Roast Pork Belly 烧肉 or Siu Yuk ( Sioba )

I've not always been a fan of shaorou until i found maxwell.

I used to only love charsiew rice but my mom would always buy me Cha For ( char siew and sioba ).

The ones she use to get me weren't crispy as it should be.

so i never thought much of it until...

Maxwell happened and until today, The shao rou uncle at maxwell is my friend.

He's always very kind to me ever since i was working near maxwell then and ate there almost everyday, thus becoming really fat.

Anyway, since I'm always out of the country so much, what i always miss is local food.

All my shaorou and charsiew, meepok, chicken rice.... ahhh food heaven.

Being so far for so long, i can't beat cravings so what can i do to fulfill them but to make them.

I attempted this from an online video i saw, tweaked it a little and voila.

Perfection.

Light crunchy skin, soft juicy insides with a flavorful skin.

A recipe you shouldn't miss.

Serves 4

Ingredients
500g pork belly
1 tbsp five spice powder
1 tsp Salt
1 tsp pepper

for the skin
1 tsp salt
1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Wash the pork belly and pat it with a paper fowl REALLY DRY. This is important if not your pork belly will not crisp.
Mix the five spice powder, salt and pepper and rub it all around the bottom side of the belly avoiding the skin. Do not miss the sides as well.
Flip the pork around, Pat dry the skin once again and rub salt and vinegar mixture on skin.
Wrap with a cling wrap and keep overnight.
Do not throw away your vinegar mixture.
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.
Place meat on a parchment paper and bake skin down for 20 mins.
Flip the meat around and pat DRY.
Using a fork or bake needle, pierce as many holes in the skin..
The more holes you pierce, the lighter the skin will be. But do not pierce too hard. you only want to have holes on the skin and not the entire meat.
Using a paper fowl, pat dry the meat again and spread vinegar mixture over.
Bake for 20 minutes
Repeat this process again.
Now, turning up the Oven to 450°F or 230°C.
Repeat the process of patting dry the meat, piercing the skin and glazing with vinegar mixture.
Place the meat on the upper rack nearest to the top heat for another 20 minutes.
By now, the skin should be starting to blister.
Repeat this step one more time until the skin is all crispy and gold.
Do not be afraid to let it char a little. You can scrap off the char.
Using a large knife, chop skin down to avoid cracking the skin.
Serve.

Bon Appetite!

Hainanese Chicken Rice

How how on earth can i ever miss out on making this honourary dish.
The love of my father and my boyfriend.
Both of whom can eat it for three meals a day, seven days a week.
To the point it drives my mother crazy and away from this simple yet tantalizing dish.
I have to say, to me, the most important part is cooking the rice, to perfection where every grain is coated with the natural oils and flavour of the chicken and each grain is simply, perfect.
i've always been the cook that knows how to cook all my dishes but the rice.
However to make this dish, i actually practiced a few times to simply, get it right.
i will update the exact measurements for the cooking of the rice and the chili as we go along but today, lets focus on the chicken and the soup. I use organic chicken stock as i only use chicken thighs here but it works perfectly with any other chicken stock or even better, with real chicken bones ( which i am unable to get here )

serves 4

 Ingredients
4 chicken leg quarters
1L organic chicken broth
300ml water
1 piece of old ginger sliced thickly (ginger about 4cm x 3cm )
1 clove garlic, chopped
5 pandan leaves
4 tsp seasalt
3 tbsp shaoxing wine
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sesame oil
1 tbsp olive oil
a dash of pepper
1 tsp maggie sauce ( optional but add a nice flavor to the chick sauce )
2 stalks spring onion
1 bunch of cilantro
2 cups of jasmine rice


