The Food Canon

You like Buah Keluak. And you like Tau Yew Bak. If so, combining them together makes sense.

I have been actively cooking for more than ten years now. It is funny but with time and experience, I tend to lean towards simplification. I cooked braised boneless pork knee recently ("Yin Tai") and it turned out very well. Some friends have asked for the recipe and so here it is. 

Braised Boneless Pork Knee (Yin Tai) 

I have promised that I will post some braising recipes. Check it out for  tips for the home cook.  

So finally, I manage to cough out a video.

I have dreamt of doing since a few years back. The pace of work and life simply did not allow it.

Until Covid19 of course.

So, should I switch entirely to video? I still think that a blog can be supplementary to a cookbook or video recipes. I find it easier to refer to text when I am cooking off a recipe. Videos are great in inspiring and giving me ideas and confidence. Both can be helpful.

Here are some supplementary notes to the video.

1. Can this be cooked under an hour? Absolutely. The thickness of the meat will affect the time needed. In the video, I was using pork which was no more than an inch in diameter. If you pork strips are thicker than that, you will need to cook longer. 
2. If you do not have Hoi Sin sauce, replace it with oyster sauce, which was what my Mum used. You will need to increase the amount of sugar if so. 
3. I made one mistake in the video. You can remove the sauce at the while keeping the pork in the wok. As the amount of sauce reduce, the searing will begin. This reduces the steps and simplify the recipe. 
4. Also note that I was trying to simplify the steps to avoid having to use too many bowls etc. I was just trying to reduce the need for washing. I am sure you can figure out a more elegant and simpler way of cooking this. 

I have tons of Char Siew recipes and notes for those who are into details and seeking to improve on the recipe. Read them here. 

Recipe at a glance:

2 teaspoon - table salt
1 teaspoon - sesame oil
1 teaspoon - dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon - white pepper
2 tablespoon - honey
1 tablespoon - sugar
2 tablespoon - Hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon - Chinese wine or liquor
1 tsp: 5-spice powder

To cook add:
2 tablespoon - oil
1 cup of water

Method

1. Heat up the wok. Mix the ingredients and add to wok.
2. Add pork simmer for 50 minutes or till the pork is tender enough.
3. Remove most of the sauce.
4. Caramelise the meat in medium heat. 

Meanwhile, you can check up on the video here:

Crunchy fried pork and a tomato-based sauce. What is there not to like about this dish?

In fact it has. global reputation and you can find this in any Pan-Asian Chinese eatery in America, UK or Europe.  

It is surprising why it took so long before the recipe appears on my blog.

One reason is because this is one dish which my wife have cooked a few times and I have basically let it stayed in her domain as I focus on other dishes.

I should add that there was one version we ate in Nanjing (China) which we still remembered to this day. The pork's coating was firm and crispy. We have never encountered this kind of texture. What kind of flour was used to coat the pork before it was deep-fried?  I suppose the experience has raised the bar for me and I will be on the lookout for tips that can get my version closer to that.

I will share a recipe here which my church food team, helmed by Linda Ng (Linda's Cravings), cooked recently. As one can imagine, there are many ways to make this dish but I will introduce this approach where the pork is not coated in a thick batter. It will make for a lighter meal.

Ingredients:

500gm pork collar or shoulder, cut into cubes
1 clove of chopped garlic
1 small pineapple
2 green/yellow pepper
2 tomatoes

For the marinate:
1 egg
1 tsp of salt
1 tip of corn flour

Batter for frying: 
5 tbsp corn flour
2 tbsp rice flour
pinch of salt


For the Sauce:
2 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp plum sauce
2 tsp Lea Perrins Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp white vinegar
1 tsp light soy sauce
1 tsp sugar (or to taste)
1 cup of water

Method:

