. Don’t forget to add some sea salt.

2. In another pot, melt the butter over low heat, be careful not to burn it, and then add the sliced mushrooms to cook. Turn up the heat to medium. Flambé the mushrooms if you can. If you can’t, don’t worry, I understand.

3. Remove and reserve the mushrooms and add the shredded ham to cook in the juice of the mushrooms. Add a sprinkle of mixed Italian herbs. Cook till you can smell ham.

4. After that’s done, pour the ham and mushrooms into the penne pasta in the other pot and give it a good mix. It should look like the photo above.

Bon Appetit!

Spaghetti Carbonara

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Spaghetti Carbonara

One of my all time favourite pasta to eat as well as to prepare, the spaghetti cabonara, a cream based pasta that will tantalise your tastebuds and bring you all the way to Italy. Truly, there is no pasta that is so distinctively yummy as this one.

I made my pasta a little more creamy just so you guys can see the texture of the pasta. I am using spaghetti here instead of linguine because I still have spaghetti at home. But that said, linguine makes a better pasta as it can soak up the cream based sauce really well.

I know some recipes call for eggs and parmesan cheese, but my version doesn’t require all these, it is simple, and easy to do. Anyone can do it. So are you ready?

Recipe for 1

Ingredients

125 grams of Barilla Spaghetti
50 grams of Streaky Bacon
4-5 pcs of White Button Mushrooms
4 cloves of Garlic
100 ml of Cooking Cream
15 grams of Salted Butter
100 ml of full cream Milk
1 tsp Black Pepper
1 tsp Mixed Italian Herbs
Pinch of Sea Salt

Method

1. Firstly we cook the pasta in the pot. I use Barilla Spaghetti which cooks in 5 minutes to an al dente. Remember to add a little sea salt and olive oil. If you prefer it a little softer, add a 1 or 2 to the cooking time.

2. In another pot, stir fry the quartered button mushrooms in salted butter. I find salted butter much better to work with as opposed to unsalted butter when it comes to cooking, but if you’re baking, then perhaps unsalted butter might work better for you. Once the fragrance of the mushrooms can be inhaled (lack of a better word!) you should remove the mushrooms and set them aside. Then in the juice of the mushrooms, cook the minced garlic, cooked until fragrant. Then add the chopped streaky bacon. Fry this until the fragrance of the bacon can be breathed (still trying to find a better word!). I am not using olive oil in this recipe because butter goes better with cream in this carbonara recipe. Furthermore the oil in the streaky bacon is more delicious.

3. The pasta should be about al dente by now. You can remove the pasta or continue to cook it longer until it is softer. In the meantime, you add the cooking cream into the ingredients and cook, add the milk to dilute the carbonara sauce a little. If you like the sauce to be a little thicker, you can just use the cooking cream and leave out the milk altogether. Add herbs flakes and black pepper. A little salt to taste. Cook till the sauce is hot. After that drizzle it over the pasta and give it a good mix. Serve with grated parmesan cheese if you like, but it is already quite rich if you ask me.

Bon Appetit!

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Bitter Gourd and Pork Ribs Soup

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Bitter Gourd and Pork Ribs Soup

It seems like the unlikeliest of collaborations, more unlikely than the Lotus and Radish Soup. The bitter gourd and pork ribs is what most of us would already know, but to have an octopus swimming around in the soup, I bet the final taste would be out of this world.

As it is, the mixture of the bitterness that is in the bitter gourd juxtaposed with that of the fishy aftertaste of octopus, is probably gonna taste really yummy. I can’t wait to taste this soup tonight. Something about pork ribs that makes the soup taste so much better than chicken bones. It’s such a simple recipe anyone can do it.

Recipe

Ingredients

200 grams of Pork Ribs
1 whole Bitter Gourd
1 piece dried Octopus

Method

1. Boil water, then pour into pot with ribs and octopus and let them get acquainted. After boiling for about 10 minutes, add the sliced bitter gourd and some sea salt. Continue to boil for another 5 minutes at high heat.

2. When done, take and place in thermal cooker and eat it when you get home. Perfect.

Bon Appetit!

