‘Salted’ Rice

A whatever dish but the taste is anything but whatever

My mum never liked cooking much. She neither had the interest nor the energy for it. One day after a visit to a relative, she drew inspiration from her and made this one pot dish, which was well received by us. It became a go-to dish for a while until we got sick of it.

While making this dish, I recalled those days which were tough on her. As a sickly stay-at-home mum handling 3 rascals and who was always short of money, life was always a challenge.  If only I can wind back the clock, I would thank her for toiling without expecting any returns.

For 3.

1 cup of pork, cubed

1 cup of fresh corn nibblets

3 cups of cabbage, broken to bite size

Cooked overnight rice for 3

scant amount of soya sauce , sesame oil

Method :

Heat 1 tbsp of oil. Fry the pork until there is no moisture.

Add corn and cabbage. Stir well.

Add the rice and soya sauce.

Stir with a pair of chopstick to thoroughly cook the contents.

Add sesame oil. Toss.

Serve very hot.

Roast pork ( Heo Quay )

I am health conscious but this is a temptation too great to resist!

It used to be that roast pork can be had at any wet markets when I was a child. But with the disappearance of such conveniences now, stalls selling this are hard to find unless you are one of the lucky few who lives in the central business district in Chinatown.

My one and only roast pork supplier in the housing estate is finicky and when the weather acts up would be like our taxi drivers - non contactable. With the monsoon season at our doorstep, it is better to stock up on such essentials. I would not want to be caught in a long-winded rain and leave me bereft of basics such as roast pork. Life is duller when this commodity is not available to go with my noodles/rice/stew/baguette.

This dish, called Heo Quay, is  adapted from "Songs of Sapa" by Luke Nguyen. 

Takes 2 days to make an awesome strip of cackled pork belly.

Get high on the crispy skin

Ingredients :

One strip of pork belly, skin and all

For the skin : ( mix the following )

1 tsp baking soda

2 tsp corn starch

1/2 Tsp 5 spice ( more if you fancy stronger tasting meat )

1/2 tsp sea salt flakes

For the meat : ( mix the following )

1 tsp 5 spice powder

1/2 tsp sea salt flakes

1 Tbsp sesame oil for brushing ( day 2 )

Method :

Preparing the belly -

Use a pair of tongs or chopstick contraption to do this without steaming your hands.

In a wide mouth pot of boiling water, scald the skin of the belly.  Do not let the water touch the sides.

When skin is white and has shrunken. Remove pork.

Use a sharp knife to scrape off hair or impurities from the skin.

Pat dry pork belly.

Marinate -

Using a sharp knife, score the skin making criss cross patterns.

Dust the skin with spice seasoning.

Dust the 2 sides with meat seasoning.

Chill belly overnight , wrapped in cling wrap.

The next day ..

Preheat oven to 250C.

Bake the belly, skin side up, for 20 minutes.

Reduce the temperature to 150C.

Bake for another 10 minutes.

Brush the skin with sesame oil.

Bake at 150C for another 35-40 minutes.

Pork belly is ready when juices run clear and skewer can run through the width of the meat.

Cool  the meat to allow the  moisture to be reabsorbed back to the meat , making it moist.

Tip : to keep the meat skin side up during baking, pierce a metal skewer or chopstick through the meat to prop it upright.

Vietnam Style Grilled Fish

The skin of the golden promfet is thick enough to steam the fish while it is under the grill.

I have taken a liking to lemon grass lately. The aroma of the herb is calming and the tender parts of the grass provides an succulent crunch similar to artichokes.

This Vietnamese themed fish dish is an inspired and tamer version of the  much touted Hanoian Cha ca la vong .  Here I have substituted turmeric  with old ginger root and  lemon grass for dill.

Though I have yet to sink my teeth into the real McCoy , this preliminary version pleases me enough to warrant a rerun.

