Braised pork belly with Chu Hou sauce (柱候五花腩)

Experiment: Braised pork belly with Chu Hou sauce (柱候五花腩)

Introduction:

I bought the Che Hou sauce for making beef brisket a few months ago.  After that, the bottle had been sitting in the fridge doing nothing.  Well I thought, since I have the pork belly at home, might as well use the chu hou sauce to braise the pork belly. I used a pressure cooker to cook it which took me like 20 minutes.  Quick dinner dish! 🙂

Materials:

1-1.5 kg pork belly
1 radish
1 carrot
100 g shallots
4 tbsp Chu Hou sauce
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp Chinese wine
1 small piece of rock sugar
1-2 anise
water

Procedure:

1) Peel the radish and carrot.  Cut into bite site.

2) Cut the pork belly into big pieces.  Pork belly shrink after it’s cooked, so don’t cut it too small.

3) Put all the ingredients in a pressure cooker.  Pour water in, covers about half of the ingredients.  (water comes out from the carrot and radish so you don’t have to put in too much water)

4) Let it cook…

Results:

Discussions:

1) You can substitute pork belly with beef brisket.  Actually you can put any type of stew meat in!

Tomato Beef Curry

Experiment: Tomato Beef Curry

Introduction:
You know, many inventions are created by mistakes or accidents, like potato chips, Cheese, post-it notes, penicillin etc. While I was following a recipe to make Dry Curry, I happend to run out of some of the ingredients, and since I didn’t wanna waste some food, I added way more than I should have. I didn’t expect this messed up dish would taste ok at all… But… it turned out very well! It was super yummy. I shared it with some of my co-workers, and they all liked it. Well then! I gotta write it down coz… I don’t know if I can replicate this messed up recipe again!

Materials: (serves 12-16 people)
900g minced beef
300g Chinese celery, chopped
1 white onion, finely chopped
1/2 red onion, finely chopped
6 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
few slices of ginger
6 red chili peppers, seeded and finely chopped

Oil
Parmesan Cheese (optional)
Rice/Spaghetti
Cilantro (to garnish)

Seasoning:
3 tbs curry powder (Safeway brand)
1/2 pack of Glico Curry
1 can of diced tomato (about 756ml)
3-4 dried bay leaves
3 tbs Soy Suace
6 tbs ketchup
6 tbs Worchestshire sauce

Procedure:
1) Heat up a big pot, pour in some oil. When the oil is hot, put the white onion, red onion, garlic, ginger and red chili peppers in. Stir until the fragrance comes out.

2) Put the minced beef in. Stir well.

3) When the beef is half cooked, put the Chinese celery in.

4) Put all the seasoning ingredients in. OH put the water from the diced tomato in as well!

5) Let it cook for about 15-20 minutes. Stir occasionally to prevent it from burning.

6) Prepare rice or spaghetti. Put the curry on top of the rice/spaghetti, sprinkle parmesan cheese on top, then garnish with cilantro. DONE! 🙂

Discussions:
1) It was meant to be dry curry. The original recipe asks for 6 tbs curry powder and NO glico curry brick. Also the diced tomato was supposed to be just 2 cups instead of almost 3 cups, 3 onions instead of 1.5 onions. The original recipe asks for regular celery instead of Chinese celery. OH and I ommited the carrots… so you can add some carrots in.

2) I don’t think this dish is particularly spicy. Add more red chili peppers if you want it spicier.

3) In case you’re wondering… how come the rice in the pictures is not “white.” Well… it’s coz I mixed 3 kinds of rice together. 2 of the 3 types are not white, but a bit of yellowish. That’s why the rice turn out to be a bit of yellow.

Taiwanese Meat Sauce with Mushrooms (台式香菇肉燥)

Experiment: Taiwanese Meat Sauce with Mushrooms (台式香菇肉燥)

Introduction:
Well after I made the Miso Meat Sauce last time… I just fell in love with meat sauce. Not because I love meat in particular, but it’s just SUPER convenient. It’s pretty much good for ANYTHING. If you don’t know what to eat, just make rice or noodles, microwave some meat sauce and Ta Da~ A meal is done.

