shiokadelicious!

FFRB* II : Ah Saam’s Signature Chicken Dish

* From the Family Recipe Box

Ah Saam was my mother’s family’s domestic help, but she was also much more than that. During her many, many years in the household, she became family.

It could be said that she belonged to the pioneer batch of ‘career women’ - - in a time when that term hadn’t even been coined yet. She belonged to that unique and special group of women we in South East Asia (and southern coastal China) call “ma jie” - - women who chose economic independence over marriage and family. They decided to “soh hei, mg ka” (literally translated from Cantonese as “comb up, will not marry”) - - that is, they wore their hair up in a tightly knotted bun and forsook marriage vows. Many went to work as domestic helpers in the wealthy Chinese families of Hong Kong, Taiwan and South East Asia, and devoted their entire lives to serving their employers and raising the children of the household.

These women, in their own special ways, became a very important part of Chinese society, and in some ways, became a very important economic force too. They took great pride in their vocation as domestic helpers, and they could always easily be identified by the way they groomed and dressed themselves. Almost inevitably, they all wore “saam fu” (literally: blouse pants) - - a distinctive get-up of loose-fitting black pants and a tunic-style white or light-grey-with-a-small-flower-print blouse. And they always combed their hair into a neat, tight bun at the back of their heads. Yes, these were the ma jie that were often depicted in Chinese movies or Cantonese TV serials.

While almost all of these ma jie never married, our Ah Saam was a little different. She married late in life (very late for those days at least) - - in her 30s. But within a year of her wedding, she became a young widow. That was when she made the incredibly brave decision to become a ma jie, leave her hometown in Guangzhou province in southern China and head for the unknown in Nanyang (or South East Asia). She came to this part of the world alone and with hardly any possessions, and ended up being employed by my maternal grandparents. She stayed with the family right up until her death, when she was in her 80s.

In the almost five decades she was with the family, she became family. While my grandmother busied herself helping my grandfather build his business, it was Ah Saam who ran the household and raised my mother and her siblings. Over the years, the distinction between employee and employer blurred and disappeared altogether ; we never saw her as anything but part of the family. She was the one who cared for, fed and watched over my mother, aunts and uncles; she was the one who disciplined them and kept them in line. She made sure that they cleaned their own rooms (because as she always pointed out to them : that wasn’t her job but their own responsibility) and that they helped with the household chores.

When Ah Saam first arrived in the family, my mother was a mere toddler. She watched my mother and her siblings grow up, go through school, date, marry and have kids of their own. She even watched me, my brother and my cousins grow up - - she became almost like a second maternal grandmother to us. She knew what our favorite foods were, and, without fail, always had those dishes waiting on the lunch table each time we visited with our grandparents.

I believe she loved us dearly. I have distinctive memories of her being so happy to see us each time we visited. And my grandmother used to say Ah Saam would always get all anxious and would keep watching out for us if we were even 15 minutes late for our regular lunch get-togethers with my grandparents. Probably, in many ways, we became very much the grandchildren she never had. We were always greeted with a hug, and she always saved the best foods for us and made sure she had little treats for us. After each visit, as we left, there would be another hug, and she would always stand at the door and wave until our car was out of sight. Memories of her tiny, petite figure, dressed in her saam fu, standing in the doorway remains indelibly etched in my mind.

Ah Saam was a woman of strong character, and she was not afraid to make known her views on things, even to my grandparents. And what was interesting was the curious clash (but a harmonious clash, if there ever was such a thing) of cultures between my grandparents and Ah Saam. My grandparents were Hakka, and throughout their lives, spoke only the Hakka dialect. Ah Saam, on the other hand, was Cantonese, and throughout her life, spoke nothing but Cantonese. And yet, everyone communicated beautifully and understood each other perfectly. To the outsider, it was always a curious scene : my grandparents speaking to Ah Saam in Hakka, and she in turn responding in Cantonese! It was very much like the Chinese saying : a duck talking to a chicken!

When it came to cooking and the food that was served in the family, Ah Saam took on many of my grandmother’s Hakka recipes and made them her own. Many of the Hakka dishes, like this particular chicken dish, even became her signature dishes. She also adopted many of the Hakka festival customs and food traditions.

This particular chicken recipe (apparently quite a down-home, true-blue Hakka dish) has gone from maternal grandmother to Ah Saam, then from my mother to me. And to this day, it still remains a firm favorite for me and my family. It is another one of those dishes that is incredibly easy and simple to prepare and yet taste out-of-this-world.

Of course, normally - - just as it was when my grandmother and Ah Saam made it - - regular free-range chicken (or kampung chicken, as it is called in this part of the world) is used in the dish. But sometimes, my mum, and thus, now me, also use small black chickens for this recipe.

Black chickens are exactly that - - black, and naturally so. Their skin is black ; their flesh is black. They are usually fairly small - - somewhere in between a squab and a spring chicken, and are believed to be far superior in nutrition compared to the regular chicken. Most often they are used in double boiled soup tonics. But in my family, we also like to cook them with glutinous rice wine and ginger.

Their meat is more tender and yet, at the same time, firmer than regular free-range chickens. It is also leaner and sweeter too, with deeper, richer and more intense flavors. I personally enjoy black chickens a lot more than regular free-range chickens. But they don’t work well for all chicken dishes though ; only some, and in this one in particular.

Chicken with Glutinous Rice Wine and Ginger

6 whole free-range chicken legs or 2 small black chicken, quartered
¾ cup glutinous rice wine
3 - 4” knob fresh ginger
4 slices fresh ginger
1½ tablespoons sugar
5 tablespoons light soy sauce

• Clean the chicken, and remove skin and excess fat.

• Taking the big knob of ginger, cut it into several medium pieces, bruise them with the sides of a cleaver or a pestle, then squeeze out the juices. Discard the root and reserve the juice.

• In a completely dry, non-stick wok or large non-stick skillet, melt the sugar. Resist the urge to stir the sugar ; simply leave it to melt completely, on low heat, until it is lightly colored.

• Once the sugar has melted, add the light soy sauce, glutinous rice wine, ginger juice and the ginger slices. Stir to mix well, and bring to a rolling boil. [This is important - that the sauce be at a rolling boil before adding the chicken; this seals the meat as soon as it is added, and helps the chicken stay moist and tender.]

• Add the chicken. Let it cook until the meat on the underside has changed color. Flip the chicken pieces over, and cook until the other side has also turned color. Cover the wok and leave to simmer for about 20 minutes (depending on the size of the chicken pieces) or until the chicken is fully cooked through.

• Serve the chicken with gravy on the side. [The sauce will have thickened and developed gorgeously rich flavors by the time the chicken is cooked through.]

Note:
• Some of you may be surprised (then again, you may not be at all) at the amount of rice wine that is used in the recipe, and that this dish was served to us as children. But it is quite safe to do so, I think. The alcohol evaporates completely as the chicken cooks, leaving just a richly and intensely flavored sauce. And really, it is the glutinous rice wine (or rice wine, if you prefer) which gives this dish its distinctive and incredibly delicious flavors.

• The taste of the ginger is fairly subtle, despite the amount of juice used. It works in the background adding a refreshing zip to the chicken and gravy.

• Any leftover sauce is sublime the next day when used to toss with some noodles, rice vermicelli or even pasta! [Recently, I discovered a small bowl of the gravy that had been sitting in the fridge for almost a week. I heated it up and the most incredible aromas emanated throughout the kitchen - - it still tasted fantastic too. I made some dry tossed (kon lo) noodles with it, and topped it with some store-bought foo chow fishballs. Yum! It made for a wonderfully quick, easy and tasty lunch.]

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Two Ways to a Ribbin’ Good Time

I love ribs. I don’t eat them that often - simply because they aren’t the leanest part of the pig. But they are easily one of the most enjoyable parts to eat. And there are times when I like (and want) nothing more than to sink my teeth into some juicy, succulent ribs. Ah! The indescribable and intense pleasure that can be derived from a piece of deeply flavorful, meaty yet meltingly tender piece of pork rib!

I happen to find eating ribs to be an incredibly sensual - and sensuous - experience. It’s all tied in with the whole notion of eating foods with your fingers; foods that are moist and oozing with juices; foods that are slightly messy… and thus fun… and sexy. I really think the tactile aspect of eating is too often missing, when, really, it should be an integral part of the experience. It’s amazing how much richer, more intense and profoundly satisfying a meal can feel when eaten with our fingers.

Ever since I came up with my little char siew recipe, I’ve had this little niggling thought playing in my head. It simply refuses to go away. No matter how much I “shoo” and wave it away, it always comes back. It’s quite determined that it will not be ignored. So in the end, I have given in to it.

I am very pleasantly surprised by the very positive responses that the char siew recipe has been receiving, not only from my own family and friends, who’ve been clamoring for the dish with alarming frequency, but also from so many readers who have tried the recipe and enjoyed it tremendously. Several readers have come back to tell me about how they have cooked the char siew on a grill and how wonderful that added layer of smokiness tastes. That has been the spark that triggered that little niggling thought : I really, really want to make some char siew ribs. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea. I just feel the char siew marinade will make for some wonderfully sumptuous ribs.

But I am a lazy cook. I’m not about to lug out the grill, set it up, start the fire, blah, blah, blah… So I’m thinking : ribs can be done in the oven – to equally good results, I’m sure. And so with a light-hearted, eager spring to my step, I’m in the kitchen in a jiffy, doing what I love: playing with my food! This is going to be fun!

First Attempt: Oven Roasted Char Siew Ribs

My initial instinct is to simply cook the ribs in a similar way to the char siew – that is, pop them onto a rack in a roasting pan and cook them in the oven whilst basting them periodically – but probably at a lower temperature and for a longer period of time than the char siew. I want ribs with fall-of-the-bone tenderness and yet are supremely moist and juicy.

For the marinade, I use the exact same char siew recipe, but without the food coloring, and doubled the quantity; I want enough marinade to cover the full rack of ribs.

The cleaned ribs are placed into the prepared marinade and left to macerate in the fridge for about 30 hours or so (this is arbitrary; overnight will do).

30-45 minutes before the ribs are to be cooked, they are removed from the fridge and allowed to come back to room temperature. Meanwhile, the oven is preheated to 180C.

The roasting pan is lined with foil (to make for easier clean-up later) and a rack placed in it. Onto the rack goes the ribs, after which they are given a good brushing of the marinade, tented with foil and popped into the oven.

And that is basically it. I simply come back every half hour or so to baste the ribs with more of the marinade (which I, in the meantime, pop onto the stove-top to cook through). Oh, and the temperature is reduced to about 150C after the first half hour.

The ribs smell incredible as they are cooking; the whole house fills with the glorious smell of roasting meat overlayed with the special aroma of char siew flavors.

The ribs are cooked for about 3 hours in total. And the final result? They are very good indeed, but still not 100% what I am looking for.

Even though the ribs are kept tented with the foil throughout the cooking process, they still get a little too charred for my liking (much as I love crispy, charred bits on meat) – due to the large quantity of maltose and sugar in the marinade. (See top picture).

While the ribs in the middle of the slab are gorgeously tender, moist, succulent and juicy, the meat on either end of the slab is a tad dry. Not inedibly so; but enough that I notice. And enough that I want to continue to tweak the recipe and create the ribs that my mind has pictured.

On that particular night, I served the ribs over mee sua (or mian sian) (thin white noodles), and it went down stupendously well with the family.

Everyone loved the combination of noodles with the char siew gravy poured over. And it was indeed delicious!

However, scrumptious as it was, I feel it still needs a little bit of adjustment… the gravy is just a tad too sweet, I think. Maybe I shouldn’t do a straightforward doubling of the marinade ingredients.

Another thing that I want to change: this method just seems a little too fiddly for my comfort. Sure, there isn’t any major work involved, by any stretch of the imagination; the meat just sits in the oven for 3 hours. But I have to keep coming back to baste the meat ; that is already too much fiddling for me! I want something that requires even less effort than that ; something that will pretty much cook itself, without me needing to give it a second thought. (Yes, I know, I do make high demands of my food!)

So, a week later, it is back in the kitchen, and a second attempt at my char siew ribs…

Second Attempt: Oven Braised Char Siew Ribs

This time, I adjust the marinade slightly from the original recipe. (This is again for a double portion of the sauce.)

• 11 tablespoons light soy sauce
• 4 tablespoons dark soy sauce
• 9 tablespoons rice wine
• 8 tablespoons hoisin sauce
• 5 tablespoons sugar
• 8 generous tablespoons maltose
• 8 pieces ginger, peeled and smashed
• 8 cloves garlic, whole, peeled and smashed

Again, the ribs are left to marinate in the fridge for a good 30 hours or so.

For the cooking method, I decide to “borrow” an idea from Alton Brown. Some time ago, while aimlessly surfing around foodtv.com, I came across a recipe for baby back ribs that Alton Brown featured on his show. The method that he used intrigued me. (Sorry, I can’t for the world of me remember the exact recipe that I read, nor can I seem to find it again. I don’t even remember what style of ribs it was; I only remember thinking that the method used to cook the ribs was interesting and I made a mental note to try it out at some point.)

In practical terms, Alton’s method calls for the ribs to be oven-braised. The meat is laid inside a “pocket” of aluminium foil; sauce is poured into the “pocket”, which is then sealed, slid onto a baking sheet and put into the oven for 2½ hours. I don’t remember the exact temperature that Alton cooked the ribs at; I do recall thinking at the time that it was a surprisingly low temperature for a relatively short cooking time. No matter. I just want to use the idea of his method, and to see how well it will work with my char siew ribs.

I simplify the “foil-pocket-making” a little: I place a double layer of foil in a roasting pan, leaving generous amount of foil on all four sides. The ribs are placed onto the foil, meat side down, and the marinade* poured over it (the meat should be nearly covered by the marinade). Another sheet of foil is placed on top, and sealed on all four sides.

* After taking the meat out of the marinade, and removing the garlic and ginger pieces, I add about ½ cup of hot water to the sauce. One simple reason for this: I want plenty of gravy leftover at the end (everyone seems to want copious amounts of the stuff to pour over rice, noodles or whatever it is that they seem to love doing with the gravy. There is no worry about diluting the gravy, as all the flavors intensify anyway during the cooking process. However, if creating lots and lots of gravy is not your priority, then it is enough to simply pour the marinade over the ribs, without adding any water, so long as the ribs are at least half covered with the marinade, so as to ensure they don’t dry out as they cook – the ribs will also release some juices during the cooking.

So, into the oven goes the packet of foil-covered ribs, and they are cooked for the first 30 minutes at 180C and the subsequent 2 hours at 150C.

Once cooked, the ribs are taken out of the gravy (there are a lot of it left in the pan – just as I want), and the gravy is poured out. The ribs are returned to the roasting pan, meat side up, given a coat of the sauce and placed under the broiler for about 4-5 minutes – just to crisp up the outside and give it the requisite slightly charred, crispy bits.

The sauce is put into a pot, placed on the stove and left to simmer on the lowest flame for about 15-20 minutes or so, or until it has reduced a little to the right gravy consistency. (The sauce does not simmer quietly; but rather, it bubbles and gurgles – sometimes fairly noisily and aggressively – away to itself. Leave it be. It is happy enough doing that; simply give it a stir every few minutes or so to keep it under control.)

After the ribs come out from under the broiler, leave them to rest for about 10-15 minutes before serving.

And what can I say? The ribs look absolutely gorgeous! The meat is a glossy, shiny sheen of succulence, with just the right amount of slightly charred crispy bits around the edges.