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Sliced Bitter Gourd

Pig’s Viscera Pork Ribs Prawn Noodle (Review)

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Pig’s Viscera Pork Ribs Prawn Noodle (Review)

Friday lunch and we all thought that we would go for our favourite kway chap stall at Tampines Round Market. The lure of the pork just doesn’t seem to let down and once it gets you in the insides, you are literally gutted and you need to go eat.

So here we are at Round Market and guess what? The kway chap is closed, it has once again dumbfounded many of their loyal patrons as to why they would close on the one day that they say that they would open. Anyway, the next best porky alternative was the Pig’s Viscera Pork Ribs Prawn Noodle. The name of the stall is a tongue twister and what in the world is viscera? Doesn’t sound too appetizing. Anyway, I decided on Pig’s tail noodle soup with added handmade meat ball and it was fantastic. Look at the picture below and tell me what is not fantastic about it. See, I am right. It is fantastic.

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What is more fantastic is that after I 加料, it was only SGD 4.00. That is unbeatable value in my humble opinion. So much 料 and still under five bucks. Very value for money.

You can miss it when you go there. There is perpetually a queue.

Bon Appetit!

Bak Kut Teh (Prime Ribs)

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Bak Kut Teh (Prime Ribs)

Up till now I have been making Bak Kut Teh using pork ribs which is fine but somehow the shiok feeling of being able to tear the meat off the bones seem to be missing. So in an attempt to recreate that old familiar Sin Ming Ave Bak Kut Teh feeling, I bought prime ribs from my local butcher. I know it will be sure nice one.

You can check out my other recipe which is basically an adaptation of Makansutra’s version if you prefer something more serious and structured (that one got YouTube video of Seetoh). But if this works for you, then do it this way.

I have basically removed all the frills and in a sense demystified the entire Bak Kut Teh experience. To me, pepper is the key ingredient. You don’t even need best quality white peppercorns. Just get the cheap cheap ones at the wet market but put more than the usual quantity. Sure peppery one. Trust me.

The picture above is exactly what it is, three simple ingredients, absolutely no other magical ingredient. Just load it up with water and the magic itself is really in the slow boiling of the prime ribs. That’s one reason why I love the thermal cooker so much, it is a slow extraction of flavour. By the end of the day, the prime ribs are soft, tender, and si beh shiok. Dip it in dark soy sauce and fresh cut red chillies and make yourself a cup of hot Chinese tea. The end result is really same same.

Recipe

Ingredients

2 large Prime Ribs
4 packets of White Peppercorns (I got the cheap cheap ones from the wet market, 50 cents per packet)
10-12 cloves of Garlic
Salt to taste

Method

1. Place the ribs, garlic (unshelled) and the peppercorns in a pot. Add water to cover the ribs. Boil at high heat for at least 15 minutes. After that dump the pot into the thermal cooker and come back home in the evening to eat. Don’t forget to add some salt.

Bon Appetit!

Ham and Cheese Sandwich

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Ham and Cheese Sandwich

The humble ham and cheese sandwich, one of my favourite sandwiches of all time. It’s got to be since considering the fact that I have been making them every morning. The recipe is so simple you can also do it. The ingredients can be purchased at cold storage or ntuc finest, not a problem. If you wanna cure the meats yourself, go ahead, nobody will stop you.

Incidentally, I am looking at getting a hydroponic system (aerogarden) to grow my own herbs like thyme, rockets and basil. I think that would so totally rock. I am always buying these herbs at the supermarket and they can cost quite a bit. So having an indoor herb garden will really be very convenient. And very cool. Need thyme? Not a problem, just pluck!

If you wanna know what goes into my sandwich, here’s the recipe.

Recipe

Ingredients

Ham – it can be any type of sandwich ham
Wild Rockets – I am not referring to Scud missiles
Butter (salted)
Cheddar Cheese squares
Whole-grain Mustard
12 grain sandwich bread

Method

1. Spread butter on bread, spread Whole-grain mustard on the other side, then layer on the cheese, the ham on the other side, add a heap of rockets.

2. Done!

Bon Appetit!!

Spicy Szechuan Vegetables with Minced and Pork Belly

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Spicy Szechuan Vegetables with Minced and Pork Belly

This is a childhood classic for me. I remember the nanny cooking this for lunch on a few occasions, although I can’t really remember the details of what she cooked though, I mean who can? It’s been so many years. Alright, I know I said I had a photographic memory before, but this is different. 

