u m a m i

Pork braised in soya sauce

      

Here it is, husband's own recipe for braised pork. It is very much like the man himself, simple and not in the least fussy. Others may put five-spice powder, dried orange peel, cinnamon, etc but none of that for him. The only concession he made was the addition of dried chillies a few years ago, after I commented that my family sometimes added this to make the dish less one-dimensional.

Usually he makes this dish with half the quantity but like all long-cooked meat dishes, it improves with age; last Sunday he decided to make enough so that we can eat the leftovers during the week. If you are making it for the first time, try halving the ingredients.

The dried ingredients are also optional, feel free to add whatever you fancy or have available in the pantry. We happened to visit the dried goods wholesaler on Saturday so there was plenty of dried goods to play around with, but most of the time it is made with just pork and mushrooms.

Ingredients (Core)

1.8 kg pork belly, cut into chunks - fresh chilled pork from the wet market makes a superior product compared to the frozen version, and the butcher should be able to recommend a suitable cut.

10 cloves garlic, unpeeled

8 dried chillies, rinsed not soaked

2 tablespoons dark soya sauce to marinate

2-2.5 tablespoons dark soya sauce for cooking (titrate according to amount of dried ingredients)

Rock sugar, to taste

Ingredients (optional)

10 dried shitake mushrooms, soaked, rinsed and halved

8 pieces dried oyster, soaked and rinsed

1 dried squid, soaked, rinsed,deveined, sliced

3 pieces tau-kan / tau kee (dried bean sticks), soaked 5 minutes only, cut into finger-length pieces.

Marinate pork with soya sauce, garlic and dried chillies. Overnight if possible, otherwise a minimum of 2 hours .

Heat oil in wok and quickly sear the pork. Then and add prepared dried ingredients (except tau kee) to mix. Transfer to a cooking pot, add the marinade liquid and top up with boiled water until the meat is completely submerged. Add the second portion of soya sauce. Bring to a boil and lower heat to simmering point. Let it cook a further 2-2.5 hours, stirring occasionally.

45 minutes before end of cooking time add the tau kee, but do not stir too much or it will unfurl and make the dish look very messy.

At the end of cooking, add a little rock sugar to taste. A 20-cent nugget is usually enough to mellow the edge of the soy and make the gravy taste smoother.

Serve with rice, congee or mix with noodles. I imagine it will taste good in a sandwich too.

Christmas Lima Beans

My friend slurp wanted to know what they look like.

Caramelised Pineapple

Another Jacques Pepin inspiration. Pineapple slices laid neatly in a pan, dot with butter and brown sugar and splash with orange juice. Let the orange juice thicken, and resist turning the pineapple to see if they have browned yet. Finish with cointreau, can flambee if you like, not if you don't. Then, voila! pineapple candy.

Sunday Brunch at Home

From L to R: Fresh polenta, corned beef toasties, Christmas Lima Bean stew with Prawns and Courgettes, Pineapple Pear Salad.

The idea for our past, rather extravagant, Sunday brunch menu started with a sudden fancy for corned beef toasties. The good ladies at the Church of Sacred Heart sell them at $1.50 a piece, and if we are disciplined enough to wake up early we would have snagged ourselves some. However, knowing ourselves as lapsed Catholics whose attendance at church is at best sporadic, we decided to make our own. And cook a few other things which may go well with the toasties.

Like fresh polenta, recipe courtesy of Jacques Pepin. Late on Saturday night the two of us watched in fascination as he made polenta with fresh corn. Prior to this I had never liked polenta because of too many bland and dense restaurant versions. It really is, as Jacques promised in his series Fast Food My Way, very simple and fast. The whole process took less than 15 minutes, but I let the corn stay on the pan a little longer so they get a bit of a brown crust. Only problem was, there wasn't much yield from a pair of corn and everyone got only about a tablespoonful each. Next time we will blitz a half dozen.

Because the toasties had beef, I didn't fancy making anything else with meat. Instead I cooked some of the Christmas Lima beans that we bought in San Francisco last year. Bacon would improve my beans, but I was set on courgettes to accompany them and really, there isn't good bacon to be found in the vicinity of Tekka Market and we didn't have much time to hop from market to market, so in the end I added some prawn stock and white wine instead. The bean stew turned out fine, the mellow chestnut-tiness of the beans grabbed all the attention while the supporting cast of prawns and courgette lightened the rusticity somewhat. For added zip, I stirred in a dollop of parsley anchovy sauce with each serving.

