Braised Pork (Lor Bak)

This is usually done with pork belly but i never buy pork belly cos hubby likes lean meat.


This is another version of Lor Bak with lean meat and the trick to have soft lean meat is to give it a good bash and a good braise.


What you need
- 1 star anise
- 1 cinnamon
- 5 slices of ginger
- 3 cloves of garlic (do not minced)
- 1 packet of lean shoulder pork meat (from NTUC)
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 3 tablespoon of dark soya sauce (or 4 tablespoon if not using sweet dark sauce)
- 1 tablespoon of dark sweet soya sauce (optional)


How to do it


Cut pork into 2cm pieces. using the back of the knife, give it a good bash

Heat wok with oil, fry star anise and cinnamon until fragrant
Add ginger and whole cloves of garlic, fry until ginger and garlic is brown.

Add 1 tablespoon of sugar into oil and wait for it to melt.
Add dark soya sauce and pork


Stir fry for 2 mins, add 1 cup water, cover it with lid and let it braise for 15 mins using low fire.
Every 10 mins, stir, check water level (add more water if necessary).

For meat to be cooked to tenderness, it takes 30-45mins depending on ur heat.


Before serving, if you like it to have thicker gravy, bring fire to medium and sauce will be reduced.

Sour vegetables (suan chai)

One weekend i went back to hougang for dinner, my mum has a plate of preserved vege on the dinner table. she said its preserved by my da jiu mu (1st uncle's wife).

Then on, every other weekend, my mum will have preserved vege cos my grandma also starts making her own using chye sim and sometimes cabbage.

What i am trying to say is, this sour vege is addictive.

One small bowl of sour vege can go with a big bowl of rice!

So i decide to try on my own

What you need

- 2 tablespoon of salt

- 1 tablespoon of sugar

- 3/4 cup of water from washing rice

- 2 packets of chye sim from NTUC

How to do it

Mix salt and sugar (2:1), with water that is used to wash rice.

Wash chye sim and leave to dry in the a airy place or under the sun for 1 day

This will wither with vege a bit.

Put the vege, soak with premix water, in a container.

Give the vege a good rub (just like u are handwashing clothes) and use a plate to press it downwards.

Leave container covered and leave it to preserve.

On a daily basis, give it a good rub.

On 2nd day, the vege will start to give out more water (yellowish) and soften.

On day 3, u will see white mould on the surface of the water, use the disposable table napkin to remove the mould from the water before rubbing the vege again. repeat this for day 4.

Vege should be ready to eat by day 4.

If you are not cooking it immediately, pour away the water, wring the vege dry and put it in a clean plastic bag and refigerate it.

Fried Mee Tai Mak (Bee Thye Mak)

What you need?
- 1 packet of Mee Tai Mak
- 1/2 packet of minced pork (marinate with wine, soya sauce, pepper, sesame oil)
- 1 handful of dried scrimps, diced (washed and soak in hot water, keep water for use later)
- 3 eggs (beated)
- 5 cloves of garlic, diced
- 1 small red onion, diced
- 2 stalks of coriander (remove roots, stalks into 1-2 cm lengths, leaves into 2-3 cm)

How do you do it?

- Heat wok, put olive oil, stir fry garlic, onion and dried scrimps until fragrant

- Add minced meat and stir fry, break down the lumpy pieces of meat into small pieces

- When meat is 70% cooked, add Mee Tai Mak, break down the mee tai mak in the packet before putting it in (there are some bigger lumps in the wok i pick them up and break them with my fingers)

- add 1/2 cup of the water from soaking dried scrimps, cover the wok and let the mee tai mak cook for 2 mins

- when the mee tai mak is cooked, it will look transparent instead of white

- add more water and cook until 80% is transparent and water dried up

- add a bit of dark soya sauce for colour, add light soya sauce and pepper for taste

- mix well

- add beaten egg, stiring quickly if you dont want big pieces of egg and just want the egg to coat the mee tai mak

- i like small pieces of visible egg so after pouring in beaten eggs, i resist stiring for 20 sec before i stir fry. this allow the eggs at the side of the pan to harden and cook

- add coriander stalks and most of the leaves to stir fry until soft.

- leave the mee tai mak to brown slightly in the pan for 1-2 mins

- add chinese wine and sesame seed oil and quickly stir for 1 last time before serving

To serve, disk mee tai mak into plate, garnish with fried shallots and remaining coriander leaves.