Ingredients :

1 promfet, cleaned

2 stalks of lemon grass ( tender white part, tough outer coat removed )

Ginger root

1 olive Sunflower oil

1 Tsp Vietnamese fish sauce

Lime

Dipping sauce :

Vietnamese fish sauce

Lime

Cut chilli

Method :

Thinly slice the white part of the lemon grass. Do the same for the ginger root.

Sprinkle an oiled grilling plate with lemon grass and ginger.

Place the fish on the plate.

Sprinkle the surface of the fish with some more lemon grass and ginger.

Drizzle fish sauce and oil.

Grill the fish until thoroughly cooked, for about 10-15 minutes.

To serve, squeeze lime over the fish.

Garnish with cut chilli and basil if desired.

Vietnam style pork kebabs

As I plan my upcoming trip to border town Sapa,  north Vietnam  and within a stone's throw from China,  my host there  has already promised us a sumptuous meal  at his B&B. It will be 2 long months of waiting as I continue to hear praises  from those who sampled his mum's fare.

Meanwhile, my little kitchen has started to experience a mini revolution as it churns out the flavors of Vietnam.  Following the happy outcome of the Vietnamese beef noodles,  I have come out with a kebab that bears the essential flavors of Vietnamese cuisine : lemon grass, herbs and  fish sauce.

My verdict? If the home version is this good, I can't wait to eat my way through Vietnam!

For 4.

360g minced pork

1 handful of dried bread crumbs

Dash of fish sauce

White pepper

1 clove garlic, minced

1 tsp grated ginger ( which I forgot in the end )

1 tsp chilli flakes

1 Tbsp finely chopped parsley

1 tsp finely sliced lemon grass ( white part )

4 sticks of lemon grass ( stalk ) as skewers,  halved longitudinally

Method :

Mix  all the mentioned ingredients.

Let it rest for 30 minutes for the flavors to infuse.

Make out 4 portions of meat.

Wrap the meat on the lemon grass skewers.

Put it under a grill and cook evenly until clear juices, about 15 minutes .

Dip in sauce of Thai/Viet fish sauce with lime and chilli flakes.

Crispy oat prawns

Crispy oats , corn flakes and basil with prawns

The festive chinese new year season is one happy holiday for the other 2 members of my family. I make exceptions in my cooking and allow for the once in a year deep fried things which they love. And that could most likely be the reason why they look forward to the clan's yearly reunion dinners where I hold court in the kitchen. That way, they get to have their wish list of foods come true.

This year, in lieu of price hikes, I had hoarded so much prawns that the end result was many variations of  prawn dishes . But nothing beats this crispy version.  Instead of curry leaves, I opted for basil which was thriving  in my yard. Basil and prawns make a great partnership in whichever way you cook it and with the crispy oats and cornflakes, it was the icing on the cake.

Ingredients :

1/2 kg medium sized prawns, shelled and deveined

2 cups rice flour

2 cups basil leaves

1 cup rolled oats

1/2 cup corn flakes

Method :

Shell and devein the prawns. Toss them in rice flour.

Heat a pot of oil until very hot. The temperature is about right with bubbles form around a bamboo skewer dipped in the hot oil.

Pick up the prawns with chopsticks and shake the flour off the prawns.

Drop into the hot oil and fry the prawns. Avoid overcrowding the pot with too many prawns at the same time, to maintain the temperature of the oil and prevent too much sweating of the prawns.

Fry prawns until golden brown. Remove prawns from the pot and strain off oil.

Next, toss the basil leaves in the rice flour. Shake off flour and fry the basil leaves, 3 seconds.

Reduce oil to half, straining off residue flour with a sieve.

Reduce heat to medium, fry oats , 1 minute. Add the corn flakes , toss until the mixture is golden brown and crispy. Drain oil.

Toss leaves, prawns and oats. Serve hot.