To finish, I thought of a fruit salad. Because Jacques Pepin had advocated making fruit salad with a dressing of apricot jam and almonds. I didn't have any apricot jam in my fridge, but there is always a respectable collection of marmalade inside. So we paired marmalade with honey and mint and the salad was a hit. Almonds, nah, none available at home.

To drink, husband opened a bottle of French chardonnay. Some of it went into the bean stew too. I used to dislike Chardonnay because of the oakiness but the Macon Burgy 2001 was most un-oaky. It's light crisp honeyed character was a good match for our hearty brunch.

Corned beef Toasties

1 tin of corned beef

1 big onion, chopped

2 green chillies, de-seeded and sliced thinly

Sliced bread

Sweat the onions and chilli in a non-stick pan until soft. Add corned beef and cook, stirring only occasionally, till some of the beef develops a darker colour. Make sandwiches with the beef. Toast sandwiches.

Fresh polenta

2 pieces of corn on the cob.

Seasalt

Butter

Use a knife to slice the kernels off the cob. Place all the corn in a blender with a pinch of seasalt. Blend till fine. Heat some butter in a non-stick pan and cook the corn. Keep stirring till the corn thickens, about 5 minutes. At this point you can either add more butter and serve or let it stay in the pan till it browns.

Christmas Lima, Prawn and Courgette stew

2 handfuls Christmas Lima beans, soaked overnight (change soaking water at least once)

1.5 big onions, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 carrot, diced finely

15 medium-sized prawns, de-whiskered and de-veined

1 courgette, roll-cut

1 cup white wine

Take a heavy bottom saucepan- I used the Staub cocotte that I won at the food bloggers lunch. Sweat the onions, garlic and carrot in olive oil until soft. Add beans and enough water to cover. Bring to boil and lower the heat until everything comes to a constant gentle simmer. Let it cook for 2-3 hours, stirring only occasionally.

In the meantime, steam the prawns. Remove the shell and head. Reserve the cooking liquid. Keep the prawns aside.

When the beans are tender, add the wine and prawn stock. Bring to the boil, add the courgettes and cook till the courgettes soften slightly. Return prawns to pot and serve.

Parsley Anchovy Sauce

This sauce is my standby item for brightening many fish and poultry dishes. It tastes amazing, trust me.

Generous bunch English parsley, chopped finely

4 stalks of scallions, green parts only, chopped finely

2 pieces anchovies in oil.

Olive oil

Sea-salt

Place parsley and scallions in a mortar. Grind together with anchovies until everything is amalgamated. Add sea-salt to taste, olive oil to smoothen if necessary. Finish with a squirt of lemon juice.

Fruit Salad

Half pineapple, cut into chunks

1 round yellow pear, cut into chunks

2 tablespoons tawny marmalade

2 teaspoons honey

Handful mint leaves, snipped finely

Some golden raisins, chopped

Mix marmalade, honey, mint leaves and golden raisins together. Add fruits. Serve.

Ben & Jerry's is in Singapore. And I don't mean at the zoo location.

Now at United Sq. More outlets to open at Suntec City & Great World City.

Condiment abuse- small rant ahead

Husband makes a damn good version of tau-yu bak-belly pork, dried squid, dried mushroom and dried oyster braised in garlicky soya sauce. I loved this dish so much that when 4th sister asked me for a recipe for braised pork, I sent her the recipe. But husband wrote down 2 cups of dark soy sauce instead of 2 tablespoons in 2 cups water. A very angry 4th sister wrote back to scold me because her dish turned out bitter and inedible; her pot was also burnt from the boiling soy sauce.

Soy sauce is like that. You don't need a lot. 2 tablespoons to 2 cups of water is sufficient to make a pot of braised meat. You don't even need the special or premium varieties, last week we made some using ordinary grade Tai Hua version and the taste was not much degraded. Most of the time, dark soy sauce needs to be applied in small amounts, e.g. 2-3 teaspoon, until the dish takes on a rich brown colour. Light soy sauce I would use with similar restraint, and I never boil light soy because my mother used to tell me it makes the dish sour.