Anyway, this facebook blogger that I subscribe to… she was making meat sauce too!!! This time she made the Taiwanese Meat Sauce with mushrooms. It looked super yummy… so I decided to make it so that my miso meat sauce won’t be too lonely in the freezer…

You can pretty much order this meat sauce on rice in every TW restaurants. I guess it’s like a basic dish for TW cuisine? Hmm… It’s not hard to make, but it’s a lot of preperation (as the blogger said). This time I only made about 1 kg of pork, but next time I’ll defintely double (or triple) the recipe so that I can freeze up more!

Materials: (serves about 6)
1kg of regular ground pork
6 dried shitake mushrooms
4-6 hard boiled eggs, peeled
1/2 cup finely chopped garlics
1/3 cup deep fried garlic* (which I didn’t use this time, but will try it next time)
1/2 cup finely chopped shallots
Oil

Sauce:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup cooking wine
1-2 tbsp Five spices powder
1 tbsp rock sugar
1 tbsp peanut butter
syrup**

*You can buy the deep fried garlic in Asian supermarket. I tried making it… but did not succeed. The garlics turned bitter. I think it’s better to buy it than to make it. Oh well… maybe it’s coz I’m not skilled. Please let me know if you know any tricks on how to deep fry garlic!

*Syrup: In a small pot, heat up 2 tbsp sugar and 1 tbsp water. When the sugar caramalized, i.e., changes colour to brown, add another 1/4 cup of water. Watch out coz the water splashes! You can take a look at the picture below. The top right corner is the syrup that I made.

Procedure:
1) Soak the dried shitake mushrooms for a few hours (or over night) until soft, cut them into small pieces.

2) Heat up a pot. Add some oil in, and then put in the finely chopped garlics and shallots. When the fragrance comes out, put the ground pork in as well.

3) Put the mushroom, deep fried garlic, soy sauce, cooking wine, five spices powder, rock sugar and peanut butter in. Mix well.

4) Put in the syrup.

5) Put the peeled hard boiled eggs in as well. Make sure that the sauce can cover the eggs and everything. Add more water if needed.

6) Turn the heat to low, cover the lid and let it cook for about 1 hour. Stir occasionally to prevent it from sticking.

7) Cook until the liquid has dried up.

Results:

Meat sauce on rice with a marinated egg

Meat sauce on noodles

Discussions:
1) The blogger suggested using pork belly for this dish. I follwed her suggestion, and… I don’t think I’ll ever do it again becuase a) pork belly is actually more expensive than ground pork, b) I had to cut out so much fat from the pork belly… which made the “meat portion” even more expensive, and c) it took me so long to cut the pork belly into small pieces.

2) For the cooking wine, the blogger suggested Shaoxing wine. I don’t have it at home, so I used sake (Japanese wine). But then my co-worker told me that there’s a certain taste and fragrance to the Shaoxing wine, and it’s cheap. I’m gonna buy it and try next time I make it.

Reference:
The blogger did an exellent job in writing the recipe and taking pictures of the cooking process. Definitely go take a look!

1) Facebook page

2) Blog

Miso meat sauce on rice (肉味噌ご飯)

Experiment: Miso meat sauce on rice

Introduction:
Hmm, latelyI’m trying to make some dishes that would last me a few days, or something that I can make lots and put in the freezer for a while without loosing much taste.  Well, meat sauce came into my mind.  I have made miso meat sauce before, but I lost the recipe, so  I searched on Cookpad to find the recipe.  Well, I found lots of recipes on cookpad (actually, what can’t you find on cookpad?).  I found that many of the recipes include soy sauce, sugar, sake, mirin, and of course, miso paste.  The proportion varies from recipe to recipe.  Well, I just took the “average” and added the leftover seasoning in my fridge.  The result?  Good good! hehe!  And I have enough leftover to put in the freezer! 

Materials: (serve about 6)
1-1.5 lbs ground pork1.5 tbsp sugar

1.5 tbsp finely chopped shallot
1.5 tbsp finely chopped garlic
1.5 tbsp finely chopped ginger

1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sake
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp miso

Oil

Rice
cuccumber, thinly slice

Procedure:
1) Turn the heat on high.  Pour about 1 tbsp oil in a frying pan.