1. Marinate the pork for 30 mins in a deep steel container.
2. Cut the tomatoes, peppers and pineapple into bite size wedges. 
3. Add the flour mixture and coat the marinated pork pieces by tossing it in the container.  
4. Using a wok, deep pot or electric fryer, deep fry the pork till they turn golden brown. If using a wok or pot, the fire should be medium. For an electric fryer, use 180˚C. Dish out and drain on paper towels.
5. Mix the sauce ingredients well and adjust the taste if necessary if you prefer your sauce to be sweeter or more sour.   
6. Heat up a wok and add in some cooking oil. Add in the chopped garlic and stir fry until light brown, toss in the bell peppers, tomatoes and pineapple pieces. Stir fry until you smell the peppery aroma from the peppers and then add in the sweet and sour sauce. As soon as the sauce thicken, transfer the pork into the wok and stir well with the sauce. Do a few quick stirs, dish out.

If you are cooking this way before dinner time, you can choose to fry the pork again (double fry method) just before you serve if you want the pork to be crispy. Do note that you can also experiment with different types of flour. There are ways to make a very crispy version but I will leave that to another post.

Photo below: In a recent party, we served sweet and sour pork with rolled omelette and fresh lettuce salad.

Our CNY spread in 2004. Mother's braised rib and mushroom dish is at top left.

I am still undecided as to whether I should add this dish but it is definitely one of my Mother's CNY dish (in picture 11 o' clock).

I used to help her to cook it in my late teens. I can still recall thinking that it was an easy dish to make. Perhaps this recipe can give you some ideas for your own CNY meals.

First the dried shiitake mushrooms need to be soaked. As the pork ribs's pieces are about one inch square, depending on the size of your mushrooms, you may need to halve or quarter it.

The sauce is made from garlic, light soy sauce, sesame oil, oyster sauce, dark soy sauce, crystal sugar dried scallop and Chinese wine. Soaked the dried scallop beforehand.

In a deep pot, add some sesame oil and then fry the diced garlic. Add the crystal sugar. and dried scallop Then add the pork ribs and mushrooms. Pour in the sauces, a bit of water and stir. Close the lid and simmer gently. After about 45 minutes of braising, it should be cooked. Add the Chinese wine towards and some corn slurry towards the end.

Meanwhile, blanch the pieces of broccoli for about 3 minutes. Don't over do it and ensure it is crunchy.

When it is time to serve, on a large oval or round plate, line the broccoli on the side of the plate. Ladle the pork ribs and mushrooms into the center of the plate and serve it hot. Pour the sauce over the meat and broccoli.

You can variate and add fish maw, gingko nuts etc

Char Siew from UK pork belly

We will be going back to Petaling Jaya this year to celebrate Chinese New Year.

As I have mentioned before, there is no reason why Buah Keluak (BK) cannot be a regular feature in your daily dinners.

Buying ready-made paste is easy from the dry good stalls at Tekka or Geylang markets. You can add the flavours of this nutty flavoured paste to many of your existing recipes.

You would have come across my Toyu Bak recipe, here and here.

We made a buah keluak flavoured Toyu Bak recent for our Alpha dinner, serving more than a hundred diners. It was a side dish to Nasi Ulam and we kept the BK flavour light so as not to overwhelm the nasi. I will scale down the recipe here for the home dinner.

A good toyu bak needs lots of garlic and good soy sauces, both light and thick versions. The BK paste replaces the thick soy sauce. And add lots of black pepper. I happen to have the Kampot variety (Cambodian) which are simply the best.

A batach we made recently for an Alpha dinner

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For 2 kg of pork belly, here is the recipe:

300 gm of buah keluak paste
100 ml of soy sauce
2 tbsp of sugar or gula Melaka
2 tbsp of assam paste
400 gm of garlic cloves
20 gm of black peppercorns
1 tbsp of oil
50 gm of blue ginger (optional)

The pork belly should be in a good size chunks of about 2 cm in length and thickness. The meat will shrink as you braise. And skin on, of course.

Mash the buah keluak (bk) into a paste. Just add some water to the BK pieces in a bowl and press with your hands. It mashes very easily.