So when she told me that it was from Szechuan province, from a far away place and that it traveled very far to get to our home. It was a little unbelievable at first. She said that everyone from that place simply loves and adore the vegetable, and that they would eat it day and night. I thought that they must be extremely proud and sad at the same time eating it. I mean I would be proud knowing that the world was eating my “vegetable”, but yet at the same time, I would be sad because everyone in the world would think that it was all that we ate all day. There was probably nothing much else to eat. Of course I am sure they do eat other vegetables but as a child, we thought in absolutes.

Years past and the dish has become commonplace in many cai fan 菜饭 places. Some places do it well while others just cannot make it. Anyway, wifey wanted to eat this dish and since we had the szechuan vegetable in the fridge, I thought that it was also good time to cook it.

My rendition of the classic dish is to add pork belly and minced pork with some chilli padi and a dash of dark soy sauce. I bought my szechuan vegetable from the wet market, which basically meant that it was likely to be spicy and very high in salt content. There are different types of szechuan vegetable that are being sold in the supermarkets and these are already shredded nicely for the cook and they are not so salty. They come in a variety of spicy and non-spicy which really helps if you want to make a non-spicy version.

Recipe

Ingredients

half a dollop of Szechuan Vegetable – purchased from the wet market, high in salt content and spicy
100 grams of Pork Belly – following from the recipe for preparing boiled pork belly
150-160 grams of Minced Pork
a tbsp of Dark Soy Sauce
4-5 pcs of Garlic
4 pcs of Chilli Padi

 

Method

1. Soak the szechuan vegetables in a bowl of hot water. I realised that it is better to slice them thinly first before soaking. This would help a lot. Recommended to soak at least 30 minutes. While that is soaking, mince the garlic and heat up the oil in the wok. Fry until fragrant.

2. Add in pork belly and fry, moderate the heat to a medium. Then add the minced pork and fry until the colour just change which suggests that it is semi-cooked. Then add in the shredded szechuan vegetable along with the shredded chilli padi. Fry the dish until it is more or less cooked, then add a dash of the dark soy sauce and continue stirring. The end result should look a little bit like the picture below.

Bon Appetit!!

 

Ho Sim Lang

 

Bee Hoon with Stewed Pork

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Bee Hoon with Stewed Pork

If there were such a thing as comfort foods, then this would be it. Simple, easy to cook and none of the hassle. But to do it well would require some kung-fu skills and minor athletic agility. If you don’t have that basic requirement, no worries, just follow my recipe and you would do fine.

Wifey and me love this easy dish, quick to prepare and full of flavour. We always have a can of stewed pork trotters stashed away in the corner of our kitchen cupboard, and just nice wifey wanted to eat this for lunch. Naturally being the ever optimistic home-cook, I immediately jumped into action *think minor athletic ability* and made the most wonderful bee hoon with stewed pork.

You can too.

Recipe

Ingredients

2-3 pc of dried Bee Hoon *A1 Brand, vermicelli*
1 can of Stewed Pork Trotters *narcissis brand*
Bunch of Kai Lan *vegetables*
3-4 pc Garlic
3-4 pc Pork Belly *reserved from the 漂亮 Pork Belly*
10 pc of dried mini Scallops *buy from Chinese medicine shop*
4-5 pc of dried Shitake Mushrooms *buy from Chinese medicine shop*
1 cup of Fish Stock *optional*
2 tbsp Olive Oil

Method

1. Soak the bee hoon and mushrooms in hot water. This should take about 5-10 minutes for them to soften. Once the mushrooms are done, slice them into small strips. Meanwhile, mince garlic and chop pork belly into smaller pieces. Wash and shred the kai lan.

2. Heat the wok and pour in the oil, then stir fry the garlic over medium heat, taking care not to burn the garlic. Then immediately as the fragrance of the garlic permeates the kitchen, fry the pork belly pieces. Then add the sliced mushrooms and continue frying until fragrant. Add the fish stock and the dried scallops. Cook with lid covered for a few minutes.

3. Add the can stewed pork including the preserved oil/sauce within the can. This adds to the flavour. Then add the shredded kai lan and stir fry a little before again covering the lid to allow the vegetables to soften a little.

