Lor Bak (Braised Pork Belly)

Recently, I was invited by a friend to her house for Chinese New Year gathering and luncheon.  We were inpressed by her Lor Bak and ate almost one whole plate of it.  I recalled that my mum used to cook very nice Lor Bak when I was young.  I could eat many bowl of rice with just the sauce and not the pork!! 

Today I decided to try and find the long lost taste of Mum's Lor Bak and I should say I would have do her proud ha ha....my Lor Bak melts in my mouth and I love the sauce to go with rice!

Ingredients:
1 kg Pork Belly (about 4 strips)
1.5 litre Water
1 tbsp Sugar
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Five Spice Powder
1 + 5 tbsp Supreme Thick Dark Soya Sauce
1 tbsp Light Soya Sauce
1 tsp Sea Salt
2 Cinnamon Barks
2 Star Anise
1 Slice Ginger
2 Cloves
6 Garlic

• Blench Pork in boiling water for 5 mins and remove then rinse clean with running water and drain.
• Marinate Pork with Five Spice Powder, 1 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce and leave aside.
• Heat wok with water and bring to boil.  Add in all the balance seasoning/ingredients (except pork) and mix well and bring to boil again.
• Add in pork belly and reduce heat to low and cook for about an hour.  Turning the pork belly over every 15 minutes till done.  By then, sauce should be thick and left about just 1/5 of it.
• Cut braised pork belly and serve with hot rice or porridge.

Additional tips:  I love braised eggs too so I cooked a few hard boiled egg and add into the wok when pork was almost ready! 

Hope you find the time and try it out!!  But better watch out if you are on diet ha..as you will sure eat more than 1 bowl of rice with it!!

Braised Red Dates Chicken

I've once tasted this delicious dishes cooked by a friend's mum and I loved it.  I did some variations to the ingredient used and hopefully you will like the taste of this dish as much as I do!

Ingredients required:

1 Small Chicken (clean and chop into medium sizes pieces) - for health purposes, I've removed all the skin but you can keep it if you like!

12 Dried Black Mushroom (Soak)
12 Seedless Red Dates (cut into half)
200g Old Ginger (Shred thinly)
3 Big Onions (Cut into small chucks)
Some Big Black Fungus (Soak and cut into thick strips)
2 tbsp Light Soya Sauce
2 tbsp Dark Soya Sauce
10 tbsp Hua Tiao Wine
1 tsp Chicken Powder
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
800 ml water
Spring Onion to garmish

1) Staute Ginger in wok with 4 tbsp oil till fragrant and add in onion and stir fry till well mix.
2) Add in Mushroom, Black Fungus and stir well.
3) Add in Chicken and stir well.
4) Add in Light Soya, Dark Soya, Chicken Powder and stir well.
5) Pour in water and add in Fish sauce and Red Dates and simmer chicken till water absorded till slightly more than half.
6)  Add in Hua Tiao Wine and stir well and turn off fire.
7) Sprinkle Spring Onion to garnish and serve with rice.

The flavour was superd!!  Enjoy!

Crispy Roast Pork

Sorry for not updating my blog for quite few months as I was busy with some activities and also having bad gastric problem so got got watch what I cook and eat for a period of time!!

Anyway...this month is our Chinese Lunar New Year so many people will be buying Roast Pork to eat, pray etc.  I decided to bake my own instead of buying from outside as it's usually too FAT and I don't quite like to eat too much of it!

I like to pick pork belly that looks skinny and the layer of lard is not as thick!!

Here's the recipe I'm sharing:

1 Kg Pork Belly with skin
1 tsp White Vinegar
2 tsp Baking Powder

Seasoning (mix together in a bowl):
1 tbsp Salt
1 tbsp Sugar
1/2 tbsp Five Spice Powder

• Clean and pat dry pork belly with paper towel.
• Rub white vinegar all over the pork and skin
• Rub all seasoning evenly on whole pork belly and place belly on a plate in fridge with skin on surface for 4 to 6 hours.

• When ready to bake, preheat oven at 180 degree and prepare baking tray and line foil at bottom.
• Pierce a few satay stick diagonally into pork belly before baking and rub baking powder on the skin surface evenly.
• Bake pork belly for 20 mins and remove from oven.  Turn oven temperature to 240 degree now.
• Prick belly skin with some satay stick evenly (this action will make sure the skin will be nice and crisypy when done baking).

• Once finished pricking the skin, place pork belly back into oven and continue to bake for another 40 mins or till done with 240 degree.

• Remove pork belly from oven and scrape off any charcoal black part on the skin surface with back of your chopper.
• Remove the satay sticks in-between pork belly and cut into desired size and serve.

You can eat with rice or dip with sweet sauce and wrap with fresh lettuce and eat it!!

Have fun trying!!!