Happy Valentines Day!

Wanted to cook fish but ended up making this



After the CNY feasting, wanted to cook cod fish, with salad and mushroom as sides.
Unfortunately, i went to the supermarket too late and GIANT ran out of both Cod and Salmon!


Tenderloin is pretty small piece so i bought 4! haha two each. cost $23... pricey but if u eat in restaurant 1 piece will cost u the same price on normal days, dont know how they will overcharge for v day :P



For salad, i bought a box of butterhead lettuce, there is 2 'heads', used only one for dinner, kept the other one for supper the next day. Peel and wash the lettuce, shake off excess water or else the dressing gets diluted.
for dressing, i used lemon juice, honey and japanese sesame salad dressing. Tangy and sweet, very refreshing.

Bought 2 boxes of mushroom, one white and one brown. cook everything and have 3 portions of whats shown above. the 3rd portion i had it as supper the same day :P
Quick stir fry the mushrooms with garlic and onion, sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.

This is the 3rd time Ben and i make steak at home, but this is the first time i get to cook the steak. Watch Jamie Oliver Ministry of food and in the show he said after cooking the steak need to let it rest for a few minutes. i know the reason why. when resting, the juices will flow out and all the bloody juices will not mess up the plate and the side dishes when u cut into the meat. Further, the juices collected can be used in gravy to give it the extra oomph...
Marinate the steak for 15-30 mins with seasoned pepper and salt, on both sides, press it into the meat lightly.

Heat pan, add a piece of butter, when melted halfway, add olive oil to stop the butter from burning. after butter totally melt and bubbling away, put the steak and swirl it around the pan. Do not turn it until after at least 1 min and when its time to turn, the steak will be browned nicely on one side. Do the same for the other side. Keep the heat on medium high. Browning bother sides quickly will seal in the juice. After both sides are nicely browned, turn heat to low medium and continue to cook for around 3 min on each side for medium cooked steak.

For steak sauce, i bought lee kum kee black pepper sauce in a bottle (free extra 50%)
brown garlic with bit of olive oil, add water (ard 1/4 cup) and add 2 tablespoon of sauce. add sugar to neutralise the saltiness of the sauce and add more coarse black pepper if u like it spicy!

To serve, place lettuce salad, mushroom and steak on plate, drizzle salad dressing over lettuce and black pepper sauce over steak.

Fried noodles

What do you need?
- 1/2 medium sized cabbage (1 cabbage cost approx $0.90, sliced horizontally)
- 2 eggs
- Chicken sliced thinly (optional to marinate)
- Fresh Shitake mushroom sliced thinly (Can use dried mushroom but remember to wash, soak in water, dry with kitchen towel before use)
- Chinese sausage sliced thinly (Can use hotdog)
- Frozen minced garlic in oil
- Soya sauce (light and dark), pepper, sesame seed oil
- Dried instant noodle (Cintan mee pok)

How to do it?

Put water in pan and add 2 teaspoon of cooking oil (this prevent the noodles from sticking)
When boil, add noodles and cook until soft (don’t overcook)
Remove noodles from water, pour water away and heat pan until pan is dry.
When pan dries, add chinese sausage into pan (no need oil)
Cook over very low heat and oil will be purged out of the sausage. When sausage brown, remove and put aside.
Crack egg into pan (don’t need to add oil because pan will have oil) and make scramble egg, when cooked, remove and put aside

Add frozen minced garlic in oil.
Wait for oil to melt
Add a bit of corn flour to meat/seafood before adding meat/seafood into pan to stir fry together.
Add chicken, fry garlic and chicken until 70% cooked
Add cabbage and mushroom, stir fry
When cabbage soften, add 1/4 cup water, add noodles
Add light and dark sauce, pepper, cover and slowly cook until water dries up (leave a bit of water)
Add egg and chinese sausage, mix well
Add sesame seed oil and serve

New York 10 - 22 Jan 2009

Year 2009 came and a couple of months passed.

2008 Xmas celebration, 2009 new year celebration, planning for CNY before trip, pack, 2 weeks in NY, back from trip, CNY, unpack, back to work and finally, succumb to the stupid flu virus....

Now at home resting and have time to post this.

Considered it a blessing in disguise.