The meat. Oh, the meat! Oh my! It is lip-smackingly good! It truly is. The ribs are cooked to tender perfection; fall-of-the-bone tender perfection. Indeed, one of the bones did literally fall off even as I transferred the meat from the roasting pan to the plate! It is that tender. And yet, there is still the right amount of toothsome meatiness. Just perfect. If I do say so myself.

The outside is nicely crisp, the inside meltingly soft, moist and oozing with juiciness. And this time, the flavorings are all spot on.

Wow, even I am stunned at how good the ribs are.

The difference in the tenderness and texture of the meat between this cooking method and the previous one is fairly stark. I definitely like this braising method a lot better.

I am quite satisfied and happy with the recipe as it stands. And I think this is one great party dish. It can be cooked in large batches (subject to oven size of course). Plus, it is so un-needy of attention. It’s something I can bung into the oven and pretty much forget about ; it quite happily cooks away in the background, leaving time to mingle with guests or just to sit back and relax. And of course, the final bonus: the char siew flavor is a delectable winner.

This is something I will quite happily make over and over again.

Note:
• The cooking times above are for baby backs. If using spare ribs, the cooking time will need to be lengthened accordingly.

• For those who may not want such melt-in-the-mouth, tender-textured meat (and there are a couple in my family who prefer a slightly meatier bite), the cooking time can be reduced to 2 to 2¼ hours in total – 20 to 30 minutes at 180C, and 1½ to 1¾ hours at 150C.

• Although I haven’t tried it, but I’m thinking that this will also probably work in a wok, if an oven is not easily available. That is, using a straightforward traditional braising method, without the foil wrapping. Timings may need to be adjusted slightly though. And the ribs can still be finished off under the broiler for a few minutes at the end, to give a slightly crispier outside.

Happy ribbin’!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

From the Family Recipe Box

This is another one of those recipes that has been passed from grandmother to mother, and now on to me. As with a lot of simple, homey dishes, this doesn’t have much going for it in the looks department, but boy, does it pack a whallop when it comes to nutritional goodness. Plus, it is very tasty to boot; with wonderful textures and rich flavors.

This steamed chicken dish is a perfect example of how protein-rich and lip-smackingly delicious food can be prepared with hardly any fuss, within minutes and at very low cost.

The ingredients and the preparation process involved are deceptively simple – uninteresting even. Just looking at the items that go into this dish: chicken, ginger, glutinous rice (or rice) wine and a little salt (yes, that’s it – only four ingredients!), one may be hard put to imagine how it could possibly taste anything more than ordinary. But oh, it does. It truly does. The flavors of this dish are richly complex and yet incredibly clean and light on the palate at the same time. The key of course is to use good chicken; by that I mean preferably free-range – well-reared chicken that have meat brimming with taste and texture. Of course, the dish will still work with regular battery-bred chicken, but I won’t pretend the flavors will be the same. Also, fresh is best; frozen will not be as tasty, but if hard-pressed, will also do.

Steamed Ginger & Rice Wine Chicken

5 whole chicken legs
3-4” knob of fresh ginger
8 tablespoons glutinous rice wine (or rice wine)
2 to 2½ teaspoons salt

• Place some water in the bottom of a steamer and bring it to a boil on medium-high heat.

• Remove skin and all excess fat from the chicken and cut each leg into three pieces. (A whole chicken may be used; and similarly cut into medium serving pieces.)

• Peel and julienne ginger.

• Arrange chicken pieces in a single layer in a shallow dish. Add the wine, ginger and salt and mix well to coat evenly.

• Once the water in the steamer has come to a rolling boil, place the plate of chicken in the steamer, cover and steam over medium-high heat for about 25 minutes or until the chicken is tender and just cooked through.

• Serve hot.

You will notice that no water or any other liquids are added to the chicken, and yet when it comes out of the steamer, the platter is filled with a generous amount of rich amber “liquid” – and this is the “real” prize of this dish! This is liquid “gold” (if I may be so bold as to say); this is pure essence of chicken - packed to the brim with goodness! And further “enriched” by the fortifying benefits of the rice wine – all the alcohol has been cooked off, and what is left behind are the rich, mellow, sweet and smooth tones of the wine. The Chinese of course believe that rice wine can help build the blood and nourish the body. The ginger adds its warming properties to the body-rejuvenating mix, and gives a wonderfully zesty and refreshing fragrance and zip to the dish. The flavor notes are richly complex and yet incredible light, pure and clean.

I remember as a child (on both my maternal and paternal sides of the family) whenever I or any of my cousins refused to eat “proper food” for days on end (as kids are wont to do at various rebellious phases of their young lives), this was what we were fed. We were given plain rice with lots of this delicious chicken essence poured over it. (Of course, if serving the dish to children, it is usual to reduce the amount of wine and ginger used, to better suit their delicate palates.) For all the times when we were inordinately (and unreasonably) picky about food and were poutingly pushing away all meat, vegetables and anything that looked to us to be suspiciously nutritious and beneficial, this steamed chicken dish was our parents’ secret weapon to counterbalance our nutrient-devoid diet of choice, filled as it was with all things sweet and sugary.

The chicken, having been cooked in its own juices, is very tender and moist. And you know, all you really need are a few pieces of this juicy, succulent chicken, some red or brown rice, a side of lightly stir-fried vegetables, and lots of the nourishing amber essence, and you have one of the most gorgeous, homely, comforting meals ever.

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Giving KFC a Run For Its Money – Maybe

There are just some days when, at the mere thought of having to fire up the wok and rustle up some dinner, you can immediately feel the onset of a headache. Inwardly you groan and drag your emotional feet. You would do anything to not have to cook…

Your heart is tempted… oh so tempted… to just step into the nearest fast-food joint and pick up a couple of burgers…

But wait!

You don’t have to cook… still get to eat your burgers… and still feel virtuously healthy…

How?

Well…

You make your own burgers…

Wait. Where you’re goin’? Come back. I haven’t finished yet.

C’mon. Bunging something into the oven, and cutting open a packet of pre-made sauce can hardly constitute cooking. Right? And there really is only just the one pot and one baking sheet to wash. Promise. (Okay, except for the plates. But that’s not too bad, surely.)

Some time ago, the ads for KFC’s seasonal offering of Satay Burger were screaming out from print and screen media left, right and center… cajoling, nay, “demanding” that I try their special concoction of “juicy, tasty” (their words, not mine) chicken topped with spicy, peanutty satay sauce, and sandwiched between a soft, fluffy hamburger bun. But I steadfastly refused to partake in all that greasy and oily deep-fried-ness. Besides, since when had real-life burgers ever come any where close to those depicted in the advertisement photos? Yet, it sounded like a wonderful idea… crispy chicken with spicy, nutty sauce…

Okay, I’d make my own then. But no deep-fried chicken. This would be the perfect time to finally try out the oven-fried method that I had read about on Owen’s site some time back and had been meaning to attempt.

The picture in my mind looked and sounded good… whole filets of boneless chicken thigh, moist, juicy and succulent from being marinated in buttermilk, crisply coated with panko and tastefully paired with the deep, intensely rich flavors of satay sauce. And it couldn’t be easier.

I don’t know about you, but I usually know in the morning, when I start my day, that I’m going to be feeling lazy about cooking that evening. Correction. Actually, I know the night before that I’m going to be feeling lazy about cooking on the evening after. I call it the “art of laziness”! And I think I’ve mastered the art form pretty well – right down to all the fine details!

So, this is what you do when you feel an episode of “artistic laziness” setting in: just before going to bed the night before, take out several boneless chicken thighs (you can use breasts if you want; I’m okay with that) from the freezer and pop them into the fridge to defrost overnight.

[De-boned chicken thighs are some of the greatest things to keep on hand in the freezer at all times; so incredibly useful and versatile. We usually buy a couple of dozen thighs and have the poultry guy filet them for us. Once home, they are placed in a single layer in freezer bags, and frozen. Whenever we need some chicken meat for stir-fries or any other dish really, we simply break off and defrost just the number of chicken thighs we need. They can be diced and sautéed with vegetables, used in green curries and all sorts of dishes. Really, very convenient indeed.]

Anyway, the next morning, simply and quickly trim away the skin (or just keep it on, if you prefer) and any excess fat. Oh alright, my house-help does this for me, but it is still a relatively brief and painless process. Then, it’s just another few minutes to put the marinade together. I used (for four chicken thigh filets) two whole cloves of garlic, lightly bruised; about an one inch knob of ginger, cut into rough chunks and bruised; a small bunch of fresh coriander (cilantro / Chinese parsley), roughly chopped; about three tablespoons of light soy sauce; a generous sprinkling of ground white pepper; and enough low fat buttermilk to thoroughly coat all the chicken.* Mix well, plonk it into the fridge, and leave to macerate while you go about your day. And by the time you get home in the evening, the chicken is all moist and juicy, and ready to be cooked.

[* I kept the seasonings very light as the satay sauce packs a powerful taste punch. But if serving the “fried” chicken on its own, feel free to add a variety of herbs (dried or fresh), paprika or any other flavorings that you may fancy. No rules here at all.]

In the evening, it is just a simple matter of pre-heating the oven to about 200C (400F) and removing the chicken from the fridge to allow them to come back to room temperature. That gives you 15-20 minutes or so to change into comfy, slouchy home clothes, to make yourself a nice warm drink (or a stiff, highly alcoholic one, if that is your preferred poison), and to just relax a little before putting the dinner together. Once you are sufficiently soothed, pour some panko Japanese breadcrumbs (I find these to be one of the most useful things to have a bag of, sitting in the freezer at any one time; they store well there, are truly great as coating for all sorts of dishes, or even as a binder, and are way better tasting than the insipid, stale pre-made regular breadcrumbs that are sold in the supermarkets – plus, who has the time to blitz up some freshly made breadcrumbs whenever the need arise, right?) into a shallow dish.

[Again, if not serving the chicken with a strongly flavored accompaniment like satay sauce, feel free to season the panko with dried herbs, salt, pepper or even Old Bay Seasoning.]

Take another sip of your drink as you grab a baking sheet and coat it liberally with cooking spray (or, if preferred, with about 2-3 tablespoons of vegetable cooking oil). Remove the chicken, piece by piece, from the marinade, allow any excess buttermilk to drip off (you don’t want the chicken too wet and thus making the breadcrumbs all soggy), and scrape off any bits of coriander that may be sticking to the meat. Place the filet in the panko and coat evenly on all sides before putting it onto the greased baking sheet. Once all the chicken is ready, spray the meat surface with a light layer of cooking spray. (I forgot this time, but it would be a good thing to do.) That’s it. Into the oven they go, for about 15 minutes or so.

Meantime, rustle up the satay sauce. This is as simple as simple is. Grab a packet of pre-made, store-bought satay sauce. (This time, instead of using my regular version from the Malay lady at Redhill Market, I decided to try out a new offering that I spotted at NTUC Supermarket the other day…)

Pour the contents of the entire pack into a medium pot, add just under one cup of hot water, and stir to combine. I think I used just under one cup of water, I can’t be too sure; I was just adding it in dribs and drabs until I got the desired consistency. The package label recommended about 1¾ cups of water, and that would have given a fairly liquid sauce, which would be great for things like satay bee hoon (rice vermicelli) or other dishes. For the burger, I wanted the gravy relatively thick and chunky – something that would stay in the bun and not ooze out all over the place.

Allow the sauce to come to a gentle boil, taste it and adjust the flavorings according to personal preferences. I added (as I usually do, to any store-bought satay sauce) a small chunk of gula melaka (palm sugar), a tiny dash of light soy sauce and a fair bit of ground peanuts (I like my satay sauce nicely chunky and highly redolent of peanuts.) Do whatever it is that pleases you. Let the gravy return to a boil, and you’re done. That’s it. And it takes all of 4-5 minutes. Painless.

This brand’s offering is actually very good. Note the nicely authentic, tasty and required layer of chilli oil rimming the gravy. The flavors are punchy, with just enough spicy heat – the taste is fairly suave, rounded and smooth. Not bad at all. I like it.

[Since you are at it, it’s an useful idea to make plenty of extra gravy. Pop the leftovers into the fridge, and it can be the basis for a scrumptious lunch the next day: simply reheat the gravy, add a little more water if necessary to bring it to the correct consistency, and pour it over some cooked rice vermicelli (bee hoon) to create the uniquely Singaporean dish “Satay Bee Hoon”. Add some cubed tau kwa (firm bean curd) or tau pok (fried bean curd skin), shredded chicken meat, blanched kangkong (water spinach), sliced hard boiled eggs or whatever you have on hand really – there’s no need to worry greatly about authenticity or creating unnecessary work for yourself. And lunch can be ready within minutes. Or, chop up various vegetables and make the Indonesian salad gado-gado, using the satay sauce as dressing. Extra gravy can also be used to stir-fry chicken or beef for a dinner dish. Of course, needless to say, it is also great with satay.]

Okay, you still have many minutes more before the oven timer goes off. So, busy yourself with cutting up some cucumber (I like the dark green Japanese variety, but any type will do) into thin slices. And whilst you have the knife and chopping board out, cut more cucumber into medium cubes, together with a few lush, ripe fresh tomatoes, a bunch of fresh coriander, and a couple of shallots or red onions (whichever you have on hand). Place all the diced vegetables into a large bowl, toss with some rice vinegar (or lime juice), a couple of teaspoons of extra virgin olive oil, some sugar, pepper and salt to taste – and for me, a couple of tablespoons of Thai chilli sauce… and you have a refreshing salsa to go with the burgers.

If you want to get really fancy (and go one up on KFC), prepare some onions to go into the burgers too. Slice one large yellow onion into rings, and sauté in a little bit of oil until soft, translucent and barely colored. No need for seasonings or flavorings; it’ll all come from the satay gravy.

Yep, some of mine got a little charred – I was momentarily distracted by something far more interesting than frying onions. But hey, the charred bits were great – giving a wonderful smoky flavor to the onions.

Oh, alright, so making the onions will mean another pan to wash. It isn’t necessary to do the onions; KFC didn’t, and I really don’t think the burgers missed them. However, I won’t deny that they do add a rather nice sweet and crunchy touch to the burgers. Just do as you please or feel up to.

Right on cue, the oven timer goes off. Yank the chicken out, and carefully flip them over**. Coat the freshly exposed side with more cooking spray and pop the filets back into the oven. ***

[** Take care when doing this. There is a tendency for chunks of the panko coating to be left behind on the tray – as I found out. Probably, the next time, I will want to bake the chicken on a rack; this will help keep the panko crust intact.]

[*** At this point, I suddenly decided to stop baking the chicken and to broil them instead. They were pretty much cooked through already, and just needed more coloring and crispiness on the crust. So, I switched the oven to “grill” mode, popped the chicken back in (keeping the tray on the middle rack of the oven) for oh, about 5 minutes or so, until the tops were nicely golden brown. If necessary, you can flip the chicken back over, and grill the other side too for 3-4 minutes to get the required deep, rich color and crunch. Just be sure to keep an eye on them the whole time. With the broiler, they go from nicely brown to charred in a blink of an eye.]

Ta-da…

… oven-fried chicken. Not a bad looker - for a first attempt, no? Okay, it got a little charred in some places – my 18 year old oven is notoriously temperamental and uneven at the best of times.

But it was scrummy.

Okay, assembly time. Split burger buns into half (I like to use the kitchen scissors for this; it makes for perfectly halved buns that are not inadvertently flattened or misshapened by heavy fingers, and that stay nicely soft and fluffy). If desired, pop the cut bun halves into the toaster oven (cut side up) for a couple of minutes to give a light touch of crispiness, and to help prevent the buns from going soggy too quickly from the gravy. Not necessary at all, but nice if you have the inclination.