Wash the chicken thighs and remove all the visible fat. do not throw the fat away as it is very important for rice cooking. From this, i usually am able to get from half a handful to a handful of chicken fat.
Sprinkle salt all over the chicken and rub in then set aside.
Cut both spring onions into two, separating the thick white bulb from the green tops and chop the green tops.
In a large pot on high heat, add olive oil, garlic and ginger, fry till fragrant and add chicken stock, water, 1 spring onion bulb, 2 tbsp shaoxing wine, 3 panda leaves that is tied in a knot and chicken pieces. when starting to boil, turn the heat down to medium. It should boil lightly and not over boil. Leave for 50 mins.
After 30 mins, in a pan over high heat fry the chicken fat, 1 tsp of garlic and one 2mm thick slice of ginger until the fragrant, add the rice and ensure ever grain is covered in chicken fat. Put the rice in a rice cooker, add the stalk of spring onion bulb together with the remaining 2 panda leaves, also in a knot and scoop the chicken broth into the rice cooker. Cook the rice.
After 50 minutes, remove the chicken from the boiling broth and dunk immediately into a bowl of ice water. Leave for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a sauce bowl, mix 1 tbsp shaoxing wine, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil and maggie sauce.
Drain chicken and place nicely on a play and pour sauce mixture over it. Garnish with cilantro.
By now, the rice should be ready. Scoop the soup and sprinkle generously with spring onion tops.
Serve!

PS: i will update on the super important chili very soon but for the moment, buy a good bottle of it.

Bon Appetite!

Organic Kale Salad

I've been reading so much about Kale online that i had to incorporate it into my diet.
the scrunched up leaves make it so intimidating and i took a bite of the raw leaves and its taste disgusting.
But after reading of all its benefits, how can one omit it in their diets?
Full of antioxidants, vitamins and its anti-cancer properties are why nutritionists are all raving about this superfood.
But many a times, whats good for us, don't taste good.
I tried kale chips. usually batter in raw cashew coating and they're alright.
But as much as we try to deceive ourselves, the real taste from those chips, actually come from the seasoning and that delicious batter.
I needed to find a simple yet delicious way to eat this superfood and make everyone around me love it too.
So the search on google started.
I kept going till i imagined the taste of kale in my mouth reading the recipes and finally came up with one.
Its so simple, give yourself 5 minutes to prepare this.

Serves 2

Ingredients
1 bunch of kale
3 tsp organic apple cider vinegar
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tsp raw agave syrup
1 tsp toasted sesame seeds
a sprinkle of salt

Boil a pot of water and sprinkle some salt inside.
Cut the stalk center out of the kale.
Blench the kale leaves. They cook pretty fast so about 20 seconds would be good.
Strain and roughly cut.
Toss everything in a bowl and serve.

Bon appetite!

Tandoori Chicken

i've always loved my mom's tandoori for as long as i can remember.
its always so flavorful and the spices just fill your mouth like a perfect symphony.
When i was younger, i never thought that i could attempt it.
So many different kinds of spices. It just looked looked like something that was beyond me.
I remember how my yaya used to set up a small pot of charcoal at the back of my house to grill the perfectly marinated chicken and she would prepare a small bowl of already squeezed lemon juice for us to drizzle over.
so i finally attempted it and it is actually not as difficult as i thought!
I am very lucky to have a organic super market with all the spices in the world at my fingertips at reasonable prices too :)

So this Tandoori chicken is not like what you order when you eat at a typical indian restaurant.
Usually cooked in a clay oven or over a barbecue, i  bake mine for convenience and also cause i love to drizzle the sauce over my rice but then again, you can also barbecue it for that woody barbecue flavor.

serves 4

Ingredients
4 chicken leg quarters
1/2 medium onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp cayenne powder ( chili powder ) adjust according to how spicy you want it to be. i like it hot.
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp white pepper
2  tsp seasalt
1 cup unhomogenized plain yogurt
1 tsp olive oil
1 lemon squeezed