Which is why when I see those ang-moh cooks on telly use soy sauce I always cringe and feel like screaming. Jamie Oliver was making gyoza on telly the other night; for the dip the base of 90% soy sauce was so overwhelming he had to add a whole lot more vinegar to balance it out. Same thing happened when these telly cooks make an 'Asian' marinade, the first thing they do is splash the soy sauce like they are making cocktails, so heavy handed. Wish someone would tell them to cut it down by at least half, the food will taste more natural and balanced.

This kind of condiment abuse is not only limited to soy sauce. Oyster sauce is another victim, like soy, this too should be used judiciously otherwise every dish will taste the same. Lately I've observed similar infractions with fish sauces.

We probably also make the same mistakes with Western ingredients. Balsamic vinegar for example, which Mummy once mistook for Italian soy sauce, gets sloshed about a lot. And herbs. I know when I make a lamb or beef roast, I tend to scatter the rosemary or thyme too liberally because I haven't a clue what I will do with the rest of the bunch which was purchased at some expense and therefore reluctant to waste.

What will happen if we don't use these seasonings? It won't be too bad I guess. I am in the process of switching Mimi and Rufus from kibbles to a more home-cooked-food (HCF) diet because Mimi is such a food-fusspot. Their diet is now usually protein (lamb, salmon, garoupa, chicken, pork or egg) steamed, panfried or lightly braised with two types of vegetables from a rotating selection of whatever is available in the fridge.The only seasonings used are half-cloves of garlic and plenty of parsley, to all this I would also add some seameal supplements which may contribute some flavours. Their meals tastes great and they always lick their bowls clean. I would happily eat the same, well, minus the seameal of course.

Ming Chung Heng Hwa

Pictures from last night's makan-minum session can be found here and here. 13 courses and 31 bottles. 4 hours of revelry. eh ivn, machiam Slow Food no?

Orange Jelly

On 1 September 2005 local cable TV subscribers got the unusual bonus of 5 new channels. My favourite of the lot are the Asia Food Channel or AFC (69) and BBC Prime (76). Both come at an opportune time, because Discovery Living and Travel (16) is getting very commercialised- poor Nigella Lawson, Billy Kwong, Floyd and Jamie Oliver have to take turns occupying the daily two hour slots while the rest of the time they show a silly woman checking out hotel rooms.

Both AFC and BBC Prime provide excellent food-based content. OK, Fawlty Towers is not exactly a food show, but Manuel cooks right? And all the exciting stuff always happens to Basil at breakfast. BBC Prime shows Delia Smith, Ready Steady Cook and Rick Stein.

AFC is our local, soon to be regional, version of the Americans' Food Network. Some of the programmes are repeats of Makansutra and Yummy King which don't make such riveting watching the second time round. Chef Wan gets featured a lot but he is a bit grating at times. More interesting are the programmes on Korean dishes, I am still waiting to catch the segment on the egg- guillotine device that turns a tray of eggs into a tray of Madonna bra cups. The River Cottage series with back-to-basics chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall also fascinates me with his vegetable contests and pigeon shootings.

But what really makes me and husband take note and ignore the other task that we are usually doing when we watch telly is Jacques Pepin and his Fast Food My Way series. So he was showing how to make duck a la orange, you know, sear the duck breast in a hot pan, let it rest, etc and the very next day my friends came round bearing vacuum-wrapped confit de canard. I felt very authoritative supervising the cooking of the meat. And husband, well, he was so inspired by this master chef Jacques he actually made something from the programme.

The dish was a grapefruit jelly dessert. Only we were out of grapefruit but the wholesaler had recently delivered a big box of Valencia oranges, all sweet and juicy. Thus the grapefruit jelly became orange jelly. Husband pressed the juice of 9 oranges and combined it with about 2 packets of gelatin powder to make the jelly. I helped by grating some orange zest with the Microplane zester I had purchased from eBay a few weeks ago. We went to bed and hoped the jelly will set.