Place a layer of cucumber slices on the bottom half, top with the chicken filet, add some onions (if using) then finish off with a liberal dollop of satay gravy. Cap with the top half of the bun. Dinner is served.

The burger was seriously good. In the words of A, our house-help: way better than KFC’s version (which she had tried) – our gravy was not as sweet and the fresh-out-of-the-oven chicken was crispier, tastier, more juicy, moist and succulent than the commercial offering. She really liked the buttermilk-marinated, oven-fried chicken. So did I. As did everyone else.

I really like this way of cooking chicken. The buttermilk gives the meat incredible moistness and tenderness. I can just see me making all sorts of chicken this way – the flavorings can be varied endlessly (using hoisin sauce, teriyaki sauce, herbs and spices – whatever I may fancy – with the buttermilk). And it doesn’t even have to be oven-fried chicken each time. I think this would be a great way to marinade chicken for grilling or roasting. Great stuff.

Oh, I can also see doing this chicken burger in different styles too. One in a Californian-style would be delectable… with some sprouts and an avocado-tomato salsa topping the chicken filet instead of the satay sauce. Or, borrowing an idea from Burger King, pour some spicy rendang sauce over the meat. Yum!

And after that rather simple but healthy and very tasty dinner, time for a luscious reward – a Ben & Jerry’s sundae. Cookie dough ice cream, here I come! Oh yeah!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

IMBB 6: Char Siew – Chinese Sweet Barbecued Pork

Char siew needs little introduction. If there is one Chinese food item that is universally recognized the world over by its Chinese name, it is probably this succulent, slightly sweet meat. Char siew (sometimes spelt char siu) is not only eaten as is, with noodles or rice, but is also an integral ingredient in many popular Chinese food items like char siew pau (BBQ pork steamed buns) or char siew sou (baked flakey pastry filled with BBQ pork). It is also a great addition when cooking dishes like fried rice and fried noodles or rice vermicelli (beehoon).

Many other Asian cultures, such as the Japanese and Koreans, also have their own versions of this Chinese sweet pork.

While char siew quite obviously does not qualify under the “grilled” food category (i.e. foods cooked quickly over very high heat – think burgers and steaks), it probably does fall quite well under the “barbecued” classification – except perhaps for one small technicality. Barbecuing, as I understand it, involves long and slow cooking at relatively low temperatures in an enclosed cooking environment.

Traditionally, char siew was made by hanging marinated strips of pork in enclosed clay or brick ovens, heated either by wood or charcoal, and slowly cooked to tender and moist perfection. Although in modern times, these clay ovens have been replaced by circular steel “drums”, the strips of pork are still cooked whilst hung from ‘S’ hooks on the sides of these modern cookers, which are fully enclosed to simulate the heat environment of the ancient ovens. (However, more often than not, for practical reasons, most commercial producers use gas to fire these steel cookers; although there are still a few purists who stick faithfully to charcoal.)

So, for all intents of purposes it can be said that char siew is barbecued (as its English name quite obviously suggests). The only technical hitch is the cooking time. “Real” barbecued meats, like barbecued ribs (in the American sense), are cooked for many, many long hours – usually between 12-15 hours – on low, indirect heat. In that sense, char siew is different, being cooked as it is for a fairly short period of time, at moderate temperatures. But hey, I’m not about to quibble over small differences of a few hours of cooking time or a few degrees of temperature. And so, my contribution for this month’s IMBB theme of “Barbecuing and Grilling” is char siew…

The key to good char siew is not so much in the cooking (although that is of course important in terms of getting the right tenderness and moistness); the critical factor is the marinade. And trying to track down a credible char siew recipe for this project was a task in itself. Even asking several aunts if they had tried-and-tested recipes drew an unusual and disappointing blank. Of course, a quick Google on the Internet revealed a plethora of recipes. However, a closer look also showed glaringly that most of these recipes were, shall we just politely say, highly modified versions. So many of them had "surprising" ingredients for a char siew marinade… the popular route seemed to be to put together several ingredients that were deemed to be “essentially” Chinese, such as five spice powder, yellow bean paste, oyster sauce or other such like – ingredients that I personally have not tasted in all the various char siew I have eaten.

In the end, I decided to take an idea from here, use another suggestion from there, incorporate my own history of taste experiences of store-bought char siew, top it with some advice from mum and an aunt, and came up with a customized marinade recipe. And it was deeply satisfying that the result came out tasting very char siew-like indeed, as all the “tasters” (aka family members) enthusiastically declared.

First though, a few notes about the ingredients…

• The cut of pork used in char siew: According to my butcher, most commercially sold char siew are made from either shoulder or leg meat, because these cuts have the right amount of fat and are more intensely flavored. A lot of the recipes I saw on the Internet use tenderloin instead; some simply use the loin. For “research” purposes, I made the char siew using both the shoulder and the tenderloin. The result? The tenderloin produced a very tender and lean char siew, but also a less moist one. The small amount of fat in the shoulder cut, on the other hand, imparted a wonderfully luscious mouth-feel to the char siew, and gave it the all-important, requisite slightly charred, crispy bits in certain parts. The shoulder cut also had deeper flavors and a meatier bite. Both cuts of meat would work; it’s pretty much down to personal preference. Personally, I would go with the shoulder for the flavor and texture.

• If using the shoulder, have the butcher trim the meat into one long strip (the piece of meat on the left in the picture ).

• Maltose is used in the marinade of all store-bought char siew. However, this did not appear as an ingredient in a single recipe that I saw on the Internet, or indeed in most cookbooks. Almost all the recipes list honey instead. Before this project, I had never worked with maltose before; and would have imagined that it was fairly interchangeable with honey. After having worked with maltose, I would say that it is very different from honey, and the results it gives are rather different too. Maltose is rather hard and extremely sticky and gooey. It gives a certain viscosity to the marinade, and more importantly, it imparts a high gloss and shine to the meat, which is also an important part of the appeal of char siew. And unlike honey, when cooked, it has a less sticky feel to it. The sweetness of maltose is also different from that of honey. I personally feel that maltose is quite an integral part of the char siew marinade. However, if it is unavailable, I think honey does make for an acceptable substitution.

• The most common type of char siew seen around the world is the red colored version. In Singapore and Hong Kong, there is also the dark brown variety – char siew made without the use of any food coloring. I actually prefer the latter. However, for camera aesthetics purposes, I decided to use red food color to make the char siew; and I have to admit it does add a certain appeal to the meat. Usually powdered food coloring is used – the same type that is commonly used to color First Full Moon red-dyed hard-boiled eggs or birthday longevity peach buns. In Asia, they are commonly sold in Chinese medical halls; outside Asia, they should be available at large Asian grocers. If unavailable, I would think that regular liquid food coloring would work equally well.

I have not included an exact quantity for the food color in the recipe, as this will vary depending on the brand of food color used, its pigment intensity and of course, personal preference as to how red you want the meat to be. It is highly advisable to add the color in small increments; the color can tip very quickly and easily from something that is nicely red to one that is an eery alien red (as I discovered). Also keep in mind that because of the dark soy sauce in the marinade, the sauce will look less red than it actually is. The meat will cook out to a brighter and more obvious red than what the marinade may suggest. [I ended up using a combination of two colors: Sunset Yellow which is actually red with an orange cast, and Large Red (a literal translation from the Chinese name “da hong”) which is a deep blue-toned red. ]

• Most often, Chinese rice wine is used in the marinade. However, it is also not uncommon for brandy, whisky, rum or dry sherry to be used instead. I prefer the conventional rice wine, but whatever is convenient for you will work just fine. Perhaps my only suggestion would be that if using something that has a sharper “edge” to it than rice wine, you may wish to adjust the quantity used accordingly.

And oh, one more point: I made the char siew in the oven. I did not hang the meat up in the customary way as my oven did not allow me to do so; the meat was simply placed on a rack in a roasting pan. And it worked beautifully. It could just as easily be cooked, I’m sure, on the barbecue, if you so desire.

Renee’s Char Siew

Approx. 1 kg of pork

5 tablespoons light soy sauce
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
5 generous tablespoons maltose
4 tablespoons white sugar
4 tablespoons Chinese rice wine
4 tablespoons Hoisin sauce
3-4 pieces ginger, peeled and smashed
3-4 cloves garlic, whole and smashed
red food color

Glaze (optional):
2 tablespoons maltose, warmed

• Clean the pork and remove the skin.

• In a medium saucepan, combine all the marinade ingredients (light soy sauce through to garlic). Heat the mixture for one minute, to allow the sugar and maltose to dissolve. Let cool.

• Place a few tablespoons of the marinade into a small bowl, and add a small amount of food color. Stir to dissolve completely. Pour the colored marinade back into the main mixture, and mix thoroughly. Check color intensity, and repeat the steps as necessary until the desired intensity of red coloring is achieved.

• Add the pork to the marinade and allow it to macerate in the refrigerator for anywhere between four hours to overnight. Stir occasionally to ensure all sides of the meat are well-covered with marinade. [I only managed to marinate my pork for about 2 hours, and it worked fine.]

• Remove the marinated pork from the fridge about 20-30 minutes before cooking, to allow it to come back to room temperature.

• Preheat the oven to 210C or 410F.

• Line a roasting pan with foil and place a rack in it.

• Place the pork lengthwise on the rack. [I also added about ½ inch of hot water to the bottom of the roasting pan just to help keep the meat moist. This is optional.] Put it in the oven and cook for 10-15 minutes (about 10 minutes for the tenderloin and 15 for the shoulder).

• Baste the meat with the marinade and turn it over. Reduce the heat to 180C or 360F, and cook for another 10-15 minutes.

• Baste the pork again and return to the oven for another 5-10 minutes. Check for doneness. [My tenderloin was done in about 25 minutes or so in total, and the shoulder about 40 minutes or so.]

• This is an optional step: if more of the charred bits, so characteristic of store-bought char siew, are desired, let the cooked pork cool for 2-3 minutes after it comes out of the oven, then brush with the warm maltose. Place the pork under the broiler/grill for 2-4 minutes, turning a few times, until some parts of the pork become slightly charred and crispy.

• Alternately, after the pork comes out of the oven, brush a layer of the marinade (be sure to bring the marinade to a boil and cook it through first though, as it has had raw pork sitting in it) over the meat, and leave to cool and dry for about 10 minutes before slicing the pork. This will give the char siew that final glossy, shiny finish.

I chose the latter option. But, as you can see from the pictures, we didn’t wait until the sauce had been absorbed; the family was impatient to get their hands on the pork. And so it was a little messy slicing into the char siew, with the still wet sauce running into the center of each slice.

Other than that, the char siew looked very good, and tasted just as wonderful, if I may say so myself. And the family unanimously approved of the marinade’s balance of flavor. In fact, I had much difficulty keeping their paws off the freshly barbecued slices of pork; they were gobbling up the char siew faster than I was slicing it, and there was a real danger there wouldn’t be any meat left for the konlo (dry tossed) noodles that I was serving for dinner.

And so, this was our dinner…

An additional note: to make some delicious char siew gravy to pour over rice or the char siew slices themselves, either make another batch of the marinade mixture, minus the food coloring, and cook it down on the stove (remembering to remove the ginger and garlic before serving); or, if no food coloring was used in the original marinade, simply bring the remaining marinade to a boil on medium heat, reduce to a simmer, allow the mixture to reduce slightly, strain and serve.

I’ve just discovered how tasty freshly cooked char siew is; how different it is from store-bought ones. And they freeze well too. You can make a batch, store them in the freezer, and use them to make paus (or baos) and other dim sum items, or use them in fried rice or stir fries… char siew is so wonderfully versatile.

Happy char siew-ing!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Doing It My Way

I can probably be considered a borderline “compulsive clipper”; I am constantly clipping food articles and recipes from newspapers and magazines. These get filed away in folders, and almost never see the light of day again. Rarely do I go back and read them a second time, and rarer still do I cook any of the recipes. Over the years, this haphazard collection of pieces of paper has grown into an unwieldy and rather messy pile of folders covered with dust. So, recently, whenever I have a spare moment or two, I take on the arduous task of going through some of these files, and weeding out the “obsolete” recipes.

I can’t help but notice how far my baking and cooking skills have evolved over the years; how much my gastronomic tastes and interests have changed; and how different my current perceptions and concepts of good food are from way back when. There are so many recipes which, when I first snipped them from the newspaper or magazine, I must have found especially compelling, and yet when I look at them now, I go: “huh? Why did I cut this recipe?” Or even, as I read through some of the recipes, I can now instinctively tell: “nah, this won’t taste very good”, or, “this won’t work too well”.

One of the local food columns I have a fair collection of clippings of is “Mad About Food” by Sylvia Tan, a well-known Singaporean food writer. She seems to live a charmed life; married to a suave actor, she appears to be constantly holidaying at all sorts of exotic locales around the world. She would then come home and write about her food experiences in these wonderful places and give recipes of her attempts to re-create some of her best-loved flavors from these trips.

I like her casual writing style, and she has some interesting ideas, about food, cooking and the creation of the various dishes, which I quite enjoy. All her recipes sound tasty and wonderfully straightforward – at least on paper. Until the last couple of months, I had never made any of her recipes. The very first time I tried one of them, and followed her instructions to the tee, it was an unmitigated disaster. Eighty percent of the dish was left uneaten; the family politely tried to eat at least 20% of the dish to make me feel better. When I decided to try a second recipe of hers, I wised up a little, and made some adjustments along the way, and yet the end result still could not be described as being tasty. Refusing to admit defeat yet, I took out a third recipe for a gorgeous looking Kerala Chicken Roast and decided to give that a go.

I love cashew nuts, and this recipe uses lots of them. And I have a soft spot for dishes that are full of various spices, and yet are mild in terms of chilli heat. I tend to find such creations more intriguing and tantalizing than straightforward “hot” curries; I find their flavors to be more complex and full-bodied.

Going on past experience, I knew some tweaking would be necessary; I just didn’t realize how much. In the end, the dish I created was almost nothing like the recipe she wrote about. It was almost like I had created a brand new dish based on her writings.

As with the previous two recipes, the ingredient quantities were very inaccurate and inadequate. Her recipe was for 1.5 kg of chicken; I used only 1 kg of chicken but I ended up using, for example, 5 medium tomatoes to her 2, and I still felt there were not enough tomatoes in the final dish; I ended up using 2 cups of cashew nuts to her 1 cup. I also increased, across the board, the amount of spices called for.

Another realization was that her instructions were frustratingly vague; for the most part, I had to use my own past experiences of cooking Indian curries to see me through. Even basic descriptions, such as how much ginger to use, how the ingredients should be prepped (chopped or finely minced? sliced or diced?), or how much cooking time would be required, were sketchy at best or simply left out altogether. The dish took a lot longer to cook than she had indicated; I ended up with a table of very hungry people waiting impatiently to be fed. The article also expounded at some length about not adding any water to the pot; the gravy should come entirely from the onions being cooked down. And yet, as those who often cook Indian curries will tell you, most of the gravy usually comes from tomatoes being cooked down, with only supplementary moistness coming from the onions. Even with my much increased amount of tomatoes, there just wasn’t enough moisture in the pot. It got to the point where the food was starting to stick to the bottom of the pot before the chicken was cooked. The article intoned that I should be patient; but if I had waited any longer, dinner would have been burnt. So, yes, I added a little bit of water (about ¼ cup or so), and the ingredients immediately slurped up every drop thirstily. It still produced the “dry” sauce/gravy it was supposed to produce, and it also prevented the dish from burning. The next time round, I would up the amount of tomatoes even more – to maybe 8 or even 10 tomatoes; then there would be no need to add any water. It would also give the dish a more pronounced tangy feel, which would be nice.