Wash the chicken and remove all excess fat. Flip the chicken over skin side down, make some cuts on the meat for the marinade to fully go into the chicken. Sprinkle 1tsp salt all over the chicken and rub into meat. Leave aside.
Chop garlic and dice the onions. In a pan, heat the oil on medium to high heat and fry the onion and garlic together until onions caramelize and you can smell the aroma.
put onion and garlic mixture in a big bowl together with  cayenne powder, turmeric, cumin, coriander, pepper, salt, 2tsp of lemon juice and yogurt. Mix well and add the chicken.
Cover it and let t sit for at least 3 hours or best, overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C
On a parchment paper, place chicken nicely and keep some sauce.
Bake for 30mins or until you see slightly roasted at the edges.
add remaining sauce and bake for another 5 minutes.
Serve with lemon juice.

Bon appetite!

Cilantro Salted Egg Salad

So, Chinese new year have just passed. we had a mini celebration of Spicy Szechuan style Baked fish, steamboat and all the other auspiciously symbolical dishes. When many cooks are present in the house, what happens sometimes is you all double or in my case triple buy a veg. In my case, its Cilantro.
 While some people adore its aroma, some loathe it. Many times, this beautiful herb is used only as a garnish because of its strong aroma. But we definately will not be able to finish three whole bunches of cilantro if we're gonna use it as a garnish. So, i figured, i would try making a salad. With all that leftover ingredients i got in my fridge.

What an unexpected surprise i got. The salad, tasted SO amazing, i couldn't wait for lunch and finished it within 10mins of cooking. They always say, a cook hardly eats their own food. This, shows then. How amazing it taste.

Best thing about it? you don't have to be a great cook to do this. Its simple and amazing.




















Serves 1

Ingredients
1 medium sized tomato
a small bunch of cilantro ( put the tip of your index finger at the joint of your thumb bone. thats about it )
1 small onion
1/2 an salted egg white
1 tbsp organic apple cider vinegar
1 tsp sesame seeds
1 tsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp organic raw agave syrup
1 tsp soy sauce


Dice the tomato, onion, salted egg and rough cut the cilantro in a bowl.
Pour over all the sauces and toss.
Sprinkle with sesame seeds and serve!

Bon Appetite!

Bak kwa 肉干

Being so far from home, we have to make everything from scratch.

We do not have the luxury to drive 10mins to the bakkwa shop to buy it for CNY.

In fact, i started making this because Shawn loves bakkwa so much, 

he keep this stash on his top shelf.

Anyway, i felt it was healthier making my own bakkwa cause at least i know whats inside.

Everything is laced with preservatives these days, its just better to make them ourselves.

Usually bakkwa is flame grilled but i do not have bbq stove here so i bake them. Trust me when i say they taste just as good but if you like the smokey flavor,  you can flame grill them at the final step after you glaze them.

Makes 8 slices

Ingredients

500g minced pork
150g brown sugar
2 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
3 tbsp shaoxing wine
2 tbsp five spice powder
3tbsp chili oil ( optional )
Honey for glazing


In a big bowl, mix everything together except honey. The honey will be used for glazing in the last step.
Keep mixing until the meat has a slight sticky texture.
Cover the meat using cling clingwrap and keep it refrigerated overnight.
Preheat the oven to 250°F or 120°C
On a parchment paper, spread the meat out in individual pieces of 10cm by 10cm.
I like them slightly thicker so i do not use a pin to roll it flat but if you do, cover it with a cling rap and roll it out.
for me, i just use a fork to  press and shape them.
put it in the oven for 10mins and then flip it over and bake for another 10mins.
( i like slightly juicier bakkwa but juicy means they don't keep so well. if you want them to keep longer, although they will definitely be finished within minutes of being ready.. bake them for 15mins on each side )
Glaze generously with honey.
At this stage, you can have them barbecued over a flame.
Turn the oven up to 500°F or 260°C
and bake for about 8minutes on each side or until slightly charred at the edges.

Happy Chinese New Year and

Bon Appetite!