Hakka Yong Tofu

Not just any yong tofu

This dish was the de facto reunion dish. My dad, a bona fide hakka, would make pots of this which we ate from new year's eve into the new year. For days in a row, he would scrape meat out of yellow tail fish, mince it with a hand held meat grinder, blend it with fermented fish, minced pork and chopped water chestnuts and plaster it on tofu, bittergourds and bean puffs. Then he would cook a similarly huge vat of stock that comprised of leftover tofu meat, soya beans and fish bones. It was one of those dishes which we  loved but hated by the third day. 

We never realized how much we loved it until years later when he stopped making it , after we were all married. The hassle of preparing such a feast tired him and his yong tofu became a legend among his grandchildren. Based on my memories of how things were done, I 'resurrected' this culinary experience so that our kids  would know what hakka yong tofu is like.

To cope with changing times and healthier eating, the fermented fish was omitted while the proportion of fish, pork and chestnut was  worked out for optimum texture and flavor. It came out to be about by weight, 3 portions fish : 1 portion pork : 1/2 portion water chestnut. However, I have to admit that I generally have a weakness for water chestnuts and some years would go by when I made  very crunchy yong tofu fillings.

For stock,  I had no fish bones to talk about since the fish paste was bought from the market. I used chicken instead for the stock, which removes the possibility of fishy smelling stock.  Not very authentic, but convenience supersedes tradition in this aspect.

Fleshing out the tofu

Filling bean puffs and tofu with the meat paste was one of the most time consuming part of the process, which I totally detested. I had recently found the joy of piping batter to make cookies and adopted this practice for piping meat paste into yong tofu ingredients. It was an interesting experience combining baking techniques for traditional food, therapeutic  in fact.

 

Pipe the meat paste into tofu pocket

To seal the fillings on vegetables or tofu, paint over with a layer of corn starch solution. Dad used to fry everything so that they would keep well but I did this only for the bittergourd. This helps attach the meat to the vegetable as well as reduce the amount of bitter leeching into the soup later.

Ingredients :

900g minced fish meat ( I get this premade from Chinatown market )

300 pork minced pork

150g raw water chestnuts

20 bean puffs, halved to make 2 triangular blocks

10 tofu,halved to make 2 rectangular blocks

1 small bitter gourd, cut across to 1/2 inch thick, pith intact but deseeded

5 red and green chillis, deseeded and halved

Stock :

1 cup soya beans, soaked overnight

1 kampong chicken, skinned

6 litres of water

Corn solution for sealing meat

Prepare main ingredients. Remember to Not remove the pith of the bitter gourd so that the meat has something to anchor on.

Halve bean puffs and make a slit in the middle to make a pocket.

Halve tofu to 2 rectangular blocks . Flesh out the tofu on the cut surface to make a pocket.

Prepare chillis by deseeding the 2 halves.

Prepare meat paste. Peel and mince water chestnut. I like it chunky for texture and crunch.

Mix and combine fish, pork and chestnuts well.  Since the fish comes seasoned with salt, I did not add any salt at this stage.

To fill ingredients with meat paste, transfer meat paste to a plastic bag and seal.

Snip off a corner of the bag and use it as you would like a piping bag.

Pipe meat paste into the bean puffs, tofu, bitter gourd and chillis.

To seal meat on bitter gourd, paint it with corn flour solution. Let dry.

To prepare the stock, combine chicken, soya beans, water and leftover tofu and boil for about 2 hours.

Meanwhile, heat a pot of peanut oil and fry bitter gourd until seared and meat adheres to main ingredient.

To cook, boil yong tofu before serving. Due to the presence of pork, always remember to cook the yong tofu well for safe consumption. Jazz up the final assembly with scallions or your  favorite sauces.

Ayam Pongteh

Incredible tasting chicken with gula melaka and fermented beans

I have never in my conscious memory eaten this Peranakan dish, be it in the form of pork or chicken. But a recent trip to Malacca cranked up my awareness of this dish. Besides being told that it is a must-eat item by forummers, this dish is said to be uniquely Malaccan because of an iconic ingredient : Gula Melaka.

My girl too, who is indifferent to Chinese food, fell in love with the ayam pongteh and unabashedly raved about it , from the Jonker Street restaurant all the way back to Singapore.

