Stir Fried Pork Liver

姜蒜炒猪肝

Pork liver is not everyone's cup of tea but do you know that in Traditional Chinese Medicine, it is considered a tonic for blood. This dish is thus loaded with health benefits! 

Ingredients

200g pork liver

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon dark soy sauce

2 cloves garlic (chopped into small pieces) 

8 to 10 stalks sping onion (cut into 2 inch length)

1 knob of ginger (cut into thin strips)

Method

1. Rinse the liver and dab dry with kitchen towel. Cut into thin slices. 

2. Marinate the liver with sesame oil and dark soy sauce for 30 minutes.

3. Heat up wok with a tablespoon of oil under medium heat. Saute garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add in liver and stir fry quickly for 30 seconds. Add in 1 teaspoon salt and spring onion. Stir fry quickly for 1 minute and remove from wok. Do not overcook the liver!

Serve hot with rice!

Grilled Cheese Sandwich

 芝士三文治

Want a quick breakfast? Try this sandwich recipe

Ingredient

2 slices of bread (any bread will do)

2 slices of smoked bacon

10 - 15g shredded cheese (we like KRAFT shredded Colby & Monterey Jack Cheeses)

Method

1. Cut each slice of bacon into two and pan fry them until crispy. Set aside.

2. Spread some butter on each slice of bread. 

3. Heat up a pan/skillet (no oil required) under low heat. Put one slice with the buttered side facing down on the skillet/cast iron pan. If you are using the same pan for frying smoked bacon, remove all the oil/fat released from the bacon.

4. Add shredded cheese on top of the bread, followed by bacon slices and more cheese. Then place the second piece of bread with the buttered side facing up on top of the sandwich. 

5. Once the bottom piece of bread is nicely browned (around 5 minutes) gently flip the sandwich over and grill the other slice of bread (for around 3 minutes).

6. Remove the sandwich from the pan, cut diagonally into two and serve immediately.

Sweet Mung Bean Dessert (Tau Suan)

 豆爽

This is one of the easiest dishes to cook at home. Once the mung beans are soaked, this dessert can be cooked in 30 minutes. Plus, we can to control how starchy, how sweet and how much mung beans to cook.

Ingredient

150g mung bean

75g rock sugar

1 litre water (to soak mung beans)

900ml water (to cook mung beans)

pandan leaves (optional)

sweet potato starch (30g sweet potato flour mixed with 50ml water)

Method

1. Wash the mung beans and soak for a few hours.

2. Drain the mung beans and steam over high-medium heat for 15 minutes. (I spread the beans on a bamboo sushi mat and put the mat on top of steaming rack.)

3. Boil a pot of water and add rock sugar and pandan leaves (if using). Turn off fire. Then slowly stir in the sweet potato starch until well combined. 

4. Add the steamed mung beans into the pot and stir to mix. Turn on the fire and bring to boil. Then turn off fire and cover the pot. Let the mung beans fluff up for 15minutes before serving.

5. Serve with youtiao (Chinese doughnut stick). 

Cantonese Cabbage Rice

粵式包菜饭

This is a very nutritious one-pot meal. 

Main Ingredients

2 cups Thai Ho Mali rice (I use the rice measuring cup that comes with rice cooker)

50g dried shrimps 

3-4 dried Shiitake mushrooms 

200g sliced pork (I bought the cut of meat called "不见天", bu jian tian)

8 leaves of cabbage (tear/cut into small pieces, buy the flat variety of cabbage)

8 small onions (to make crispy shallots as toppings)

2 cloves of garlic (minced/chopped)

Method

1. Soak the dried shrimps and mushrooms in separate bowls for at least one hour. Once the shrimps are soft, drain them and reserve the liquid. Once the mushrooms are rehydrated, squeeze out the water and reserve the liquid. Then cut away the stems and cut the mushrooms into thin slices. Filter the liquid from soaking the dried shrimps and mushrooms, and measure them. Top up with more water to make 440ml which will be used to cook the rice.

Note: As the cabbage leaves will release water during cooking, we need to reduce the total amount of water to cook the rice. Guideline is around 73% to 75% of the usual amount of water. In this recipe, I reduced the water from 600ml (normal amount to cook 2 cups of rice) to 440ml.

2. Wash the cabbage leaves, tear/cut them into small pieces and set aside. 

3. Marinate the pork slices with 1 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon corn flour, dashes of white pepper and 1 teaspoon cooking oil (to prevent the pork from clumping together).

4. Cut the onions into very thin slices and set aside.

5. Wash the rice and drain the water. Put the rice in the pot/rice cooker and set aside (do not cook yet).

6. Add sufficient oil (around 4-5 tablespoons) in the wok and fry the onions under low heat until golden brown. Remove the shallots from wok.