After a long road of much adjusting and last minute improvisations, I was so glad the final result was a stunning success. Everyone loved it! The flavors were well-balanced, with just the right touch of soft chilli heat. It was spicy, sweet, savory and a touch tangy. Very nice indeed. And yes, I would most definitely make this dish again – but only if I do it my way.

Kerala Chicken – My Way

1 kg chicken parts *
3½ generously heaped teaspoons chilli paste **
1½ generously heaped teaspoons turmeric powder
4 tablespoons light soy sauce ***

6 to 8 big purple onions
8 to 10 medium ripe tomatoes
7 cloves garlic
2” to 2½” knob fresh ginger
1½ to 2 cups raw cashews ****
1 cup raisins
1 to 2½ tablespoons light soy sauce (optional; to taste)
1½ heaping tablespoons coriander powder
1½ rounded teaspoons garam masala

* I used just the whole legs and wings of three “kampong chicken” (local free-range chicken). [The breasts and backs were saved for cooking soup with.] Keep in mind that if you are using non-kampong chicken, it will cook slightly quicker.

** I used our own home-made chilli paste; you may use instead about 4 to 5 generously heaped teaspoons of regular chilli powder.

*** I know soy sauce is not very Indian, but I tend to prefer using this to salt, as I find it gives a more complex and rounded saltiness than just salt alone. However, feel free to use salt – about 1 tablespoon worth, and adjust further to suit personal preferences.

**** I really like cashew nuts, and bunged in 2 cups of the stuff, which was just nice for me. However, a couple of my guests preferred it to be less nutty. So I’m thinking perhaps 1½ cups (or even 1 cup if you really don’t want too many nuts in the dish) would be a nice balance.

• Remove the skin and excess fat from the chicken. [I have found that this usually helps the meat absorb the seasonings; and I was gratified that the Keralan chef from whom Sylvia learnt this dish was quoted as saying the same thing; he always stripped the chicken of all skin and fat before cooking.] Rub the chilli paste (or powder), turmeric powder and soy sauce into the chicken. [Important note: if using salt, do not add to the marinade. Macerating the chicken in salt for longer than 20 minutes will result in very tough meat fibers! Add the salt just before cooking the chicken. The same concern does not apply however if using soy sauce.] Leave the chicken to marinate in the fridge for about an hour or so.

• Meanwhile, cut the onions into thin half-rounds; blanch, peel, seed and dice the tomatoes; finely chop the garlic; and peel, thinly slice then pound (using a mortar and pestle) into a paste the ginger.

• In a wok or large pan, heat about 3-4 tablespoons of oil. Sauté the garlic and ginger briefly, until fragrant.

• Add the onions and sauté until lightly softened. [It will look like there is an excessive amount of onions; but it all cooks down in the end.]

• Once the onions are slightly soft, add the tomatoes, and stir to combine. If more chilli heat is desired, 2 to 4 chopped green chillies can also be added at this point.

• Next, pop the chicken into the wok and brown.

• After the chicken has changed color, throw in the cashews; stir to combine.

• Cover the wok, turn down the heat, and cook until the chicken is tender and the onion mixture is cooked down and thickened. [My chicken took about 45-50 minutes to cook.] Stir occasionally to prevent sticking.

• Halfway through the cooking time, add the coriander powder and the raisins. If necessary, also adjust the seasonings to taste; add more salt/soy sauce or chilli paste/powder as required.

• Just before removing the chicken from the heat, stir through the garam masala.

And there you have it – Kerala-style chicken with cashew nuts. This is a very mild, dry “curry”. The “sauce” is less of a gravy and more of a thick relish of cashews, onions and raisins. The flavors are simply quite gorgeous; rich, intense and complex. The cashews are beautifully tender with a delicate bite and crunch; their richly nutty aromas and creamy texture add wonderful complexity to the dish. The raisins are soft, plump and soaked through with the flavors of the chicken and gravy, and in themselves lend a beautiful finishing note of sweetness to the sauce. The onions, all soft, caramelized, sweet and infused with the spices, are out of this world. And the combination of the tender chicken with this thick, intensely flavorful “relish” is simply finger-lickin’ good!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I served the chicken with a stir-fried spicy veggie, a sweet, sour and spicy cucumber relish/salad and a hastily improvised coriander-raisin basmati rice.

Coriander-Raisin Basmati Rice – My Way

Freshly cooked, warm basmati rice
Big bunch of coriander (cilantro or Chinese parsley)
¾ cup dark raisins
½ to 1 carrot, finely diced

• Cook basmati rice as per normal, remembering to add a pinch of salt to the cooking water. [It is also important to soak the rice for about ½ hour before cooking, and then cook it in the soaking water. This does produce incredibly soft and fluffy rice.]

• Prepare the coriander chiffonade and set aside.

• Finely dice the carrots and very quickly sauté in a little hot oil until nicely tender. Drain well, and set aside.

• Just before the rice is assembled, quickly rinse the raisins in hot water, just to plump them up and warm them a little.

• Fluff up the rice with a fork; add the other ingredients and toss to mix.

Now, you will notice that the final rice looked rather haphazard. I had given instructions to my househelp to put together the dish while I busied myself with finalizing all the other details of the dinner party before the guests arrived. I figured it was a pretty straightforward assembly. Unfortunately, as you can see, the carrots were diced way too fine; they almost disappeared completely into the rice. I had wanted to use them to give a bright dash of color to the dish. The coriander, on the other hand, was so coarsely chopped that it was a rather dominating sight. Plus, I had intended to include some diced cucumbers in the rice too (as can be seen from the picture of the ingredients), just to give a nice refreshing crunch. However, A. totally forgot about the cucumber and it was left out. Oh well. These things happen, and they are not the end of the world. While the rice was not a very elegant sight by any means, it still tasted wonderful. The coriander gave a wonderful herby overtone to the naturally aromatic rice, while the raisins provided subtle sweetness and tied the rice and chicken together rather nicely.

I really like the idea of serving basmati rice tossed with different ingredients. The possibilities are near-endless. Perhaps kernels of fresh corn for a colorful and crunchy addition… dried apricots… finely diced black olives… lightly sautéed zucchinis… and nuts! Nuts would be absolutely wonderful. If I had not been serving the rice with a dish that already had cashews in them, I would most definitely have thrown in some toasted almond slices or slivers. What a gorgeously fragrant rice that would have made!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It wasn’t a particularly elegant or refined looking meal, but taste-wise it was a hit! I really liked both the chicken and the rice. Both are definite keepers.

And to round off the highly satisfying meal, I served up home-made soy milk-based lychee kulfi…

These tasted very good; but everyone agreed the texture still needed some fine-tuning. Still, being the highly supportive friends that they were, everyone slurped up the kulfi quite happily!

Another evening of good food in the wonderfully enjoyable company of friends!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

From the End of the Snout to the Tip of the Tail, and Everything In Between

The Chinese, as with many other cultures from the French to the Mexicans, eat just about every part of the pig. Nothing is spared or wasted. From the end of the snout to the tip of the tail, and everything in between… each part of the pig provides for unique tastes, textures and flavors, all of which can be made use of and turned into culinary splendors and delicate delicacies. Of course, historically, it was probably more out of necessity and economy that the entire animal was eaten. Nowadays, it has become almost a gastronomic luxury to indulge in such “exotic” epicurean creations.

For the Chinese, every part of the pig is a taste delight. In the Shanghainese tradition, the ears are cured, then thinly sliced and served as a crunchy cold appetizer. Braised pig’s tongue requires a labor of love to prepare, but the delectable end-result makes it worth the while. The brain is delicious when sautéed with egg. And coagulated pig’s blood adds oomph to many a dish. Double-boiled pig’s heart soup is said to calm a frightened or scared child. Meanwhile, spicy and peppery intestines soup is a well-loved comfort food. Trotters (or knuckles) braised in black vinegar bring many to their knees with sighs of delight. And pig’s tail peanut soup? That is an age-old classic.

Having said all that, I must be very “un-Chinese”, as I do not eat most of that stuff. I was probably more adventurous as a kid. One of my favorite dishes back then was pig’s brain fried with eggs, a sort of brain omelet if you will. I guess I would still eat that now, if pigs’ brains were readily available and if I was not so wary about cholesterol and other health risks. But I have never been one for offal or other innards. I watch with a mixture of horror and spellbound fascination as family and friends happily tuck into intestines soup or kuay chap (braised mixed offal).

Probably the only organ I eat is the liver. And even then, only if it is cooked in certain ways. One of the ways that I like is to cook it with a lot of Chinese glutinous rice wine, in the style of the traditional confinement wine soup.

You see, for Chinese women, the time of pregnancy and the one month after delivery (the confinement month) are times when their families will place great emphasis on them eating the “right” foods, to build up the body in preparation for delivery and to nurture the unborn child, and to restore and replenish the body following delivery respectively. A very common dish would be chicken cooked with sweet glutinous rice wine and ginger, or pork liver cooked with sweet glutinous rice wine and ginger.

Wine during pregnancy, you ask?? Yes, Chinese glutinous rice wine is very low in alcohol content to begin with, and only a little bit is used. The alcohol is also completely cooked off, leaving only the fortifying benefits of the wine and its sweet flavors. The Chinese believe glutinous rice wine to be warming for the body and a tonic that builds the blood and restores strength and vitality. Ginger is a common accompaniment as it is said to rid the body of wind, and again to warm and build the blood. (However, after delivery, the consumption of such foods is usually allowed only on the first day or two following the birth, before lactation starts. After that, other foods are used to supply intense nutrition to the nursing mother, and wine and ginger are generally avoided.)

Pig’s liver. In the past, or at least up until my mum’s generation, expectant mums ate copious amounts of pork liver. Anaemia is a common problem for most Asian women during pregnancy. And in those days, it was believed that the natural way was the best. So women eschewed iron supplements or vitamin B shots for lots and lots of pig liver! My mum still tells me stories of how, in those days, pig liver was so precious that it had to be reserved, otherwise you just didn’t get any. And if you tried to reserve some everyday with your butcher, you would most likely get a telling off from him – “why do you need to eat liver everyday? Can’t you eat something else? Other people also want to eat liver, you know?” And prices were astronomical. Sometimes even more expensive than the pork meat itself! Nowadays, the reverse is true. Women turn their noses up at liver, citing it as awful tasting, unappetizing, inconvenient, unhealthy and what have you. Iron supplements and jabs are the easy, instant, on-demand way to go. And now, if you go to the wet market, and ask for $1.00 worth of liver, the butcher almost begs you to take the whole lot, and gives you an entire bag full of liver! Ah! How times have changed!

So it was that a few weeks ago my mum returned home from the wet market with a big bag full of pig’s liver. I was somewhat aghast. Why on earth did you buy so much liver? I gasped. She explained that she had a sudden desire to eat liver, and had in fact asked the butcher for $1.00 worth, thinking she would probably get just one small piece of liver for that price. Instead, the butcher grabbed a few big handfuls of pig’s liver and put them into a bag for her. My mum had insisted she didn’t want so much. The butcher said: “never mind, I give you free… all for $1.00”. On top of that he even threw in some chicken liver, chicken heart and other innards! My mum kept telling our butcher she didn’t want all that stuff, but the butcher insisted on giving them to her anyway!

My mum and I looked at each other, and burst out laughing. What were we going to do with so much liver and other organs?! Liver didn’t keep well at all, and had to be eaten on the day of purchase. So it was decided, the family was getting nothing but liver for dinner! We cooked them the way the family liked them best… in a lot glutinous rice wine.

There are actually two variants to this dish. One is a “dry” version, with hardly any soup. This is the one that is usually cooked for expectant women, as it uses less wine. The other is a soup version (as seen in the top main photo). This is the one that many families, including my own, prefer for everyday consumption or for so-called “pleasure eating”. I will give the recipe for the latter, and then talk about the slight changes to be made to get the former.

Pig’s Liver Cooked in Sweet Glutinous Rice Wine, with Egg and Wood-Ear Fungus

Prepping the Various Ingredients

The different ingredients need to be prepared separately before the “soup” is assembled.

For the wood-ear fungus:
• Boil the dried fungus in a pot of water until they are at the desired texture and tenderness (personal preferences will vary) – usually about 20 minutes or so. Drain and rinse under running water. Set aside.

For the fried eggs:
• Eggs are optional, but my family likes to have eggs in our version. And we like them over-easy, with yolks still runny. We usually provide for one or two eggs for each diner, depending on how substantial we want the meal to be.

Okay, I know, I’m messy. I should have laid the eggs out in a single layer, but I was lazy, and piled them one on top of the other, and some of the yolks broke. Still tasty, just messy. I’m usually a fairly tidy cook (truly), but I have my moments!

For the chicken liver:

• If using chicken liver, or if you get foisted with a whole bundle of chicken livers by your butcher… wash and clean the livers, then boil them in a pot of water until they are just slightly undercooked. (They will finish cooking in the soup.)

For the pork liver:
• Wash and clean the liver, and slice as thinly as possible. The pieces should be fairly large, yet very thin. We want to have as large a surface area as possible so that the liver will cook very quickly. There is nothing worse tasting than over-cooked liver. Believe me.

The pork liver can be prepared ahead of time up to this point. The rest of the steps should be carried out only just before cooking the liver.

• Just before the liver is to be cooked, sprinkle a tiny bit of sugar over the liver, and then coat with cornflour. The cornflour helps to give the liver a smooth texture. Of course, as my mum always says, you have to start with good-quality, very fresh liver in the first place. No amount of flour is going to make less than high-quality liver smooth.

• Bring a pot of water to a strong rolling boil. Blanch the liver very quickly in the boiling water. As soon as the liver changes color, remove from the heat and drain.

• Rinse the blanched liver under running water, to wash away the flour. Drain well.

Now the liver has been prepped, and is ready to be cooked with the wine.

Cooking the Glutinous Rice Wine Soup

• In a hot wok, with a little bit of oil, fry lots of julienned young ginger until fragrant.

• Pour in about ½ bottle (not sure how much that is – maybe about 2 - 2½ cups?) of sweet glutinous rice wine. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low.

• Add the fungus.

• … and the livers. Stir on low heat until the livers are just cooked through. Be careful not to over-cook the livers.

• Add a dash of light soy sauce, and if desired, pepper to taste.

• Once the livers are cooked, add the eggs, and stir gently to mix with the wine mixture. Remove from the heat and serve immediately. Cold cooked liver doesn’t taste very good.

The "Dry" Version
• Sauté the ginger strips in a tiny bit of oil until fragrant.
• Add the livers to the wok, and fry very briefly. Add light soy sauce and pepper to taste.
• Pour in about ½ to 1 cup of sweet glutinous rice wine (this will give a tiny bit of "gravy"). Continue to sauté the livers.
• When the livers are almost cooked, add the fungus. Stir to mix.
• Finally add the eggs. Mix and remove from the heat.

Notes
• The amount of alcohol in the dish can be controlled by the length of the cooking time. If allowed to cook for 7-10 minutes (as in the above two cases) or more, almost all the alcohol would have evaporated off, and only the subtle sweetness of the glutinous rice wine will be left flavoring the dish. We generally prefer it this way. The wine is seen as more a sort of flavoring and fortifying ingredient, rather than as an addition of alcohol to the dish. However, if a stronger alcohol content (and taste) is preferred, simply adjust the cooking method slightly, and add the wine a little later, so that it doesn’t get cooked for longer than 5 minutes.

