mycookerygarden

More roast pork attempts. 7 Apr 2019 Five spice powder made it dark. The skin was a little burnt. So had to scrape off the black parts. 19 Apr 2019 Port wine made this roast pork very dark in color. It is not burnt. Just that the meat part had been marinaded in a mix that had a few tablespoons of red port wine. Nice sweetness.    

I made sio bak (roast pork belly) here in Singapore to see if I can get the crispy, crackling skin. I haven't tried this recipe yet, to be able to roast the pork immediately with a layer of salt on the skin. https://rasamalaysia.com/chinese-roast-pork/ Instead, I have prepared the pork belly by poking holes on the skin and then, marinating the meat part with salt, pepper and five spice powder. I also rubbed some salt on the skin and dried it with paper towels. Then, I wrapped the meat part in aluminium foil, leaving the skin exposed in the refrigerator overnight. Maybe, I shall try to insert a few garlic cloves into the meat as per the rasamalaysia recipe before baking and also have a tray of water at the bottom of the oven. Anyway, the first attempt was using Frozen, Thawed pork belly and only left in the fridge for about 6-7 hours. Some parts of the skin did not crisp so much. The meat was dark in color because I had marinated it with soya sauce. Uneven crackl...

There are quite a lot of recipes for roast pork with crispy skin. I used to think it was quite difficult to get the skin to be crispy but after several attempts at my sister's place, I think the basic steps can be repeated successfully. This recipe uses a salt layer on top of the skin for the first bake. https://rasamalaysia.com/chinese-roast-pork/ https://www.bbc.com/food/recipes/roastporkwithcrackli_67344   https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2011/12/ultra-crispy-slow-roasted-pork-shoulder-recipe.html 1) Dry the pork. 2) If the pork piece is quite thick, then score the skin all over into thin strips, bringing the blade of the knife about halfway through the fat beneath the skin. 3) Rub seasoning (salt, soya sauce, pepper, oil, etc) onto the meat and also the skin. But dry the skin afterwards. Rub salt into the skin. 4) Leave the whole piece uncovered in the fridge for a few hours. Overnight will be better. 5) For baking, wait for the meat to return to room temper...

I have been wanting to post this since Chinese New Year i.e. Feb 2018! Hai Sem Bak, or translated from Hokkien to English - Sea Cucumber Pork - is an important and 'grand' dish to serve at our Chinese New Year reunion dinner. Every year, my mother devotes about one week to prepare and cook this dish. The actual cooking time also takes several hours. On top of this, the dried sea cucumber is expensive. Surely, any recipe with these two headers below will scare away 90% of readers. Preparation time: 1 week Cooking time: a few hours This is the final dish, garnished with broccoli and red chilli. Old school, heritage dish. Very Hokkien and Teo Chew too, I think. Sea cucumber served with broccoli Garnished with a nice red chilli. My contribution to this dish is to procure the dried sea cucumber way before the Chinese New Year shopping rush. Prices are better and the sea cucumber is already with my mother, for her preparation, regardless of the timing of my tri...

For non-vegetarians, the idea of a tofu burger is not exactly palatable. BUT .. this one can make the grade. Well, it is not meat but it is tasty tofu. And not the mashed up type of patty where you don't know what exactly you are tasting. I prefer to see and eat the whole piece of tofu - a recognizable and tasty tofu patty. All it needs is to press the water out (stack something heavy on top for 20 mins or more), season with some soya sauce and pan-fry it. Oh, add some sauce like ketchup or barbeque sauce (usually not vegetarian) - so look for HP sauce. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_Sauce The inspiration for this cooking came from this blog: https://lovingitvegan.com/tofu-burger/ Next time, I'll add in the mushroom sauce with coconut cream. Pan fried pieces of tofu Arrange to your heart's content - coriander really jazzes up the taste, besides the bottled sauce!

I just realized that maangchi's blog has so many kimchi recipes. When I made my batch, I was referring to this one: https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/napa-cabbage-kimchi Which is one of her earlier posting giving the portions to make both napa cabbage kimchi and radish kimchi ( kkakdugi). This other recipe for the traditional napa cabbage kimchi looks good as well. It has carrot matchsticks and half the amount of hot pepper flakes as the above recipe. Next time. https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/tongbaechu-kimchi/comment-page-1 I bought a small cabbage about 940g, so I adjusted the ingredient measurements by four. 2 large size napa cabbages (about 8 pounds: 3.6 kg) = 940g 2 Korean radishes (about 4-5 pounds: 2 kg) = 0.5kg 1.5 cup of kosher salt = as needed when salting the cabbage, maybe 4-5 tbsp 0.5 cup sweet rice flour, 0.25 cup sugar, 3 cups water = used glutinous rice flour, reduced all measures to a quarter 4 cups of hot pepper flakes = 0.75 cups of Korean chili paste +...

Why are these really ugly Chinese pancakes? Because the dough was so sticky that I had a lot of trouble just getting the filling to be wrapped up than to worry how nice it would look. My original idea was to find a recipe to use up some of the glutinous rice flour that was bought to make onde-onde This one sounded promising. But I wanted a savoury snack, not a sweet one. So, I replaced the red bean paste with some mashed up chicken-potato curry that I had in the fridge. http://www.guaishushu1.com/glutinous-rice-flour-red-bean-pancake-%E8%B1%86%E6%B2%99%E7%83%A7%E9%A5%BC-%E7%B3%AF%E7%B1%B3%E7%9A%AE%EF%BC%89/ The ingredients to make the dough from the recipe above: 150 grams of plain water 30 grams of white castor sugar 2 tablespoons of cooking oil 150 grams of glutinous rice flour 30 grams of rice flour- optional Something went awry with my preparation. After boiling the first 3 items in a pot, there was too much flour for the liquid to handle. So, I poured in some wat...

There are steak lovers .. who rave about gourmet, premium cuts of of meat and how to cook it just right, medium rare or even less cooked. So, I wanted to learn how to cook steaks. Beginning my little cooking journey with supermarket steaks. Sirloin, surprisingly not at an exorbitant price. I suppose my taste is more Asian because I like the meat to be more cooked, towards the medium well or well done stage. A little bit of redness is fine but not too much for me. Alas, I will not be a steak connoisseur. First attempt: This steak was the thickest of my three attempts here. And the first piece to tell me that medium rare is not quite for me. Some people more experienced in cooking steaks tell me that they do not even season the meat when it is a nice, fresh piece. Salt, pepper, any sauces are optional after the meat is cooked. I spread some salt and pepper on a plate and then pressed each side of the steak onto it. Then heated some vegetable oil in the pan and fried each side...