Quay Po Cooks: no recipe

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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Aunty Power!! Agak Agak Dish

A friend once shared a link to a video titled "Chef Gordon Ramsay in Malaysia". In this video, he had learned how to cook our Malaysian dishes from all the aunties who cook their dishes with “agak agak” recipes. Both Quay Lo and I had so much fun watching this video because there were so many funny moments. If you want a good laugh to brighten up your day, you must watch it . Also, you will understand why he called it “Aunty Power” LOL! KUDOS to all the Aunties in the world!

"Chef Gordon Ramsey in Malaysia" video

Two months ago, I made this dish which I am going to share with you. This is my first time cooking a dish “agak agak”. (no measurements) and exercised my "Aunty Power". So, I won’t be able to give you a precise recipe but I will let you know what I use to cook this "agak agak" dish. LOL!

My Quay Lo love this dish and said it was delicious so I went ahead and made this again for my good friend on the day he was discharged from hospital after a surgery, to cheer him up. He told me later that he enjoyed the dish and it was good. So good things must be shared and here it is.

Braised pork shoulder loin

This dish was featured in Asian Food Channel (Official) Facebook page

on 6th November 2012

Agak agak ingredients:

Chunks of pork shoulder loin

Garlic cloves

Duck fat

Ground sage

Sea salt

Ground mustard seeds

Ground toasted fennel seeds

Some carrots

Fennels

Pork or chicken stock

Method:

Clean the pork should loin and remove all the silvery connective tissues and cut into big chunks. Rub the meat with sea salt and ground sage and set aside. Add duck fat in dutch oven and brown the chunks of meat. Add in garlic cloves and stir fry till fragrant. Remove meat from dutch oven and deglaze with pork or chicken stock. Return the meat into the dutch oven. Add fennels, carrots, ground mustard seeds and ground toasted fennel seeds and braised for 3 hours in a preheated oven at 150 degrees C. In about 1 ½ hours, dish out the fennels and carrots and set aside and continue to braise the pork shoulder loin. Return fennels and carrots to the dutch oven till they are hot before serving.

A LITTLE ABOUT THIS QUAY PO

Before I was married to my "Quay Lo" (Guaylo) husband, I did not know how to bake or cook. Subsequently I learned some baking and cooking Western cuisine from him, and providing his food for him launched an interest in cooking in general. Many of my Chinese friends and family told me that "Quay" is the wrong spelling for devil in Cantonese. The right spelling should be "Kwai" or "Guay". Well, somehow I like the spelling "Quay" better although I have to agree that it does not sound very Cantonese. Try asking a Westerner to pronounce "Kwai" and you will probably hear "Quay" haha. Whether is "Quay" or "Kwai" or "Guay, just know the devil woman is me when you see Quay Po Cooks. My hubby said if people pronounce "Quay" as "Key" is even better because I am the key to his heart. LOL!

Only now, have I started to learn the traditional Cantonese cuisine of my Mum. She cooks fabulously and all her specialties are divine. These two interests, my husband's Western food, and my mother's traditional food, prompted me to document them so they will not be lost.

Here, I wish to share my cooking and baking experience with my readers. I also hope to inspire those who do not know how to cook or bake to do so because, trust me, if I can, you can too.

Something I'd like to mention is that I find that many people are rather unwilling to share their recipes. However, for me, I think differently. I think good recipes should be shared thus allowing as many people to enjoy it as possible. Unless those recipes are for doing business, I don't see why we want to keep them all to ourselves. So if you are generous in sharing your recipes, you are welcome to share on my blog. Send the recipes to me and better still with pictures of the final products and I will be very happy to post them them with credits to you of course.

Our cuisine is a deeply embedded part of our culture. When two cultures come together under the same roof the results in the kitchen can sometimes be comedic, sometimes confrontational, but more often it is a journey full of surprises and discovery. There is joy in our food. If we think upon this, it is intuitively obvious. This blog is a journey of joy and sharing, reflecting what the French like to call "joie de vivre" (joy of living). No one could be more different from one another then my husband and my mother. Yet one thing they share in common is knowing intuitively that food, cooking, and sharing can be avenues of joy in life itself. So herein, help yourself, to a little joy and , if you like it, share it with your own family and friends. Joy is something that should be shared.