4. Once you have softened the kai lan, you can add the bee hoon. Mix and combine the ingredients with a food tong and ensure that the ingredients are well mixed. You may wish to add light soy sauce if you like, but I thought the flavour from the stewed pork and the mini scallops was more than sufficient. Once cooked, serve.

Bon Appetit!

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Pork with Shredded Ginger

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Pork with Shredded Ginger

“僵尸肉” as my mobile phone’s Chinese hanyupinyin text input tells me, and then my friends on Facebook tells me that the Chinese words were all wrong (Ok, so my Chinese give back my primary school teacher already).

I tried searching for the right words in Chinese, but I guess after a while, that was immaterial. What’s most important is how to make it awesome, and I think I have the perfect recipe.

The ginger must be shredded into really thin strips. You generally want them sliced thin because you would want to make sure they are crispy when you eat it later. The ginger is fried in a combination of sesame seed and olive oil. It just tastes better when you eat the dish with lots of ginger. I cooked the ginger strips in a small clay-pot because the heat is more evenly distributed than if it were cooked in a regular metal pot. Furthermore doesn’t burn so easily either. Pork with shredded ginger is also a very good confinement food for new mothers.

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams lean pork
4-5 inches young ginger
4-5 tbsp sesame seed oil
4-5 tbsp olive oil
4-5 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp dark soy sauce
White pepper

Method

1. Shred the ginger into thin strips. Meanwhile, heat the sesame and olive oil in a mini clay-pot and make sure the oil is hot before putting the ginger in to cook.

2. While the ginger is frying, slice the lean pork and allow it to marinate in the light soy sauce and white pepper. You can powder the pepper as much as you wish. Mix the pork well. You can opt to slice the pork first before frying the ginger, the choice is yours. The pork should be sliced as thinly as possible to allow for quick cooking.

3. Once the ginger turns slightly crispy, add the marinated pork into the mini clay-pot to fry. Make sure the pork changes colour to a whitish colour before adding the dark soy sauce. This is to ensure that the pork is well cooked prior to the adding of the dark soy sauce.

4. Best to cook over medium or low heat so that the pork doesn’t become too tough. Once ready serve with steam rice.

Bon Appetit!

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Fry ginger first.

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Fry pork till whitish colour.

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Add dark soy sauce only when pork is nicely cooked.

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Nicely done. Pork with shredded ginger.

Braised Pork Belly in Soya Sauce

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Braised Pork Belly in Soya Sauce

One of my favourite meat dishes which I grew up eating when we had a maid servant who was Singaporean. I used to call her Ah Soh, and it seems that was a sign of respect. Anyway, it was much later that I realized the term of reference was what my parents called her. I should have used some more polite term.

Anyway she was an excellent cook and would whip up local delicacies some of which I would refer to as our heritage dishes. I call them “heritage dishes” because if we don’t cook enough like our forefathers do and if we aren’t chefs with a passion for local cuisine, then these dishes might become a recipe most suited for the archives, and labeled as “heritage”. Dishes that our parents and their parents brought from where they came from to our shores.

I don’t know if braised pork belly in soya sauce counts as a heritage dish, but I guess if it can’t be found commonly cooked in the homes anymore, it should count as a heritage dish. For example, the delicious bak kwa is considered heritage because nobody in their right mind would attempt making it at home. I might actually make an attempt though, just to see how tough it is to do so.

So I boiled this huge 漂亮 beautiful pork belly last Saturday and I threw it into the freezer, only to defrost it today for such a time as this – to make braised pork belly in soya sauce. It is quite simple to do actually, and because the pork belly is already cooked, making it now is purely assembling all the ingredients together into the pot. So easy.

Recipe

Ingredients:

Boiled Pork Belly *sliced thinly*
2 Chinese spoons x Dark Soya Sauce
5 cm of Cinnamon stick
1 cup Pork Stock
Handful of mini shitake mushrooms

Method:

1. In a pot of water, put shitake in to boil. After mushrooms are soften, discard water.
2. Add cinnamon stick, pork stock, boiled pork belly, two Chinese spoons full of dark soya sauce. Cover lid of Claypot and boil at low heat, stirring every few minutes to ensure pork slices are covered in sauce.
3. Optional: many cloves of unshelled garlic.

Serve with plain congee.

Bon Appetit!