It did, beautifully. Husband made a sauce by boiling down and reducing orange juice, Cointreau and the remains of the June Taylor Pluot and Lavender Conserve we brought back from San Francisco last year. For decoration I chopped and sprinkled some Marks and Spencer's Juicy Fruit candies. A simple, healthy and very refreshing dessert.  For adults that is, the kids preferred the candies.

Where did I eat August 2005

Prata Cafe, Evans Rd: This place has its own 10-page thread on the Makansutra forum. A makan session happened in July but I was in China at that time, husband went and reported that he loved the food. I just had to try for myself too so one hot weekend afternoon, we went. Loved the sedap Indian rojak and my Milo Dinosaur which came in a tall glass heaped with a montain-high pile of Milo powder. The dry mutton curry and fried beehoon was so-so. The prata kosong was leaden and chewy, maybe they made too much in advance. The mutton murtabak was a better choice, it came piping hot and the dough layers were finer and more crisp.

Moomba (1/2): Husband and I came here when we were in the middle of a fight. My face looked like thunder, and husband's was equally stony. The atmosphere must have been so awkward that the manager was moved into giving us complimentary glasses of port with our desserts. But even in the midst of a cold war, we ate well and picked from each other's plates. Eat first, continue to fight later. Husband's Kurobota pork chop was as satisfying as ever and I loved my fig and cheese salad.

Burger King (1/2): sometimes you need to have a whopper.

Silk Road (1/5): We ate there four times in January, but lapsed in the months after. The noodles are as good as the ones I've had in China, husband cannot seem to get enough of their dan dan noodles. The cod fish with soya crumbs is a new favourite.

Kaisan (2/6): We stopped going to Kaisan for a while because husband didn't like their new style sushi. Well, Peter has left, and the place is now sticking firmly to the classical style.

Now is the season for the migratory Sama fish. This silvery elegant fish swims northwards towards Hokkaido during the summer season. The journey somehow cleanses the liver, and the liver itself builds up new fatty stores. This is very important, because this fish is prized because of its liver. Johnson, the shy but hugely talented chef in charge of cooked food, grilled the fish with a little salt until it was just so- the skin yielding with a slight crackle to reveal the bubbling liver along one side of the fish. The white flesh is sweet and fine but, tinged with the incredible elemental flavours of the liver, the fish takes on an incredible taste that gets afficionados oohing and aahing with rapture. The first time I ate it, I was a little taken aback with its strong flavours and aroma. It reminded me of my first taste of truffles and buah keluak. After the fifth or sixth bite, husband and I were competing over the dish. Too bad we ordered the last piece. We had to return the following week when new supplies came in.

Other goodies sampled: Hokkaido uni, aji best eaten as sashimi or grilled with salt. From Johnson's side of the kitchen came a healthy and delicate dish of steamed chicken with fresh chopped ginger, a little appetiser dish of braised radish peel, house-cured pickles and the dish that I would always associate with him because his version is simply the best I've had in Singapore- grilled eggplant with miso paste topping.

Tatsuya, Crown Prince Hotel: where we defected to when husband didn't fancy pretty sushi. The food was very good as expected but the delivery was a little too slick for us. The prices were also quite astronomical compared to the more reasonable bills that we have been used to at Kaisan.

No Signboard, Esplanade (1/3): They never seem to have the big-sized Sri Lankan crabs. One of my friends opined that maybe it is a deliberate lie, told to customers to force them to order other dishes. On this occasion my white pepper crab came with one fleshy claw and one 'watery' claw. We asked the manager over, he took one look at the plate and offered to bring another. Wonder what happened to the table that got the other claw. Otherwise a most enjoyable finger-licking-thumb-sucking meal, especially coupled with the stir-fried dou miao and oat prawns.

Crystal Jade (2/ 17): Ever reliable and consistently good Korean food at Ngee Ann City justifies braving the weekend shopping crowd for. At the airport I had my last fix of cha xiu bao before taking off to Bangkok.

 

Peperoni, Greenwood Avenue: Husband was having trouble deciding whether we were eating at Greenwood or Greenleaf. Mimi made the decision for him by puking on the car floormat when we were driving past the junction of Greenwood Avenue. We decided on Peperoni because they had pizza and beers. The portobello fritter with chicken (above) is yummy-mummy too.