• We would not usually use both chicken and pork livers in the same dish. That is a bit of a liver over-kill. This particular instance was an exception.

• This recipe can also be used to cook a chicken version ("ji jiu" or literally "chicken wine") - a version that is probably more familiar to many people, and that my family eats on a more regular basis. So instead of using liver, use bite-sized chunks of boneless chicken thigh meat. Again, the meat is cooked with wood-ear fungus and fried eggs.

• A further variation to this that we also make is adding mee sua (thin white noodles) to the ji jiu (chicken in glutinous rice wine) to make ji jiu mian sian. This I like a lot! Very nice indeed!

Until that night, I had not had liver in glutinous rice wine for years! So, it was a nice treat to re-visit the dish. However, tasty as it was, the meal also reminded me, very clearly, why I could never be on Atkins. By the next day I didn’t want anything to do with protein or any food item that came from animals. I was wanting my noodles, pastas, sweet potatoes and rice. Oh yes, you can take the carbs out of my life, but you can’t take the carb-lover out of me!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Wind-Dried, Slowly Braised

Following from yesterday’s post on braised pork and radish, here’s another slow-cooked dish that is also quintessential Chinese comfort food – braised wind-dried or preserved vegetables served with pork.

Two types of vegetables can be used in this braised dish. Either wind-dried vegetables (cai gan in Mandarin or choy kon in Cantonese, literally translated as “vegetables dried”) or preserved vegetables.

Many varieties of vegetables can be found in wind-dried versions, like xiao bai cai (this is the one we use most frequently at home) and various vegetables that are indigenous to certain provinces of China. Similarly, there are many different varieties of preserved vegetables. A very commonly used one is mei cai (in Mandarin) or mui choy (in Cantonese).

Every dialect group has their own version of braised dried/preserved vegetables, and each family also has their own variation. The basis of the dish remains the same – dried/preserved vegetables that are patiently and lovingly cooked for a long period of time. However, the type of dried/preserved vegetables used and the seasonings and flavorings added may vary a little, from family to family.

So here is my family’s version, using wind-dried xiao bai cai…

Braised cai gan (dried vegetable) is usually served with pork. Most often this would be braised pork belly. But it can also be served with braised pork. For my family, because we tend to prefer leaner cuts of meat, this would be how we would normally serve braised cai gan. We would sometimes also serve the vegetables topped with just a simple stir-fried dark soy sauce pork instead, as shown in the picture above.

Like in the restaurants, we like to cook the meat (even if it is braised meat) and dried vegetables separately. Given the very lengthy cooking time for the dried vegetables, cooking the meat together with it would result in very tasty and sweet vegetables, but rather bland and unappetizing meat, as all the flavors would have leached out from the meat.

Braised Wind-Dried Vegetable

• Wash the wind-dried vegetables well to remove sand particles. Soak in water until softened.

• Drain the vegetables, and dice finely.

• Finely slice some pre-prepped Chinese dried mushrooms (optional).

• Sauté some minced garlic in a little hot oil. Add the dried vegetables and Chinese mushrooms, and fry briefly. Add some light soy sauce, tiny dash of dark soy sauce, a little bit sugar and about 1½ to 2 cups chicken (or pork) broth/stock. [There should be enough liquid to ensure that the vegetables do not dry up during the cooking process, and that there is a small amount of gravy left at the end. The seasonings can also be adjusted to personal tastes.]

• Transfer mixture to a slow-cooker (crock pot), and leave to simmer for about 6-7 hours or until the vegetables are at the desired tenderness. [My family tends to like our braised dried vegetables very, very tender - near melt-in-the-mouth texture - with just the lightest hint of bite. Others may prefer vegetables with a crunchier mouth-feel, and the cooking time should be adjusted accordingly.]

Notes
• The same recipe can be used for braising preserved vegetables like mei cai.

• However, while wind-dried vegetables are free from any added flavors and thus take their flavors solely from the seasonings added during the cooking process, preserved vegetables on the other hand already have inherent tastes, and the seasonings need to be adjusted accordingly. Some preserved vegetables are salty and some are sweet. And the level of sweetness or saltiness can vary from vegetable type to vegetable type, as well as from batch to batch.

• Braised dried/preserved vegetables are a wonderful accompaniment to plain rice congee or porridge, but are equally good with steamed rice.

• This dish can quite happily be served on its own, or topped with pork – most often with braised pork belly, or braised pork, or sometimes, in the case of our family, with stir-fried pork tenderloin…

Stir-Fried Dark Soy Sauce Pork Tenderloin

• Slice the pork tenderloin as thinly as possible.

• Season with some light soy sauce, tiny bit of sugar, dash of sesame oil and sprinkle of corn flour.

• In a hot wok, sauté some minced garlic. Add the pork, and very quickly toss to brown the meat. As the pork is sliced so thinly it cooks very quickly indeed. As soon as the meat has changed color, add approximately 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon oyster sauce, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce, 1 tablespoon Chinese rice wine and about 1 scant teaspoon sugar. [Seasonings can be adjusted to suit personal preferences.]

• Finally, combine a little cornstarch/cornflour with a little water (just enough to give a little bit of gravy), and pour over the pork. This will help thicken the gravy and give the meat a nice sheen at the same time.

• As soon as the gravy comes to a boil, and the pork is cooked through, immediately remove from the heat.

Notes
• As the pork is very lean, it is important to avoid over-cooking the meat to keep it very tender and moist.

• This dish, served on its own, is a sure-fire hit with kids – they simply love the combination of the pork and gravy with rice.

• The same recipe can be used with minced pork or diced chicken.

This is turning out to be quite a “bonus recipe” week, isn’t it? I think that’s one of the beauties of home-cooking… you need just a few basic recipes to create many different dishes. With the 4 recipes from today and yesterday, so many different permutations and variations can be created… braised dried vegetables with rice congee… braised preserved vegetables with braised pork belly… braised pork meat made into lor mee (noodles with braised gravy)… braised pork belly with mantou (steamed buns)… braised radish with steamed rice… stir-fried dark soy sauce pork tenderloin in a hamburger bun… stir-fried dark soy sauce minced pork over mee sua noodles… and the list goes on and on. Quite wonderful, isn’t it? And fun too… to play around with the recipes like that.

Happy cooking and experimenting!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Slowly Does It

One of my favorite cooking methods, especially for meats, is slow-cooking – be it the slow-oven roasting of things such as ribs, or the braising of meats and/or vegetables. In my book, slow-cooking is one of the best ways, if not the best way, to intensify flavors and bring out the rich complexity of the different ingredients. In slow-cooking, the different aromas and tastes all have time to meld and harmonize. And for meats, slow-cooking produces some of the most tender and tasty meats possible. Of course, not all foods are amenable to slow-cooking. A lot of ingredients fare best when very lightly cooked, or in some cases, not cooked at all and simply eaten raw.

For the Chinese, the favorite (or at least the most common) slow-cooking method would probably be braising. Braised dishes are an integral part of the repertoire of any Chinese home-cook. It is also the cooking process by which, in many ways, the competence of a professional Chinese chef is defined. We Chinese braise just about everything – from pork to goose, from tofu to noodles even! Braised dishes are robust, hearty and yet with a touch of refinement. They are food with a lot of “honesty” and “heart”. And I like that in food.

One of the best-loved braised dishes would probably be braised pork (lor bak). Every dialect group will have their own versions. Indeed, every family will have their own unique recipe for this most humble of dishes. The dish pictured above may not look very appealing in appearance – all dark and brooding in looks it may be, but this is quintessential Chinese comfort food. In fact, it would be true to say that a lot of Chinese comfort food has dark soy sauce as a key ingredient! There is just something about dishes cooked with dark soy sauce that seems to hit the spot for many, many Chinese. Think tau yu bak (dark soy sauce pork). Think plain thick dark soy sauce drizzled over plain chicken rice. What could be better? It speaks to us on a sub-conscious emotional level.

This is one of my family’s favorite braised dishes – braised pork with Chinese radish. Different cuts of pork can be used, from pork belly to pork muscle from the leg of the pig, as is the case here. This was my first time using this cut of meat. It had come well-recommended by the butcher, and it had looked so amazingly fresh that day, so I thought it would be interesting to try and see how well it cooked in a braised dish. It was a pretty lean cut of meat, and I was a little concerned that it would turn out rather dry and tough. As it turned out, it was nicely tender, and juicy too. So now I’ve added this cut of meat to my repertoire of meat cuts that I would use in my cooking.

Braised Pork and Radish

1 medium or large white radish
1 large piece pork ** (approximately 1 kg)
minced garlic
5 cloves whole garlic, skinned
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
4-5 teaspoons sugar ***
3-4 tablespoons sweet Chinese glutinous rice wine
1½ to 2 cups chicken or pork stock

* Quantities are based on estimations, and should be adjusted according to the amount of radish and pork used, as well as personal preferences.

** If using pork belly, please see recipe below.

*** Some people prefer to use a piece of rock sugar instead, and that works equally well.

• Peel radish and cut into fairly large chunks.

• Wash and clean the pork, keeping it in one large, whole piece.

• Heat a little oil in a wok or deep pot, and sauté the whole cloves of garlic until fragrant. Add the whole piece of pork, and allow it to brown on all sides. Remove from wok, and set aside.

• If necessary, heat a little more oil in the wok. Sauté the minced garlic until fragrant. Add the radish and sauté for a couple of minutes.

• Return the pork to the wok. Add all the seasonings as well as the stock.

• Cover wok, and leave to gently simmer on a very slow fire for about 2 to 3 hours, or until the meat and radish are very tender. Cooking times will vary depending on the cut of pork used. For very long-cooking cuts of meat, it may be desirable to add the radish only after the meat has been cooking for about ½ to 1 hour, so that the radish doesn’t get cooked for too long and turn mushy.

• Once the pork and radish are at the desired tenderness, turn off the heat. Leave to rest for about 10 minutes. Then, removing the pork from the wok, cut it into slightly chunky pieces. Return the pork pieces to the radish mixture. Mix well.

• If a slightly thicker gravy is preferred, simply bring the gravy to a rolling boil, add a little cornstarch (cornflour) solution, mix well, allow the gravy to return to a boil and then turn off the heat immediately.

Notes:
• The same dish can be done with just radish, using maybe a vegetable stock, for a vegetarian option. The seasonings should be adjusted accordingly, as radish does not require as much flavoring as meat. I personally use only about 1 tablespoon dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon light soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar, and skip the wine altogether.

• Similarly, a version with just pork can also be done. Such a lor bak (Hokkien for braised pork) dish is very versatile and can be served with other Chinese comfort food, such has braised wind-dried vegetables (men cai gan in Mandarin), braised preserved vegetables (such as men mei cai) – recipes for which will be coming up tomorrow – or even used to make noodle dishes such as lor mee.

Braised Pork Belly
The braising of pork belly requires a slightly different treatment, as this cut of meat can sometimes have a rather overt porky, even gamey taste, which is very unappetizing. Therefore, the prepping of the pork belly before it is cooked is very important. And the following prepping steps can be used in any recipe that requires pork belly.

Prepping the Pork Belly
• Bring a large pot of water to a strong rolling boil. This is very important – that the water be at a strong rolling boil. It is also important to fill the pot with a generous amount of water.

• Place the cleaned and washed piece of pork belly into the boiling water, skin side down. Almost immediately after the meat has gone in, turn off the fire, and then remove the pork from the pot. It is essentially just a very quick boiling-water-dip to blanch and seal the surfaces of the pork belly, and the meat will still be completely raw.

• Using the sharp edge of a knife, scrape the skin’s surface. Rinse well under running water. Repeat this process if necessary. The porkiness usually stems from the skin, so doing this should remove any porky taste from the meat.

Cooking the Pork Belly
• Once the pork belly has been prepped, it can be cooked in the same way as the braised pork above. Just be sure that when adding the pork belly to the hot oil, place it skin side down first.

• For pork belly, I also usually like to use a little more garlic than I would if using other cuts of meat. 8 to 10 whole cloves of garlic would not be overpowering at all.

• There is also an alternative method that can be used for braising pork belly (or even other cuts of pork)… After the meat has been browned in the hot oil, remove the pork and garlic from the wok. Add all the gravy ingredients (dark soy sauce, light soy sauce, glutinous rice wine and sugar). Stir on low heat until the sugar has melted. Return the pork and the garlic to the wok, and stir to mix well. Add the stock, cover and leave to simmer until the pork is cooked and tender.

• Again, as with the braised pork above, if a thicker gravy is desired, add a little cornflour solution to the gravy at the end.

And there you have it, a small little bonus for today: 4-recipes-in-1…

Braised pork belly… braised pork… braised white radish… braised pork with white radish…
Meat that is melt-in-the-mouth tender, radish that is sweet, soft and succulent, and gravy that is absolutely delectable when drizzled over steaming hot rice. Chinese comfort food. Chinese braised comfort food. Ahhhh…

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Fruity Natural Tenderizer

It has been quite a while since I last posted a recipe, for the simple reason that I haven’t been doing much cooking (or baking) lately. We have been eating out an awful lot. But I thought it would be a nice idea to make this week a sort of a “pork week” on shiokadelicious. I’ve dug out, from the archives, a few pork dishes which are “regulars” on our dinner table, and which for some reason or other I’ve never bothered to post about. Until now. These are simple, casual, honest home-style dishes. A couple of them, which will be posted over the next few days, can be considered Chinese “comfort food” – every family will have their own version of these dishes. They evoke strong feelings of familiarity and affection, and quite simply bring a sigh of pleasure and satisfaction to the lips after they have been enjoyed.

Today’s dish is so incredibly easy and quick to make that I can’t really call it a recipe. It is one of those dishes which I call “ingredient user-uppers” – dishes that turn an otherwise “useless” or discarded food item into something that is tasty and nutritious. This particular dish has wonderfully light, fruity flavors and is a very healthy, naturally low fat dish.

What do you do when you have a dud in your kitchen? A papaya dud, that is. Every once in a while we bring home papayas from the market that look beautifully ripe and sweet on the outside. But alas, when we cut them open, they are hard, colorless and just plain bland. Not a hint of sweetness or even a hint of papaya aromas. The flesh is pale, hard and devoid of any juice at all. These are the fruits that are picked way too early, when they are still very raw, and they have merely turned yellow and ripe-looking on the outside from being stored in warm warehouses. They are simply not edible or palatable.

However, I loathe wasting food. I really try not to throw any food away, if at all possible. So even when the papayas are so unfit to be eaten as fresh fruits, I can’t bring myself to simply chuck them out. So what then? I suppose one could try to make Thai-style papaya salads from them. But these are so tasteless they simply won’t work very well in salads, which are best when made with raw, green papayas that have a wonderful crunch and a light tartness to them. These duds are, to all intents of purposes, “ripe”, and yet are simply inedible.

So, the easiest and tastiest way is to cook with them, in a savory dish. I like to cook them with pork, but I think they could work with beef too. Once sautéed, the papayas are completely transformed. The pale, insipid flesh turns a rich, vibrant, jeweled red color. From being tasteless, it becomes beautifully sweet, juicy and tender. And quite simply, very delicious.

By virtue of its natural enzymatic activity, papaya is also a wonderful meat tenderizer. When cooked with meat, it lends an amazing sweetness and tenderness to the meat, which in turn, by its savory flavors, brings out the most incredible sweetness and juiciness in the otherwise useless fruit. It is a most wondrous and harmonious partnership.