7. Using the remaining oil in the wok, fry the shrimps under medium-low heat until fragrant. Then add in the garlic and stir fry for 1 minute. Add in the mushrooms and stir fry for another minute. Pour in the reserved water (from step 1) and bring to boil. Turn off the fire. Transfer the mixture to the rice. Do not stir the rice.

8. Place the cabbage into the rice pot/cooker, followed by the pork slices. Cover the pot/cooker and start to cook the rice as per normal.

9. Once rice is cooked, add 1 tablespoon of dark soy sauce and 1 teaspoon of sesame oil. Use a pair of chopsticks to stir the rice and the ingredients. 

10. Serve hot with spring onion, crispy shallots and sliced chilli.

Korean Roast Chicken

韩式烤鸡

I adapted this recipe from Korean Chef Maangchi.

Ingredients

1 chicken (about 1.3kg)

1.5 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1.5 tablespoon unsalted butter (melted)

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

2 garlic cloves (minced)

Method

1. Clean chicken, rub salt all over the skin and wash away the salt. Dab chicken dry with kitchen towel.

2. Prepare the chicken rub by mixing olive oil, butter, salt, garlic and black pepper in a bowl. 

3. Rub the chicken (including the cavity) with the oil mixture (step 2 above). Keep the remaining oil mixture for use later.

4. Preheat the oven to 175 deg cel. Line an oven tray with aluminium foil for easy cleaning later. Put a roasting rack on the tray and the chicken on the roasting rack.

5. Roast the chicken, breast side facing up) for 40mins. 

6. Remove chicken from oven and brush the chicken with oil mixture. Flip the chicken (back of chicken facing up) and brush with oil mixture. Roast for another 20 minutes.

7. Remove chicken from oven and brush with more oil. Flip the chicken over (breast side facing up) and brush with more oil. Roast for 20 minutes.

8. Rest chicken for 15 minutes before serving.

Sambal Stingray

叁峇魔鬼鱼

Ingredients

1 slice of stingray (550g)

A few pieces of banana leaves ( blanched in hot water for a minute)

A few pieces of tumeric leaves (blanched in hot water forca minute)

140g shallots

5 cloves garlic

40g dried shrimps (chopped into small pieces, then soaked for 30minutes)

Dried chilli (around 10 pieces, increase/reduce quantity depending on the spiciness you want, de-seed and rehydrate for 30minutes)

Fresh chilli (around 5 pieces, increase/reduce quantity depending on the spiciness you want, de-seed)

3 stalks of lemongrass (white/tender part only, about 5-6 cm from the base/roots, cut into small pieces)

3g belachan (toasted in wok until dried and crumbly)

5g galangal (blue ginger)

10g tumeric (yellow ginger)

6 candlenuts

2 tablespoon brown sugar

Juice from 6 limes

Method

1. Use mortar and pestle to pound shallots and garlic until they are broken and fine. Transfer the meshed shallots and garlic to the wok.

2. Place the rest of the spices (chilli, candlenut, lemongrass, toasted belachan, galangal, tumeric) into the mortar and pound until you get a paste.

3. Add one tablespoon of oil into wok. Stir fry shallots and garlic mix until fragrant.

4. Add the paste from step 2 into wok. Stir fry for 5 minutes or until the oil is released from the lemongrass and chilli. If you are using a lot of chilli, stir fry until the paste turn dark red. Turn off heat.

5. In a separate wok/pan, add 2 tablespoon oil and stir fry the shrimps until frangrant. Then add the shrimps (including the oil) to the wok with the spice paste (also called "rempah"). Turn on heat to medium and mix until well combined. 

6. Add lime juice to the rempah and mix in. Add brown sugar and mix in. Do a taste test and adjust seasoning (e.g. salt, lime juice). Turn off heat.

7. Lay the banana leaf in the wok/pan, and place the tumeric leaf on the banana leaf. Spread 1/3 of the rempah on the tumeric leaf. Place the stingray on the rempah. Cover the wok and grilled for 5 to 8 minutes under medium heat. 

8. Prepare another banana leaf and place tumeric leaf on top. Spread 1/3 of the rempah on the leaf. Once step 7 is done, transfer the stingray to this set of banana and tumeric leaves. Flip the stingray so that the side that was cooked with the rempah in step 7 is facing up. Coat the remaining 1/3 rempah on the stingray. Cover the wok and turn on heat to medium. Grill for 5 to 8 minutes. Insert a chopstick/skewer into the thickest part of the stingray flesh to check that the meat is cooked (if your stingray is thick, you need to increase the cooking time).

7. Transfer the stingray (including banana/tumeric leaves to serving plate and serve hot.