Trip to New York is memorable as...

1) Its my first SQ business class

2) Its my first time landing on a snow covered runway

Before the trip, someone tells me to get a window seat on the left so that i can have a fantastic view of Manhatten when the plane is touching down.

However, when i look out of the window, its pitch white. My first view is the snow covered runway and 3 seconds later, BUMP. we have landed.

view? what view? the harsh cold weather robbed me of the view! well, at least we landed safely under such extreme weather conditions. its -4 deg out there.

3) its my first time in Manhatten and New Jersey

This picture is taken on my 1st day at work. On our way back to Hudson from Manhatten, its around 3pm in the afternoon, the sky is clear, the sun is bright. Pictire perfect: the view of Manhatten from Hudson, across Hudson River (btw, this is where the UA plane landed on the Hudson river!)

On the 4th day, it snowed. Hudson now looks like this.

This picture is taken from the 70 Hudson office.

Imagine having such a Statue of Liberty view from your office.

4) its my first real snowfall experience

I dont count the snow in blue mountain when in australia (i think its frozen rain) and dont count the snow on mount titlis when in switzerland (more like wind carrying snow on the ground)...

If you look at the picture closely, you can see the snow falling.

5) i had a close up view of the Statue of Liberty

This is taken on ferry to Ellis Island. You dont need me to tell you who this lady is.

6) i went up the Empire State Building

This is taken on the 86th observatory, later i went up onto the 102nd!

The pigeon has a better view.

7) its was my first factory outlet shopping experience

Went bananas. To give you a taste, this is the picture of my bags only.

8) my first view of the Manhatten skyline
On my flight out, i looked out of the window and this is what i saw: a sea of gold. This picture didnt do Manhatten justice. Use your imagination and multiply the lights by 10 times and its how awesome the view is. Though i didnt get to see it on my way in, the surprise on my way out makes enduring the harsh cold, the long hours at work, the time spent away from home all worth it.


My only regret is that i didnt get to visit any museum in NY.

Next time maybe.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CNY sidetrack:

Made my first fried nian gao this yr on first day of lunar new year... successful! yummy.

I made the mistake of placing the niao gao into the fridge. Makes it turn into stone and almost impossible to cut through even with my trusty chopper. By the time i finish, i am breaking into sweat and i didnt get the really thin slices i want. i wanted it to be 0.5cm thick, turn out to be 1cm.

Make the batter using only egg and flour, into a lumpy batter, dip niao gao and fry with little oil. easy and yet so crunchy and fragrant!

Dawn's chicken pie

Happy birthday nana and a happy new year to everyone

Inspired by Jamie Oliver's Ministry of food (bought from Amazon when i am in London - half price of whats its selling in Singapore!) and decides to make a chicken pie.

Its really simple if you get frozen puff pastry from supermarket (i got mine from carrefour - see pic for box)

Chicken stew

What you need?

4 cloves garlic

1 carrot (diced)

1 stalk of celery (diced)

2 small red onions (diced)

1 chicken breast of a large chicken (diced, marinated)

2 potatoes (boiled, peeled, diced)

2 cups stock/water

1 cup white wine

1 tablespoon of plain flour

Salt

Pepper

Olive oil

How to do it?

Fry garlic and onion with olive oil until onions turn white

Add carrots and cook for 2 mins

Add chicken and flour

Fry until chicken is 50% cooked, add wine and simmer for 2 mins

Add stock (if using water, add 1/4 chicken cube/1 teaspoon of chicken powder) and simmer for 15 mins

When chicken is tender, add potatoes and mash it into the stew roughly.

This helps the gravy thickens.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Place chicken stew into pie pan to cool down completely.

Chicken Pie

What you need?

Chicken stew

Puff pastry

1 egg

1 tablespoon of milk

How to do it?

Preheat oven at 180 degrees

Take puff pastry out of freezer to defrost. check puff pastry every 2-3 mins and slowly unroll it to expose the frozen puff in the centre of the roll

Mix egg and milk in a bowl

Use a brush, coat the sides of the pie pan with the egg mixture.

This helps the puff sticks to the sides better

Roll puff pastry over the top of the pie pan, trim off the excess, using a fork, press down/crim the sides of the pie pan

Poke a few holes around the pie for steam to escape.

Bake in oven for 35-45 mins or until the puff pastry is brown.