Hoisin pepper pork ribs

This ribs are so easy to do and doesn't involve pre-marination. Plus, it does not require many ingredients and you could serve the sauce with a healthy serving of greens as shown in the picture.

Ingredients:

- Hoisin sauce, 3 tbsps

- Light soy sauce, 3 tbps

- 1/2 cup runny honey

- Chinese cooking wine, 4 tbsps

- 1kg pork ribs, cut into pieces

- Garlic, 6-7 cloves, peeled and chopped

- Freshly cracked black pepper, 1 tsp

- Dash of salt to taste, if needed

Directions:

First, score the meat with boiling water to remove surface dirt and oil, then in mix hoisin sauce, light soy sauce and honey. In a pan, heat with some oil and saute the garlic till fragrant, then throw in the meat, when the surface of the meat is cooked, add the pepper and the cooking wine and then simmer on the stove until the meat is tender. How easy is that! Reduce the sauce in the pan prior to serving to glaze the meat with a thicker sauce just before serving.

For me thanks to my magic pot, I could brown the garlic and the meat in the same pot before pressing the pressure cooking function for 30 minutes. The result is delicious fall-off-the-bones ribs, delish when served with fragrant white rice.

Kiam Peng (Savoury rice)

Kiam peng, literally translated as salty rice in hokkien, is a savoury rice dish that I've loved since I was little. Perhaps its because its such an easy dish to eat, or the fact that its an all in one meal in itself with balanced portions of vegetables and meat, whatever the case is, it fills the kitchen with delicious smells of a welcoming meal.

The trick to cooking kiam peng well is being able to achieve distinct grains after cooking. (i.e. the rice grains are not all mushed up when it is too soggy, or undercooked where some grains are still hard.) Kiam peng may be a little tedious as there are numerous ingredients to cut up and prepared but it is healthy and an all-in-one tasty meal. What you wish to add to the dish is really up to you, it is a versatile dish in that the ingredients may vary.

Ingredients:
(optional)
- Shallots (small red onions), finely sliced
- Sweet chinese sausage, diced
- Snake/long beans, segmented
- Fresh prawns, peeled and deveined, chopped
- Chicken/ vegetable broth

(basic)
- White rice, 2 cups, washed and left to dry.
- 6 large chinese mushrooms, rehydrated and sliced
- 300g pork belly/loin (cut into bits and marinated with 3 tbsp light soya sauce, 1 tbsp sugar, 2 tbsp chinese cooking wine, 1/2 tbps sesame oil)
- 1 medium carrot, cut into strips
- 5 leaves of cabbage, chopped
- 5 segments of garlic chopped
- a handful of dried shrimp (hay-bi), rehydrated and chopped

Directions:
Note: As usual, do not throw away the water used to rehydrate the mushrooms and dried shrimp. This will be added to cook the rice later.

Making shallot oil
If you are using shallots, first make shallot oil by frying the shallots until brown in a generous amount of oil. Remove the shallots from heat when they are just about turning brown into a glass/ceramic bowl. Do not use plastic containers as hot oil may have interactions will the plastic causing harmful substances to be released. Do not wait until the shallots are very brown as they do continue cooking in the hot oil after you have removed from them from heat and will turn black if you keep them on the stove for too long.

Part A
Using the residual oil in the pan, saute half a portion of the garlic with the dried shrimp bits until fragrant then fry the meat with the mushroom, chinese sausage and fresh prawns(if applicable). When the meat is cooked, adjust taste with sugar/salt and then remove from heat.

Taking some shallot oil, fry the other half of the portion of garlic and add carrots cabbage, long beans and adjust the taste with sugar and salt. Return Part A to the pan and add the dried rice and fry together until the rice takes on a light brown colour from the ingredients.

Part B
Put all the rice and ingredients into a rice cooker and add the water saved from rehydrating the mushrooms and dried shrimp. When compressing the rice and ingredients with a spoon in the rice cooker, the liquid should only rise to about an inch above the contents. Top up with chicken/vegetable broth if available, if not just add water. Continue cooking as per normal in the rice cooker. Serve with the fried shallots, chopped coriander and red chili for extra colour.

Baked eggs with roasted chicken

Decided to make a trip to safeway after visiting friends last night and got a half priced roasted chicken. While lazing in bed this morning, I thought of having baked eggs but realized I didn't have chorizos nor spinach. However, I did have some choy sum( please refer http://blogs.smh.com.au/lifestyle/chewonthis/archives/2008/03/post_6.html if you don't know what it is) and roasted chicken.

