Braised Pork with Chinese Mushrooms

Another braised dish for the table! :)

Yeah, sometimes when I get hyped up with one style of cooking, I will do it over and over again just to test out the different taste using the same style but different ingredients.

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Ingredients

• 300-400g Pork Belly (Not too fatty ones cut into small chunks)


• 5-6pcs Dried Chinese mushrooms (pre-soaked)


• 4-5 cloves Garlic (chopped)


• 2tsp Bean paste (Tau-chu)


• 1tsp Dark soy sauce


• Some peppercorns (crushed)


• 1/2 Cup Water (more if you want more sauce)


• 1tbsp Glutinous rice wine

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Methods

1. Heat up a medium saucepan with a little oil, saute the chopped garlic till fragrant.


2. Pour in the pork belly chunks and stir till half cooked, add in the dark soy sauce, stir and add in the mushrooms (cut into halves) and crushed peppercorns then continue to stir for a while.


3. Add in the bean paste, stir and add in the water, stir and simmer for 25-30 minutes till meat is tender.


4. If you have glutinous rice wine, add in before serving.

Plum Lime Spare Ribs

My PiggyBeng don't fancy sweet stuff so normally he will not buy anything sweet to be consumed. However, thing changed this year... not sure why he suddenly fell in love with calamansi with sour plum juice drink! initially it was umbra with sour plum but since we can't find any concentrate for that, the next best thing is calamansi with sour plum.

We went high and low looking for the calamansi and sour plum concentrate but it was not easy to find until one day we end up in Giant! How strange! It was called Plum Lime instead of calamansi.

Then I was lamenting about dono what to do with the pork ribs that I've bought so PiggyBeng suggested we tried using the PlumLime concentrate instead! And the out come was quite satisfying too!

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Ingredients

• 300-400g Spare ribs


• 2tsp Corn flour


• 1.5tsp Light soy sauce


• 2tbsp PlumLime sauce mix with 1tbsp water


• Oil for deep fry


• 1/4 Cup water

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Methods

1. Marinate the spareribs with corn flour and light soy sauce for at least 30 minutes. The longer the better as the sauce can penetrate through the meat.


2. Heat up oil in saucepan to deep fry the spare ribs for about 10 minutes. Lift up and drain.


3. Heat up wok with 1tbsp oil and pour in the PlumLime mix in and stir for a little while.


4. Put in the fried ribs and stir fry in the PlumLime mix for about 5 minutes adding about 1/4 cup of water for simmering. Lift up when the sauce has thicken.

Steamed Salted Fish with Pork

Sometimes when I'm lazy to do stir-frying I will steam my dishes instead. Well, steamed food are actually healthier as we don't have to use extra oil and we can preserved the nutritional value of the ingredients used. Another plus point is, the kitchen will stays clean! :)

Normally I will prepare such dishes a day ahead as I will marinate them first so the sauces can penetrate through the meat which will tenderise the meat and taste better too. What I used to do in the past was prepared a few bowls of the same thing and freeze them and only take out to steam when I felt like having steamed food.

A few weeks back I have some salted fish and pork belly left in my freezer so decided to clear them to create more space...
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Ingredients

• 1 slab Pork belly (around 300g) with little fat


• 1 small piece of Salted fish (the Mui-Heong type - soft Tenggiri)


• 2 Chili padi


• 1 pc Old ginger (around 1x1")


• 1.5tsp Corn flour


• Black soy sauce


• Pepper for taste


• Water

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Methods

1. Sliced pork belly to thin slices. Sliced the salted fish (fry for a while on the wok with little oil to bring the fragrance out) and marinate with black soy sauce, corn flour, a dash of pepper and some water (put more if you want more sauce).


2. Sliced the ginger and chili padi into thin strips and add into the pork and salted fish and let it marinate further until you are ready to steam.


3. Steam for about 15-20 minutes till pork is completely cooked.

Fried Tumeric Whole Chicken Leg

I apologise for the lack of updates. Been a little tied up since we are at my parents' place and lots of chasing around too since Darrius is so curious of all the stuff he can find around the house!

This is a real simple recipe and one that can be prepared in a jiffy! Simple yet yummy... great news right??? So when you are out of ideas, this is a dish which can mask the entire meal! :lol:

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Recipes

• 2 whole Chicken legs


• 1.5tbsp Tumeric powder (recommended to use freshly pound tumeric)


• 1/2 Lemon (juice)


• Sprinkle of pepper


• Salt to taste

Methods

1. Lightly cut lines on both top and bottom of chicken so the marinate can penetrate through. Rub in all the spices and lemon juice and leave it to marinate overnight in the fridge.


2. Heat up wok with a little oil (the chicken skin will release oil so don't have to use too much oil if you are using a non-stick wok) and fry both chicken legs on slow fire.


3. For better taste, you can cut some curry leaves when you marinate the chicken.

Lap Cheung Fried Rice

One word to describe this.... *YUMMY!*

Lap cheung or waxed meat is one of the must have item during the Lunar New Year. Long time ago, it was only during the Lunar New Year season that the yummy lup cheung are being imported from China but now we can get them all year round.

Though I love to eat lap cheung but I try not to eat them too often as they are unhealthy. Why? Well, lap cheung is a type of processed food just like those English sausages which are high with sodium content. PiggyBeng loves eating lap cheung as it's easy to prepare (either steam or lightly fried) and he can slurp down a big bowl of rice with it!

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Ingredients

• 1.5 cups Rice - cooked and leave in the fridge over night


• 3 sticks Lap cheung (2 sticks cut into small cubes and 1 stick into thin slices)


• 2pcs Chinese mushroom (soaked and cut into small cubes)


• 6 strands Longbeans (sliced thinly)


• 1 Big onion (sliced)


• 1pc Red chili (sliced)


• 3 Eggs (2 for mixing into the rice and 1 for omelette)


• 2 Squids (medium size, cut into rings)


• Light soy sauce and pepper for taste

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Methods

1. Heat up wok with just a little oil (if using non-stick pan) to fry the egg omelette. Cooled and cut into thin strips.


2. Heat up wok with 1tbsp oil and fry the lap cheung cubes till it look crispy and lift up. Continue with the sliced lap cheung and lift up when it looked crispy.


3. Using the balanced oil in the wok (residue from the lap cheung so very fragrant), fry the longbeans till soft and look a little brownish then lift up and saute the onion by adding another tbsp of oil and fry till fragrant.


4. Add in the mushroom cubes, continue frying with the onions then add in the longbeans, sliced chili, and the squid rings while adding a tbsp of oil.


5. When the squid rings start to curl up, add in the rice and keep strring till all the other ingredients mixed well with the rice.


6. Add in light soy sauce, stir and add in the eggs (beaten) and when it mixed with all the rice add in the fried lap cheung cubes.


7. Before lifting up, sprinkle a few dash of pepper to taste.


8. Garnish the fried rice with the fried sliced lap cheung and omelette strips.

Note: Do continue to add a little oil if you think the rice is rather dry along the way.