Oven Barbeque Ribs

Posted by Vivian in Pork

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Ingredients:

• 2 kg of baby back pork ribs
• 2 tsp of garlic powder
• 1 tsp of onion powder
• 2 tsp of paprika
• 2 tsp of salt
• 1 teaspoon of grounded black pepper
• 1 tsp of five spice powder
• 2 tbsp of olive oil

Sauce:

• 350 ml of barbeque sauce
• 2 tbsp of minced garlic
• 2 tbsp of olive oil
• 2 to 3 tbsp of honey

Preparation:

• Preheat oven to 180 degree Celcius.
• Place ribs (bone side down) on baking tray lined with aluminium foil.
• Mix together remaining ingredients, except for olive oil in a bowl.
• Sprinkle the seasoning mixture on pork ribs and drizzle with olive oil.  Rub seasoning and olive oil all over pork ribs on both sides.
• Cover tray with foil and bake for 2 hours.
• Mix together sauce ingredients.
• Take ribs out from oven after 2 hours of baking, remove top foil and spread sauce mixture on the top of the ribs.
• Up the oven temperature to 220 degree Celcius and return ribs to oven uncovered.
• Bake for 10 mins.
• Allow ribs to sit for at least 10 minutes after baking before slicing to allow juices to recirculate back into the meat.

Pork Belly & Mushroom Rice

Posted by Vivian in Pork, Rice

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Ingredients:

• 2 cups of jasmine white rice
• 500 gram of pork belly (sliced to 0.5 cm thick)
• 8 pieces of dried mushroom (soaked till soft and sliced to 1 cm width)
• 1/2 of round cabbage (sliced to 1 cm thick)
• 2 to 3 tablespoons of dried shrimp (soaked till soft and diced)
• Shallots (diced)
• Garlic (diced)
• Light soy sauce
• Dark soy sauce
• Sesame oil

Preparation:

• Marinate pork belly with light soy sauce and dark soy sauce overnight. 
• Wash rice and add to rice cooker. Pour in sufficient water based on marking alongside rice cooker pot. Sieve out rice and reserve the water for later use. 
• Stir fry shallot and garlic till fragrant and add in dried shrimp. 
• Mix in pork belly and stir well to cook. 
• Add in cabbage and season with light soy sauce and sesame oil. 
• Put rice into mixture and drizzle with some dark soy sauce. Stir well to ensure rice is well coated with dark soy sauce. 
• Transfer mixture into rice cooker and pour in water that was set aside. 
• Leave mixture to cook in rice cooker for 45 to 50 minutes. 
• Set rice cooker to cook function again for another 10 to 15 minutes if rice has yet to fully cook after the first round.

Sweet and Sour Pork (咕嚕肉)

Posted by Vivian in Chinese, Pork

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One of my favourite dish and had been thinking of trying my hands on it for a long time now.

“Research” has thrown up very varied recipes. Not surprising since it does often look and taste a little different even at various restaurants and eating places. I did a mash of what I think might work.

Putting this down for reference for now. The taste department got a tick but the meat wasn’t crispy enough in my opinion. Need to try and coat the pieces individually with corn flour and plain flour rather than mixing the flour in and see if it works better.

Ingredients:

• 500gm Pork Collar (cut into bite-size cubes)
• ½ onion (cut into cubes)
• 1 tomato (seeds removed and cut into cubes)
• 1 mid-size capsicum (seeds and stem removed and cut into cubes)
• 3 to 4 slices of canned pineapple (cut into wedges)

Marinate:

• 1/3 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• A dash of white pepper
• ½ tablespoon Chinese cooking wine
• 2 eggs
• 3 tablespoons corn flour

Sauce:

• 1½ tablespoons white vinegar
• 2½ tablespoons tomato sauce
• 4½ tablespoons sugar
• 1 tablespoon light soya sauce
• ½ tablespoon sesame oil
• 2 to 3 tablespoons syrup from canned pineapple

Thickener:

• 2 leveled tablespoons of potato flour
• 150 ml of water

Preparation:

• Mix marinating ingredients except corn flour to pork. Add in corn flour thereafter and leave to marinade for at least 1 hour.
• Deep fry pork in batches until golden brown. Set aside to drain off excess oil.
• Heat oil in work and stir fry onion. Add in capsicum when onion starts to turn translucent.
• Stir in pineapple and tomato when capsicum is almost cooked, and leave the mixture to cook slightly.
• Pour in sauce mixture and stir to combine.
• Turn the heat down and add in thickener.
• Leave to simmer until the sauce thickens.
• Serve over rice.

Number of Servings: 4 to 5 pax

Fried Crispy Pork Belly (香脆炸花肉)

Posted by Vivian in Pork

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Looks are indeed deceiving. Just basing on the photo, I would assume that this is one dish that requires a fair amount of work. Well usually most stuff that requires deep frying does. Just making sure the meat (whatever it is) is evenly coated with flour or batter takes a good 20 minutes.

Surprisingly this is an incredibly easy recipe which a colleague shared with me recently. Needless to say, the kids enjoyed it A LOT simply because it is crispy… and that in itself is probably good enough justification for the deed to be repeated.