Estiva Gelataria, Greenwood Avenue: Personally I found their gelatos too sweet, maybe I just don't get gelatos. Even my ever-hungry Rufus did not fancy any of it.

Royal China (1/3): Back for the crispy aromatic duck wrapped in pancakes. And more treats like braised goose webs. And individual pieces of crab claw steamed with huatiao and egg white- my first encounter with this style of cooking was in the 90's London, Mayflower employs this method for its fabulous whole Scotland crabs but Singapore restaurants have never heard of it. Now one can get this style everywhere it seems, which is a good thing, who would seriously object to seafood-infused custard, no?

 

Shatin Kitchen, Geylang: My makan friends have sniffed out yet another great cze char restaurant. This place is a more posh than the usual kopitiam-syle places. The place had air-con, the waitresses changed our plates frequently and the food, when it came, were beautifully presented with some courses served in individual portions a-la fine dining places. The food was a refreshing change too. The menu highlighted the house special which was sturgeon. Not the roe of course, but the meat of the majestic fish served up in different styles. Sturgeon cartilage with salt and pepper, stir-fried sturgeon fillets with salt and pepper. Also the intriguingly named Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon which was fresh scallop tossed with egg whites. Other winning dishes were the braised lamb and deep fried assorted morels and mushrooms.

This was also the occasion when the number of bottles of wine consumed almost matches the number of diners. We are now the makan and minum gang.

My friend slurp has posted many lovely pictures here.

Zambuca, Pan Pacific Hotel: Once in a while husband would suggest eating Italian, because pasta is his second favourite food after maguro sushi. He decided that we will eat at Zambuca. It turned out to be a failure because although restaurant looks very classy, the food was no better than what Spageddies dishes up down the road. My seafood risotto came with porridgey gluey rice and overcooked tasteless pieces of seafood. Husband complained that his pasta sauce tasted like canned tomato soup. We left without touching most of our food.

Pontini's (1/2) Copthorne Waterfront Hotel: Where we escaped to after running away from Zambuca. There is a young new chef in place and his cooking is assured and confident. Salads were bright and flavourful, and mains were exemplary. My truffle rissotto was rich and decadent, husband's roasted cod was silky and equally indulgent. Sitting by the window and looking down at the action outside Zouk's was very entertaining too.

Pork Menudo

Elena continues to surprise us with her excellent Filipino cooking. I was having friends over for Sunday lunch but  nursing a stuffy head cold and and coping with all sorts of little crisis at work had left me too tired to bother about cooking, so I asked her for help.

She wrote up a shopping list of ingredients- one of the items was liver paste, the other was hot dogs. I am not a big fan of those bottled liver paste spreads that she wanted, but fresh liver would make a good substitute she said. Hmm, was bursting with curiosity to see what she would make that includes hot dogs and liver....

The dish is called Pork Menudo. A hefty chunk of pork shoulder was cut up into fat thumb size pieces. Ten minutes before cooking Elena squeezed fresh lime juice all over the meat and massaged the whole thing well. After adding a few drops of fish sauce to the meat, she then told me to "look away now". Because she was going to check the seasoning with her fingers and knew I was going to be disgusted. Hmm, she was right, though of course she has been doing it like this all her life.....

Into the wok went some chopped garlic and shallots. Then the pork gets stirred about. Halfway through she made space for carrots, then potatoes. When the potatoes are tender, green peas went in. I was put to work squeezing ketchup from a bottle. Curiouser and curiouser. The ketchup turned the pork pink.

Then the liver went in. Half was cut into bite sized chunks, the other half I had whizzed in the blender to simulate the liver paste she wanted. The hot dogs were added in last and the heat turned off so the liver would not overcook.

Everyone liked this Pork Menudo, and I quite forgot to take a picture until we had finished most of it. The flavours were multi-layered and robust with plenty of textural contrasts in the pork slices, hot dog, liver and vegetables. The pork was not sour as I expected; the lime might have been used to counteract any possible 'porkiness' but it also brought out the natural sweetness of the meat. The minced liver added characteristic depth and earthiness, this is a rich celebratory dish best enjoyed with friends and a few glasses of red wine.