Boiled Pork Belly

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Boiled Pork Belly

This is my mother-in-law’s recipe. Which I tried to follow but failed miserably because I was busy doing some other things – like paying bills. So multitasking is just another word for distraction. Nuff said.

She cooked this lovely pork belly, boiled and it was just the simplest dish in the world. I dipped it in home-made chilli sauce and it was out of this world. I had to learn and do it.

I asked her in my mixture of pidgin Chinese and deciphered enough to know that it was really the easiest recipe in the world. The only criteria was that the pork belly had to be beautiful or 漂亮. I asked her how to know if it was 漂亮, she said that I would know it when I saw it.

And so, I met the butcher this morning and he offered me what he had left for the day. The slab of pork belly had two nipples on it, and I thought maybe this was what she (MIL) meant by 漂亮.

So I asked the uncle to give me pork belly that was 漂亮, and he proudly said “这个很漂亮!”

I guess since he was the butcher, he can’t be wrong, and so I paid the man $15 (SGD) and the rest was as they say, history.

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Recipe

Ingredients:

1 kg of 漂亮 Pork Belly
Sea salt

Method:

1. In a large pot, boil water till boiling. Place pork belly into pot with water covering the meat. With slow fire, boil for at least 45 minutes. After the meat is cooked, turn off the fire and allow it to sit in the pot for another 15 minutes.

2. Take the cooked pork belly and then rub it with sea salt. Allow the meat to cool and then wrap it up in a ziplock bag and throw it into the freezer.

3. You can keep the meat for all kinds of dishes, either sliced and eaten in its own. Or fried with vegetables. The stock can be preserved into plastic containers and used for flavoring for other dishes.

Bon Appetit!

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Bak Kut Teh

Ho Sim Lang

Ho Sim Lang

Bak Kut Teh

This is my all time favourite local dish. I guess you would know by now that I have a lot of all time favourites. It is okay I supposed since we are Singaporeans. Every local delicacy it seems is an all time favourite with most of us. Anyway, I love Bak Kut Teh and I am always on a lookout for a good Bak Kut Teh stall. To me the one at Prome Road at Balestier rocks. Second in line is the one at Sin Ming Ave. The rest of the Bak Kut Teh stalls that people rave about is just so-so IMHO.

Anyway, so I decided that I would replicate the humble Bak Kut Teh for dinner. A quick search and guess what? Mr Seetoh from Makansutra has already beat me to it and has developed a simple and easy to cook Singapore  styled Bak Kut Teh. Enjoy people. If you noticed, I have already wrote a Bak Kut Teh recipe, but I really love this dish, so this time, I decided to try it again, but without the spice packet that I would usually get from NTUC. I want to see if I can make an awesome Bak Kut Teh without “cheating”.

Recipe

Ingredients

400 grams Garlic

50 grams White Peppercorns

1 kg Pork Ribs

1 kg Pork Bones

5 litres of Water

3 tsp of Sea Salt

 

Method:

1. Par boil the pork ribs, then discard water to get rid of scum. Then boil a fresh pot of water – 5 litres. Add the garlic, (slightly bruised), white peppercorns (slightly cracked and roasted over a pan). Add sea salt.

2. Boil on high heat for 15 minutes, then place the pot into the thermal cooker.

3. When you’re back from work, boil the broth again, and then have a taste test. Adjust with sea salt accordingly. Serve with steam rice.

 

Bon Appetit!

Bak Kut Teh Recipe

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Bak Kut Teh Recipe

My all time favourite (I realized I have a lot of favourites!) Bak Kut Teh – home cooked, and very easy to do actually. These days with the easy herbs spice sachets available at NTUC supermarkets, you have no reason not to try it out.

My only issue with these herbs spices is the taste at the end of the day. Sometimes some brands the taste cannot make it. By far red man brand from phoon huat is the best. The blend and taste is really tok kong. So I couldn’t get to phoon huat that day and so I settled for this other brand Seah’s something-something from ntuc.

The taste is not too bad just that I may have added too much garlic perhaps. But it’s so so easy to make. Try it.

Recipe

Ingredients

1. 500 grams of pork ribs *ask the butcher to give you the type for making bak kut teh.*
2. 1 packet of spices *Seah’s*
3. A bunch of white peppercorns.
4. A bunch of garlic 6-7 pieces.