To reproduce this delicious chicken treat, I trawled the internet and consolidated a recipe made from an amalgam of recipes. The end result of this recipe was a sort of eureka moment, so much so I wondered why I did not cook it earlier. One cannot dismiss the smoky flavor of gula melaka and multi-dimension saltiness of the fermented beans .

From the speed at which the dish was demolished, it seems like the recipe will go into the annals  of the Experimental kitchen.

For 4.

Ingredients :

3 shallots, peeled and chopped

3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped

1 kampong chicken, cut into12 parts.

5 new potatoes, skinned

4 teaspoons fermented beans, mashed

6 teaspoons gula melaka

1 T black soya sauce

1 cup water

Heat a frying pan with 2 T of canola oil.

Saute garlic and onions, taking care not to burn it.

Add chicken parts and fry on  medium high heat.

Add potatoes. Toss well.

Add fermented beans, gula , soya sauce and mix well.

Add water. Braise on medium heat for 30 minutes, covered.

Adjust the level of sweetness and color of the braised chicken according to your preference. Peranakan food is biased towards the sweet side, so tweak the amount of gula melaka according to your dietary preference.

Fried polenta triangles

If my mum were to see this, she would ask why I am fighting over food with the chicken. After all, polenta is chicken-feed in my kampong days.

Polenta does not keep well and has a rather short shell life. Other than making corn bread, this is the best way to use LOTS of it. Which is not a bad idea, because the fried version is also an interesting substitute for toast or even pizza base.

1.5 litres water

1 tablespoon salt

 300 g fine ground cornmeal / polenta

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3 cups of bread crumbs

Oil for frying

Bring water to a boil. Add salt.

In a steady stream, rain down the cornmeal and stir constantly.

Reduce the heat to the lowest possible and cook for 40 minutes, stirring constantly to avoid the cornmeal from burning.

Oil a baking tray. Pour cooked polenta onto the tray and let cool until the polenta is firm and set. Chilling will speed up the process.

Cut set polenta to triangles.

Dip in egg and then bread crumbs.

Fry until crispy.

Serve with pesto sauce and meat stew. Alternatively make into 2 halves and sandwich with your favorite ingredients.

Pumpkin gnocchi with mushroom cream sauce

I love to drown my gnochi in sauce.

With the school holidays round the corner,  it will be a challenge to churn out interesting, non repetitive lunches for my daughter.  On the other hand, had it not been for her very acute sense of taste and smell, my cooking skills would have gone to the dogs.

Pasta , the easiest to cook, will take center stage the coming week, if gnocchi is considered as one. I have never tried pumpkin gnocchi but I reckon this one without potato should be much easier to concoct. Indeed, I prepared the gnocchi except the cooking in less than 30 minutes, leaving me some time to work out at the gym while the gnocchi dough chills. Now, that is convenience food for me!

The entire dish is meatless. Add a handful of bacon bits together with the mushroom if a little meat is what you want.

For 3 ( main dish )

1/2 medium sized pumpkin

Dry ingredients :

1 cup plain flour

1 cup whole meal flour  ( make it 2 cups plain flour if your preference is softer gnocchi )

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

Sauce :

1 box of swiss brown,   sliced

4 cloves of garlic, sliced

2 tab of olive oil

1 cup of mashed pumpkin

1/2 cup of milk

1 cup of low fat cream

1 cup of grated parmesan cheese

Garnish :

Shaved parmesan cheese

Toasted pine nuts ( optional )

Making the gnocchi :

Discard pumpkin seeds and strings in the cavity of the pumpkin. Putting cut side on a plate, microwave on high for 10 minutes,  uncovered. Leave to cool.

Dig out pumpkin flesh and mash ( or go through the ricer ) .

In a separate bowl, pour in  flour, cheese, nutmeg and salt. Mix well.

In the center of the flour mixture, add  1 1/2 cup of mashed pumpkin.