2) Put in the shallot, garlic and ginger.  Stir until you can smell the fragrant, then put the pork in.

3) When the pork is almost done, put in the soy sauce, sake, mirin sugar and miso. 

4) Turn the heat to medium, and let it simmer.  Stir occasionaly.

5) When the liquid has evaporaated, it’s done!

6) Put rice on a plate/bowl, then put the cuccumber on rice, and then the meat sauce on rice.

 

Results:

 

Discussions:
1) You can add an onsen egg on top to add more “flavour.”  I loooove eggs!

2) You can put this sauce on top of steamed veggies, or stir fry veggies with this.  Or you can put eggplants into this sauce as well.  It’s pretty versatile!  That’s why I like this sauce.

3) The proportions of the seasonings and sauce are quite… arbitrary.  If you like it sweeter, you can add more sugar, or if you like it spicier, you can add more ginger. 

 

Number Ribs (數字排骨)

Experiement: Number Ribs (數字排骨)

Introduction:
Yeah, the name sounds funny, but that’s what my co-worker told me the name of this dish is.  Hmm why is it called “number ribs?” Look at the ingredients and you’ll know… 

It’s pretty much a no fail recipe… give it a try! 🙂

Materials:
Ribs

Sauce:
1 rose cooking wine
2 black vinegar
3 sugar
4 soy sauce
5 water

Procedure:
1) Wash and cut up the ribs.

2) Mix all the sauce ingredients together.  The numbers are portion, so you can use tea spoon, table spoon, cup or even barrel if you like… as long as you follow the portion, then the taste should turn out right.

3) Pour the sauce in a deep pot.  When the sauce boils, put the ribs in.  When it boils, turn down the heat to medium and let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes.  Stir occasionally.  The sauce will caramelize and thicken.  If you don’t like thick sauce, turn the heat to low and simmer it for shorter time. 

Results: 

 Discussions:
1) You can substitute the ingredients with whatever you have at home, as long as the substitute has the same taste as the original ingredient.  I’ve used brown sugar, Japanese sake before, and my co-worker has used white vinegar as a substitute as well.  They all turned out quite fine.

2) My co-worker told me that she doesn’t use 4 portions regular soy sauce.  Instead, she uses 2 portions of light soy sauce, and 2 portions of dark soy sauce.  I’ve tried both ways .  The ribs cooked with the 2-2 light/dark soy sauce is a lot darker than the 4 soy sauce.  It’s because dark soy sauce is a lot darker, and it gives the food the colour.  (This time I used 2-2 light/dark soy sauce.  The ribs are really dark.)  Taste-wise, I’m not sure if there’s a significant difference, because everytime I make it, I change the ingredients a bit… so I’m not sure if the difference is from the soy sauce or something else.  

3) I’ve used this sauce to make chicken wings before… it was actually pretty good! 🙂  Give it a try!

Japanese style braised pork (豚の角煮）

I made this Japanese style braised pork (豚の角煮）the other day.  Hmm… I searched the recipe on Cookpad, and I saw that many recipes requires a pressure cooker, which I don’t have.  Many recipies also ask you to put them in the fridge for a night.  I think it is to let the fat solidify and then get ride of it (My Japanese is very limited, that’s what I get from reading those recipes).  Well I didn’t do any of those things…  (I don’t have a pressure cooker nor the time for it to sit through the night) I simply just boiled the pork for an hour.. and… that’s it.  The pork was ok, not super tender.  Flavour was OK though.  Hmm I’ll definitely give it a try again next time!  Time to brush up my Japanese!

Chinese style roasted pork (脆皮燒肉)

 

 

Experiment: Chinese style roasted pork (脆皮燒肉)

Introduction:
Lately I’ve seen a few people writing about making this Chinese style roasted pork on their blogs, and it doesn’t sound that hard to make (just takes time).  Since it’s long weekend here in Vancouver, which means I have time, so I decided to take a challenge – to make Chinese style roasted pork.