Then I started googling, "baked eggs with roasted chicken recipe" but there were none! So I decided to make it up. First, I partially cooked a handful of leaves of choy sum in the microwave after washing them then I drizzled them with a little of my garlic infused olive oil and also scooped up some garlic bits just so that they would give more flavour. Next, I peeled some chicken and laid them on the vegetable as and crumbled some of the filling from the chicken among the shreds of chicken as well. The filling seems to consist of breadcrumbs soaked in chicken oil with herbs but after they were baked they were flavourful all the same. Then, I took a slice of cheese from the fridge and tore them into pieces before cracking 3 large eggs over them. Finish with a dash of salt and freshly ground pepper, then bake in a 180 degrees preheated oven till the egg while has set and the cheese starts browning.

I served with garlic bread and hot matcha latte and coffee. The husband said "no need to go out for brunch anymore!"

Chicken pot pie

One of the ultimate comfort foods during winter is this, the humble chicken pie. The best part is, its so easy to make! You could bake them in individual ramkins like those shown above (if you're based down under, you could get ramkins cheap from the dfo at 1.25 each), or bake it as a huge pie that a couple could dig into.

The original recipe was taken from here: http://www.mycookinghut.com/2011/11/21/chicken-pot-pie/ and yes, I know she has way prettier pictures than me, but its just me and my galaxy camera with limited ingredients, cooking space and utensils, but my point is: its easy enough for any amateur.

Ingredients:

- 300g skinless chicken breast, cut into cubes

- 1.5 cup mixed frozen vegetables (I used corn, carrot and peas)

- 1 cup cream

- 3 stalks tarragon, chopped

- 1 brown onion, chopped

- 2 potatoes, chopped (optional, if you would like a fuller meal)

- 1 medium sized carrot, cut into cubes

- Pepper and salt to taste

- 1 tbps butter

- 1 egg, beaten

- Frozen puff pastry sheets

Directions:

Melt butter, and saute onions together with carrots, this is to give your carrots time to get soft. If like me you have a stock of home-made garlic infused olive oil sitting around, it definitely wouldn't hurt to add a splash of it during cooking. While the onions are browning, marinate the chicken pieces with salt, pepper, soy and a some corn flour (this is optional but doing so will actually give you a chance to "velvet" the chicken pieces when cooking. Alternatively, you may just use them as-is)

When the onions are brown, toss the chicken pieces in with the mixed vegetables (and potatoes if you've decided to have some) and add the cream. As the cream is bubbling, add the chopped tarragon, mix and adjust taste with salt and pepper. Fill your pyrex bowl or any oven safe vessel with your mixture and then top it off with the pastry. Seal the sides of your pastry with a fork by pressing it around the perimeter, this will leave pretty fork marks. Egg wash the pastry with a pastry brush, or if you don't own one like me, use your fingers. It will be baked so just make sure your finger is clean (: Bake it in a preheated oven at 180 degrees celsius until the pastry is brown and its read to eat!

I always have a problem of left over egg so you could do one of the following: add it to any other dish you are cooking, make another batch of pot pie the next day and use it up, pour some into your pie filling while its still cooking, or just add fresh milk, salt and pepper and stick it in the microwave for a mini serving of scrambled eggs. 

Garlic prawns with asparagus pasta in a cream sauce

Awhile back, I was at Coles when I saw these huge banana prawns. I remembered that someone told me that they were pretty tasty before and the guy over the counter just sealed the deal when he told me they had "come in fresh". At first, I was skeptical of fresh because it seems all prawns sold in Australia are frozen, but I guess he meant "freshly frozen".

Ingredients:
- Pasta for 2 people (you can use any type you like but do note the timings as different types of pasta take different amounts of time to reach al dente status)
- 10 large banana prawns, peeled and de-veined, saving the shells and head
- Asparagus, peeled and sliced
- Light soya sauce
- Chinese wine
- Dried italian herbs, or fresh parsley if you have some on hand
- Butter
- Cream
- Fish sauce (optional)
- Pepper and salt to taste

Directions:
Cook pasta as per directions on packet, then drain. Marinate prawns in pepper, soy, chinese wine and fish sauce. Pan fry the shells in oil and then add water to extract the prawn stock, discard shells and cook sliced asparagus in prawn stock then remove from heat.
Heat butter and sauté garlic with a pinch of salt until fragrant, then add prawns, when prawns are just turning pink, return asparagus and pasta to the pan and add cream and herbs. (You may choose to add some full cream fresh milk in a 1:1 ratio as a healthier option but do note this will affect the consistency of the resulting sauce, i.e. it may not coat the pasta as well). Finish with a pinch of pepper.