Ingredients:

• 500g pork belly (about 1 inch wide)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine
• 1 tablespoon corn flour
• 5 tablespoon rice flour (alternatively a mix of plain flour and corn flour)

Preparation:

• Marinate pork belly with all ingredients except rice flour, for at least 3 hours or overnight in the fridge.
• Coat pork belly with rice flour before cooking.
• Deep fry pork belly until gold brown and cooked.
• Slice pork belly and serve with mayonnaise or tonkatsu sauce as dipping sauce if desired.

Number of Servings: 4 to 5 persons

Wantons - the improved version (云吞)

Posted by Vivian in Chinese, Pork

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Since the last post on wantons, I have gone on to make this repeatedly and experimented with different tweaks by adding different ingredients or condiments.  By far this are the best tweaks combined to deliver the best result:

Tweak #1 - Instead of cooking the wantons in a big pot of soup, use chicken broth.  The wanton skin takes on a different flavour.

Tweak #2 - Add minced shrimp to the minced pork for a better bite.  Mix well and preferably with (clean) hands in a kneading motion.

Tweak #3 - Replace ginger water with concentrated chicken stock.

Wonton

Posted by Vivian in Chinese, Pork

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This is an extremely overdue post due to the lack of time and energy. The past week was simply crazy with the mother-in-law on a 2-week vacation and me having to play the role of a stay-at-home-mum on certain days and a working-mum on other days. Draining when I need to live 2 days in 1. One more week to go before life goes back to normal.

In a short span of 7 days, I have attempted making wontons twice. The beauty of this dish is that I can freeze the wontons after wrapping and simply throw them in boiling water minutes before serving, without even the need to thaw them. Simple enough for the maid to manage and I don't have to worry that the kids will be having the same menu for lunch (the maid lacks creativity when it comes to meal planning!).

Ingredients:

• 30 wonton wrappers 
• 1 knob of fresh ginger (crushed) 
• 200 gm minced pork 
• 1/2 egg (beaten) 
• 1 tablespoon shaoxing wine 
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil 
• 1 tablespoon light soy sauce 
• Pepper 
• 50ml cold chicken stock 

Preparation:

• Soak crushed ginger in chicken stock for 5 minutes and discard ginger thereafter.
• Mix together minced pork, egg, sesame oil, light soy sauce and a dash of white pepper. 
• Add chicken stock in stages while mixing. 
• Place 1 teaspoon of filing in centre of wonton wrapper. Fold wonton skin diagonally and seal two sides together with a bit of water. Repeat steps for all wonton wrappers. 
• Cook wontons in boiling water. Cooked wontons will rise to surface of water. 

Number of Servings: 30 wontons

Sweet MInced Meat Noodles (炸酱面)

Posted by Vivian in Chinese, Noodles, Pork

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This is one dish that seems to have a wide variance in the ingredients that goes into the sauce. Being an amatuer, I have chosen to stick to the most basic recipe. I personally think that it is good enough for a quick-fix. The only 2 changes I have made to the original recipe are - added in some dried mushrooms and as well as some corn-starch to thicken the sauce so that it won't be too runny.

My Mum-in-Law recently made this with hoisin sauce because she ran out of Peking Dip Sauce. The sauce was yummy!! I shall attempt that one of these days.

Ingredients:

• 4 teaspoon garlic/shallots (chopped)
• ½ cucumber (shredded)
• 500g minced pork
• 4 dried mushroom (soaked overnight and diced)
• 4 tablespoon Peking Dip Sauce (甜面酱)
• 2 teaspoon light soya sauce
• 2 tablespoon dark soya sauce
• 400g flat white noodles (either Shanghai noodles or La-Mien)
• 80ml water
• 3 teaspoon corn flour

Preparation:

• Cook the noodles, drain and leave aside. 
• Remove core and seeds from the cucumber. Cut into thin strips. 
• Mix the corn flour with 80ml of water 
• Heat wok, add the oil. 
• Add garlic/shallots and stir fry until slightly brown. 
• Add the minced pork and stir fry till the pork is cooked. 
• Add in the mushroom when the minced pork is 90% done. 
• Add Peking Dip Sauce, light and dark soya sauce. 
• Add in corn-starch and simmer for 2 to 3 minutes. 
• Serve meat sauce over noodles 

Number of Servings: 4

Tonkatsu

Posted by Vivian in Japanese, Pork

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Ingredients:

• 6 pork fillet or pork loin 
• A dash of salt or light soya sauce 
• Pepper to taste 
• Plain flour 
• 1 egg 
• Panko 

Preparation:

• Pat-dry the meat and pound the meat with the back of the knife. 
• Marinate the meat with some pepper and salt (or light soya sauce). 
• Crack and beat the egg, and mix in about 2 to 3 teaspoon of water to thin the consistency 
• First, coat the fillets with plain flour. 
• Secondly, coat it with egg mixture. 
• Lastly, coat with panko - using fingers to apply a bit more pressure to ensure that the whole fillet is coated with panko. 
• Deep-fry the fillets until golden brown. 
• Top with tonkatsu sauce. 

Number of Servings: 2 to 3