I usually use pork tenderloin in this dish, simply because that’s my favorite cut of pork. I like it for its leanness and tenderness. But other cuts of pork would work too. Just be sure to make adjustments to the cooking times and the timing of adding the pork to the papaya. A cut of meat that requires a longer cooking time can afford to be cooked with the papaya for almost the entire, if not the entire, cooking period.

Because pork tenderloin doesn’t require a lengthy cooking time, and because it will also become too tender, to the point of being unpalatably mushy, if cooked with the papaya for too long, I usually brown the meat first and add them to the papaya towards the end to let them finish cooking.

• Slice pork into very thin slices, and season with some light soy sauce, tiny bit of sugar, dash of sesame oil and sprinkle of corn flour.

• Sauté some chopped garlic in a little hot oil, until nicely fragrant. Add the pork and sauté very quickly. Once the color changes, season with ½ teaspoon of dark soy sauce. Toss to mix, and remove from heat. Set aside.

• Cut papaya into fairly thin slices.

• Again sauté a little chopped garlic. Add the papaya and sauté for a few minutes. Add seasonings of approximately 2 tablespoons light soy sauce, 1 scant teaspoon sugar, together with about ½ cup of hot water. (This would be for one small papaya.) Mix well, cover pan, and leave the papaya to simmer, on low heat, until almost at the desired tenderness. (I actually like to get the papaya fairly soft, as I find that usually at that point, the flavors are beautifully intensified).

• Uncover the pan. Add the pork, and sauté until it is completely cooked through, and the flavors have melded with those of the papaya.

• If using a cut of meat that requires a longer cooking time, you can brown the meat, then proceed to add the papaya straight into the meat, and cook until both are tender.

That’s it. Simple, light, refreshing, colorful, vibrant fruity goodness.

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

IMBB? – Around the World in a Bowl of Rice: Nasi Briyani

Last weekend, some friends came over for dinner, and I cooked up some Indian nasi briyani. This allowed me to achieve two purposes: one, a highly enjoyable evening in the wonderful company of close friends, with food that everyone thoroughly enjoyed, and two, the fulfillment of my entry requirements for this fourth installment of IMBB? “Around the World in a Bowl of Rice”.

[For those who are wondering, “Is My Blog Burning?” (IMBB) is a distributed cooking event, inspired and launched by Alberto back in February, with the inaugural edition featuring soups. The baton passed to Clotilde in March with her tartine edition, and yours truly picked up the cake in April. And now we are into May, and Pim has kindly offered to host today’s “rice-y” affair.]

Nasi briyani is Indian by birth, but has been warmly welcomed and adopted by South East Asians. This rice dish now forms an integral part of the Singaporean and Malaysian epicurean landscape, and is highly popular amongst not only the local Indians but also the Chinese and Malays as well. There is even a Malay version of nasi briyani (sometimes spelt as "biryani" or “beriyani”).

What is nasi briyani? In a nutshell, it is a fragrant and spicy delicacy of saffron-flavored basmati rice layered with an equal or greater proportion of spicy meat, with each layer sprinkled with nuts and fresh herbs, then sealed and steamed to finish. The “meat” can be chicken, lamb or mutton, and in modern times, prawns too. The key to a good nasi briyani is the basmati rice. High quality long-grained rice is of the utmost importance in the creation of delicious nasi briyani. Basmati rice is usually graded by its length and the quality of its cashew-like aroma.

I first learnt to cook this dish some 9-10 years ago. At the time, I was going through a “fixated with Indian food” phase and took some cooking classes from a lovely Indian lady. Her name was Lucky (yes, really, that was her name), and she was a wonderful, warm, highly personable grandmother, who was then already in her 60s. With children grown and grandchildren in school, she had decided to turn her great love for Indian food and its culinary culture, and her over 40 years of experience cooking for her family into a profitable hobby – teaching people how to cook authentic, tasty Indian dishes.

Hers was a blend of home-style cooking that had been honed and refined over four decades of cooking two meals a day for her husband and family, and a worldly-wise savvy about Indian restaurant cooking and the “tricks of the trade” so to speak. She loved food and eating. She would go and eat at Indian restaurants in India, Singapore and abroad, and just from tasting the food, she would pick up tips on how to further refine her own cooking style. So, lessons in her home kitchen were filled with insightful housewife tips as well as little nuggets of restaurant secrets for tasty Indian cooking. Her recipes were a wonderful combination of the honesty of home-cooked food (the best, and probably the most authentic, sort of food in any culinary tradition, in my opinion) and a certain restaurant-style refinement. Each cooking lesson culminated in a delicious lunch of 4-5 Indian dishes, enjoyed as we sat around her dining table, eating and swapping cooking and food stories.

Since learning this dish almost a decade ago, I’ve made it a few times, but not in the last 5-6 years. It was only after a recent discussion among friends as to where good authentic nasi briyani could be found in Singapore that I remembered this recipe, and decided to re-visit it and invite the friends over to enjoy it.

I’ve tweaked the original recipe slightly, adding one or two additional spices plus other ingredients, and in some cases adding greater quantities of some of the spices than originally called for.

Right, I shan’t yabber on for much more. I have been told I was too long-winded in my previous IMBB entries. So, without much further ado… here is my chicken nasi briyani (saffron-flavored rice with chicken).

Chicken Nasi Briyani
(serves 4)

The Rice
400g (approximately 3½ rice-cooker cups) basmati rice
1 litre water
1 tablespoon whole coriander seeds
1 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
2 pieces bay leaf
4 whole green cardamons – lightly broken
2 whole brown cardamons – broken and shell removed *
1” cinnamon
5 pieces cloves
½ teaspoon whole black peppercorn
½ teaspoon salt
few strands of saffron **
3 tablespoons of warm milk

* These may be substituted with green cardamons, if the brown ones are not available. In this instance, I actually used all green cardamons, as I was out of the brown ones.

** Instead of using saffron, some orange food coloring may be used. Simply dilute a couple of drops of the coloring in a little bit of warm water and sprinkle judiciously over rice.

• Wash the rice, and soak in the 1 litre of water for at least 30 minutes.

• Wrap all the spices (except the salt and the saffron) in a piece of muslin cloth and tie to form a spice bundle.

• Add the spice bag and the salt to the rice, and cook, using the soaking liquid, in a rice cooker or a large saucepan.

• In the meantime, soak the saffron strands in the warm milk and set aside.

The longer the saffron is soaked the deeper the color infusion and the more intense the fragrance.

Natural saffron will not give the intense orange coloring often seen in restaurant-versions of briyani. So, for more eye-appeal, it is also possible to use a little orange food coloring in addition to the natural saffron coloring.

The Crispy Shallots

• Peel and thinly slice 6-8 shallots.
• Fry in hot oil until crispy and a deep golden brown.
• Drain on kitchen paper towels.
• Set aside two-thirds of the shallots for the assembly of the nasi briyani, and the remaining one-third for garnish.
• Reserve about 2 tablespoons of the oil that was used to fry the onions.

The Chicken
1 kg chicken – bone-in, skinned ^

9 cloves garlic – skinned
2” piece fresh young ginger – skinned

Marinade:
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon garam masala
½ teaspoon turmeric powder
½ teaspoon salt
180ml natural unsweetened yogurt

Gravy:
1 big red onion (or 3-4 shallots) – finely chopped
1 teaspoon chill powder ^^
3 teaspoons coriander powder
1½ teaspoons cumin powder
½ teaspoon garam masala
salt to taste
1-2 green chillies – chopped ^^^ (optional)
3 medium tomatoes – peeled, seeded and diced
4 fl oz (½ cup) evaporated milk ^^^^
1 big bunch coriander leaves – chopped
½ bunch mint leaves - chopped

[all measurements are by the rounded spoonfuls]

^ I used 6 large whole chicken legs (with each cut into two - thigh and drumstick), and this came to about 850g.

^^ I used our own home-made chilli paste instead of the chilli powder, as I wanted a more complex flavor and more intense heat (our home-made chilli paste includes some bird chillies among other ingredients).

^^^ Seed and de-vein the chillies if a milder heat is desired.

^^^^ Evaporated milk seems to be the standard used by most Indian housewives, and most of the recipes I’ve seen also call for evaporated milk, although a few use fresh milk instead, with one or two recipes even using just water.
[On a side note, I’ve very recently discovered cooking curries with thick soy milk (Singapore local brand, Sobe, unsweetened version) and found that it actually gives a more “lemak” (rich) texture and mouth-feel than milk, with no soy milk taste at all. And it’s become one of my favorites now for cooking healthier versions of lemak curries. I think it would work just as well in this briyani. However, having said that, the soy milk sold in cartons in Europe and the US probably would not work, as they have a completely different consistency and, if I may be honest, do not really taste like soy milk! Sorry… but it’s true. So, in which case, evaporated or fresh milk would be the way to go.]

• In a food processor, grind together the ginger and garlic to form a paste. There should be roughly four tablespoons worth of ginger/garlic paste. Set aside.

• Clean the chicken and remove excess fat.

• Marinate the chicken with the marinade spices, salt, yogurt and half the ginger/garlic paste. Leave to macerate for at least an hour, but preferably for 4-6 hours.

• In a wok or large deep frying pan, heat the reserved shallot oil. Add the chopped onions and the remaining garlic/ginger paste, and sauté until the onions are soft and translucent.

• Add the marinated chicken.

• Once the chicken has changed color, the chilli powder (or paste), coriander powder and cumin powder goes in. Mix thoroughly.

• Throw in the green chillies.

• The tomatoes go in next. Stir to combine, and leave to simmer for a few minutes.

• Pour in the milk, and mix well.

• Cover the wok and allow to simmer, on low heat, until the chicken is almost cooked (about 20 minutes), stirring occasionally.

• Sprinkle half of both the coriander and mint leaves.

• Season with the garam masala and salt to taste. Mix well.

• Cover again, and leave to simmer on low heat until the chicken is cooked (approximately another 10 minutes), stirring occasionally.

• Remove from heat.

The chicken can be cooked ahead of time up to this point, and set aside. The rice can also be cooked in advance. And both can then be assembled half an hour before dinner is served.

The Assembly
Banana leaves (optional) *
Cooking spray
Deep fried crispy shallots (prepared earlier – see above section “The Crispy Shallots”)
Remaining coriander leaves (see above section “The Chicken”)
Remaining mint leaves (see above section “The Chicken”)

* This is usually not called for in recipes, and is purely optional. I’ve included it in my version of the recipe simply because I like the aromas that the banana leaves impart to the rice.

• Preheat the oven to 190-200C or 375-390F.

• Line a deep casserole dish with banana leaves. Allow enough excess “height” so that the leaves can be folded over to fully cover the assembled rice.

• Put half the chicken, without the gravy, in a single layer at the bottom of the casserole.

• Sprinkle half of the crispy fried shallots and half of the remaining amount of coriander and mint leaves.

• Spread half of the cooked rice over the chicken and herbs. Sprinkle half the amount of saffron-infused milk over the rice.

• Repeat with the remaining chicken, crispy shallots, coriander leaves, mint leaves, rice and saffron-milk.

• Fold the banana leaves down to fully cover the rice. Replace lid of the casserole dish.

• Place into the oven for 20-25 minutes, to allow to the rice and chicken to fully heat through and for the flavors to meld together.

The Gravy

In the meantime, prepare the gravy.

• Return the wok, with the residual chicken gravy, to the stove. Add between ½ to 2 cups of hot water, and simmer on low heat for about 8-10 minutes or until the gravy is reduced to the desired consistency.

[We love having quite a bit of gravy to go with the chicken and rice, and we also like the gravy slightly thick, so I add about 1 cup or so of water. The amount of water added can be varied depending on the amount of gravy desired and the consistency preferred.]

The Chicken Nasi Briyani

• Serve the rice with some raisins, the remaining reserved crispy shallots and toasted cashew nuts sprinkled on top.

If available, I highly recommend serving the nasi briyani on fresh banana leaves (as I did that evening). The entire eating and taste experience is considerably enhanced, and the aromas and flavors are just that little bit more complex and enticing, when the rice and chicken are eaten off banana leaves, instead of plates. Going further still, nasi briyani tastes absolutely divine when eaten not only from banana leaves but also with your fingers! (And not only is it a lot more enjoyable, there is a whole lot less washing up to do!)

That night, I also made up a very simple sweet, sour, spicy cucumber and chilli “salad” (something that I make very regularly) as a light and refreshing accompaniment to the rice and chicken.

Other nice side dishes would be raita (yogurt and cucumber salad), or spicy pickled vegetable salads.

The nasi briyani was a hit! Everyone ended up eating double the amount of rice they would normally eat. The only disappointment was that there wasn’t enough rice and chicken to go around! Everyone was still hankering for more!

My guests demanded to know why I’ve kept the recipe a secret for so long. I haven’t, and it wasn’t intentional. I had just forgotten the recipe existed. But now that it has been re-discovered, I’ll definitely be cooking it more regularly. Already my friends are planning the next “briyani night”…

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Is My Blog Burning? – The South East Asian Tartine

Blog burning day is here again. This is the day when food bloggers from around the world cook up a storm based on a set theme. The excellent idea was cooked up and served by Alberto last month, and is this month inspired and hosted by Clotilde. The theme? Tartine. Which, as Clotilde elegantly puts it, is “a popular Parisian dish, in which different ingredients are arranged and served on a slice of bread – a sort of open-faced sandwich if you will”. How exciting! This leaves so much space for interpretation and innovation.

As I pondered on the theme, I decided I wanted to bring my Parisian friend, Tartine, to Asia and offer her a distinctly South East Asian experience. But, what constitutes “South East Asian”? I mean, we are such a hodge-podge melting pot of so many different cultures. Chinese food is no more South East Asian than Indian food or Malay food or Peranakan food. Hmmm… So, I finally decided to call upon my friends Roti, Satay and Floss from the Indian, Indonesian/Malay and Chinese epicurean community respectively and to enlist their help in coming up with something that would offer Tartine a tasty glimpse of South East Asia, all encapsulated in just one bite.

I asked but only two requirements of my willing helpers. First, it must not be a jarring culture shock that would send Tartine fleeing back to Paris, never wanting to set foot in Asia again. It had to be a harmonious snapshot of the three cultures. Elegance would be nice but was optional. Harmony and tastefulness were a must.

Second, the entire production must be ready to be served by dinner time. It was already 3 o’ clock on Saturday afternoon, which meant they had just over 4 hours to get the show on the road.

And so they were off…

The Indian Foundation
Roti returned soon after, all flushed and excited, bearing her find. She had found the perfect South East Asian representative of bread, she declared. I looked expectantly into her shopping bag, and pulled out two packs of frozen roti prata – plain and onion. I looked at Roti quizzically. She gushed: “it’s perfect! See, I was inspired by my own name – Roti. It also means “bread”. And roti prata is the perfect introduction to South East Asian breads, and it’s great for putting toppings on, and it tastes great, all crispy, light, fluffy and flakey, and….”

I stopped her before her face became any redder from all that excitement. Oh alright, we would use roti prata for the bread base. But really, I was expecting to make something from scratch, and not use something yanked out of the freezer box of a supermarket. Roti rolled her eyes. “Well”, she asked pointedly, “do you know how to do all that flipping and twirling? Because I don’t.” So, I conceded defeat. Besides, I have tasted this Spring Home brand of frozen roti prata before (yes, I finally admitted it), and it had tasted pretty good. And hey, I was all for ease and speed. So that settled it.

Whilst waiting for the others to return, Roti and I decided to start frying up the pratas. (Directorial aside: remember, this is a production where concepts of time and space are sometimes skewed. In real life, pratas are not amenable to early preparation).