Modifications:
If extracting the prawn stock is too much trouble for you, you may omit and cook the asparagus directly in the cream instead. If you like a white cream sauce, omit the prawn stock and fry bacon bits before adding cream. Of course, you can purely use cream but bacon bits would definitely up the taste levels by quite a bit. If you like things spicy, add some dried chili flakes.

Tau Eu Bak (Stewed brasied Pork Belly)

Ahh, the ultimate comfort food from home. A staple my grandmother used to make and pack into little tin carriers called "tingkats" for us to share at the dinner table. My favourite item of this dish is the braised boiled egg while my husband's is the mushrooms. The thing I like about this dish is that it tastes very good even as leftovers. I never used to put in many mushrooms when I make this but I've found that they made a useful addition to any boiled vegetable you might want to serve as an accompanying dish. This saved me the trouble of having to think of another vegetable dish to make up a balanced meal. This dish is lovely served with fluffy rice or even porridge.

Found a bottle of hoisin sauce at Footscray market going on sale so I added it to this delightful dish. Also this was the first time I used my 5-in-1 multicooker which has a pressure cooking function that allows me to get this dish tender in <1h instead of the 2h+ it usually takes. (: A picture of my "magic pot" as one of my friends has aptly named.

Ingredients:

- Lean Pork Belly ~800g (you can get the fatty one if you wish, but since I had the pressure cooker, I got the leaner cuts)

- 6 boiled eggs, shelled

- a handful of dried chinese mushrooms, rehydrated

- 5 cloves of garlic, shelled 

- 1 cinnamon stick

- 2.5 star anise

- 6 tbps dark soya sauce

- 4 tbps light soya sauce

- 6 tbps chinese cooking wine

- 4 tbps kecap manis

- hoisin sauce (optional)

- sugar and salt to taste

Note on rehydrating mushrooms: use cold water for rehydration if time permits as this would retain the natural flavour of the mushrooms better, warm water if you're pressed for time. Never throw away the water used to rehydrate the mushrooms, they would add flavour to any dish.

Directions:

While setting the mushrooms to rehydrate, parboil the pork belly to rid it of surface dirt and oil and make it yield more easily to your knife. Cut into one inch sections. Marinate the pieces in 3 table spoons of dark soya sauce, the same amount of cooking wine and 1 tablespoon of kecap manis.

Pound the cinnamon stick and star anise and bruise the garlic. Brown the garlic until fragrant and sear the meat together with the spices. Transfer the meat into a vessel with all the marinate, the mushroom, mushroom water, 1 cup water and the remaining amounts of dark soya sauce, chinese wine, light soya sauce, kecap manis and hoisin sauce for slow cooking/ simmering, if you have a magic pot like mine, you could use the pressure cooking function on high pressure for 25 minutes. 

After 25 minutes, add the eggs in and cook on low pressure for 20 minutes. If eggs are not completely submerged in the liquid you may cook for 10 minutes and stop to turn the eggs over and continue to cook for another 10 minutes to ensure the eggs are braised evenly. For even softer meat, cook on high pressure for a longer period. 

If you do not have a magic pot like mine, you could simmer the meat on the stove for around 2 hours and add the eggs after 1.5h.

Baked hoki with cheese and herb crumble

Bought a huge slab of fresh hoki from Vic market at a steal and wanted to try a bake fish recipe. Find the original recipe here: http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/8149/parmesan+crumbed+baked+fish

I substituted the fresh herbs for dried italian herbs because I didn't have fresh herbs. Had a week old multigrain bread so I toasted those till nearly burnt and then put them in a bag and smashed them with the back of a tomato sauce bottle (works everytime! you could use this when making biscuit crumbs too) There was a half used bag of tasty cheese sitting in my fridge so I used that instead of parmesan and it worked just fine. Drizzled with my homemade garlic infused olive oil just brought up the taste levels just a bit more.

Overall, it was quite moist and succulent with a lovely crunch factor thanks to the bread crumbs.