Braised pork belly with vinegar

INGREDIENTS (serve 3 persons or 2 with some left over)
1 piece pork belly - about 6x6 inch (the size we bought from you).
1 bunch of bok choy - boil for 3 minutes.
2 stalks of coriander - pick out the leaves, wash and set aside for garnishing/fresh herb flavour.

Stock
1 large onion - remove skin, chopped.
1/2 bulb garlic - ie about 6 cloves - remove skin, lightly crushed, no need to chop.
1 cinnamon stick
1 tbsp light soy sauce or tamari
2 tbsp malt vinegar 
1 chilli - cut of stalk only.
About 1.5 litres water - or just enough water to cover all the pork belly throughout 3 hour slow cooking.

Meat marinate juice
2 tsp dark soy
2 tsp light soy
1 tsp oyster sauce
2 tsp palm sugar (or raw sugar as substitute)
1 clove garlic chopped
1 tsp sesame oil

Sauce thickener
2 tsp corn starch
2 tbsp water to dilute the corn starch

PREP WORK
Wash the pork belly well, pat dry. Cut into 6 large pieces of equal size ie roughly 2x2 inch square.
Marinate the pork belly with the meat marinate sauce - for at least 30 minutes or overnight is fine too.

COOKING
Pour water into a cast iron pot/heavy stew pot (like a Le Creuset etc).
Put all stock ingredients into the water and heat till boiling.
Switch heat off and open lid - let stock cool off for about 10 minutes.
Gently place marinated pork pieces into the stock and simmer with pot lid on, on low heat for about 3 to 3 1/2 hours. Pork does NOT need searing.
Check water level every hour, to make sure pork belly is just covered with stock. At very low heat, the stock should not dry up below pork belly level, if not, add a bit of water, or turn heat down further. 
Stir once or twice to ensure pork is not stuck to pot.

SERVING
When ready to serve, skim off layer of oil/fat. (We keep the fat stored in a tupperware, refridgerated for use in cooking other dishes another day!)
Then heat up on low to medium heat.
Remove pork belly onto serving dish.
Mix sauce thickener into stock and stir in heat till it thickens slightly.
Pour sauce over the pork belly.
Garnish with coriander leaves on top of pork belly and boiled bok choy on the sides of the plate.

TIP: The slow cooking makes the pork belly really soft and melts in the mouth.
If you love lots of chilli, you can have as dipping sauce for the pork, soy with chopped chili.
You can add an extra tbsp more vinegar while boiling stock if you like the vinegarish taste.  Can add more 1 tsp of sugar if you like it sweeter.

Bon Appetite!

Cucumber Raita

Yoghurt usually helps to "cool" down the stomach when one has some spicy food. Today I made some dhal which turned up more spicy than I had planned to, and decided to make some Indian raita to go with it.

1 huge bowl for 4 people
1 lebanese cucumber chopped into small squares.
4 tablespoon of vanilla bean yoghurt (Vaalia brand is good)
1 teaspoon of sumec.

Mix the ingredients up and serve. I tend to prepare this just as we are ready to eat so that the yoghurt and cucumber tastes fresh.

Bon Appetite!

Oatmeal raisin currant cranberry cookies

Today I suddenly felt like trying to bake cookies. I took a recipe out of the Baking Pan website, modified it, baked it, and it turned out delicious!

I am so pleased with this first attempt!

Chewy, soft and very light on the inside. Crunchy on the outside.

Bake 12 cookies - 1 oven size tray

1 egg and 1 egg white
Slightly less than 1/2 cup self raising wholemeal flour (or self raising plain flour will do too)
Slighly less than 1/2 cup almond meal
80g butter
1/4 compact cup of brown sugar
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup cranberry, raisins and currants mix
1 cup of brokened walnuts
1/2 tsp of salt

Preheat oven to 170 deg Celcius for fan force oven.
Lay alumininium foil on baking tray shiny side down.
Overlay with baking paper.

Dough
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, salt and whisk till airy and light.
Fold in flour and almond meal, oats, dry berries and nuts.

Baking
Using a tablespoon, scoop a large scoop of dough. Drop on to baking tray.
Keep at least 1 1/2inch space between cookies.
Bake for 14 minutes in fan forced oven, or till golden brown.
Take cookies out, remove entire baking paper (with the cookies on it) and place on a rack.
Let cookies cool for at least 1/2 hour.

Bon Appetite!

Food That I Love: Orange lemon lime cake

Food That I Love: Orange lemon lime cake

Bon Appetite!

Gary Chen's Steamed Sponge Cake:

Self raising flour 250g
Cooking oil 125ml
Brown sugar 250g
Eggs 3
Fresh milk 125ml
Baking powder 1 tsp
Vanilla Essence (few drops)

1. Sieve flour, brown sugar n baking powder together in a bowl
2. Add oil, milk, vanilla essence n eggs into mixture. Mix well
3. Put baking paper on d base of round baking tray. Pour mixture into tray
4. Steam it for 1 hr on high temperature
5. Leave it to cool

Bon Appetite!

Butternut pumpkin pickle salad

If you like the Thai green papaya/mango salad, you would enjoy pickled pumpkin! I first tried it in a Japanese fine dining restaurant in K.L! I would have never imagined eating pumpkin raw before this, but now that I have tried it, I know I can use it as a substitute for green papaya/mango and it will make a beautiful light salad.

Julienne the pumpkin very thin. Get a not ripe one, ie still crunchy.

Pickle juice:
Equal parts of apple cider vinegar to water
Lots of sugar!
Juice of 1 lime
1 chopped chilli padi

Just make enough juice to cover pumpkin.

I had the first serve just after some 45 minutes of "soaking".

After its duly pickled, to serve, take a chopstick/thongs to gather the pumpkin, and drip off the juice before placing on serving plate. Toast some peanuts and sprinkled on it after peanuts have been cooled. (Dont do it while it is hot, as toasted nuts when hot will absorb the moisture and lose its crunchiness!).

We had it with steam rice, leftover braised mincebeef, and "kylie kwong" fried eggs. The latter is just breaking all the eggs into one bowl, and pour the lot into hot oil. When whites are brown and yolk still runny, take out, sprinkle with fresh "yim sai", spring onion, oyster sauce, sesame oil, and some soy sauce.

I think this pickle salad will go very well with any fried fish, pork chop etc!

Bon Appetite!

Orange lemon lime cake

This is tangy, tasty and moist, mostly gluten free cake.

Ingredients
Zest of 1 orange, 1 lemon, 1 lime
Juice of 1 orange, 1 lemon, 1 lime
80g castor sugar (1/2 cup compact)
80g almond meal (1 cup compact)
80g walnut meal (1 cup compact)
20g flour (sifted)
1/3 cup milk (60ml)
1/3 cup yoghurt
5 eggs, separated
125g butter
5-10g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180deg (or 160 deg for fan forced oven).
Wipe cake container with butter and dust with flour.
Whisk the butter with part of the sugar till pale creamy. Add the egg yolks and remaining sugar, and whisk till pale yellow and thickness such that can draw line.
Add milk and fold.
Add zest, almond and walnut meal and fold into mixture.
Slowly add in the juices and stir to combine.
Whisk egg whites till become foamy and fold over.
Bake for 30-40 minutes, depending on your oven.
When cake is taken out of oven, and cooled off a bit, sprinkle remaining almond flakes over the surface and then "snowflake" icing sugar over it.

Bon Appetite!