Oh, by the way, maybe we should add at this juncture that roti prata goes by its other name, roti canai over in Malaysia… just in case you bump into it over on the other side of the Causeway, and fail to acknowledge it and it gets all offended and sulky.

Roti prata’s name label had declared that no oil was necessary in bringing it to its peak taste performance. We could heat it up either in a frying pan or in the oven. We opted for the former. But, just so as to ensure a truly tip-top display of taste, we decided a light coating of Pam cooking spray would help roti prata to its peak condition.

It was quite fascinating to watch… as roti prata started to metamorphosize from a flat, ghostly white nondescript being into a bubbly, puffy, tanned, golden brown beauty. Now, the key to keeping roti prata happy is to have the pan all nice and hot before putting it in. Next, don’t bother it once it goes into the pan! Let it sit happily, soaking up the heat. Wait until it starts to turn slightly translucent and starts puffing up with exuberance from all that warmth. Only then should you even dare to take a quick peek on its underside. If the bottom is showing signs of having had enough of the heat, and is all nice and golden brown, quickly flip it pale face down. When face is golden brown too, it’s done. Now, the golden rule (pun intended) here is to ensure roti prata doesn’t get too tanned. Over-do the heating, and you end up with one dark, moody and cranky roti prata which will be pretty much useless for any purpose. So, watch the heat and make sure roti prata doesn’t sit in it for too long. It’s sensitive like that.

Now, isn’t that some beauty?

As we began working on plain prata’s cousin, onion prata, Satay returned with the haul of her own treasure hunt.

The Indonesian/Malay Filler
Roti and I descended on Satay, all eager to see what she had found. Triumphantly, she pulled out a tub of peanut paste, a packet of err… more peanut paste, and erm… some ground peanuts… With our eyes opened wide, both Roti and I chimed in unison, “have you gone nuts??”

“Wait… there’s more”, promised Satay. She pulled out fresh de-boned chicken thighs, some beef tenderloin and some tempeh.

By now I was smiling. Oooh, tempeh! I like! I haven’t had it in a long time. How sweet of Satay to have remembered. Tempeh (cultured soy bean cake) is supposed to be good for you – what with all that protein, minerals and soy isoflavones…

Satay’s voice broke through my thoughts. “… and so I decided I would take inspiration from my name, Satay…” Inwardly, I rolled my eyes (humor me… just pretend this is possible). “We are going to do a combination of influences from the Indonesian salad gado-gado and the Malay satay, but without the sticks”, she continued enthusiastically. Roti and I listened intently. “Here’s the plan… we have the spicy peanut sauce from the gado-gado and satay, we have tempeh from the gado-gado and chicken like in satay. Oh, and since you mentioned that one of the guests doesn’t eat chicken, I got some beef too…”

“But you didn’t even buy taugay (beansprouts)”, I interjected abruptly.

“Oops! Never mind. We will use cucumber… there is cucumber in gado-gado too. And we’ll grate it so that it looks like taugay. How’s that?” She’s good. I’ll give her that. That was fairly quick thinking on Satay’s part. So, I decided to let her off.

“How are we going to bbq the meats?” asked Roti.

“No need for that. We’ll just sauté them in the wok”, replied Satay.

“But that’s not satay”, Roti persisted.

“I said influence of satay. I didn’t say satay”, irritation creeped into Satay’s voice.

“Okay, girls, I think we need to get cracking if everything is going to be ready in time for dinner”, I intercepted.

Phew! And so our attentions were diverted to getting all the stuff ready…

Peanut Sauce
As I examined the peanut pastes that Satay had bought, I thought out loud: “we are supposed to try and make things from scratch you know?”

“Dearie, we are not going to have time to pound all the spices and fry up the rempah (spice mix). It will take us a good 1-2 hours to get really fragrant rempah.” I sighed. Again, I conceded defeat. But it was okay. Afterall, I have been taking the peanut sauce shortcut all these years, so why should this time around be any different. And I was glad Satay had thought to buy the “home-made” version from my regular satay beehoon hawker, who sells her home-made peanut paste in little plastic tubs. Hers was always nicely fragrant with belacan, in addition to the usual spices.

The supermarket-bought pack of “instant peanut gravy” didn’t have belacan – it was a simpler “formulation”, with just the usual spices. It smelt less fragrant. We decided to use both anyway. The former for the chicken and the latter for the beef.

I set two saucepans on the stove, and emptied the peanut pastes into each one. Next, about ¾ to 1 cup of hot water was added to each pot. I normally would add just enough liquid to get the sauce to the consistency I want – sometimes I want it thicker and chunkier for use as a dip, and sometimes I prefer it more liquid when using it as a gravy to pour over bee hoon (rice vermicelli) to make satay bee hoon. (Okay, here’s a little confession. We took a little artistic license here. For aesthetic purposes – you see, we knew Tartine would be wanting to take pictures of the food – we added only ½ cup of water, so that things wouldn’t look too liquid in the photos. But ideally, it would be about ¾ cup to 1 cup. And this is just between you and me.) Now, of course, if you wanted to up the richness level by several notches, you could add more coconut milk instead of water. But that can make the coconut taste too overwhelming. Besides, the peanuts are already rather rich, so my personal opinion is that water works better. Your guests are less likely to feel jelak (our South East Asian lingo for “over-full, over-rich, sick”) too quickly.

As the sauces started to warm up, I rummaged in the pantry for some gula melaka (palm sugar) and dropped a small piece into each pot. I also added, as I normally do, a little more ground peanuts for added fragrance and to, well, make the peanut sauce more erm… peanutey. About five lightly heaped tablespoons was good enough.

And that was it. I allowed the sauces to simmer on low heat for about 15 minutes, and went to check what Roti and Satay were up to.

Satay Chicken
Satay had cut each of three pieces of skinned and de-boned chicken thigh meat into sixteen small bite-sized pieces, and seasoned the meat with about 1 tablespoon of light soy sauce, ¼ to ½ teaspoon of sugar and a little bit of cornflour. (We made enough to serve about 5 persons).

I watched as she heated a little oil in a frying pan and quickly sautéed some minced garlic and shallots. In went the marinated chicken. It was stir-fried until just about half-cooked. Then, right on cue, my peanut sauces were done simmering. One pot of the gravy was added to the chicken, and stirred well. We left the chicken to simmer in the sauce for a few minutes (3-4 minutes) to allow the meat to finish cooking and to absorb the flavors from the gravy.

Yay, the chicken was done.

Satay Beef
We repeated the process with the beef. We sliced it into fairly thin bite-sized pieces, and seasoned it with light soy sauce, sugar and cornflour. We sweated some shallots in hot oil, and added the beef. Again, as the beef reached half-doneness, we added the peanut gravy and left it to simmer for a few minutes.

Now, that was pretty easy… Satay and I grinned in satisfaction.

Tempeh
We looked over to see how Roti was doing. She had already finished preparing the tempeh, which she had cut into thin slices and fried in a little hot oil until they were beautifully golden brown. Very little oil was needed for this – only about 2-3 tablespoons for the entire batch.

The Supporting Cast
Roti had already begun to busily prepare our supporting cast members… the cucumber and onions.

She used one Japanese cucumber. After removing the skin, she grated it into long elegant strips. We were all unanimous on this – Japanese cucumber was definitely sweeter, juicier and crunchier than the normal varieties. Good choice.

Two large onions were also cut into long strips, sautéed in a little hot oil and seasoned with light soy sauce and pepper. We took another creative license here too. Ideally, we wanted to caramelize the onions to a rich brown color, but we were ever aware that this would make the onions less than photogenic. And so we settled for a paler color and hoped Tartine wouldn’t notice the difference in taste too much.

Wow, we were done. The three of us stood in the kitchen proudly surveying our handiwork. Not bad for creativity on short notice we thought. But hey, where was Floss? What was taking her so long?

The Chinese Topper
Right on cue, Floss drifted (like Floss always does) through the door and dramatically placed a red and yellow plastic bag on the kitchen table. We waited, knowing full well a story was about to unfold, whether we wanted to listen to it or not.

“Yeah, yeah, I know I’m late”, Floss begins. “But I was wracking my brains trying to think of what to buy. And then… guess what?!”

“What?” we sighed.

“As I was walking down Orchard Road thinking and thinking, it suddenly hit me, I would bet my bottom dollar that both Roti and Satay would buy something related to their name…”

Suddenly, Floss’ eyes caught sight of the food spread on the table. “Aha! See I was right!” she yelped triumphantly. “Luckily, I too decided to buy something related to my name. Because just at that moment, I was passing by a Bee Cheng Hiang shop. Now, how is that for serendipity, huh? I was so sure it was a divine sign, telling me something. So, I went in and bought… (drum roll…) pork floss!”

“I knew Satay would probably buy chicken, but I don’t like the texture of chicken floss as much as I like pork floss, so I bought pork floss, and so there”, she continued. “Plus, it is krispee pork floss!”

“Pork floss is good, I like pork floss. Krispee pork floss is even better. And it will make an interesting topping for the satay chicken”, I smiled.

The Whole Ensemble
“Okay, girls, we are ready. Let’s get the show on the road”.

Roti and I worked on the satay chicken plating, while Satay and Floss did the beef sandwich.

I topped a nice crispy, flakey plain roti prata with some shredded cucumbers, while Roti arranged pieces of the beautifully golden brown tempeh on top of that…

Next, a generous serving of spicy, fragrant chicken with peanut gravy…

Finally, it was all topped with krispee pork floss…

Just then, Satay looked over and remarked: “it looks like a mountain… why is the floss pointed like that... like some kind of cone?”

“Oi! Don’t you come stabbing your finger into our satay chicken sandwich! You go back there and concentrate on your own beef sandwich.” Roti was on the defensive, brandishing a fork and waving it menacingly in the air. “Besides, it’s called style… you know? Have you seen those fancy restaurants? The higher you pile the food, the classier it’s supposed to be… you know?”

The rest of us could barely suppress our giggles.

“And let’s see you do any better”, challenged Roti.

Satay and Floss had placed some shredded cucumber on the onion roti prata, followed by the sautéed onions… (nice continuity there we thought, and praised the girls accordingly).

And they finished the sandwich off with a generous dollop of beef in satay peanut sauce and a sprinkling of toasted sesame seeds…

We stepped back to admire our creations. Not bad. Now, the test is in the tasting.

Just then, the doorbell rang. It was Tartine. Right on time.

[Fast forward one and a half hours later…]

Throughout the whole dinner production, Tartine had eaten with great concentration, eyes wide as she savored the different tastes and textures of South East Asia laid out before her. As the table cleared of all visible signs of food, she took the final sip of her warm teh helia (ginger tea) and sat back in her chair. Slowly a big smile started to form on her face. “When may I come again?” she asked. “Oh, anytime, we would love to have you back, anytime…” we chimed. Tartine smiled even wider. “It was good. I will be back…”

It was with a little sadness that we saw Tartine to the door. She kissed us on both cheeks, waved a cheery goodbye and walked off into the night.

Roti, Satay, Floss and I smiled at each other. It was a very pleasant evening. The company was scintillating, and our tummies were round and full. We sank onto the sofa, and I reached for the remote. The dishes can wait for tomorrow…

But before the curtain falls on this special multi-cultural South East Asian production, we would just like to highlight to you some of the other roles some of our main cast members play from time to time:

• fabulous Roti Prata often takes on a favorite breakfast role – sans embellishment, au naturel, fresh, hot and crispy, it is sprinkled with or dipped into sugar. Ah! Sweet simplicity!

• and of course, for all times of the day – breakfast, snack, lunch, tea, dinner or supper – Roti Prata is a favored companion of all sorts of curries: mutton, chicken, vegetable, dhal or whatever strikes your fancy. Curry without Prata and Prata without Curry, it just isn’t right…

• sometimes, Roti Prata goes the full hog and indulges in over-indulgence – it is stuffed with minced mutton or other meats, fried onions and egg before being fried to crispy perfection. For such illicit, artery clogging activities, it takes on the name of its alter ego, Murtabak.

• as for Satay Peanut Gravy, well, when it is not providing a warm bath for skewers of Satay Meat or skewers of Satay Celup or providing a spicy blanket cover for Gado Gado Salad, sometimes it likes nothing more than to chill out and spice up a plate of plain beehoon (rice vermicelli). And oh how it is loved whenever it reprises its role as Satay Bee Hoon.

• it is of course equally loved when it tops crispy deep fried tofu and takes on the character of Tauhu Goreng.

• and Floss… well, Floss is so versatile, it would probably take a book in itself to document its numerous and varied roles in the South East Asian culinary scene. So, that will have to be for another time and another place…

With that, we thank you for your patience and attention. The production was lengthier than we had planned. We hope you had as much fun as we did bringing this production to you. Until next time... au revoir!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

BPROS

A.k.a Braised Pork Ribs in Oyster Sauce. Okay, so that is not the most original or imaginative of titles. Oh, alright, that is probably the most downright silly title I could have come up with. BPROS indeed. But hey, it’s a Monday. Lapses of imagination and inspiration are allowed on a Monday.

That aside, this is a rather delicious dish. The ribs are tender and flavorful, and the gravy is super duper poured over steamed rice. It’s a fairly simple dish to prepare. It’s one of those dishes that can be prepared in advance, and given time to slowly cook and to get to its best flavor, leaving plenty of time to do other things and to get on with life. It’s also one of those dishes that taste even better the day after, when all the flavors have melded together even more.

Ingredients

approx. 1.5kg pork spare ribs (or roughly 6-8 pieces whole spare ribs)*
[pork loin back ribs or baby back ribs can, of course, be used instead, for an even more tender result. If using baby backs, simply shorten the cooking time accordingly to get near “fall off the bone” tenderness]

2 tablespoons cornflour
minced garlic

Marinade
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
½ teaspoon sugar
pepper

Sauce
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon sugar
pepper
2 cups hot water

* [the weight is an estimate, as I never know the weight of the ribs I buy. I know this sounds rather silly, but it’s true. Whenever I buy ribs from the wet market, the very kind “uncle” (stall owner) always just asks me: “how many bones?” (i.e. how many ribs I want). And I’ll just say “6” or “8” or whatever number it is I want, and he simply cuts that amount of ribs for me, even helping me chop them into small pieces according to my size specification for the dish I want to cook. And so, I have no clue as to the weight of 6-8 pieces of whole spare ribs, but I would estimate it to be around 1.5kg?]

• Trim ribs of excess fat and skin, and cut into short 2-3” individual pieces.

• Mix the marinade ingredients together, and add the ribs. Allow to marinade for at least half hour or so.

• Lightly coat the marinated ribs with the two tablespoons of cornflour or however much is required to lightly coat all the ribs.

• Quickly flash deep fry the ribs to seal in all the juices. We don’t want to cook the ribs, just to get them to a nice light golden color. Remove from oil, and drain very well.

• Mix together the sauce ingredients, excluding the hot water.

• In a separate wok or large saucepan, heat a tiny bit of oil, and quickly sauté some minced garlic. Add the sauce mixture, followed by the ribs. Give a quick stir, and add the hot water. Mix well and cover the wok or pan.

• Leave the ribs to simmer and braise, on low heat, until very tender, but not quite falling off the bone. For me, it usually takes about 3 hours, but timing can vary depending on the quantity, size and type of ribs you are working with.

I like this dish in that it can be prepared in the morning and allowed to braise while I do other stuff. Then, once ready, it can be kept aside to allow the flavors to intensify and harmonize further. And when dinner time rolls around, it is just heated and served.

Have a “ribbing” good week everyone!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All Rights Reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, publish, distribute or display any of the images or text contained in this article.