Add 1 tbsp of oil to a heated pot. A good braising pot should have a thick bottom so that your meat will not burn easily.

Bruise the garlic cloves, lightly and add into the pot. Add the sugar or gula melaka and stir fry for about 5 minutes. Add the pork belly cubes. Then add the soy sauce and BK paste.

Simmer in low heat for about 45 minutes. I have shared many times on the need for  the "slow and low" technique to make good TYB. Stir once in a while and add some more water only if you think the dish is drying out and to prevent bottom burning. Adjust the sweetness and saltiness along the way, especially towards the end.

Towards the end, add the lightly crushed black peppercorns. You can use a leasing (mortar) or use a cleaver to knock on the peppercorns in a plastic.

Garnish with coriander leaves. It goes very well with white steamed rice. Some Sambal Belachan on the side will be great.

This recipes is just a guide. If you like stronger taste of BK, just add more.

Photos: Joyce Ho

By now, some of you may know what "ABC" soup is.

I am not sure how that name came about but in my household, it simply meant pork ribs soup with potatoes, white onions and tomatoes. Add some salt or soy sauce and that's about it. The meat combines with the veg to produce natural umami flavours (and so, I read somewhere) and this explains why this soup is so simple and satisfying.

I am not sure whether you need a recipe for this soup. Perhaps I should at some point.

This recipe is a braised version of this soup. It is more of a stew actually. Cook it all in a pot and serve it with rice. I use my favourite pork ribs cut come from the longer ribs section. In markets here, it costs about 15 to 16 dollars per kg.  

Anyway, here is the recipe.

Ingredients

2 kg pork ribs, cut into 1.5 inch in length
1 kg yellow potatoes
3 sticks of medium-sized carrots
2 large white onions

2 tablespoon light soy bean paste ("tau cheong")
3 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
15 pieces of white peppercorn
2 tsp of corn flour
500 ml water
2-3 stalks of coriander leaves for garnishing
2 Tbsp of oil

Preparation

1. Peel and cut the garlic into slices. 
2. Peel of the skins and quarter the carrots, potatoes and white onions. 
3. Crackle the white peppercorns. 

Cooking

1. Heat up the oil in a pot. Add the garlic slices.
2. After a minute, add the soy bean paste and crackled white peppercorns. 
3. After  minute, add the pork ribs. Stir-fry for about 5 minutes.
4. Add the soy sauce,  sugar and water. Stir and simmer. 
5. After 15 minutes, add the potato and carrot chunks.  
6. After 10 minutes, add the white onions. Simmer for another 10 minutes. 
7. Test the ribs to make sure the meat is tender enough. I the meat if falling off the bones, I will consider it overcooked. 
8. Garnish with coriander leaves and eat with rice. 

Feel free to vary the ingredients. Add white radish, tomatoes, mushrooms if you like. Instead of pork ribs, chicken can be used too. It is a simple and homey dish, suited for the simple and comforting dinner dinners.

 

Most of us have a story of how we used to hate bitter gourd (or bitter melon) when we were young.

Somehow, growing up, as our taste buds and receptors mature, we begin to appreciate the nuances that bitter flavours bring to our food. For some, it changes from tolerance to cravings for this gourd.

The same can be said of life. We all like things sweet but life as we know it, will be pretty one-dimensional if we have not encountered difficulties and suffering. In fact, the Bible talks a lot about suffering and the darker realities of life. If life has been "bitter" for you, you know where you can turn to. As I am writing this, the sufferings of our friends in Nepal comes to mind.

I have actually posted a recipe on bitter gourd. Dig around under Hakka Yong Tofu and you will find a wonderful recipe there.

If you like bitter gourd, you have probably eaten it with fermented black bean ("tau see"). It is a classic combination. Interestingly, it is not sweet which balance the bitters, but saltiness.

Updating this old post and added some pics. I have written another post with a simplified recipe here. 

