Black Vinegar Pork Trotter

I loved vinegar but have weak stomach so can only taste some occasionally.  There's lots of articles showing that vinegar is actually good for health so even though I have a weak stomach I still like to take the risk sometimes ha...

Very simple steps and just few ingredients and you will be able to taste a nice bowl of sourish fragrant black vinegar trotter!

Ingredients:
1 bottle of Black Rice Vinegar (Chan Kong Thye brand 双料type if you're Singaporean)
1 Pig Front Trotter (less fat) and get Butcher to chopped into desired size
300g Old Ginger
200g Young Ginger
2 slices of Sugar Cane Sugar 冰片糖 (can get from any medical hall)
10 Garlic Cloves
10 stalks of Dried Red Chilli (soak in water for a while)
Water
* Optional to add few hard boil eggs (with shell) too if you like vinegar eggs

Method:

• Boil pig trotters in water for 10 minutes.  Remove, drain and rinse clean.
• Pour 1 bottle of black vinegar, use the vinegar bottle to measure 2 bottles of water and add into the pot.  Smack the gingers and put into the pot, throw in the Garlic, dried red chilli and sugar cane sugar into the pot and bring to boil for 30 minutes.
• Add in pig trotters to the pot of vinegar and continue to boil it for 1 hour.
• Taste vinegar and see if you like it to be slightly more salty or sweet and adjust seasoning on your own).
• Add in hard boil egg and continue to cook for another hour and serve!

Chinese BBQ Pork (Char Siew)

Recently a friend of mine shared an easy yet tasty recipe with me and I'm sure glad I tried it (special thanks to Jenny Seah).  This recipe requires very little ingredients and it's easy and nice even for new cooks to try out!

Ingredients
500g pork shoulder (五花肉)
4 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp Hua Tiao Wine

• Marinate pork over night with all the other ingredients .
• Preheat Oven at 200 degree.
• Line aluminium foil on tray and place a wire rack on top.
• Place pork on wire rack and and roast it at 200 degree for 45 mins
• Turn meat every 15 minutes and brush surface with remaining marinating sauce and roast till done!

Happy trying!!

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!!

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!!!

Healthy Dumplings (Jiao Zi)

I had very bad gastric problem recently and have been seeing specialist and still no solution yet.  Since then I've been trying to eat more healthy (less oil, less meat, less fried food, no coconut, less spicy food as well).

However today I have urge to eat dumplings so in order to balance it out, I decided to make healthy dumplings myself instead!  Less meat, more veggie and mushroom...

Here's my recipe for healthy Dumplings (makes about 30 to 35 dumplings):

300g Minced Pork (tell the pork seller to mince from totally lean meat with 0 fats!)
300g Dice Mushroom
300g Dice Spring Onion + Chinese Parsley
300g Dice Carrot
1 Onion dice
1 tbsp Corn flour
1 tsp Sesame Oil
1 tsp Pepper
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
1 tsp Light Soy Sauce
1 pack of ready to wrap dumpling skin from supermarket (make sure it's those for dumplings not wanton)

Just mixed all ingredients and seasoning together and leave it in fridge for 30 minutes.

To wrap, prepare a bowl of water.  Wet the dumpling skin with water to make design you like and scoop a spoonful of ingredients  onto the skin and wrap it up!

Now after wrapping up all the dumplings, you can choose to deep fried it (no no if you are on diet ha ha) or steam it.  I choose to simmer in water+ a bit of oil in wok instead (because I'm lazy to bring out my steamer ha ha)

It takes about 5 to 7 minutes to cook and my healthy dumplings are cooked!  Eat with black vinegar + shredded ginger is the best!!  Have fun wrapping!!