Knead until the dough is evenly colored.

Rest dough for 5 minutes.

On a lightly floured surface, divide dough to 4 portions.

Roll dough into a rope, about a finger thick.

Use a dough cutter and cut off 1 inch dough segments.

Make dough balls with the palm.

Use a fork and press on the dough ball, flattening and creating ridges. ( this increases surface area for coating sauce with )

Chill to firm for about 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, boil a big pot of water with 1 tab of salt.

Now, prepare the mushroom sauce.

Fry garlic taking care not to brown it.

Add mushroom, sauté until moisture is removed.

Add pumpkin, 1/2 cup of milk, 1 cup of low fat cream, cheese. Take care not to let it boil.

Add salt if needed.

Turn off the heat and set aside.

When water boils, drop gnocchi into boiling water, one at a time.

Remove gnocchi when it begins to float and transfer to sauce.

Coat gnocchi with sauce thoroughly.

Garnish with shaved parmesan cheese and pine nuts.

Serve warm.

Chestnuts braised with chicken wings in soy sauce

Chestnut is associated with winter for those living in temperate places. In Singapore, I  associate chestnut with MRT stations. Strange, isn't it ? Food at MRT premises is not allowed until recently but the chestnut man somehow has managed to circumvent rules by running his business from a stove-cum-cauldron-scooter all this while.

If you have no idea where the link way between the Bukit Batok MRT and Bus interchange is, just follow the aroma of roasting chestnut.

To celebrate chestnut and entrepreneurship, I have whipped up a chestnut and chicken dish.  So, let's go !

For 3 :

3 cups of chestnut, shelled.

6 chicken mid wings

1 finger of ginger, smashed with the back of a cleaver

1/2  cup black soy sauce

1 cup of water

Sesame oil, cooking wine

Method :

This is the pesky part but essential. Remove skin of chestnut. This is best done by toasting and rubbing with a clean cloth. Freeze remainder chestnut to prevent oxidization. It's freezer to stove if you wish to cook them.

Alternatively, buy prepared chestnut that is vacuum packed and hope no one knows the difference.

Fry ginger in a pot of oil until fragrant.

Add chicken. Sear skin.

Add chestnut.Toss.

Add a dash of sesame oil and wine

Braise, covered, in premium black soy sauce and water until meat and chestnut is soft in about 30 minutes.

Vinegar Pork Knuckle , a confinement food

Almost everything inside can be consumed, from the meat to the ginger

Recently , I have become the kitchen lady at the activity center in Bukit Merah.  I am on the monthly roster but already  there have been requests what I should be contributing next month. That, not from the activity members but fellow volunteers. And why not ? They labour  even more than me and deserve some form of perks every now and then.

But when they requested for pork knuckle vinegar, it got me scratching my head.  Someone has mismatched this dish with the wrong kitchen lady. Even so, I shall rise up to the challenge.

And so I ran to my cleaner lady who is a traditional Hokkien. The vinegar used in this case is Dog brand, 'the best' in the market, as recommended by  her.  She should know  best since she cooks the dish as a confinement nourishment for all her daughter in laws.

I use a mixture of old and young ginger so that I can have the complex 'taste' and eat it as well. Vinegar ginger is the latest favorite: firm, juicy and infused with the taste of pork, dark sugar and top vinegar. Not to mention the pork : succulent meat falling off the bones, gelatinous skin that melts in the mouth.

Just describing it sends my salivary glands into overdrive.

Here's what I did with a front hock of a pig :

For 3.

1 front pig hock, chopped to chunks, void of bristles.

1 small bottle of chinese vinegar, Dog brand, or any good quality vinegar. Balsamic vinegar will be a good substitue.

1 old ginger, peeled, sliced across the grain. Ditto the young ginger.

2 T black sugar, 3 T if you are worried about the sourness.

Parboil hock. Drain. Flush hock with tap water to cool and firm flesh.

Fry ginger in oil until fragrant.