Method
1. Boil a pot of water. Par boil the ribs for about 5 minutes and discard water to remove the scum. Add a fresh container of water. Then continue boiling the pork ribs in the new water.

2. Add the sachet of bak kut teh spices. Add white peppercorns and garlic pieces. You may leave the skins on.

3. Boil for 15 minutes at high heat. Off the fire and place pot of soup into thermal cooker to allow it to continue cooking in the vacuum pot.

4. By evening it would be perfect. Succulent, meat falling off the bone. I still prefer red man bak kut teh spices though. Much nicer.

Bon Appetit!

Heartland Dim Sum (review)

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Heartland Dim Sum (review)

Probably one of the best Dim Sum (Cantonese styled light meals) places – suddenly realized I have no proper expression for Dim Sum in English – in Tampines. Personally I think better than some famous Dim Sum restaurants in town. Speaking of which there was one terrible one that I do not care to mention the name, fwah 侠 level 9 terrible.

I had a tough time reconciling myself to the fact that they were once a leader in dim sum, with people queuing up to satisfy their cravings. Maybe that was also one of the reasons why they closed down in town and relocated themselves on top of a hill (which I don’t care to mention either) and then subsequently disappeared to I don’t know where. Very sad.

This dim sum place however, is located at a heartland coffee shop at Tampines Street 41 -Blk 419. The style of the dim sum reminds me of old Hong Kong. Yes, it’s that good. Their variety is limited, but they do well for their dim sum standards.

Siew mai, har gao, pai kuat are a must order. Glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaves – must order two (pun intended). Chee cheong fun with char siew and char siew bao are also a must order. The rest I shall leave you to explore.

I don’t remember the stall name, but it’s unmistakable. You have got to be a topoking to not be able to find the place. I appended a map just in case.

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Go try it. You won’t regret it. And oh, did I mention that it is also very affordable (read: cheap)?

Bon Appetit!

Easy as ABC

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Easy as ABC

Day three of the new dawn. I am tired. My lifeforce seems to have been zapped by some mysterious incubus. Either that or I am still riling over the fact that baby didn’t like my black bean porridge that I made yesterday.

Maybe he wasn’t accustomed to the taste as yet; maybe it was his first time trying it. I have come to realize that kids take a while to like something. It was the same experience with ice cream. At first he didn’t like it. Now he does.

So maybe one day he will develop a penchant for my black bean soup. I spent quite a bit of time cooking his porridge last night, and used quite a bit of the soup to cook it as well. *Grr* I think he kind of humored me a little and ate some at the beginning but I guess the taste was too foreign for his liking.

So today, I decided that I would make ABC soup again. Actually I wanted to make chicken soup, but since I already started defrosting the ribs last night by mistake – I decided to heck it. Chicken soup can be for tomorrow. Or maybe tomorrow can be lotus root, peanut and pork ribs soup. Hmmm..

I also realize by now that I may have overbought my ingredients for the week’s cooking rituals. There is no way that I can finish cooking all that I bought for the week, by the end of the week. I need to buy less. I also realize that it is near impossible to cook for baby without eventually cooking the same stuff for myself. Ok, I admit I have been lazy.

If you want my recipe for my ABC soup. You can check my post soup for three. Baby loves ABC soup.

Black Bean, Radish and Pork Ribs Soup

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Black Bean, Radish and Pork Ribs Soup

Day two of the new dawn. Still no twilight vampires or werewolves. I got up early to make my soup of the day. The very Chinese Black Bean, Radish and Pork Ribs Soup. This should be good. I can already imagine how it would and should taste like by tonight. The tenderising effect of the thermal cooker is not to be discounted. I mean what goes on within the pot is just simply amazing. The pork ribs will be tender, the vegetables soft and everyone just so delicious.

I usually don’t salt my soup when cooking them, just so as not to complicate the natural flavours of the ingredients. There must always be clarity in whatever soup we do. So when the soup is ready to be consumed, I must be able to tell the ingredients apart upon tasting, most importantly I must be able to enjoy my soup. Salt tends to confuse our tastebuds. That said, I usually add a pinch of sea salt just before serving for that little bit of taste. Like her friend garlic, salt can only be servant to the dish, but never a master – that’s only if you aren’t making salt-baked chicken.