Great Finger Food: Honey Ribs

It’s been a long time since I’ve had these honey pork ribs. My mum used to make them fairly regularly. But the preparation is fairly involved, requiring several stages, and more often than not, in the mad-mad rush of daily living, it is usually the easy-to-prepare, no-fuss dishes that get put on the dinner table. And thus this recipe was relegated to the “firm favorite, tried-and-tested, but forgotten” category.

I decided to resurrect it the other night, as I searched for a delectable, addictive finger food recipe. There is something rather sexy and sensuous about eating food with your fingers, especially the type of food that leads you to constantly lick your fingers because it is so good. You get the picture…

The combination of ingredients may sound a trifle odd, but the end result is anything but. Curry powder and honey, you ask? It works, and works very well too. Actually, there is no honey involved. Instead it is caramelized sugar that gives these ribs their rather unique texture – a deliciously crispy and sweet “crust” – and not to mention their gorgeous color. The curry powder does not overwhelm. It sort of sits in the background and adds a subtle spiced overtone to the meat.

These ribs are perfect for munching on while lounging on the sofa and chatting or just staring at the goggle box. Once you start on the first piece, it’s near impossible to stop.

I used just under 1 kilogram of pork loin back ribs (i.e. baby back ribs) the other day for two people. No, it is not a lot at all. In fact, we were still wanting more long after the last piece of ribs had been devoured! The quantities given in the recipe are based on my “look, see, feel” method of cooking – yet again. And can be easily scaled for varying amounts of ribs.

• Remove any excess fat and skin from the ribs, and divide into single ribs of about 1½ to 2 inches in length (for easy eating). Marinade the meat with approximately 2 tablespoons light soy sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar and 2 tablespoons curry powder (any meat curry powder will do fine). [Update (23/2/04): Toru tried using five spice powder instead of curry powder, and it seems to work well too.]

• Steam the ribs for about 45 minutes or until tender. [Update (1/3/04): I prefer using loin back ribs for this dish as they are more tender and leaner. However, pork spare ribs may also be used. As the latter’s texture is usually more sinewy and less tender than that of loin back ribs, they will require a longer period of steaming – perhaps 1 hour or more.]

• Remove the ribs from the gravy that is produced during the steaming process. Save the gravy for use in cooking other dishes or stir-frying vegetables. Allow the ribs to cool slightly.

• Lightly coat the cooled ribs with cornflour, and deep fry in hot oil until golden brown. Drain well and place on paper towels to soak up the excess oil.

• Heat a non-stick wok or frying pan on very low heat and add a tiny amount of oil to the hot pan. Add 3 tablespoons of sugar, and allow it to melt. Initially, the sugar will harden before it dissolves into a liquid. Heat control is very important to prevent the sugar from burning. Quick actions are also of the essence for this stage of the preparation. It is best to have everything ready around you so that you can work quickly and smoothly. This is where everything can go from nicely done to burnt in several blinks of an eye.

• Once the sugar has melted, very quickly add about 2 tablespoons of light soy sauce. Immediately add the cornflour-coated ribs, and toss quickly so that all sides of each piece of ribs are evenly coated with the sugar syrup. There should be just enough syrup to coat the ribs without any excess, producing nice dry ribs without any gravy.

• As soon as the ribs are coated with the sugar and a slightly crispy “crust” has formed (only a few minutes is required), sprinkle some chopped coriander or green onion for color and aroma, and immediately remove the ribs from the heat.

Now that I’ve “rediscovered” these ribs, I don’t intend to wait too long until my next rendezvous with this recipe. Hmmm-mmm… these are GOOD!

Copyright © 2004 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute and display any of the images and text contained in this article.

Not A Lame Lamb Gamble

My mum made braised lamb shanks for Christmas Eve dinner. It tasted pretty impressive. What was even more impressive to me was that she cooked the dish from a recipe she had never tried before, and which she was making up as she went along! For Christmas Eve dinner too! I thought that was taking quite a high risk. I never knew my mum was such a “gambler”. But I should have remembered how good a cook my mum is. The recipe was simple, yet really tasty and everyone loved it.

She blanched 4 pieces of lamb shanks (bone-in) in a large pot of boiling water for about 1-2 minutes. They were drained and then trimmed of all excess/visible fat. It is much easier to remove the fat after blanching the meat, rather than before. The shanks could at this point be either refrigerated for later use or cooked immediately.

Around 4 large onions (more if you prefer) were cut into strips and sautéed in hot oil for just a few minutes – until they were just starting to become tender. They were removed from the wok, making sure to drain the oil back into the wok. These were set aside for later use.

Using the oil that was used to sauté the onions, the lamb shanks were placed in the wok, and seared on all sides on high heat. The seasonings were then added: red wine or Chinese rice wine (I think my mum only used about 6 tablespoons of the latter, but I think if using red wine, more could be added), around 4 tablespoons sweet dark soy sauce, around 4 tablespoons light soy sauce, approximately 2 tablespoons sugar, pepper, 1 tablespoon hoisin sauce and 1 tablespoon zhu hao jiang. This last marinade sauce does not have an English name. I also do not think it has any equivalent substitute. It is very often used by chefs in Chinese restaurants for ribs, stews, braised beef briskets or tendons (as in ngau lam mein / beef brisket noodles) and other meat dishes. It is a very versatile sauce which is rarely used on its own, but combined with other sauces and flavorings to form different marinades. It can be bought from Kwong Cheong Thye at 63, Geylang Lor 27, and is made from their well-guarded proprietary recipe.

Once the seasonings have been added, around 4 cups (I think) of beef stock (or water would be fine too) was added, and allowed to come to a boil. The lamb shanks were left to simmer on low heat, covered, for around 3½ hours or until the meat was very tender (almost falling off the bone).

5-10 minutes before the lamb was ready, the previously sautéed onions were added back into the pot, to allow them to cook down a little together with the lamb, and to allow their flavors to meld with those of the lamb. The short cooking time for the onions prevents them from cooking down too much and dissolving completely into the gravy.

Finally, right at the end, the lamb was brought to a boil again, and a little cornflour solution was added to thicken the gravy. Once the gravy comes to a rolling boil again, the heat was removed.

The onions were nicely soft, with a rich caramelized flavor even though they were only briefly sautéed and cooked for only 10 minutes with the lamb. They had absorbed the full richness of all the flavors of the gravy, and went perfectly with the lamb.

We served this with traditional Chinese steamed mantou and also chunks of crusty French baguette. Both worked really well, and were great for mopping up the delicious gravy.

Kudos to my mum. This was one lamb “gamble” that did not turn out lame! This recipe is definitely going into my personal collection of favorite recipes!

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.

Meat Balls For Alberto

I like to use these meat balls in a lot of the dishes I cook. They are so convenient. They come fresh, ready-prepared in vacuum sealed packages from the supermarket, and they instantly add taste, texture and “meat” (pun intended) to any dish. I add them to noodle soups, rice vermicelli soups, tau kwa (pressed tofu) dishes, fu jook (bean curd stick) dishes and many, many more. Even instant noodles, with an additional egg. Yum!

I actually prefer these meatballs anytime over the ubiquitous fish balls that are so very common in Asia. They have “more bite” with a “springier” texture than fish balls. And they come in nice ¾” bite-sized pieces, which also make them great for skewering into sort of meat ball satays, then cooked over a BBQ or under a broiler, and either basted with teriyaki sauce, served with salsa or dipped into piquant chilli sauce. There are increasing varieties of them too – beef balls, chicken balls, sotong (squid) balls, beef and mushroom balls, chicken and mushroom balls, sotong and mushroom balls, and even tofu and fish balls.

Here’s a dish that appears regularly on our family’s dinner table – a mixed dish of meat balls, cubes of teriyaki tau kwa (pressed tofu in teriyaki flavor), cubes of fish tofu, different types of mushrooms, carrots, long beans and red chilli. I like this dish a lot!

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.

Creamy Mushroom Chicken

Work has been frantic the last two days. It’s the pre-Christmas frenzy – businesses’ busiest time of year. I was certainly in no mood, nor did I have the energy, to cook. Our domestic helper prepared dinner tonight – a very quick, 15-minute chicken dish using Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. Yes, we cheated. But it doesn’t taste anything like how it might be sounding. It’s actually quite, quite delicious. I learnt the dish from my mum, and it was a god-send during college. In just minutes, there could be a delicious, piping hot dinner on the table.

I would have preferred to use bone-in whole chicken drumsticks and thighs – chicken just looks better, and more like chicken that way . But I don’t like to freeze bone-in chicken. Inevitably, there’ll be some blackening around the bone when thawed chicken is cooked. And I find that rather unsightly. So I only cook with bone-in chicken when it’s fresh from the market. The rest of the time, it’s chicken fillets or de-boned chicken thighs.

The chicken is diced and seasoned with some light soy sauce, sugar, sesame oil and a bit of cornstarch. A diced large onion is sautéed in hot oil, before the chicken is added. Once the chicken is browned and semi-cooked, slices of fresh white button (or brown or field) mushrooms are added, followed by a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. A touch of hot water is added to adjust the consistency of the gravy. Finally, salt (or light soy sauce) and pepper are added to taste. Our helper added some dark soy sauce today, and so the chicken came out darker than I usually prefer it. I like the natural creamy color better.

Served the chicken with garlic stir-fried xiao bai cai (baby bak choy). I really like these curly leafed variety, which are only available during the winter months (winter in China that is, from where these are imported). They are so much sweeter and crunchier.

We also had soup today. Normally, there would be a soup at dinner everyday but we haven’t cooked any for over a week now. And today we had a nice chunky soup of lotus root, lotus seeds, white wood-ear fungus and boxthorn seeds (which give the soup a nice natural sweetness).

I’ve never bothered to photograph nor post any of the soups we normally cook. I don’t know why. But here’s my first…

In recent days, quite a few people have cooked and posted about soups (Alberto, Deb and Blue). I just love this synchronicity! Soups are so soul-satisfying and heart-warming – that must be the energy that is going around. Nice!

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.

Dad On The Loose

Two days ago, my dad made a surprising announcement. He was going to cook for the family! Now that is news indeed! My father doesn’t cook. The only time he can be found helping in the kitchen is during Chinese New Year, when he gets “enlisted” by my mum to squeeze out the juices from the radishes, carrots and all the sweet preserved vegetables and dry them out for the “yu shang loh hei”. He declared he was going to cook “dong bo ruo”. I’ve never heard of the dish, at least not by that name. He said it was a pork belly dish...

Ah… I see… I was beginning to understand. I think he’s been craving pork belly – something my mum avoids cooking nowadays, for health reasons – fat, cholesterol etc. Maybe he figured the only way he was going to get to eat some was to cook it himself!

So today was “D-day”. And he asked if I wanted to document the event for my blog. So, I stood with camera in hand as he manned the stove…

It’s actually a very simple dish to cook – all of 5 ingredients only: pork belly meat, lots of ginger, spring onions, dark soy sauce and ShaoXing Hua Tiao Jiu (Chinese wine).

And once you cut through the to-ing and fro-ing of conversation between my mum and dad, the cooking procedure is equally simple...

dad finishes pounding ginger with pestle and is about to place it in the pot with the wine and dark soy sauce...
mum: "I think you should fry the ginger first, without oil, then will be more fragrant..."
dad: gives mum a "I'm the chef here" kind of look, and proceeds to put ginger into pot.
mum: "the pork also, fry it first in the wok without oil, then it will taste better, more fragrant and tasty..."
dad: "ya, there are 2 ways to cook this - one is to deep fry the pork first before braising... then there is this way..."
and proceeds to put pork belly into stock pot.
mum: "no, you should fry the pork first, will taste better..."
dad: "hai-ya, I know what I'm doing..."
and after 35 years of marriage, mum knows better than to say more... she waits patiently to enjoy the dish...

And in plain English... quickly blanch the pork belly in boiling water to rid it of smells and any gaminess. Optional but a good idea: pat the meat dry and place in a “dry” wok (i.e. no oil) and saute briefly to bring out the flavors of the pork. “Smash” the ginger with a pestle. Optional but also a good idea: briefly “dry saute” in a wok (separate from the pork). Next, pour a whole bottle of the Chinese wine into a stock pot. Add enough dark soy sauce to taste. Add the ginger. View image Bring to a light boil, and add the pork belly. Leave to simmer and braise for about 2 ½ hours to 3 hours, or until the meat reaches that “melt-in-your-mouth” texture, yet not losing its shape and bite.

We served it today with braised mui choy (wind-dried chinese cabbage).

I can’t comment on the taste of the pork as I’m very queasy about pork bellies and all fatty meats in general. The mui choy was good though! The family certainly looked as though they thoroughly enjoyed the pork belly – especially my dad.

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.

Beef with SzeChuan Vegetable

Received compliments for this dish tonight. It’s stir-fried tenderloin slices with SzeChuan preserved vegetable (“tzar cai” in Mandarin) – a slightly spicy, salty vegetable.

After trimming all excess fat off the beef tenderloin, cut it into thin slices, and marinade with light soy sauce, sugar and sesame oil.

Take a combination of some young ginger that has been julienned, 1 large onion cut into strips and some red chilli (seeded and de-veined if prefer a less spicy dish), and sauté quickly in hot oil. Once fragrant, add the preserved vegetable (cut into fairly thick slices). Saute for a couple of minutes, before adding the beef slices. These cook real quick. So, as soon as they start to brown, add the seasonings: dark soy sauce, oyster sauce and light soy sauce. A quick sauté, then add a little water to form a little gravy. Next add just a touch of cornstarch water (a little cornstarch dissolved in some water) to thicken the gravy.

Remove from heat. Add some spring onions, and toss to wilt in the residual heat.

Yum!

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.

Beef Stew

Cooked beef stew – fusion style - for dinner last night.

I like to use beef shin – the small amount of tendon in the meat makes for a more tender, smoother texture and bite. I also like to cook it with more gravy, so that the leftovers can be used the next day to top egg noodles, rice vermicelli or even pasta. Overnight, the gravy and meat tastes even better – all the flavors seem to have meld together even more - and makes for really yummylicious beef noodles!

I used just over a 1kg of beef, chopped into fairly large chunks. After lightly browning some minced garlic in hot oil, the beef was added and quickly browned to seal in the juices. Then added all the seasonings - around 4 tbsps of light soy sauce, 2 tbsps of dark soy sauce, 4 tsps of sugar and pepper to taste. All these can be adjusted for personal preferences and according to the amount of beef that is being used.

Just a quick sauté to coat the beef evenly with the flavorings, then water or beef stock is added, to completely cover the beef – (again, this can be adjusted to personal preference as to how much gravy is wanted). Leave to simmer slowly on fairly low heat.

After about an hour, the diced onions (lots of it) are added. A further hour later, blanched, skinned and diced tomatoes (again lots of it) are added. Both add a nice natural sweetness and tanginess to the stew. Finally, about 30-45 minutes before the stew is done, drop in the chunks of carrots, celery and potatoes. Yesterday, had a small flower of cauliflower left lying in the fridge, so threw that in as well – and it tasted pretty good! I prefer to add these ingredients at various intervals so that I can control the texture. I like the onions and tomatoes to be cooked down so much that they practically dissolve into the gravy, making for a naturally thick, rich, sweet and flavorful sauce. The shorter cooking time for the vegetables means that they still have some bite to them.

And for lunch today, the family had the remaining stew with flat egg noodles – yum!

Copyright © 2003 Renee Kho. All rights reserved.
Please contact me for permission to copy, distribute or display any of the images and text contained in this article.