Add hock / trotters / knuckle. Cook uncovered.

Add sugar, vinegar.

Once it boils, transfer to a slow cooker. Set on high.

Add a little water to submerge hock.

Cook for 2 hours. Serve hot with plain rice.

Don't dump the pot of yummy vinegar yet! Toss some noodles with the vinegar, top it with scallions and it is good to go. I would do the same thing for fish too. Delicious !

Sweet Potato Frittata

I have never like Gordon Ramsay's reality cook show especially the ones with that foul language. However, I have to admit that  for an intermediate cook, his instructions are concise and easy to follow. Like many good cooks, he can assemble a couple of common ingredients, jazz them up and transform them to a pretty dish.

This dish is inspired by one of his recipes in  his book " Healthy Appetite ".  It is economical on small talk and detailed instructions. But to someone who does not have the knack to follow convoluted instructions, that's the book for me.

Back to the dish : it has all the components for nourishment from a single meal. The salsa offers a refreshing kick to the palate ( that onion is a must but cut back  if it is not your favorite bulb ) and the potato is a huge deviation from the usual sugary pandan soup version. Next time, I will add mushroom and maybe  cauliflower for extra dimension.

A simple meal for 3 :

Tomato salsa :

1 box cherry tomatoes, halved.

1 small onion, cubed.

1 handful of basil, chopped.

A dash of olive oil, cider, himalayan salt, brown sugar.

Toss everything mentioned above and chill until the frittata is ready.

Frittata :

3 small sweet potatoes. 2 purple,  1 orange potato cut into tiny cubes.

3 eggs

Heat non stick pan with olive oil.  Sauté potato cubes until slightly brown and firm to the bite.

Beat egg, season with salt, pepper.

Pour over potatoes.

Cook over medium heat until egg is set.

Serve with salsa over frittata.

Danggui Duck

I have been given the task to feed some 25 folks at an activity center recently. Deviating from the familiar ooh-nee or Teochew yam paste, it is time to feed them a meat dish this time. Duck and herb are not exactly party food so it shall be a surprise for all.

2 ducks, skinned, washed and chopped to big chunks.

5 thick slices of ginger

2 cup red dates

1/2 cup  danggui

In a pressure pot, boil one bowl of water, together with ginger, danggui and  red dates.

Bring stock to a boil.

Add duck. Cook under pressure until duck is tender but no disintegrated, approximately 20 - 25 minutes .

Add a dash of light soy sauce to taste. Stir well.

Goes well with plain rice.

Last minute pasta and french beans

The week has come and gone but the cooking never ends.  Saturday lunch is always a bigger event  because everyone is up late and then without  warning gets horribly hungry with nary a warning.  So it is always the ubiquitous pasta to the rescue in half a jiffy.

Here's what I had to prepare a super quick meal in less than 15 minutes for 3  :

250g pasta

2 cups cherry tomato

1/2 bottle stir-in pasta sauce ( roasted garlic and sundried tomato by Leggos )

Put a pot of water to boil, covered. Do not add salt, since the stir-in pasta sauce will be quite salty.

Wash the cherry tomatoes, pour into glass bowl.

Pour 1/2 a bottle of stir-in sauce onto tomato.

Cover. Microwave for 4-5 minutes.

Remove cover. Stir, set aside.

Cook pasta according to recommended duration.

Meanwhile, grate parmesan cheese. Toast a handful of pine nuts, 1 minute. Remove from grill to prevent burning.

Drain pasta. Transfer to bowl of tomato sauce. Toss.

Serve and garnish with cheese, nuts and maybe a couple of basil leaves if you have some.

For some greens to go along with the pasta, here's what I did  with the pasta was cooking :

2-Minute  french beans : wash, strings removed,arranged on microweable glassware, drizzle olive oil,cover and nuke for 2 minutes. Uncover and garnish with bacon bits/fried ikan bilis/pork floss , any condiments depending on the theme of the main dish.

There you have it, pasta and veggies in no time. Another meal solved.