Materials:
Pork belly, about 1 kg
1 tbs Rose wine (or any Chinese wine or wine)
1/2 tbs salt
1/4 tbs sugar (I used brown sugar coz I ran out of white sugar)
1/4 tbs five spice powder

Procedure:
1) Boil the pork belly in a big pot of water for about 10 minutes.  You can put in some ginger and green onions as well if you want.  This procedure is to get the dirty stuff out from the pork belly, and get rid of the “pork taste” if you know what I mean…

2) After boiling, take the pork belly out and let it cool.  When it’s cool enough to touch, use a fork (or a few forks together) to poke LOTS of holes on the pork skin.  You only have to it to the pork skin, not the meat side.

3) Rub the rose wine onto the meat (not the skin). 

4) Mix salt, sugar and five spice powder together.  Then use your hands to pat the spices evenly onto the pork belly, including the skin. 

 5) Let it air dry on a rack overnight. (If you don’t have time, let it dry for at least 4 hours).

 

6) Use tin foil to tightly wrap the pork belly, leaving the skin uncovered.  Leave about an inch above the skin.

7) Slowly (and carefully) pour coarse salt onto the pork skin, cover it for about an inch, and then gently press it.  Be careful not to let the salt go to the sides and touch the meat. 

 8) Preheat the oven to 430F.  Then put the pork belly in and bake for 50 minutes.  After the 50 minutes, take the pork belly out, and take away the salt.

9) Reduce heat to 410F, and then bake (or broil) it for another 20-30 minutes, or until the skin is crunchy.

Results:

Pork belly, uncut

Discussions:
1) Ok, do NOT use brown sugar.  It makes the meat of the pork belly looks so brown… which is not pretty.  I’ve already restocked white sugar!  So I’ll definitely use white sugar next time.

2) It is better to use a bigger piece of pork belly instead of cutting it in half.  I made a mistake of asking the butcher to cut the pork belly in half…

3) You really need to poke LOTS of holes.  This way the skin will become crunchier.  I think I spent like 5 minutes on EACH of the pork belly skin, which means I spent 10 minutes on poking holes.  My hand was SOOOOO tired after that… >.<

4) I read that the reason to put the salt on top of the pork skin is to draw the water out, so that the skin will become crunchy… not sure if it’s true though.

5) Ok, LOTS of oil came out of this pork belly…  like 1/4 cup.  Not sure if other people had the same problem.  I’m not too sure what to do with the oil now… >.<

Reference:
Mrs. Wai’s Classroom

Basic Japanese style Hamburger patty (ハンバーグ)

Experiment: Basic Japanese style Hamburger patty

Introduction:
Hamburger patty is a very common dish in Japan.  You can find recipes in many Japanese magazines or books.  There’s this recipe book that I have that shows you what can go with you hamburger patties.  Well… before I try those fancy recipes, I think I need to make sure that my hamburger patties taste good first.  I’ve made it 4 times before… the first and third time tasted well, but the second and forth time were really bad.  Not sure why!  I guess odd numbers are good for me?  Anyways… I tried a simpler recipe this time… and guess what, this 5th time that I make hamburger patties was good! (it’s odd number again though) Hmm… not sure about next time though… hahahaha!

Materials: (make 6 patties)
300 g minced meat (beef or pork or mixed)
1/2 onion, chopped
50g bread crumbs
1 egg
1 clove of garlic, minced
Chopped ginger
1/2 soy sauce
1/2 sake
Black pepper

Procedure:
1) Put the chopped onion, garlic, ginger, bread crumbs and egg in a mixing bowl, and mix well.

2) Put the meat in 1), and add soy sauce, sake and black pepper.  Mix well.

3) Divide the mixture in 6.  Put a portion in your hand.  Make it into a round shape.  Throw the patty between your hands to make the air out.  (This prevents the hamburger patty from falling apart when you cook it)

4) Put the hamburger patties into the fridge for an hour for the flavour to come out. (Optional step)

5) Pan fry the patties or bake the patties.  Depends on what you wanna make.

Result:

Discussions:
1) I use worchester sauce for the patties this time.  It tasted well! 🙂

2) It’s better to chop the onion REALLY FINE.  It’s easier for you to make the patties round.  This time I made the onions a bit too big, so it acutally didn’t mix well with the meat… and then I couldn’t make nice round shape patties.