I have grown accustomed to her taste

Tau Yew Bak! Tow You Bak! Toyu Bak! (Oh dear, how do you anglicize or 'engli-pinyin' this?)

This dish has been blogged and 'reciped' to death. It can be found in just about any Nonya (almost synonymous with Singaporean) cookbook out there.

So why another one?

Recently, during Chinese New Year, I met my cousin. She told me that her neighbour made some Char Siew and Tau Yew Bak and gave some to her. She learnt it off the Net from a lady by the name of "Auntie Ruby".

**Smiley**

My cousin also told me that she had recorded some of her recipes. I asked her to whatsapp them over and she did. Some recipes were new to me. These will certainly be added to my upcoming notebook.

I thought my Mum's Wok-char Siew method could be used to cook pork ribs. I blogged about it here. Apparently my Mum already knew that long ago. See the above recipe for "Hong Siew Pai Kuat."

Sigh. I miss my Mum...still. I dreamt of her again just yesterday and it was as if she was really present.

If you are familiar with my Mum's way of using the wok to cook Char Siew, it should have crossed your mind that you can do the same with pork ribs.

This benefits from the same convenience. You do not need to marinate the pork ribs beforehand. For about 45 minutes from start to finish, you start by slowly braising the ribs and then towards the end, the sauce will caramelise. It is really that simple.

The bone in the pork ribs is a poor conductor of heat. So generally, you need more time to cook the ribs compared to boneless cuts.

Adding half a teaspoon of  bicarbonate of soda will help tenderise the meat as you cook, cutting down the cooking time. Cutting it into bite size pieces makes cooking easier and faster.

Remember to use a normal wok for this (i.e. steel, iron, carbonised steel) and avoid using non-stick ones. Your wok will be stained after the cooking. Just heat up some water in it, add dish washing liquid in the heated water, the stains should come off easily as you scrape with your spatula.

So, what was the first dish I cooked?

I was very young. I can hardly remember the details. It was at the canteen in the Guinness Stout factory along Federal Highway (it is still there).

My Mum ran the business at the three canteens there - Western, Chinese and Malay. Much of my primary school years were spent working and hanging around there. The Western one had an air conditioned room and caters mostly to expatriate management staff. The cook was a Hainanese man. My Mum called him Ah Chek and I called him uncle.

If you love pork, you will love Sio Bak: the Chinese way of roasting it.

The meat is cut into bite size cubes and you use a pair of chopsticks to dip it into some sauces. The skin is crisped, crackling and flavourful and the meat is moist and tender.

I have been to some Western restaurants (Michelin-star, mind you) offering roast pork belly as a dish and I have to say that using a knife and fork to eat a slab of of it just does not make culinary sense. The crackling skin cracks apart when knifed. I have seen versions where the skin is offered separately. Why separate the perfect marriage of the layered skin, fat and meat, which offers a burst of different flavours and texture in a bite?

Dry Bak Kut Teh has been a craze for a few years now in Malaysia.

Even before I encountered it in restaurants, I have always imagined that a dry version of BKT should work nicely, a sort of braised pork ribs in herbal sauce.

Of late, it has been a craze in local BKT joints here. With some tips from my friend (Jabez) who owns the Soon Huat Bak Kut Teh, I did try making it in Toronto but I did not quite have the right ingredients. When I got back here, I gave it a go and I was satisfied with it.

I have just returned from spending 5 months in Toronto, Canada as a part of my Sabbatical break. This is also one reason I was blogging less. I met many wonderful friends in Toronto and there are many good things about the city which I hope to write about soon.

Being a food blog, it is back to food. And I am back to my home and familiar kitchen environment. I was early at the wet market this morning and was glad to come across some pork jowl (or cheek). It is not displayed and you have to ask the butcher for it.

Using my Mum's Char Siew recipe (here and here - I have been blogging Char Siew recipes ad infinitum!), I patiently braised the cheeks till I got the right texture. The result is a tender succulent CS with a nice "bounce" to the bite. Do cook it on low fire and be patient.