So I decided that I would try out my own rendition of this classic soup. I tried searching for a video on YouTube using the keywords “black beans and pork ribs” – but to no avail. It seems that Asian cooks aren’t so keen on taking videos of their cooking as compared to some really awful videos of cooking processes. Those are not cooking demonstrations IMHO – they are more like sanctifying rituals of epic proportions. One moment is do this, set apart that, next is remove this, reserve that. I mean, how is anyone going to learn how to cook anything if the ingredient list is so technical and most of them sound as if we have to climb a mountain to pluck it.

Practicality and simplicity should be what cooking is all about. Soups should be simple three to four ingredients – that’s it!

Anyway, before I get carried away, my version of the black bean soup is nothing short of simple. Try it!

Recipe

Ingredients

250 grams Black Beans
250 grams Pork Ribs
1 large White Radish
4 Dried Scallops

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Method

1. Par boil the pork ribs to remove scum. Slice radish into quarts and dump them into the pot. Then dump all the black beans into the pot as well. Drop 3-4 dried scallops to flavour the soup.

2. Fill the pot with water until all ingredients are covered. Turn on high heat for about 15 minutes. Once the soup is boiling and bubbling, turn off the fire and place the pot in the thermal cooker.

Note:

If you are unsure of how the thermal cooker looks like, I have a photo appended.

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Bon Appetit!

Eat Bak Chor Mee (review)

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Eat Bak Chor Mee (review)

Today my colleagues and I went to EAT to eat Bak Chor Mee. We really love eating it at EAT. However, it was not to be so at EAT today when we ate it at EAT. There seemed to be something quite wrong with the EAT BCM noodle master’s powers of estimation.

I asked for BCM but I also wanted to add fish cake, thinking that it was going to be the deep fried fish cake that they sell on the side. I love the EAT deep fried fish cakes by the way, they are excellent, even on their own. The stall lady asked me how much fish cakes I wanted to add and suggested a top up of a dollar. I thought it was fine to add a dollar’s worth of deep fried fish cake.

To my dismay and much disappointment, the fish cake that the noodle master gave me was a mere four slices of the delicacy. I had a shocked when he presented the completed product to me and I could only let out a futile yelp of despair.

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I had to portray exactly what $1 of fish cake was worth at EAT or else you might think I was joking and trying to pull a fast one. What you see in the picture above is one dollar’s worth of fish cake. Wow.

Either inflation has swept through Singapore right under my nose or the noodle master had something against customers who liked adding fish cakes to their BCM. Maybe it was against internationally acceptable BCM standards to not have fish cakes added into BCM. Maybe his strict adherence to this rule might have had some manner of impact on his sense of duty in the guild of international noodle masters that caused his deft fingers to show great restraint when scooping the fish cakes into my bowl.

Four miserable slices of fish cakes.

I hope that your $1 was worth more than mine.

Soup for Three

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Soup for Three

Our favourite soup. I guess it is favourite because it is the only soup that I can remember how to make at the snap of the finger. For the other recipes, I can’t seem to recall for some very strange reason. I could only conclude that this was the soup of the day and that I should therefore cook it. Not such a big decision anyway.

A simple soup or four ingredients of corn, carrot, potatoes and pork ribs. My wife calls it ABC soup but I struggled with that definition. As far as the soup is concerned, it should be abbreviated as PPCC or CCPP or PCCP (you get the idea), so maybe I will refer to my own abbreviation for convenience.

Maybe it is so easy to make that some folks might have said that it was as easy as ABC. Okay, that I agree. It is so easy you could train a monkey to do it.

Recipe

Ingredients

1 ear of Corn
1 large Carrot
3 medium Potatoes
250 grams of lean Pork Ribs
Salt

Method

1. Par boil the pork ribs just so to remove the scum. This is good practice so that you only get the good stuff. Don’t boil too long or you might lose all flavour.

2. Slice carrots, corn and potatoes and then dump it into pot. Fill with water until it covers ingredients. Turn on high heat. Boil for about ten to fifteen minutes with lid on.

3. Then place pot into thermal cooker (no electricity needed) and let it cook for the rest of the day. I use a thermal cooker because the meats are tenderized and the vegetables are sufficiently cooked without disintegrating into the soup. For all my morning soups, I use the thermal cooker. It’s great!

4. When you are about to serve, add salt to taste. Easy!

Bon Appetit!